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Le Zombie, v. 5, issue 4, whole no. 51, January 1943
Page 16
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16 WEATHER DEPT D.B. Thompson's "AS THE WIND LISTETH...." There is no truth to the rumor that 4sJ's pun-gent "humor" was lost when the number one fan Face accepted Uncle's invitation to don the latest model in what the wear-dressed young man shall wear. See Ack-Acks column in The Bulletin, Camp Publication. (As if you hadn't already seen it!) Now I know what is meant by the hardships of a soldier life. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - All of which, for no reason that I can think of, leads up to the following query: Who in Fandom originated the incredible custom of CONGRATULATING fans who have been placed in 4-F by the Selective Service Boards? I'm in 4-F myself. I belong in it, too, on half-a-dozen different counts. I'll undoubtedly stay at Camp Livingston, working for the Corps of Engineers of the U. S. Arm, for the duration. I am of the opinion that I'm doing a necessary and important job. Being the nearest living thing to a Zombie doesn't interfere in the least with my performance of that job, although it would certainly make me rather useless in the front lines. But please don't congratulate me on my status. I'm not the least bit proud of being classed as "mentally, morally, or physically unfit for the military service." Who would be? So, unless you want to be haunted by a real Zombie's ghost, don't send me your felicitations. Excitement induced by wrath is said to be very fatal to a guy with a bum ticker. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - It is about time for the pro authors to quit solving the problem of how we are going to win back our freedom after losing this war, and to start figuring out how we are going to win the peace, after we win the war. Regaining our freedom makes a nice, bloody, drama - packed story, but present indications are that it isn't going to be necessary this time. We are at least holding our own. Of course, a few author s have devoted their energies to the problem of peace, but not many of them. Yet the solution to this problem is something to which the peculiar abilities of the science fiction author are especially adapted. Writing the history of the immediate future is his particular province. From the beginning of pulp stfiction, he has been writing about and visualizing that Future, considering it properly as the child of the Present. Since the Present here and now is completely tied up with the business of winning the war, so the immediate Future will be bound up with the solving the the problems of the Post-War World. In common with most writers, he has some insight into the working of human nature. He differs from them in having a fair sort of working knowledge of what has been dubbed "Socionomics," a field in which writers in more familiar categories haven't yet discovered. He has an imagination largely unhampered by "customs of his tribe;" if he didn't he would be writing Westerns or Love Romances. And finally, he isn't interested in maintaining the status quo (or what would be the status quo, if the war hadn't intervened) as most writers are, partly because his markets, in common with other pulp markets, are not dominated by advertizers, and partly because the erst-while status quo hasn't been any too kind to science-fictioneers anyway. So let's have some stories (not disquized treatises) which really solve the problem of winning the peace.
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16 WEATHER DEPT D.B. Thompson's "AS THE WIND LISTETH...." There is no truth to the rumor that 4sJ's pun-gent "humor" was lost when the number one fan Face accepted Uncle's invitation to don the latest model in what the wear-dressed young man shall wear. See Ack-Acks column in The Bulletin, Camp Publication. (As if you hadn't already seen it!) Now I know what is meant by the hardships of a soldier life. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - All of which, for no reason that I can think of, leads up to the following query: Who in Fandom originated the incredible custom of CONGRATULATING fans who have been placed in 4-F by the Selective Service Boards? I'm in 4-F myself. I belong in it, too, on half-a-dozen different counts. I'll undoubtedly stay at Camp Livingston, working for the Corps of Engineers of the U. S. Arm, for the duration. I am of the opinion that I'm doing a necessary and important job. Being the nearest living thing to a Zombie doesn't interfere in the least with my performance of that job, although it would certainly make me rather useless in the front lines. But please don't congratulate me on my status. I'm not the least bit proud of being classed as "mentally, morally, or physically unfit for the military service." Who would be? So, unless you want to be haunted by a real Zombie's ghost, don't send me your felicitations. Excitement induced by wrath is said to be very fatal to a guy with a bum ticker. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - It is about time for the pro authors to quit solving the problem of how we are going to win back our freedom after losing this war, and to start figuring out how we are going to win the peace, after we win the war. Regaining our freedom makes a nice, bloody, drama - packed story, but present indications are that it isn't going to be necessary this time. We are at least holding our own. Of course, a few author s have devoted their energies to the problem of peace, but not many of them. Yet the solution to this problem is something to which the peculiar abilities of the science fiction author are especially adapted. Writing the history of the immediate future is his particular province. From the beginning of pulp stfiction, he has been writing about and visualizing that Future, considering it properly as the child of the Present. Since the Present here and now is completely tied up with the business of winning the war, so the immediate Future will be bound up with the solving the the problems of the Post-War World. In common with most writers, he has some insight into the working of human nature. He differs from them in having a fair sort of working knowledge of what has been dubbed "Socionomics," a field in which writers in more familiar categories haven't yet discovered. He has an imagination largely unhampered by "customs of his tribe;" if he didn't he would be writing Westerns or Love Romances. And finally, he isn't interested in maintaining the status quo (or what would be the status quo, if the war hadn't intervened) as most writers are, partly because his markets, in common with other pulp markets, are not dominated by advertizers, and partly because the erst-while status quo hasn't been any too kind to science-fictioneers anyway. So let's have some stories (not disquized treatises) which really solve the problem of winning the peace.
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