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Shangri-La, issue 5, March-April 1948
Page 12
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plained later. So, determining that Hume did not have "Sirius", "Old Man in New World,", "Death Into Life" or "The Flames"---and wanted them all--I rushed out to the Roosevelt Hotel, where he was to attend a writers' conference (he's employed by MGM, who also has John Collier and, I believe, Steve "Returned from Hell" Fisher). [next paragraph underlined] CYRIL HUME turned out to be quite a distinguished looking individual of the English gentleman type, iron-gray hair, black-rimmed glasses, bow tie, smart suit covering a solid frame. [underlining stops] We stood in the lobby and talked about 10 minutes. I had brot the FFM with me containing his "Atlantis' Exile", and asked him to sign it (identifiying myself, en passant, as Ackerman, rather than jackerman. He corrected this misimpression, putting only one "r" in forrest, of course, rather than two). "So this is what it appeared in?" he said, regarding the cover, which he had apparently not seen before. I turned to his story, pointed out to him that he had been given the magazine's top illustrator, Finlay. I intended to write this all up the next day, while it was fresh in my mind, but about 6 weeks have passed since the incident and now I have forgotten certain details. I forgot how it was that he brot up the subject, but he asked me if I had read in TIME about the elephant in the Berlin zoo who ate a woman alive. I had not. "Imagine the perversion of such an act!" he grimaced. "Why, elephants eat peanuts, you know. But he smashed this woman, and then he ate her, clothes and all, leaving only a hand behind." From this cheery beginning he went on to practically develop a stf plot he had in mind, based on a true business about somewhere or other there being a boneyard of mammoths or mastodons (I don't remember which, and I'm aware there's a big difference, but I'm disinclined to look up the facts just now) with the bones all jumbled up as tho the beasts had been beaten about by giants, picked apart as a man might disarticulate a mouse. He discounted the suggestion that an earthquake or subsistence of the land might have bounced the bones about or scrambled the skeletons long after the monsters were dead, and developed a scientifictional theory which I urged him to put into story form. I gave him a copy of FANTASTY BOOK #1, pointing out my ed (gad, this guy Ackerman is getting as commercial as Korshak!) in case he wanted any more reading matter. "Are these all books you recommend?" he asked, glancing over the list. "O, god no, I haven't had time to read them all. If you like Stapledon, tho, let's see, you ought to like this 'Forbidden Garden' by John Taine--he's a professor, Dr Eric Temple Bell, over at the University of Technology at Pasadena." He asked me what it was about. I began briefing him on the plot, and about midway realized I hadn't finished it yet myself, and had to wind up with what I knew about the book from reading the jacket blurb and various reviews. I also recommended "Summer in 3000" by a fellow Englishman. Hume brot the name of CS Lewis into the conversation as someone whose works interested him, particularly "The Screwtape Letters". [centered] - 12 -
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plained later. So, determining that Hume did not have "Sirius", "Old Man in New World,", "Death Into Life" or "The Flames"---and wanted them all--I rushed out to the Roosevelt Hotel, where he was to attend a writers' conference (he's employed by MGM, who also has John Collier and, I believe, Steve "Returned from Hell" Fisher). [next paragraph underlined] CYRIL HUME turned out to be quite a distinguished looking individual of the English gentleman type, iron-gray hair, black-rimmed glasses, bow tie, smart suit covering a solid frame. [underlining stops] We stood in the lobby and talked about 10 minutes. I had brot the FFM with me containing his "Atlantis' Exile", and asked him to sign it (identifiying myself, en passant, as Ackerman, rather than jackerman. He corrected this misimpression, putting only one "r" in forrest, of course, rather than two). "So this is what it appeared in?" he said, regarding the cover, which he had apparently not seen before. I turned to his story, pointed out to him that he had been given the magazine's top illustrator, Finlay. I intended to write this all up the next day, while it was fresh in my mind, but about 6 weeks have passed since the incident and now I have forgotten certain details. I forgot how it was that he brot up the subject, but he asked me if I had read in TIME about the elephant in the Berlin zoo who ate a woman alive. I had not. "Imagine the perversion of such an act!" he grimaced. "Why, elephants eat peanuts, you know. But he smashed this woman, and then he ate her, clothes and all, leaving only a hand behind." From this cheery beginning he went on to practically develop a stf plot he had in mind, based on a true business about somewhere or other there being a boneyard of mammoths or mastodons (I don't remember which, and I'm aware there's a big difference, but I'm disinclined to look up the facts just now) with the bones all jumbled up as tho the beasts had been beaten about by giants, picked apart as a man might disarticulate a mouse. He discounted the suggestion that an earthquake or subsistence of the land might have bounced the bones about or scrambled the skeletons long after the monsters were dead, and developed a scientifictional theory which I urged him to put into story form. I gave him a copy of FANTASTY BOOK #1, pointing out my ed (gad, this guy Ackerman is getting as commercial as Korshak!) in case he wanted any more reading matter. "Are these all books you recommend?" he asked, glancing over the list. "O, god no, I haven't had time to read them all. If you like Stapledon, tho, let's see, you ought to like this 'Forbidden Garden' by John Taine--he's a professor, Dr Eric Temple Bell, over at the University of Technology at Pasadena." He asked me what it was about. I began briefing him on the plot, and about midway realized I hadn't finished it yet myself, and had to wind up with what I knew about the book from reading the jacket blurb and various reviews. I also recommended "Summer in 3000" by a fellow Englishman. Hume brot the name of CS Lewis into the conversation as someone whose works interested him, particularly "The Screwtape Letters". [centered] - 12 -
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