have this new department, "The Readers' Corner," which from now on will be an informal meeting place for all readers of Astounding Stories. We want you never to forget that a cordial and perpetual invitation is extended to you to write in and talk over with all of us anything of interest you may have to say in connection with our magazine.
If you can toss in a word of praise, that's fine; if only criticism, we'll welcome that just as much, for we may be able to find from it a way to improve our magazine. If you have your own private theory of how airplanes will be run in 2500, or if you think the real Fourth Dimension is different from what it is sometimes described—write in and share your views with all of us.
This department is all yours, and the job of running it and making it interesting is largely up, to you. So "come over in 'The Readers' Corner'" and have your share in what everyone will be saying.
"And Kind to Their Grandmothers!"
Dear Editor:
I received a pleasant surprise a few days ago when I found a new Science Fiction magazine at the newsstand—Astounding Stories. And I was still more pleased, and surprised, to find that the Editor seems to know that such stories should have real story interest, besides a scientific idea.
Of course I took with a grain of salt the invitation to write to the editor and give my preference of the kind of stories I like. I know that every editor, down in his heart, thinks his magazine is perfect "as is." In fact, praise is what they want, not suggestions, judging by the letters they print.
Well, I can conscientiously give you some praise. If Astounding Stories keep up to the standard of the first issue it will be all right. Evidently you can afford to hire the best writers obtainable, notice you've signed up some of my favorites, Murray Leinster, R. F. Starzl, Ray Cummings. I like their stuff because it has the rare quality rather vaguely described as "distinction," which make the story remembered for a long time.
The story "Tanks," by Murray Leinster, is my idea of What such a story should be. The author does not start out, "Listen my children, and you shall hear a story so wonderful you won't believe it. Only after the death of Professor Bulging Dome do I dare to make it public to a doubting world." No; he simply proceeds to tell the story. If I were reading it in the Saturday Evening Post or Ladies Home Journal it would be all right to prepare me for the story by explaining that of course the author does not vouch for the story, it having been told to him by a crazy Eurasian in a Cottage Grove black-and-tan speakeasy at 3.30 A. M. In Astounding Stories I expect the story to be unusual, so don't bother telling me it is so. That criticism applies to "Phantoms of Reality," which is a story above the average, though, despite its rather flat title and slow beginning.
Here's another good point about "Tanks." Its characters are human. Some authors of stories of the future make their characters all brains—cold monsters, with no humanity in them. Such a story has neither human interest nor plausibility. The sky's the limit, I say, for mechanical or scientific accomplishments, but human emotions will be the same a thousand years from now. And even supposing that they will be changed, your readers have present day emotions. The magazine can not prosper unless those present-day emotions are aroused and mirrored by thoroughly human characters. The situation may be just as outre as you like—the more unusual the better—but it is the response of normal human emotions to most unusual situations that gives a magazine such as yours its powerful and unique "kick."
The response of the two infantrymen in "Tanks" to the strange and terrifying new warfare of the future exemplifies another point I would like to make—the fact that no matter what marvels the future may bring, the people who will live then will take them in a matter-of-fact way. Their conversation will be cigarettes, "sag-paste," drinks, women. References to the scientific marvels around them will be casual and sketchy. How many million words of an average car owner's conversation would you have to report to give a visitor from 1700 an idea of internal combustion engines? The author, if skilful, can convey that information in other ways. Yet a lot of stories printed have long, stilted conversations in which the author thinks he is conveying in an entertaining way his foundation situation. Personally, I like a lot of physical action—violent action preferred. This is so, probably, because I'm a school teacher and sedentary in my habits. I have never written a story in my life, but I'm the most voracious consumer of stories in Chicago. I like to see the hero get into a devil of a pickle, and to have him smash his way out. I like 'em big, tough, and kind to their grandmothers.
It seems to me that interplanetary stories offer the best vehicle for all the desirable qualities herein enumerated combined. Then is absolutely no restraint on the imagination, except a few known astronomical facts—plenty of opportunity for violent and dangerous adventures, strange and terrestially impossible monsters. The human actors, set down in the midst of such terrifying conditions, which they battle dauntlessly, grinning, as they take their blows and returning them with good will, cannot fail to rouse the admiration of the reader. And make him buy the next month's issue.
