DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Scientifictionist, v. 2, issue 1, November 1946-January 1947

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Scientifictionist, v. 2, issue 1, November 1946-January 1947

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themselves, when the discussion of the most suitable government for the colony reveals that both are out-and-out socialists at heart. In such an atmosphere nothing seems impossible, as the amateur pioneers lay out ambitious plans for a throughly modern town, complete even to an airport! (It seems that the ship's cargo had included a number of motor vehicles, and two airplanes.) But, as the narrator puts it: 
     "The significance of our attempt is this, I think:   that we were required to manufacture a machine-made civilization. We were the colonists of a new era, of an industrial period. And we went at our problem in a thoroughly business-like manner, with the organization and efficiency that modern business had taught us. ... it was an experiment nobody had eve had the opportunity to make before."
     the reader will have to guess for himself, though, as to how the experiment made out. Its story ends when the narrator, along with Pretloe and another companion, out to explore the surrounding country, see in the distance a mirage-like, distorted vision of a city, As they press on it looms nearer and they recognize it, despite the weirdly distorted appearance -- one in which somehow both the outsides and the inside of the buildings are visible. When they run forward into the vision, the grassy plain over which they have been traveling suddenly disappears and they find themselves on a street corner in Paris. Presumably they passed through another point of contact between the two planes and were thereby turned back into the familiar world. But they are unable to reverse the procedures and return to guide the others back. The narrator winds up the story by mentioning how Pretloe has taken to "studying his physics all over again" and is experimenting in an attempt to find a way to return to the colony. He adds that if Pretloe succeeds in going back he intends to go  go with him. For he admits that, secretly, he wishes he were back in the adventure "with its ludicrous details and its heroic outlines."
    To which this reviewer can only add that he, too, would have liked to have known more of how the colonists fared. THE SHIP THAT TURNED ASIDE has in its plot the meat for a very long novel. But though Wertenbaker has given us here only a short story, in which many interesting points have been treated sketchily, this has not kept him from telling the story quite effectively. His style here is brief and economical, one in which even a passing phrase or sentence may, by implication, convey a great deal.

ELAINE'S TOMB -- Amazing Stories Quarterly, Vol.4, No.1 (Winter 1930, or 1931, depending on whether you judge by the contents page or the cover.)

   This is a sentimental little tale of how a different young professor of chemistry fell in love with one fo his students, and of how the lovers were eventually united, but not until both had died, subsequently to be restored to life in the distance future. The bashful professor didn't quite succeed in summoning the courage to declare his love to the lady before he went off on the fateful expedition to Egypt with a colleague who had discovered the records of a hitherto unknown civilization in that land. The latter in his translation of the papyri of the long-dead  people had found them to have been very adept at chemistry, whereby they were possessed of a remarkable method of preserving the body in a state of death, but without damage to its physical structure. The manuscripts reveal the details of the treatment and further hint that is may even be undone and the body restored to life. While exploring the temples of these ancient people the professor falls fatally ill, (the w.k. "curse of the tomb") and at the moment of death his companion administers the preservative to him, in the belief that eh will subsequently be able to undo it and restore the professor both to life and to health. 
     It is a very long time, however, before the professor is brought back to the land of the living. He is awakened into an anomalous world, one in which the sun has grown cooler and North America is shrouded in ice, but in which the equatorial regions are inhabited by men who still speak English. It cannot be said how long he has slept, for the strange people who awaken him attach little significance to the

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themselves, when the discussion of the most suitable government for the colony reveals that both are out-and-out socialists at heart. In such an atmosphere nothing seems impossible, as the amateur pioneers lay out ambitious plans for a throughly modern town, complete even to an airport! (It seems that the ship's cargo had included a number of motor vehicles, and two airplanes.) But, as the narrator puts it: "The significance of our attempt is this, I think: that we were required to manufacture a machine-made civilization. We were the colonists of a new era, of an industrial period. And we went at our problem in a thoroughly business-like manner, with the organization and efficiency that modern business had taught us. ... it was an experiment nobody had eve had the opportunity to make before." the reader will have to guess for himself, though, as to how the experiment made out. Its story ends when the narrator, along with Pretloe and another companion, out to explore the surrounding country, see in the distance a mirage-like, distorted vision of a city, As they press on it looms nearer and they recognize it, despite the weirdly distorted appearance -- one in which somehow both the outsides and the inside of the buildings are visible. When they run forward into the vision, the grassy plain over which they have been traveling suddenly disappears and they find themselves on a street corner in Paris. Presumably they passed through another point of contact between the two planes and were thereby turned back into the familiar world. But they are unable to reverse the procedures and return to guide the others back. The narrator winds up the story by mentioning how Pretloe has taken to "studying his physics all over again" and is experimenting in an attempt to find a way to return to the colony. He adds that if Pretloe succeeds in going back he intends to go go with him. For he admits that, secretly, he wishes he were back in the adventure "with its ludicrous details and its heroic outlines." To which this reviewer can only add that he, too, would have liked to have known more of how the colonists fared. THE SHIP THAT TURNED ASIDE has in its plot the meat for a very long novel. But though Wertenbaker has given us here only a short story, in which many interesting points have been treated sketchily, this has not kept him from telling the story quite effectively. His style here is brief and economical, one in which even a passing phrase or sentence may, by implication, convey a great deal. ELAINE'S TOMB -- Amazing Stories Quarterly, Vol.4, No.1 (Winter 1930, or 1931, depending on whether you judge by the contents page or the cover.) This is a sentimental little tale of how a different young professor of chemistry fell in love with one fo his students, and of how the lovers were eventually united, but not until both had died, subsequently to be restored to life in the distance future. The bashful professor didn't quite succeed in summoning the courage to declare his love to the lady before he went off on the fateful expedition to Egypt with a colleague who had discovered the records of a hitherto unknown civilization in that land. The latter in his translation of the papyri of the long-dead people had found them to have been very adept at chemistry, whereby they were possessed of a remarkable method of preserving the body in a state of death, but without damage to its physical structure. The manuscripts reveal the details of the treatment and further hint that is may even be undone and the body restored to life. While exploring the temples of these ancient people the professor falls fatally ill, (the w.k. "curse of the tomb") and at the moment of death his companion administers the preservative to him, in the belief that eh will subsequently be able to undo it and restore the professor both to life and to health. It is a very long time, however, before the professor is brought back to the land of the living. He is awakened into an anomalous world, one in which the sun has grown cooler and North America is shrouded in ice, but in which the equatorial regions are inhabited by men who still speak English. It cannot be said how long he has slept, for the strange people who awaken him attach little significance to the page 7