DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Sparx, Special Edition, September 1947

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Sparx, Special Edition, September 1947

Page 2

2
SPARX

first pages of this lead novelette read so stinky that I couldn't go any farther. Villain chinamen...a mysterious radio voice spelling doom to earth...a cult of mandarin scientists (!) plotting to break up the earth to form a second moon...gaah.
Nor is Rud's effort, alhough shorter, any better. Ooze is a poor attempt at the scientist-creates-giant-amoeba plot. 
Vincent Starrett's Penelope concerns a man whose astrological star (!) begins to exert a powerful influence upon him, to the extent that he finds himself one day standing upside down on the ceiling of his Room. The gravity of the far luminary has overpowered that of the measly earth. Have you ever seen reversed gravity obtained so ingeniously? The story is clever and quippy. 
An Adventure in the Fourth Dimension is by far the best thing in the book. Editor Wright spins a tale of the "fourth dimension," but in this recount, rather than have the hero voyage into the Land of the Fourth Dimension, Wright has some hyperspatial creatures visit the hero in the fair (if dusty) city of Chicago, U.S.A. Our hero happens by the lake at the same time that a translucent sphere plunks down to the ground and emits a flock of the visiting explorers from Jupiter. These Jovians are, as the Professor, who happens along, explains really four-dimensional creatures. We, being mere three-dimensional beings, cannot appreciate their entirety, but see only a 3-dimensional shadow of them, which appears as a small round ball. The Professor is a talkative gentleman, with an explanation for everything. 
The ball-shaped visitors can talk, and immediately beg for something to drink. Between scientific dissertations from the Professor, They kill a flask of whisky offered by the hero. At this point the celebrated explorers get too celebrated to launch their ship. (Incidentally, I wonder what kind of a kick you could get out of 4-dimensional whisky?) In a few minutes a heavy layer of Chicago dust had settled on the Jovian spaceship, its weight rendering the ship inoperable. There comes a devastating explosion, and everything disappears.
The vaudeville humor of Wright's yarn is summed up in one of the Professor's pseudo-scientific speeches:
"There are three reasons," says the Professor to his lay friend, "why you can't hear the music of the spheres: first because it is bent away from the earth by the force of gravity as it passes the sun; second, because your ears are not attuned to so shrill a sound; and third, because there is no music of the spheres." The Professor continues: "The first two reasons are really unnecessary, in the light of the third, but a scientific mind such as mine (?) is not content with one reason when three can be adduced just as easily."

JOIN NFFF JOIN NFFF JOIN NFFF JOIN NFFF JOIN NFFF JJOIN NFFF JOIN NFFFFF

Alack-aday
How hard it is
To find something to say
To fill up this

Horrible blank
Upon the page
Without played some prank
On the reader, as is the rage.

Saving...

2 SPARX first pages of this lead novelette read so stinky that I couldn't go any farther. Villain chinamen...a mysterious radio voice spelling doom to earth...a cult of mandarin scientists (!) plotting to break up the earth to form a second moon...gaah. Nor is Rud's effort, alhough shorter, any better. Ooze is a poor attempt at the scientist-creates-giant-amoeba plot. Vincent Starrett's Penelope concerns a man whose astrological star (!) begins to exert a powerful influence upon him, to the extent that he finds himself one day standing upside down on the ceiling of his Room. The gravity of the far luminary has overpowered that of the measly earth. Have you ever seen reversed gravity obtained so ingeniously? The story is clever and quippy. An Adventure in the Fourth Dimension is by far the best thing in the book. Editor Wright spins a tale of the "fourth dimension," but in this recount, rather than have the hero voyage into the Land of the Fourth Dimension, Wright has some hyperspatial creatures visit the hero in the fair (if dusty) city of Chicago, U.S.A. Our hero happens by the lake at the same time that a translucent sphere plunks down to the ground and emits a flock of the visiting explorers from Jupiter. These Jovians are, as the Professor, who happens along, explains really four-dimensional creatures. We, being mere three-dimensional beings, cannot appreciate their entirety, but see only a 3-dimensional shadow of them, which appears as a small round ball. The Professor is a talkative gentleman, with an explanation for everything. The ball-shaped visitors can talk, and immediately beg for something to drink. Between scientific dissertations from the Professor, They kill a flask of whisky offered by the hero. At this point the celebrated explorers get too celebrated to launch their ship. (Incidentally, I wonder what kind of a kick you could get out of 4-dimensional whisky?) In a few minutes a heavy layer of Chicago dust had settled on the Jovian spaceship, its weight rendering the ship inoperable. There comes a devastating explosion, and everything disappears. The vaudeville humor of Wright's yarn is summed up in one of the Professor's pseudo-scientific speeches: "There are three reasons," says the Professor to his lay friend, "why you can't hear the music of the spheres: first because it is bent away from the earth by the force of gravity as it passes the sun; second, because your ears are not attuned to so shrill a sound; and third, because there is no music of the spheres." The Professor continues: "The first two reasons are really unnecessary, in the light of the third, but a scientific mind such as mine (?) is not content with one reason when three can be adduced just as easily." JOIN NFFF JOIN NFFF JOIN NFFF JOIN NFFF JOIN NFFF JJOIN NFFF JOIN NFFFFF Alack-aday How hard it is To find something to say To fill up this Horrible blank Upon the page Without played some prank On the reader, as is the rage.