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Fantascience Digest, v. 2, issue 4, May-June 1939
Page 17
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FANTASCIENCE DIGEST Page 17 I glued together my card, and sent it blithely on its way. A /month passed---two---three. And no WONDER STORIES via mail or news/stand. At long last camea postcard: "This is to announce the first issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES" or something like that. (I have the announcement but am too lazy to drag it out.) Now what? Immediately I rushed to a newsstand. There it was. Though hardly recognizable in that cover. Oh well, you can't have everything, were my innocent thoughts. The stories looked pretty good---and strangely enough, they weren't too bad, either. A little bloodthirsty, but there had been much worse issues. And then things began to happen. The magazine got worse. In that first year, despite the fact that the yarns in the first issue weren't so bad, only one story deserved the ranking of good. That story was "The Circle of Zero" by Weinbaum. Others were merely fair, poor, or awful. If I may venture yet another opinion, those six issues were about the lowest standard s-f has hit over any period, before or since. Even the present plethora of mags usually contain one good story each, which makes up for the sins of the rest of the issue. Finally the magazine slowly, but surely, began to improve. Campbell started his very good Penton and Blake series, and the "Via" trilogy popped up. Other yarns every now and then weren't too bad, and it appeared as though there was hope for the magazine after all. True, it has never reached the level of the other top-flight magazines, but at the same time it isn't too terrible, as some fans would lead you to believe. And I will say this for the magazine: right now it's about 300% better than two years ago, and at least 50% improved over a year back. Let's hope the improvement keeps up at the current rate. One more thing: something that seems to have been overlooked by the fans. Do you realize that THRILLING WONDER STORIES has been responsible for every, or nearly every, new feature the fantasy magazines have adopted in the past few years? It's a fact. Viz.: "The Story Behind the Story" (which is merely biographies of the authors in many cases, and certainly their forerunner), the science quizzes (not to be confused, of course, with the older science questions which were based on stories in the magazines); "Scientifacts" started the new string of science fillers; and in numerous other ways THRILLING WONDER STORIES has led the field. Now don't get me wrong, I don't say that TWS is the finest fantasy magazine today, or anything else equally as ridiculous. However, I believe that if you'll think it over a little you'll find the mag to be better than it appears on the surface. (If you think that the new bunch of mags is a good sign, you can even thank TWS for starting it.) Its editors appear to be more sincere than many today. They've helped struggling young authors, and assembled the greatest collection of names of the fantasy world into one issue of TWS---the tenth anniversary issue. They've bought the finest artist in fantasy to stf.--Virgil Finlay---and are mainly responsible for arousing interest in the Weinbaum trilogy. At least, son't condemn the magazine too much. Of course, it has its faults---and plenty of them---but it may surprise us all in a few more years. Just wait and see..... o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o
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FANTASCIENCE DIGEST Page 17 I glued together my card, and sent it blithely on its way. A /month passed---two---three. And no WONDER STORIES via mail or news/stand. At long last camea postcard: "This is to announce the first issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES" or something like that. (I have the announcement but am too lazy to drag it out.) Now what? Immediately I rushed to a newsstand. There it was. Though hardly recognizable in that cover. Oh well, you can't have everything, were my innocent thoughts. The stories looked pretty good---and strangely enough, they weren't too bad, either. A little bloodthirsty, but there had been much worse issues. And then things began to happen. The magazine got worse. In that first year, despite the fact that the yarns in the first issue weren't so bad, only one story deserved the ranking of good. That story was "The Circle of Zero" by Weinbaum. Others were merely fair, poor, or awful. If I may venture yet another opinion, those six issues were about the lowest standard s-f has hit over any period, before or since. Even the present plethora of mags usually contain one good story each, which makes up for the sins of the rest of the issue. Finally the magazine slowly, but surely, began to improve. Campbell started his very good Penton and Blake series, and the "Via" trilogy popped up. Other yarns every now and then weren't too bad, and it appeared as though there was hope for the magazine after all. True, it has never reached the level of the other top-flight magazines, but at the same time it isn't too terrible, as some fans would lead you to believe. And I will say this for the magazine: right now it's about 300% better than two years ago, and at least 50% improved over a year back. Let's hope the improvement keeps up at the current rate. One more thing: something that seems to have been overlooked by the fans. Do you realize that THRILLING WONDER STORIES has been responsible for every, or nearly every, new feature the fantasy magazines have adopted in the past few years? It's a fact. Viz.: "The Story Behind the Story" (which is merely biographies of the authors in many cases, and certainly their forerunner), the science quizzes (not to be confused, of course, with the older science questions which were based on stories in the magazines); "Scientifacts" started the new string of science fillers; and in numerous other ways THRILLING WONDER STORIES has led the field. Now don't get me wrong, I don't say that TWS is the finest fantasy magazine today, or anything else equally as ridiculous. However, I believe that if you'll think it over a little you'll find the mag to be better than it appears on the surface. (If you think that the new bunch of mags is a good sign, you can even thank TWS for starting it.) Its editors appear to be more sincere than many today. They've helped struggling young authors, and assembled the greatest collection of names of the fantasy world into one issue of TWS---the tenth anniversary issue. They've bought the finest artist in fantasy to stf.--Virgil Finlay---and are mainly responsible for arousing interest in the Weinbaum trilogy. At least, son't condemn the magazine too much. Of course, it has its faults---and plenty of them---but it may surprise us all in a few more years. Just wait and see..... o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o
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