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Spaceways, v. 3, issue 4, May 1941
Page 21
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SPACEWAYS 21 THE READERS ALWAYS WRITE thoroughly read. It is undoubtedly his most profound work, but I don't think it will ever be my favorite.'''''It is interesting to note, incidentally, how Weinbaum has certain pet references, which pop up in highly unoriginal settings,in otherwise unrelated tales of his. Take his old favorite, "Cheyene-Stokes breathing". Offhand I recall three of his stories in which he mentions it. In only one--"Adaptive Ultimate"--does the reference have any significance to the plot. In the others--"Black Flame" and "New Adam"--it was thrust in quite irrelevantly, apparently from pure love of the expression. The wicked city of "Urbs"--the "master"--the "Black Flame"--the "sky-rat", I was not surprised to find reemployed in the "New Adam". The cyclic conception of time seems, too, to fascinate him.'''''I'm off my subject, Harry. What I intended, two paragraphs above, was to indulge in a few fulminations regarding the perhaps necessary, but nonetheless obnoxious, practice of hewing off large chunks from s.-f. yarns in order to fit them, Procrustean fashion, into the available magazine space. Undoubtedly many newly-hatched tales benefit and are the better for this reducing treatment, the reader is none the wiser, and no harm is done. But the present trend to reprints brings up a different angle. These stories were quite successful in their original published versions, yet they are drastically pruned again when reprinted. And so often unskilfully. Like in Hornig's reprint of "the Moon Conquerors", in which I noticed at least one reference to an earlier event in the tale allowed to stand, enigmatically, while the original passage referred to was deleted. A bit confusing to the careful reader, such doings.....'''''Even where the deletions are confined to dispensable atmosphere, leaving the plot still coherent, there results a product devoid of much of the original's style and beauty. A comparison of Standard's reprints of "Dawn of Flame" and "Human Termites" with the originals will exemplify this.'''''It's the Nunsey reprint magazines that worry me, though. for the rest, I don't give a hot. Do we really get the unexpurgated, 100-proof classics in FFM and FN? Not having the original published versions, I can't check. But it must be said that if Miss G. wields the editorial shears at all, she does so with taste and finesse. Cut or uncut, the contents of her charges read good to me. Joe Gilbert types: Singleton's poem exceptionally splendid in my humble opinion. Why do the most brilliant and likable people have to kill themselves? I didn't know Earl at all well, but the loss of no other single person in fandom--outside our Southern group, of course--could have shocked me more......'''''I don't care for the Cynic. Old stuff, obvious, and filled with that tendency which seems to inflict all of the recent columns--too much inconsequential trivia; nothing to argue over, nothing to think about. And it becomes doggone monotonous in a distressingly short time.'''''The serious discussion--denunciation? --the Star-Treader specialized in, was, I think, one of the biggest factors behind its success.....'''''Fantasy Music: 8 1-2. Odd, isn't it, how you connect up the screwiest ideas with your favorite music? F'r'xample, every time I hear Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King", the music reminds me of nothing so much as of some godawful Lovecraftian creature slithering out of its lair, after a thousand years' sleep. Silly, naturally, but try thinking of the same thing the next time you hear the piece, and see if you don't get a similar impression. Louis Russell Chauvenet says: The cover--this is just the sort of thing I delight in jumping up and down on, emitting bright green sparks from my ears the while. In the exhilaration induced by the pleasant exercise, I will even make the award of a 5.'''''Editorial--well, 6, I don't care, because, a) you've never rejected anything of mine, and b) you hold one of my pieces up as a shining example (Dieu nous suave!).....'''''Pohl--6, because this one took me by surprise. It had never even occurred to me that anyone who took the trouble to write a sf. tale would be stupid enough to submit it in illegible form! And then, my typing occasions me no concern whatever, so that I never considered anyone else would be bothered. Curious about that parchment MS business!....'''''Ackermann--4. Or no, ranking it just as fiction, I suppose I ought to give it a 5, which you may consider done. But as a story it stinks. it reeks artificial-
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SPACEWAYS 21 THE READERS ALWAYS WRITE thoroughly read. It is undoubtedly his most profound work, but I don't think it will ever be my favorite.'''''It is interesting to note, incidentally, how Weinbaum has certain pet references, which pop up in highly unoriginal settings,in otherwise unrelated tales of his. Take his old favorite, "Cheyene-Stokes breathing". Offhand I recall three of his stories in which he mentions it. In only one--"Adaptive Ultimate"--does the reference have any significance to the plot. In the others--"Black Flame" and "New Adam"--it was thrust in quite irrelevantly, apparently from pure love of the expression. The wicked city of "Urbs"--the "master"--the "Black Flame"--the "sky-rat", I was not surprised to find reemployed in the "New Adam". The cyclic conception of time seems, too, to fascinate him.'''''I'm off my subject, Harry. What I intended, two paragraphs above, was to indulge in a few fulminations regarding the perhaps necessary, but nonetheless obnoxious, practice of hewing off large chunks from s.-f. yarns in order to fit them, Procrustean fashion, into the available magazine space. Undoubtedly many newly-hatched tales benefit and are the better for this reducing treatment, the reader is none the wiser, and no harm is done. But the present trend to reprints brings up a different angle. These stories were quite successful in their original published versions, yet they are drastically pruned again when reprinted. And so often unskilfully. Like in Hornig's reprint of "the Moon Conquerors", in which I noticed at least one reference to an earlier event in the tale allowed to stand, enigmatically, while the original passage referred to was deleted. A bit confusing to the careful reader, such doings.....'''''Even where the deletions are confined to dispensable atmosphere, leaving the plot still coherent, there results a product devoid of much of the original's style and beauty. A comparison of Standard's reprints of "Dawn of Flame" and "Human Termites" with the originals will exemplify this.'''''It's the Nunsey reprint magazines that worry me, though. for the rest, I don't give a hot. Do we really get the unexpurgated, 100-proof classics in FFM and FN? Not having the original published versions, I can't check. But it must be said that if Miss G. wields the editorial shears at all, she does so with taste and finesse. Cut or uncut, the contents of her charges read good to me. Joe Gilbert types: Singleton's poem exceptionally splendid in my humble opinion. Why do the most brilliant and likable people have to kill themselves? I didn't know Earl at all well, but the loss of no other single person in fandom--outside our Southern group, of course--could have shocked me more......'''''I don't care for the Cynic. Old stuff, obvious, and filled with that tendency which seems to inflict all of the recent columns--too much inconsequential trivia; nothing to argue over, nothing to think about. And it becomes doggone monotonous in a distressingly short time.'''''The serious discussion--denunciation? --the Star-Treader specialized in, was, I think, one of the biggest factors behind its success.....'''''Fantasy Music: 8 1-2. Odd, isn't it, how you connect up the screwiest ideas with your favorite music? F'r'xample, every time I hear Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King", the music reminds me of nothing so much as of some godawful Lovecraftian creature slithering out of its lair, after a thousand years' sleep. Silly, naturally, but try thinking of the same thing the next time you hear the piece, and see if you don't get a similar impression. Louis Russell Chauvenet says: The cover--this is just the sort of thing I delight in jumping up and down on, emitting bright green sparks from my ears the while. In the exhilaration induced by the pleasant exercise, I will even make the award of a 5.'''''Editorial--well, 6, I don't care, because, a) you've never rejected anything of mine, and b) you hold one of my pieces up as a shining example (Dieu nous suave!).....'''''Pohl--6, because this one took me by surprise. It had never even occurred to me that anyone who took the trouble to write a sf. tale would be stupid enough to submit it in illegible form! And then, my typing occasions me no concern whatever, so that I never considered anyone else would be bothered. Curious about that parchment MS business!....'''''Ackermann--4. Or no, ranking it just as fiction, I suppose I ought to give it a 5, which you may consider done. But as a story it stinks. it reeks artificial-
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