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Fantascience Digest, v. 3, issue 3, whole no. 15, November-December 1941

Page 19

Page 19

fact, we can't put up with you, if you want to phrase it another way. We're bound on a hazardous mission and would prefer that you get off at our next port of call, the third planet of Sirius. After all, you're only here because the editor of FANTASCIENCE DIGEST suggested to E. E. Campbell, Jr. (Guess who he REALLY is!) that at least one fan mag editor or writer be included in THE FROLIC APACE, and you're not speeding up the story any, but are just as out of place here as a plug-hat at a picnic."
   So they stopped of at Sirroco (little Sir Oco? Yes.) and disposed of Julius Unger. they would have preferred to dispose of Melvin Erle Korshak, but his name didn't pop up until after Unger's.
   You know what? Every once in a while ye author pauses for a moment to blow on his blistered hands after a period of pounding this torrid typewriter, and reads the tripe he has typed, and wonders what the heck he's perpetrating on people. After all, he has nothing against them. It's just that once upon a time he wrote Part I of this drivel, and then Part II, and now it seems that he just goes on, and on, and on ----
   But at least we have immortalized four living characters: Julius Unger, Korshak, Madlo, and Burroughs. Briefly, we wish to pause here to immortalize also a few more fans who come to mind: Tucker, Ackerman, Gilbert, Lowndes, Chauvenet, Fischer, and Joe Stalin. Would you rather be a science fiction fan or one of Sally Rand's fans? That is a question which will be debated in our next issue. Right now the question is, shall we continue to keep THE FROLIC APACE on the high plane it has previously occupied, or shall we lower its heretofore dignified style by lapsing into a slapstick, slaphappy delivery which is not necessarily concerned with the doings of such stupid people as Dottie, Margie, Crane and Seaton, but is primarily about fans and fandom, about fanta-science and fanatics?
   Or shall we just drop the whole thing right here and have another good old convention instead? I'll nominate Denver and you nominate Columbia and you nominate New York or Chicago or San Francisco or President Roosevelt for a fourth term, and by the time everybody gets split up and goes to those different places we won't have enough people at the convention to get up a decent bridge game.
   Bridge? Bridge! That reminds me! We left Dottie and Margaret and their fancy fiances in the middle of a bridge game, didn't we, and Dottie had just bid eight spades, and doubled and undoubled.
   But who cares? Have you read any good books lately? I read "The Absolute at Large", but it wasn't in the category mentioned. I also read "The Question Mark", by Jaeger. Neither was it. "God's Secret" by Pier was fair and Sax Rohmer's "The Island of Fu Manchu" gave a doggoned good picture of devil-worship and voodooism at one point.
   Which brings us back to the realms of scientifiction and reveals to us again the nauseating spectacle of those four nincompoops, D, M, C and S, playing bridge.
   But it's getting so that I just can't go on. I get about as ex-

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Page 19 fact, we can't put up with you, if you want to phrase it another way. We're bound on a hazardous mission and would prefer that you get off at our next port of call, the third planet of Sirius. After all, you're only here because the editor of FANTASCIENCE DIGEST suggested to E. E. Campbell, Jr. (Guess who he REALLY is!) that at least one fan mag editor or writer be included in THE FROLIC APACE, and you're not speeding up the story any, but are just as out of place here as a plug-hat at a picnic." So they stopped of at Sirroco (little Sir Oco? Yes.) and disposed of Julius Unger. they would have preferred to dispose of Melvin Erle Korshak, but his name didn't pop up until after Unger's. You know what? Every once in a while ye author pauses for a moment to blow on his blistered hands after a period of pounding this torrid typewriter, and reads the tripe he has typed, and wonders what the heck he's perpetrating on people. After all, he has nothing against them. It's just that once upon a time he wrote Part I of this drivel, and then Part II, and now it seems that he just goes on, and on, and on ---- But at least we have immortalized four living characters: Julius Unger, Korshak, Madlo, and Burroughs. Briefly, we wish to pause here to immortalize also a few more fans who come to mind: Tucker, Ackerman, Gilbert, Lowndes, Chauvenet, Fischer, and Joe Stalin. Would you rather be a science fiction fan or one of Sally Rand's fans? That is a question which will be debated in our next issue. Right now the question is, shall we continue to keep THE FROLIC APACE on the high plane it has previously occupied, or shall we lower its heretofore dignified style by lapsing into a slapstick, slaphappy delivery which is not necessarily concerned with the doings of such stupid people as Dottie, Margie, Crane and Seaton, but is primarily about fans and fandom, about fanta-science and fanatics? Or shall we just drop the whole thing right here and have another good old convention instead? I'll nominate Denver and you nominate Columbia and you nominate New York or Chicago or San Francisco or President Roosevelt for a fourth term, and by the time everybody gets split up and goes to those different places we won't have enough people at the convention to get up a decent bridge game. Bridge? Bridge! That reminds me! We left Dottie and Margaret and their fancy fiances in the middle of a bridge game, didn't we, and Dottie had just bid eight spades, and doubled and undoubled. But who cares? Have you read any good books lately? I read "The Absolute at Large", but it wasn't in the category mentioned. I also read "The Question Mark", by Jaeger. Neither was it. "God's Secret" by Pier was fair and Sax Rohmer's "The Island of Fu Manchu" gave a doggoned good picture of devil-worship and voodooism at one point. Which brings us back to the realms of scientifiction and reveals to us again the nauseating spectacle of those four nincompoops, D, M, C and S, playing bridge. But it's getting so that I just can't go on. I get about as ex-