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Dream Quest, v. 1, issue 1, July 1947

Page 31

DREAM QUEST  31
the weak wall by surgery in two alligators. Lo and behold, the sluggishness vanishes. Pretty soon, the things begin to show surprising changes -- eventually emerging as the dragons of legend. They begin to reproduce, and populate the world with giant dragons; the narrator is supposedly writing the yarn in the last refuge of mankind in the New York subways, the last few survivors of mankind. Although we thought that acquired characteristics weren't transmitted, ((Endore mentions this but passes over it lightly)) still the thing is reasonably convincing; we hope that amateur fan surgeons don't try experimenting on the Blatant Beast. Maybe, since he isn't a reptile ((no?)) it won't work...Robert E. Howard's MIRRORS OF TUZUN THUNE is the next inclusion, and, since most of you have probably read SKULL FACE AND OTHERS, in which the story appears, there is no point in reviewing it here; it isn't real Howard anyway, with philosophy and mysticism rather than bloody battles forming the background of the tale...the same goes for THE KING IN YELLOS's perenially-excerpted yarn, THE YELLOW SIGN. We assume that nearly all fen have read and dissected it before, and there is no point in rehash...the final inclusion is S. Fowler Wright's "Automata", a fancifully written tale of the age when the machine supersedes man as ruler of the earth. Fowler divided the thing into three parts. In Part One a professor is lecturing about the possibilities of machines eventually taking precedence over man. In Part Two, some ladies of the early Machine Culture, representatives of humanity at that time, are portrayed and pictured together with the culture of the time; finally the last survivor of mankind is written about, no more than a tiny facet of the Machine Civilization. We frankly do not know what to make of this one. We don't know whether is was jest or earnest, as Odd John says on his title page. At any rate, it should serve to dissuade the advocates of overmachineryizing mankind; some of the pictures Fowler paints are positively nauseating. We shall not criticize the unusualness of presentation; its departure from the usual adds interest. Let interested peoples find out for themselves. 

Now for the promised dissection of the new semiprozine as promised earlier in this review. ((Something wrong with that sentence...)) It is obvious to see that it is impossible to criticize this thing on a common basis with the prozines. It isn't a magazine at all, really; Wollheim dubs it a "periodic anthology". Be that as it may, the series of books all have the same title, and therefore at least in name they are magazines. There is no artwork, advertising, or any of the usual features of a pro. The cover is of the usual pro variety, however, and #2's is quite well done, color scheme being outstanding. We wonder who painted it. There are trimmed edges, naturally, and the covers are stiff. If this thing ever became popular it ought to be good -- for collectors it must really be wonderful, after struggling with ASF and its nearly annual changes of size, the pulps and their ragged edges, and so on. But, unfortunately, collectors are not the all of newsstand readers. And this may cause the downfall of AFR, much as it will be regretted. For one thing, the price is slightly fantastic; newsstand readers just aren't used to paying 35c for their

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DREAM QUEST 31 the weak wall by surgery in two alligators. Lo and behold, the sluggishness vanishes. Pretty soon, the things begin to show surprising changes -- eventually emerging as the dragons of legend. They begin to reproduce, and populate the world with giant dragons; the narrator is supposedly writing the yarn in the last refuge of mankind in the New York subways, the last few survivors of mankind. Although we thought that acquired characteristics weren't transmitted, ((Endore mentions this but passes over it lightly)) still the thing is reasonably convincing; we hope that amateur fan surgeons don't try experimenting on the Blatant Beast. Maybe, since he isn't a reptile ((no?)) it won't work...Robert E. Howard's MIRRORS OF TUZUN THUNE is the next inclusion, and, since most of you have probably read SKULL FACE AND OTHERS, in which the story appears, there is no point in reviewing it here; it isn't real Howard anyway, with philosophy and mysticism rather than bloody battles forming the background of the tale...the same goes for THE KING IN YELLOS's perenially-excerpted yarn, THE YELLOW SIGN. We assume that nearly all fen have read and dissected it before, and there is no point in rehash...the final inclusion is S. Fowler Wright's "Automata", a fancifully written tale of the age when the machine supersedes man as ruler of the earth. Fowler divided the thing into three parts. In Part One a professor is lecturing about the possibilities of machines eventually taking precedence over man. In Part Two, some ladies of the early Machine Culture, representatives of humanity at that time, are portrayed and pictured together with the culture of the time; finally the last survivor of mankind is written about, no more than a tiny facet of the Machine Civilization. We frankly do not know what to make of this one. We don't know whether is was jest or earnest, as Odd John says on his title page. At any rate, it should serve to dissuade the advocates of overmachineryizing mankind; some of the pictures Fowler paints are positively nauseating. We shall not criticize the unusualness of presentation; its departure from the usual adds interest. Let interested peoples find out for themselves. Now for the promised dissection of the new semiprozine as promised earlier in this review. ((Something wrong with that sentence...)) It is obvious to see that it is impossible to criticize this thing on a common basis with the prozines. It isn't a magazine at all, really; Wollheim dubs it a "periodic anthology". Be that as it may, the series of books all have the same title, and therefore at least in name they are magazines. There is no artwork, advertising, or any of the usual features of a pro. The cover is of the usual pro variety, however, and #2's is quite well done, color scheme being outstanding. We wonder who painted it. There are trimmed edges, naturally, and the covers are stiff. If this thing ever became popular it ought to be good -- for collectors it must really be wonderful, after struggling with ASF and its nearly annual changes of size, the pulps and their ragged edges, and so on. But, unfortunately, collectors are not the all of newsstand readers. And this may cause the downfall of AFR, much as it will be regretted. For one thing, the price is slightly fantastic; newsstand readers just aren't used to paying 35c for their SUBSCRIBE TO DREAM QUEST NOW