{"id":5325,"date":"2018-06-28T16:31:36","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T16:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=5325"},"modified":"2020-02-09T18:46:15","modified_gmt":"2020-02-09T18:46:15","slug":"unknown-worlds-v06n03-october-1942","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=5325","title":{"rendered":"Unknown Worlds v06n03, October 1942"},"content":{"rendered":"

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ISFDB link<\/a>
\nArchive.org link<\/a><\/p>\n

Other reviews:1<\/sup>
\nFred Smith,\u00a0Once There Was A Magazine\u2014<\/em> p. 40-41 (Beccon Publications<\/a>)
\nStefan R. Dziemianowicz, p. 136-8 The Annotated Guide to Unknown & Unknown Worlds<\/em> (Starmont, 1991)<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editor, John W. Campbell Jr.; Assistant Editor, Kay Tarrant<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nThe Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag \u2022 <\/em><\/strong>novella by Robert A. Heinlein [as by John Riverside] \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>+
\nThe Frog<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by P. Schuyler Miller \u2217<\/strong>
\nMagician\u2019s Dinner<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Jane Rice \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nLetter to an Invisible Woman<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Hannes Bok \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nAre You Run-Down, Tired\u2014<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Babette Rosmond and Leonard M. Lake [as by Babette Rosmond Lake] \u2217<\/strong>
\nThe New One<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Fredric Brown \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nThe Lie<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Richard Louis
\nThe Goddess\u2019 Legacy<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Malcolm Jameson \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nCompliments of the Author<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner] \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Frank Kramer (x10), Kolliker (x3), Smith (x4), M. Isip (x2), Orban (x7)
\nOf Things Beyond<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial
\nPoetry <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by Ruth Stewart Schenley, Arte Harbison, Marvin Miller
\n\u2014And Having Writ\u2014<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 letters<\/p>\n

____________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This issue leads off with one of the 1943 Retro Hugo novella finalists, The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag <\/em><\/strong>by Robert A. Heinlein (run under the \u2018John Riverside\u2019 pseudonym for some reason). This long weird tale starts with Hoag at the doctors, where he is trying to find out the nature of a reddish substance found under his nails. Doctor Potbury tells him it isn\u2019t blood but refuses to offer Hoag any more information, and brusquely tells him to get out. Once Hoag is outside he suffers several other unpleasant encounters with various people, and eventually seeks sanctuary at an anonymous hotel. Once in his room he realises that he can\u2019t remember what he does for a living. Hoag leaves the hotel that morning to go home, but does not arrive until six in the evening. As he washes even more of the red substance from under his nails, he realises he cannot remember what he has been doing during\u00a0the day.
\nHoag then goes to see a hard-boiled husband and wife detective team, (Teddy) Randall & (Cynthia) Craig:<\/p>\n

Randall helped him off with his coat, assuring himself in the process that Mr. Hoag was not armed, or\u2014if he was\u2014he had found somewhere other than shoulder or hip to carry a gun. Randall was not suspicious, but he was pragmatically pessimistic.\u00a0 p. 14<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Randall interviews Hoag, who recounts his missing days, a previous stay in a rest home, incurable amnesia, etc. Hoag tells Randall he wants to be watched continuously during the day, so that Randall can report back on what he does during his blackouts. Randall feigns reluctance but agrees when a large fee is offered. After Hoag leaves them,\u00a0the couple find that\u00a0he has managed to avoid leaving any fingerprints where he sat, or on the glass he handled, and they find that the hospital he told them about does not exist.
\nThe next day Randall tails Mr Hoag to a tower block, and Cynthia tails them both. During this Cynthia sees Hoag speak to Randall before they enter a tower block.
\nWhen Randall reports back later to Cynthia, he tells her that he tailed Hoag to a jewellers on the thirteenth floor, saw him at work there, and that the red substance is jewellers\u2019 rouge. When Cynthia asks Randall about the conversation outside the tower block, he tells her he remembers nothing of the sort. When the couple decide to investigate Hoag\u2019s place of work, they find the tower block has no 13th<\/sup> floor (only a 12th<\/sup> and 14th<\/sup>), and that there is no jewellers business in the building. Disturbed, they decide to give up the case but, before they can do so, Hoag visits them at home that night. He tells them about the garlic he wears to ward off an unknown and indescribable presence, and that he thinks he\u00a0is being watched from mirrors.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That night Randall has a waking dream where a man in the bedroom mirror summons him to a board meeting on the 13th<\/sup> floor of the tower block the couple visited earlier that day. After he is introduced to the men at the table, their Chairman tells him\u00a0about \u201cThe Bird\u201d and \u201cThe Sons of the Bird\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Beginning,\u201d Stoles stated, \u201cthere was the Bird.\u201d He suddenly covered his face with his hands; all the others gathered around the table did likewise.
\nThe Bird\u2014Randall felt a sudden vision of what those two simple words meant when mouthed by this repulsive fat man; no soft and downy chick, but a bird of prey, strong-winged and rapacious\u2014unwinking eyes, whey-colored and staring\u2014purple wattles\u2014but most especially he saw its feet, bird feet, covered with yellow scales, fleshless and taloned and foul from use. Obscene and terrible\u2014
\nStoles uncovered his face. \u201cThe Bird was alone. Its great wings beat the empty depths of space where there was none to see. But deep within It was the Power and the Power was Life. It looked to the north when there was no north; It looked to the south when there was no south; east and west It looked, and up and down. Then out of the nothingness and out of Its Will It wove the nest.
\n\u201cThe nest was broad and deep and strong. In the nest It laid one hundred eggs. It stayed on the nest and brooded the eggs, thinking Its thoughts, for ten thousand thousand years. When the time was ripe It left the nest and hung it about with lights that the fledglings might see. It watched and waited.
\n\u201cFrom each of the hundred eggs a hundred Sons of the Bird were hatched\u2014ten thousand strong. Yet so wide and deep was the nest there was room and to spare for each of them\u2014a kingdom apiece and each was a king\u2014king over the things that creep and crawl and swim and fly and go on all fours, things that had been born from the crevices of the nest, out of the warmth and the waiting.
\n\u201cWise and cruel was the Bird, and wise and cruel were the Sons of the Bird. For twice ten thousand thousand years they fought and ruled and the Bird was pleased. Then there were some who decided that they were as wise and strong as the Bird Itself. Out of the stuff of the nest they created creatures like unto themselves and breathed in their nostrils, that they might have sons to serve them and fight for them. But the sons of the Sons were not wise and strong and cruel, but weak and soft and stupid. The Bird was not pleased.
\n\u201cDown It cast Its Own Sons and let them be chained by the softly stupid\u2014 Stop fidgeting, Mr. Randall! I know this is difficult for your little mind, but for once you really must think about something longer than your nose and wider than your mouth, believe me!
\n\u201cThe stupid and the weak could not hold the Sons of the Bird; therefore, the Bird placed among them, here and there, others more powerful, more cruel, and more shrewd, who by craft and cruelty and deceit could circumvent the attempts of the Sons to break free. Then the Bird sat back, well content, and waited for the game to play itself out.
\n\u201cThe game is being played. Therefore, we cannot permit you to interfere with your client, nor to assist him in any way. You see that, don\u2019t you?\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t see,\u201d shouted Randall, suddenly able to speak, \u201ca damn thing! To hell with the bunch of you! This joke has gone far enough.\u201d\u00a0 p. 24<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Sons of the Bird then show him Cynthia in a mirror and warn him to leave Hoag alone.
\nRandall wakes up the next morning thinking the episode was a nightmare, and suggests to Cynthia that they both go with Hoag to his work.
\nMost of the rest of the story deals with the various plot interactions of Hoag, Randall & Cynthia, and The Sons of the Bird, both in and out of the mirror world.
\nThe climax comes when (spoiler) Hoag is eventually dosed up on scopalimine by the couple so that they can question him. At this point a different personality emerges. He writes a list of things he wants the couple to get for him, and tells them to meet him at a certain place. When they later rendezvous, Hoag explains to the couple that, essentially, their reality is an art work and he is an art critic sent to assess it. He also tells them that The Sons of the Bird are revenants from an earlier version of the work, and they are to be eliminated. Hoag leaves, but not before telling the pair to drive South. They are not to stop: reality will be undergoing a transformation:<\/p>\n

A few blocks later Randall saw a patrolman standing on the sidewalk, warming himself in the sun, and watching some boys playing sand-lot football. He pulled up to the curb beside him. \u201cRun down the window, Cyn.\u201d
\nShe complied, then gave a sharp intake of breath and swallowed a scream. He did not scream, but he wanted to.
\nOutside the open window was no sunlight, no cops, no kids\u2014nothing. Nothing but a gray and formless mist, pulsing slowly as if with inchoate life. They could see nothing of the city through it, not because it was too dense but because it was\u2014empty. No sound came out of it; no movement showed in it.
\nIt merged with the frame of the window and began to drift inside. Randall shouted, \u201cRoll up the window!\u201d She tried to obey, but her hands were nerveless; he reached across her and cranked it up himself, jamming it hard into its seat.
\nThe sunny scene was restored; through the glass they saw the patrolman, the boisterous game, the sidewalk, and the city beyond. Cynthia put a hand on his arm. \u201cDrive on, Teddy!\u201d
\n\u201cWait a minute,\u201d he said tensely, and turned to the window beside him. Very cautiously he rolled it down\u2014just a crack, less than an inch. It was enough. The formless gray flux was out there, too; through the glass the city traffic and sunny street were plain, through the opening\u2014nothing.\u00a0 p. 58<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I found this reality altering finale quite sophisticated (for the time) but I realise that, for some readers,2<\/sup> this may turn the entire piece into a huge shaggy dog story.
\nAn intriguing and readable tale, if an occasionally uneven one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Frog<\/em><\/strong> by P. Schuyler Miller gets off to an interestingly discursive start with a passage about precocious children, which leads on to the machinations of a wizard\u2019s apprentice, a nasty piece of work called Shagsu. A large part of this story involves him mistreating and generally torturing a frog god required by his master. At the end (spoiler) the biter is bit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Magician\u2019s Dinner<\/em><\/strong> by Jane Rice starts off in her usual lively style:<\/p>\n

I have just this minute finished reading an article entitled, \u201cHow to Stay Happily Married.\u201d The authoress, though I strongly suspect there should be an \u201ca\u201d before those two \u201cs\u2019s\u201d instead of an \u201ce,\u201d says plain, right out that the reason she has stayed happily married for umteen years is a simple one. She has, forsooth, never had any secrets from her husband.
\nBefore I get into this any deeper I would like to bet any and all takers a case of Scotch against a bottle of sarsaparilla that he isn\u2019t happily married. She may trot about humming merrily and being the essence of sweetness and light but I\u2019ll wager he gets a three-inch layer of goose bumps every time he closes the garage doors and starts his trek to the back porch, thinking as he stumbles along\u2014head sunk on his chest\u2014\u201cOh, Lordy, what is she going to tell me now?\u201d\u00a0 p. 65<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story is about Clare, who is organising a dinner for her and her stage-magician husband\u2019s friends. When she faces insurmountable problems Little Allie, a long dead family cook from her childhood, materialises and takes over. Matters proceed in a relatively ordered way until Clare realises that all the requirements for the dinner come from the past:<\/p>\n

I leveled an agitated forefinger at the punch bowl. \u201cThat,\u201d I squawked, \u201cis the punch bowl my mother used to borrow from my aunt Lena when we had the family reunions.\u201d
\n\u201cYes\u2019m.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd ten years ago my cousin Robin tipped it over and broke it.\u201d
\n\u201cYes\u2019m.\u201d
\n\u201cInto a thousand pieces.\u201d
\n\u201cYes\u2019m.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat, in the name of Heaven, is it doing HERE?\u201d
\n\u201cThere wasn\u2019t nothing else big enough.\u201d
\n\u201cBut it was broken and swept up and thrown in the ash can!\u201d
\n\u201cYes\u2019m.\u201d
\n\u201cBut it couldn\u2019t be here.\u201d
\n\u201cNo\u2019m.\u201d
\n\u201cBut it is.\u201d
\n\u201cYes\u2019m.\u201d
\n\u201cHow . . . how did you . . . did you get it?\u201d
\n\u201c I materialized it.\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t foll\u2014 Wait, you mean you said, \u2018Abracadabra,\u2019 and it . . . it appeared?\u201d
\n\u201cNo\u2019m. I didn\u2019t say nothing. I just materialized it.\u201d
\n\u201cOut of thin air!\u201d
\n\u201cNo\u2019m.\u201d
\n\u201cOut of what?\u201d
\n\u201cOut of what it was.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat was it?\u201d
\n\u201cYour aunt Lena\u2019s punch bowl.\u201d
\n\u201cBut how, Little Allie? Where?\u201d
\n\u201cWhere? You mean where was it to materialize?\u201d
\n\u201cYes.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m not much account at explaining things, Miss Clare.\u201d
\n\u201cTry.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s like this, Miss Clare.\u201d Little Allie drew her brows together in profound concentration. \u201cIf something was, it can\u2019t ever not have been, could it?\u201d
\n\u201cNo.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd if it can\u2019t ever not have been then it has got to have been a something that was a is once, ain\u2019t it?\u201d
\n\u201cYes.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd once it has been a is it can\u2019t ever not have been a not be, can it?\u201d
\n\u201cNo.\u201d
\n\u201cWell, that\u2019s all.\u201d
\n\u201cBut it was broken.\u201d
\n\u201cYes\u2019m.\u201d
\n\u201cBut once it was broken, don\u2019t you see, it became a was.\u201d
\n\u201cYes\u2019m.\u201d
\n\u201cThen how\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cMiss Clare,\u201d Little Allie interrupted, sighing at my lack of intelligence, \u201cto be a was it has to be a is first\u2014there\u2019s no getting around it\u2014and if it was a is no matter if it is a was it is a is where it was and it always will be a is even when it is a was as long as this here punch bowl of your aunt Lena\u2019s has been a is that was.\u201d She halted triumphantly. \u201cI reckon that\u2019s clear, ain\u2019t it?\u201d\u00a0 p. 73-74<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Initially, the dinner is a success, but matters spiral out of control when one of the guests suggests a s\u00e9ance. She is unaware that Little Allie the cook has also assembled, for advice on the visiting guests\u2019 dining preferences, the spirits of their various dead cooks and servants . . . .
\nStructurally, and in terms of suspension of belief, some of this is slightly shaky (the ghost of Little Allie just turns up out of the blue, for instance), but there are compensating factors. Apart from Rice\u2019s lively style, there is the word play above as well some amusing observation:<\/p>\n

The wives continued to arrive and soon the house rang with that peculiar sonance that arises whenever two or more women are gathered together. Like a Chinese talkie run backward, or a group of delirious linguists speaking phonetics from which all the vowels have been painstakingly deleted, or a flock of extremely nervous poultry.
\nI\u2019m not poking fun at my sex and don\u2019t think it for a minute. We can\u2019t help our group noises any more than men can help theirs and they have a brilliance of tone that is unequaled, except by a bunch of hungry grizzly bears mulling over the badly battered carcass of a mountain goat.\u00a0 p. 72<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, there is an effectively creepy last scene where, during the s\u00e9ance, Clare is\u00a0transported to the land of the dead:<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t describe it. It was like the hush before a dawn. Or the queer, deep, pervading quietness that makes oneself seem the very heart and core of one of those slow, heavy snowstorms that leave the shrubs puffy and white and the tree boughs bent with their cottony burdens and the whole world breathless with spent strength. It was a silence that could be tasted, thick on the tongue as clotted cream. A silence, one felt, that could be fingered like the rich pile of velvet or closed to like Stygian portieres weighted with dust and forgotten yesterdays and the musty smell of dead wood fires. A smothering, stilled silence. The silence of shrouds and tombs and the silence of earth. The earth of grass roots and blind worms. It grew and it grew and it grew like some gigantic black tulip or a pressure gauge going up and up and up[.]3<\/sup>\u00a0 p. 77<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An uneven piece, but one with some impressive parts.<\/p>\n

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Letter to an Invisible Woman<\/em><\/strong> by Hannes Bok is a vignette, in the form of a short letter, about a man falling for a woman who can slow down time (and give the impression that she has disappeared, etc.). It is an okay, if slight and undeveloped piece: I\u2019m a little surprised that Campbell didn\u2019t ask Bok to turn it into a longer story.
\nAfter this d\u00e9but piece there is a short teaser for Bok\u2019s novel in the next issue, The Sorcerer\u2019s Ship<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Are You Run-Down, Tired\u2014 <\/em><\/strong>by Babette Rosmond and Leonard M. Lake concerns a man who finds a wizard who dispenses vitamins and not magical cures. The man later develops a vastly improved physique and stamina, can see in the dark, etc. The one drawback is that his appetite for food substantially increases, which becomes a problem for his new girlfriend at the office. . . . This has (spoiler) a grisly and nonsensical end.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The New One<\/em><\/strong> by Fredric Brown starts off with a well done data dump that sets up the story\u2019s premise about how human thought creates mythical beings, as explained by a fire elemental parent to his child:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what, papa, if [humans] conceive of a new mythological being? Would he come into existence down here?\u201d
\n\u201cOf course, kid. That\u2019s how we all got here, one time or another. Why, look at poltergeists, for instance. They\u2019re newcomers. And all this ectoplasm you see floating around and getting in the way, that\u2019s new. And\u2014well, like this big guy Paul Bunyan; he\u2019s only been around here a century or so; he isn\u2019t much older than you are. And lots of others. Of course, they have to get invoked before they show up, but that always\u00a0gets done sooner or later.\u201d
\n\u201cGosh, thanks, papa. I understand you a lot better than I did Ashtaroth. He uses big words like transmogrification and superactualization and what not.\u201d
\n\u201cO. K., kid, now run along and play. But don\u2019t bring any of those darn water elemental kids back with you. The place gets so full of steam I can\u2019t see.\u201d\u00a0 p. 87<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rest of the story is about Wally Smith, a man who has struggled with pyromania throughout his life. The reason for his compulsion is supernatural of course\u2014fire elementals from the realm of thought exert influence over him at key moments, and have big plans for him later in his life. Wally has, for the moment, his compulsion under control:<\/p>\n

He\u2019d seen a movie newsreel that showed the new flame throwers. If he could get one of those things to operate\u2014
\nBut that desire was subconscious; he didn\u2019t know that it was a big part of the reason he wanted to get into uniform. That was in the fall of \u201941 and we weren\u2019t in the war yet. Later, after December, it was still part of the reason he wanted to get in, but not the major part. Wally Smith was a good American; that was even more important than being a good pyromaniac.
\nAnyway, he\u2019d licked the pyromania. Or thought he had. If it was there, it was buried down deep where most of the time he could avoid thinking about it, and there was a \u201cThus Far, No Farther\u201d sign across one passage of his mind.
\nThat yen for a flame thrower worried him a bit. Then came Pearl Harbor and Wally Smith had it out with himself to discover whether it was all patriotism that made him want to kill Japs, or whether that yen for a flame thrower figured at all.
\nAnd while he mulled it over, things got hotter in the Philippines and the Japs moved down Malaya to Singapore, and there were U-boats off both coasts and it began to look as though his country needed him. And there was a fighting anger in him that told him the hell with whether or not it was pyromania\u2014it was patriotism even more, and he\u2019d worry about the psychiatry of it later.\u00a0 p. 88<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wally eventually ends up working in a war munitions factory that manufactures TNT (telegraphed earlier in the fire elementals\u2019 conversations about him). Later, he has an ominous conversation with another worker about what would happen if the factory went on fire, and they speculate about the huge conflagration would spread throughout the surrounding area. Shortly after this conversation Wally literally struggles with his demons. Although he tries to resist, Davreth the fire demon exerts control over him, and an attempt at\u00a0fire setting is described in an effective passage narrated in the second person:<\/p>\n

Here it comes. The match was in his hand; his hand was striking the match. The Same. As the first flame he had ever seen, dancing on the end of a match in his father\u2019s hand. While Wally\u2019s stubby little fingers, all those years ago, had reached out for the thing on the end of the stick. The thing that flared there, ever-shapechanging; yellow-red-blue wonder, magic beauty.
\nThe flame<\/em>.
\nWait until the stick has caught fire, too, wait until it\u2019s well ablaze, so stooping down won\u2019t blow it out. A flame\u2019s a tender thing, at first. \u201cNo!\u201d cried another part of his mind. \u201cDon\u2019t! <\/em>Wally, don\u2019t<\/em>\u2014\u201d
\nBut you can\u2019t stop now, Wally, you can\u2019t \u201cdon\u2019t\u201d because Darveth, the fire demon, is in the driver\u2019s seat. He\u2019s stronger than you are, Wally; he\u2019s stronger than any of the others in that nightmare world you\u2019re looking into. Yell for help, Wally, it won\u2019t do you any good.
\nYell to any of them. Yell to old Moloch; he won\u2019t listen to you. He\u2019s going to enjoy this, too. Most of them are. Not all. Thor\u2019s standing to one side, not particularly happy about what\u2019s going to happen because he\u2019s a fighting man, but he isn\u2019t big enough to tangle with Darveth. None of them are, over there.
\nFire\u2019s king, and all the fire elementals are dancing a dervish dance. Others watching. There\u2019s white-bearded Zeus and someone with a head like a crocodile standing beside him. And Dagon riding Scylla\u2014all the creatures men have conceived, and conceiving\u2014
\nBut none of them will help you, Wally. You\u2019re on your own.\u00a0 p. 95<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Needless to say (spoiler) Wally manages to save the day by mentally yelling for help, and conjuring up a mythical being who arrives to rout the fire elementals. That deity is, of course, Uncle Sam.
\nThis last part is a bit corny, to be honest, but it\u2019s a pretty good read otherwise.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lie<\/em><\/strong> by Richard Louis is about a man making a deathbed confession to incriminate an innocent man. The last line is a tacked on one that makes no sense, and the whole thing reads like a Probability Zero<\/em> piece for Unknown<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If there are passing references to the war in other stories (such as Frederic Brown\u2019s), it is front and centre in The Goddess\u2019 Legacy<\/em><\/strong> by Malcolm Jameson. This starts in wartime Greece with the narrator observing a Greek waiter paying a bribe to a Gestapo officer:<\/p>\n

The part played by Herr Scheer in the furtive transaction was no mystery at all. He was simply a murderous, blood-sucking leech of the type all too frequent in Europe these days. I had known him for some time as the traveling representative of an optical house in Berlin and as such had often had business dealings with him. But with the coming of the troops of the occupation forces he promptly dropped the mask and showed himself in his true colors. Anton Scheer had been the advance man of the dreaded Gestapo. It was from his long-prepared secret lists that hundreds of victims for arrest and spoliation were selected, and from those same lists that the few Hellenic Quislings were appointed to puppet administrative posts. Now that he was the resident chief of Hitler\u2019s secret operatives, his cruelty and rapacity knew no bounds. It was also common knowledge that his zeal for his beloved Fuehrer and Fatherland was not untinged by keen self-interest. In other words, Herr Scheer could be \u201chad.\u201d Enough money, discreetly conveyed, would unlock the tightest prison gates.\u00a0 p. 100-101<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The narrator knows the waiter, called Mike of the Acropolis, from his moonlit visits to those same ruins, and the story goes on to detail Mike\u2019s interaction with the corrupt Nazi and Italian occupiers. These latter subsequently (spoiler) fall foul of his Mike\u2019s Goddess, Pallas, and a well-known mythological monster.
\nThis smoothly written story demonstrates an intimate knowledge of Greek mythology and also chillingly illustrates the realities of Axis occupation (a bleaker view than I expected). Given\u00a0these\u00a0attributes I\u2019m surprised this one didn\u2019t appear in the slicks.<\/p>\n

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Compliments of the Author<\/em><\/strong> by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore has a shake-down artist called Tarbell accidentally killing a magician, thereby coming into possession of a special book that gives the owner ten \u2018lives\u2019, or warnings of imminent peril. The magician\u2019s familiar, a cat, tells Tarbell he will need them as it is going to kill him.
\nBetween this novel setup and a good last line Tarbell uses up his lives in a number of stock pulp situations: there are scenes in a newspaper office, a high stakes card game, and a stockbroker\u2019s office. The one non-standard scene is where Tarbell goes through a door and finds himself in a surreal landscape with three demons.
\nThis is entertaining if fairly standard pulp fare.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There is a huge amount of Interior artwork<\/em><\/strong> in this issue, probably the most I\u2019ve seen in any of the issues of Unknown<\/em> I\u2019ve looked at so far. All of it, bar a two-page piece by Orban for the Kuttner\/Moore novelette is spot, quarter, or half page work. None of it is bad but none particularly grabbed me either. I note in passing that the Jameson story has a spoiler illustration\u2014makes a change from spoiler blurbs I guess.4<\/sup>
\nOf Things Beyond<\/em><\/strong>, Campbell\u2019s editorial, begins by talking about the sciences and shortly afterwards the \u201cnonsciences\u201d. There is then a section on hypnotism before it ends with this:<\/p>\n

Telepathy exists. There are too many of those accidental, freak occurrences, plus the studied, mathematical evidence of scientific experimenters, to make it possible to doubt. Meteor falls were reported for centuries before science would admit that meteors existed, and did fall. No one who saw a meteor fall could point to a falling meteor and say, \u201cThere, that is what I saw.\u201d But when tens of hundreds of reports come in\u2014something real lies behind them.
\nClairvoyance exists\u2014and has been reported too frequently for doubt.
\nIt seems fairly probable that levitation is possible. What gravity is, we don\u2019t know\u2014only that an indefinable, but tangible and measurable something pulls us downward. There have been a considerable number of reported, detailed instances of controlled levitation, of men who lifted and floated in air, or lifted weights without material Prevision and prophecy has been reported, and checked, a goodly number of times. Some men can, somehow, not controllably and at will, however, see the future.
\nWhat other powers lie among the immaterial sciences\u2014no one is even trying very hard to find out!\u00a0 p. 6<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An early sign of years of Campbellian nonsense to come.
\nThere is Poetry <\/em><\/strong>by Ruth Stewart Schenley (this one has an affecting finish), Arte Harbison (I didn\u2019t get it), and Marvin Miller. The latter is a gloomy one where the narrator reflects that, if he was sure there was no afterlife, he would kill himself. I think we can take it from this that Marv wasn\u2019t a party animal.
\n\u2014And Having Writ\u2014<\/em><\/strong> has a couple of positive mentions of Boucher\u2019s The Compleat Werewolf<\/em> (another of the 1943 Retro Hugo finalists) and a complaint about a story called Census Taker<\/em>\u00a0(by Frank Belknap Long in the April issue) that is missing from the contents page. Campbell replies, \u201cWe forgot to make sure the census of stories checked the contents page.\u201d
\nFinally there are number of \u2018wartime\u2019 advertisements, but these are just an excuse for companies to flog the stuff they sell:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Quite a good issue.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Fred Smith\u2019s review of this issue, in Once There Was A Magazine\u2014<\/em> (Beccon Publications<\/a>), states that The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag<\/em> is \u201cnot quite peak Heinlein\u201d but \u201cis a page-turner full of rather startling ideas\u201d. He adds that the \u201coriginal plot [. . .] would not be susceptible to close scrutiny!\u201d Of the novelettes he thought the Kuttner was the better, finding the Rice \u201cstrictly lightweight\u201d, but admits that the latter is \u201ca nice contrast to some of the more grisly stuff!\u201d He thought that Brown\u2019s short story was the best of that group, finding the rest \u201cfairly minor\u201d, before adding that Jameson\u2019s piece is \u201cslightly more substantial\u201d.
\nSmith has this comment to make on the pseudonym used for the Heinlein piece:<\/p>\n

Robert A Heinlein at this time used the pseudonym \u2018Anson MacDonald\u2019 when writing science fiction which did not fit into his planned \u2018future history\u2019 and it was slightly surprising, therefore, that he used his own name for his first Unknown<\/em> pieces. It was even more surprising then that his second novel for the magazine should have been published under the byline \u2018John Riverside\u2019 considering how popular he had become and what a \u2018draw\u2019 his given name would be.\u00a0 p. 40<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, in The Annotated Guide to Unknown & Unknown Worlds<\/em>\u00a0(Starmont, 1991), says of the Heinlein piece, \u201cAlthough there are several paper tigers running through the story\u2014e.g. seemingly important clues turn out not to be not so important by the end\u2014and although Hoag\u2019s realization dawns on him a little too abruptly for it not to seem merely convenient, the story has impressive philosophical underpinnings.\u201d Of the others, the Frederic Brown piece is the only one he really seems to rate: \u201cOne of the few witty war stories to appear in the magazine that wasn\u2019t rendered obsolete with the armistice.\u201d I presume he means \u201csurrender\u201d. He seems to have also liked the Rice: \u201cTouching and amusing, though one has to appreciate Rice\u2019s talent for spinning a fantasy story out of almost nothing fantastic.\u201d Of the others, the Miller has \u201can unremarkable idea\u201d, the Bok is \u201cforced\u201d, and the Jameson is \u201cvery formulaic\u201d.
\nDziemianowicz gives the length of Hoag<\/em> as 40,000 words (and my OCR gives 40,300, so it is probably only just a novel).
\nI also learned from his review that Babette Rosmond \u201cbecame editor of Doc Savage<\/em> in 1944 and The Shadow<\/em> in 1946.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. When I originally read The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag<\/em> millions of years ago I noted that \u201cthe nature of reality part at the end doesn\u2019t work as well as the [rest].\u201d The other thing that I noticed from those old scribblings is how little of Heinlein I\u2019ve read: half a dozen novels and about a collection\u2019s worth of short stories. I think giving up half way through Stranger in a Strange Land<\/em> put me off him.<\/p>\n

3. This passage from Rice\u2019s story finishes with the line \u201cand I thought wildly, \u201cThis is how it feels in a dive bomber.\u201d See what I mean by uneven?<\/p>\n

4. The cover image above is a colour-shifted and manipulated version of the December copy (after changing and filling in the background texture I copied and pasted the text and date). I did this as there are no decent images on the internet. If anyone can provide a decent scan of a very good or fine issue, front and back, I\u2019d appreciate it (uncompressed tiff format image, 300 dpi, no preprocessing by the scanner, and lean on the issue so it is perfectly flat, thanks).\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISFDB link Archive.org link Other reviews:1 Fred Smith,\u00a0Once There Was A Magazine\u2014 p. 40-41 (Beccon Publications) Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, p. 136-8 The Annotated Guide to Unknown & Unknown Worlds (Starmont, 1991) _____________________ Editor, John W. Campbell Jr.; Assistant Editor, Kay Tarrant Fiction: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag \u2022 novella by Robert A. Heinlein [as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unknown"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-1nT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5325"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12227,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5325\/revisions\/12227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}