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Spaceways, v. 4, issue 5, whole no. 28, June 1942
Page 19
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SPACEWAYS 19 FROM THE CONTROL ROOM Spaceways each issue to the entire service list. How about Ackerman, Shaw, Bronson, Gilbert, Jenkins, Unger, Rustebar, Croutch, and all you dozens of others? On to something else. I'm not sure whether I should apologize for the lateness of this issue of Spaceways or not, because I don't know whether it's going to be on time. There has been illness in the family, which has taken up a great deal of my free time and held up work. This is being typed May 22, and the issue is due June 1; it looks like a 50-50 chance of appearing on schedule. So if the format isn't up to snuff, you know why. Thanks to Mr. Cole for permission to reprint the article on Lovecraft. There quite a bit of other material about HPL in that issue of The Olympian, most of which will be used in an early issue of Spaceways--probably the next one. There's no installment of "If I Werewolf" this time--Perdue just didn't send it. It'll be continued next issue. Next time, too, there'll be a review by Don Wollheim of Stapledon's new novel; the first (if no one beats us to it) article giving full information on Canada's prozines, by Leslie A. Croutch; an as yet untitled article (this sounds like Palmer!) by Fred Senour; fiction by Nils T. Frome; ;poetry; and maybe more. The front cover should be by Phil Bronson; he's been promising one for so long that the law of averages will catch up and assure one within the next few weeks. Who will do the back cover time alone can tell. That note in a recent Amazing or Fantastic Adventures that "The New Adam" was sold out would have been more impressive if I hadn't just purchased a copy in a local novelty store for 39c, among the brand-new "remainder" books which publishers had sold out in bulk. The book was sloppily promoted, anyway, with no advertising anywhere except in the Z-D magazines, no copies sent to the large newspapers and literary magazines for review, and no copies coming to the book stores in at least one place--Hagerstown. Anyway, the volume wasn't worth two bucks as a piece of book-making. It's not even as well produced as the until recently 39c Triangle reprint editions: it's made exactly like the 50c boys' books put out by Grosset & Dunlap or Cupples & Leon. But the contents are easily worth 39c! I've read it twice already, and still am not sure whether it's a great book or not. Part of the uncertainty is caused by the large amount of editing and cutting Palmer is said to have done. As it stands now, it's a very interesting, "important" perhaps, novel, but certainly not the most downright enjoyable of Weinbaum's work. As in all his stories, the non-human characters are the best. In "The Black Flame", Margaret was the dominating figure, and proved that Weinbaum could create a fine female character. But "The New Adam"'s leading lady, Evanne, is little better than those puppets who pass as heroines for stories in Thrilling Wonder or Amazing. Edmond Hall, the superhuman, seems actually far more human, which the better character. There's the thing unique to fantasy, of course, in that a person like Edmond may be a great character and yet not act "lifelike". As superhuman, he's almost as ineffective as Odd John or the Hampdenshire Wonder in that he accomplishes little. But one can feel a certain sympathy with his final decisions; they are less disappointing than Victor Stott's murder or Odd John's method of finishing things in a glorious, slightly melodramatic, bang. Edmond could have been made even more effective if he had been a little odder physically: his appearance crates no lasting impression in the mind. The slight external differences are not important. The extra joint on each finger (although used to reach a splendid climax in the meeting with a prostitute) would be less useful andless probable biologically, I think, than another thumb on each hand. Edmond's ability to follow two trains of thought at once isn't too impressive, because any ordinary person can do it to a certain extent, if not quite in the way Weinbaum meant[[?]]. I can listen to two radios, tuned to different programs of talk, simultaneously, and have little trouble in following both. And everybody, at one time or another, has carried on desultory conversations while reading a book or viewing a movie. But the book has its fine points. Sarah, by the very way she stays in the
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SPACEWAYS 19 FROM THE CONTROL ROOM Spaceways each issue to the entire service list. How about Ackerman, Shaw, Bronson, Gilbert, Jenkins, Unger, Rustebar, Croutch, and all you dozens of others? On to something else. I'm not sure whether I should apologize for the lateness of this issue of Spaceways or not, because I don't know whether it's going to be on time. There has been illness in the family, which has taken up a great deal of my free time and held up work. This is being typed May 22, and the issue is due June 1; it looks like a 50-50 chance of appearing on schedule. So if the format isn't up to snuff, you know why. Thanks to Mr. Cole for permission to reprint the article on Lovecraft. There quite a bit of other material about HPL in that issue of The Olympian, most of which will be used in an early issue of Spaceways--probably the next one. There's no installment of "If I Werewolf" this time--Perdue just didn't send it. It'll be continued next issue. Next time, too, there'll be a review by Don Wollheim of Stapledon's new novel; the first (if no one beats us to it) article giving full information on Canada's prozines, by Leslie A. Croutch; an as yet untitled article (this sounds like Palmer!) by Fred Senour; fiction by Nils T. Frome; ;poetry; and maybe more. The front cover should be by Phil Bronson; he's been promising one for so long that the law of averages will catch up and assure one within the next few weeks. Who will do the back cover time alone can tell. That note in a recent Amazing or Fantastic Adventures that "The New Adam" was sold out would have been more impressive if I hadn't just purchased a copy in a local novelty store for 39c, among the brand-new "remainder" books which publishers had sold out in bulk. The book was sloppily promoted, anyway, with no advertising anywhere except in the Z-D magazines, no copies sent to the large newspapers and literary magazines for review, and no copies coming to the book stores in at least one place--Hagerstown. Anyway, the volume wasn't worth two bucks as a piece of book-making. It's not even as well produced as the until recently 39c Triangle reprint editions: it's made exactly like the 50c boys' books put out by Grosset & Dunlap or Cupples & Leon. But the contents are easily worth 39c! I've read it twice already, and still am not sure whether it's a great book or not. Part of the uncertainty is caused by the large amount of editing and cutting Palmer is said to have done. As it stands now, it's a very interesting, "important" perhaps, novel, but certainly not the most downright enjoyable of Weinbaum's work. As in all his stories, the non-human characters are the best. In "The Black Flame", Margaret was the dominating figure, and proved that Weinbaum could create a fine female character. But "The New Adam"'s leading lady, Evanne, is little better than those puppets who pass as heroines for stories in Thrilling Wonder or Amazing. Edmond Hall, the superhuman, seems actually far more human, which the better character. There's the thing unique to fantasy, of course, in that a person like Edmond may be a great character and yet not act "lifelike". As superhuman, he's almost as ineffective as Odd John or the Hampdenshire Wonder in that he accomplishes little. But one can feel a certain sympathy with his final decisions; they are less disappointing than Victor Stott's murder or Odd John's method of finishing things in a glorious, slightly melodramatic, bang. Edmond could have been made even more effective if he had been a little odder physically: his appearance crates no lasting impression in the mind. The slight external differences are not important. The extra joint on each finger (although used to reach a splendid climax in the meeting with a prostitute) would be less useful andless probable biologically, I think, than another thumb on each hand. Edmond's ability to follow two trains of thought at once isn't too impressive, because any ordinary person can do it to a certain extent, if not quite in the way Weinbaum meant[[?]]. I can listen to two radios, tuned to different programs of talk, simultaneously, and have little trouble in following both. And everybody, at one time or another, has carried on desultory conversations while reading a book or viewing a movie. But the book has its fine points. Sarah, by the very way she stays in the
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