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Southern Star, v. 1, issue 4, December 1941

Page 13

From The Starport     SOUTHERN STAR    Page 13

ry on their work.

Also from Pop Mek. And as peculiar, as vague and indefinite, and as full of banalities as the excerpts which have gone before. Why should a group of German scientists choose to work in Russia, rather than Germany, at a time when neither of those countries was a war, and neither offered particular advantages to research? Who made the recent reports? What air experts are quoted where? Why didn't the scientists go to Tibet or Timbuctu or Afghanistan or some other place besides the hidden heart of Russia, as long as the writer of the piece was hunting for a really inacessible locale for his little pipe-dream? Why didn't they go to the Eastern part of the Sahara Desert? The climate there is good for experimenters. The only reason people can poke fun at the majority of the so-called scientific squibs in the papers, is because a distinctly insufficient amount of information is given -- probably deliberately -- and an atmosphere of stage-setting and makeup pervades the text.

Let's get away from almost positive fiction, however, to almost positive facts. Did you know that there are between two and three thousand million stars in the milky way? Each of these stars are suns like ours. If we consider that each star is the center of a solar system we have about two and one-half thousand million solar systems yet to be examined about us.
Estimating in very modest numbers, suppose we give unto each of these suns a retinue of five planets, which is indeed a modest average number when we consider the number possessed by our own puny sun. The planets,then, number in all 12,500,000,000. Considering also that most astronomers believe that there are millions of universes of stars like the Milky Way and many millions of quintillions of miles away from us:
Who dares to be so egotistical as to say that the earth alone is inhabited. I pronounce the scientist who would make such a statement the most utter fool!
Unless we consider Nature, or God, or that mind over matter which conceived the universe -- unless one of these omnipotent sources be considered a complete wastrel, surely there would not be millions of uninhabited worlds and only one populated world. All the laws of chance, of reason, of the distribution of universal life, would be set at naught. It is impossible to conceive of such billions-to-one happening as it must have ensured were we, and we alone, the representatives of sentient existence. Other worlds were created for other humanities, or for other inhumanities -- not solely for the visual enjoyment we earth men receive upon seeing their myriads twinkling in the night sky.

But so much -- too much -- for metaphysical meandering. Let's talk about scientifiction for a change. And to begin, I'll stick out my neck and leave it out for several paragraphs, well aware that you Heinlein fans are going to hate me. yes, I said Heinlein!
He takes a fantastic theme and embroiders it in such a matter of fact way that the entire spice of improbability is stripped from the framework. I read his THE DEVIL MAKES THE LAW! and I never once got the impact of unreality inherent in any real fantasy. Instead, I seemed to be reading what was merely a story -- and not a very good story, either -- about the workings of a protective racket in a modern American city. Except for this incrontrovertible fact that the gangsters of the story were magicians, I found the bare plot to be as hackneyed and as threadbare as any I've ever read. In short: Gangsters threaten shop owner with disaster, should he refuse to kick in with the heavy
(Concluded on page 30)

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From The Starport SOUTHERN STAR Page 13 ry on their work. Also from Pop Mek. And as peculiar, as vague and indefinite, and as full of banalities as the excerpts which have gone before. Why should a group of German scientists choose to work in Russia, rather than Germany, at a time when neither of those countries was a war, and neither offered particular advantages to research? Who made the recent reports? What air experts are quoted where? Why didn't the scientists go to Tibet or Timbuctu or Afghanistan or some other place besides the hidden heart of Russia, as long as the writer of the piece was hunting for a really inacessible locale for his little pipe-dream? Why didn't they go to the Eastern part of the Sahara Desert? The climate there is good for experimenters. The only reason people can poke fun at the majority of the so-called scientific squibs in the papers, is because a distinctly insufficient amount of information is given -- probably deliberately -- and an atmosphere of stage-setting and makeup pervades the text. Let's get away from almost positive fiction, however, to almost positive facts. Did you know that there are between two and three thousand million stars in the milky way? Each of these stars are suns like ours. If we consider that each star is the center of a solar system we have about two and one-half thousand million solar systems yet to be examined about us. Estimating in very modest numbers, suppose we give unto each of these suns a retinue of five planets, which is indeed a modest average number when we consider the number possessed by our own puny sun. The planets,then, number in all 12,500,000,000. Considering also that most astronomers believe that there are millions of universes of stars like the Milky Way and many millions of quintillions of miles away from us: Who dares to be so egotistical as to say that the earth alone is inhabited. I pronounce the scientist who would make such a statement the most utter fool! Unless we consider Nature, or God, or that mind over matter which conceived the universe -- unless one of these omnipotent sources be considered a complete wastrel, surely there would not be millions of uninhabited worlds and only one populated world. All the laws of chance, of reason, of the distribution of universal life, would be set at naught. It is impossible to conceive of such billions-to-one happening as it must have ensured were we, and we alone, the representatives of sentient existence. Other worlds were created for other humanities, or for other inhumanities -- not solely for the visual enjoyment we earth men receive upon seeing their myriads twinkling in the night sky. But so much -- too much -- for metaphysical meandering. Let's talk about scientifiction for a change. And to begin, I'll stick out my neck and leave it out for several paragraphs, well aware that you Heinlein fans are going to hate me. yes, I said Heinlein! He takes a fantastic theme and embroiders it in such a matter of fact way that the entire spice of improbability is stripped from the framework. I read his THE DEVIL MAKES THE LAW! and I never once got the impact of unreality inherent in any real fantasy. Instead, I seemed to be reading what was merely a story -- and not a very good story, either -- about the workings of a protective racket in a modern American city. Except for this incrontrovertible fact that the gangsters of the story were magicians, I found the bare plot to be as hackneyed and as threadbare as any I've ever read. In short: Gangsters threaten shop owner with disaster, should he refuse to kick in with the heavy (Concluded on page 30)