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Dream Quest, v. 1, issue 1, July 1947
Page 40
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DREAM QUEST 40 comment about the length of these prozine reviews, too)) With that out of the way, we shall get down to brass novels. ((Ackerman could have done better.)) THE KINGDOM OF THE BLIND concerns a physicist named James Forrest Carroll; his case is somewhat similar to that of Richard S. Shaver. Do not let that prejudice you against the story, however -- there is no Shaverism in here. The similarity lies in the fact that Carroll is the only man on Earth who knows of the existence of aliens who plan to conquer, and nobody will believe him. It seems that Carroll, along with all the other great physicists of the time, had been studying a queer phenomenon called the Lawson Radiation. Carroll -- and all the other physicists -- broke down the minute they began to approach a solution -- when they made important discoveries about the nature of the radiation, or its cause, something immediately caused their IQ's to slump from 180 down to the seventy level. ((No, they didn't enter fandom.)) Accompanying this drop in IQ is amnesia, which blocks out everything the scientists knew concerning the radiations, and a psychosis which will not allow them to think any about their work. Well, Carroll has a much more powerful brain than most of the others, which throws off the mental blanket; he recovers the memories which he lost, and he remembers that he had discovered that the Lawson radiations were caused by the waste from interstellar ships located in the direction of Arcturus, in Bootes. And Carroll's revelation of this truth brings about his immediate confinement to a bug hatch. From there on Carroll struggles, in a titanic one-man effort, to either convince his fellow humans of the truth of his accusations or to accomplish single-handed the defeat of the aliens (the ones which had been doing the interstellar traveling), who are trying to conquer or annihilate the earth. In the progress of his search he is aided by one of the alien women. Seems that the aliens had sent out their brain-patterns and put them in human bodies, attached to the original human brains -- that is, personality transference, with no surgery. In the end of this yarn -- how else could it be in a Thrilling Group magazine? -- he falls in love with, and marries, this girl -- seems that a continued life in a human body, coupled with a continued exposure to human biological urges, had sort of undermined her alien thought-patterns and substituted those of a normal human female, if you get what we mean. Anyway, be that as it may, you may rest assured that love interest does not occupy a very important place in this yarn which doubtless was intended for ASF and had a slight love interest revised into it when Smith decided to send it to SS instead. For the entire approach and tone of the yearn is that of an ASF tale rather than of the usual type of yarn published in SS -- at least until Merwin began to really take hold of get his present improvement campaign under way. We personally wonder how such a yarn as this got by the watchful eye of Margulies. For, if we are not mistaken, the general readership of STARTLING STORIES does not consist of the same group of people who are habitual fans of Astounding SCIENCE FICTION. This yarn is definitely for the latter group. There are --------------------------- QUEST WITH YOUR LETTERS, CONTRIBUTIONS OF MATERIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTIONS!
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DREAM QUEST 40 comment about the length of these prozine reviews, too)) With that out of the way, we shall get down to brass novels. ((Ackerman could have done better.)) THE KINGDOM OF THE BLIND concerns a physicist named James Forrest Carroll; his case is somewhat similar to that of Richard S. Shaver. Do not let that prejudice you against the story, however -- there is no Shaverism in here. The similarity lies in the fact that Carroll is the only man on Earth who knows of the existence of aliens who plan to conquer, and nobody will believe him. It seems that Carroll, along with all the other great physicists of the time, had been studying a queer phenomenon called the Lawson Radiation. Carroll -- and all the other physicists -- broke down the minute they began to approach a solution -- when they made important discoveries about the nature of the radiation, or its cause, something immediately caused their IQ's to slump from 180 down to the seventy level. ((No, they didn't enter fandom.)) Accompanying this drop in IQ is amnesia, which blocks out everything the scientists knew concerning the radiations, and a psychosis which will not allow them to think any about their work. Well, Carroll has a much more powerful brain than most of the others, which throws off the mental blanket; he recovers the memories which he lost, and he remembers that he had discovered that the Lawson radiations were caused by the waste from interstellar ships located in the direction of Arcturus, in Bootes. And Carroll's revelation of this truth brings about his immediate confinement to a bug hatch. From there on Carroll struggles, in a titanic one-man effort, to either convince his fellow humans of the truth of his accusations or to accomplish single-handed the defeat of the aliens (the ones which had been doing the interstellar traveling), who are trying to conquer or annihilate the earth. In the progress of his search he is aided by one of the alien women. Seems that the aliens had sent out their brain-patterns and put them in human bodies, attached to the original human brains -- that is, personality transference, with no surgery. In the end of this yarn -- how else could it be in a Thrilling Group magazine? -- he falls in love with, and marries, this girl -- seems that a continued life in a human body, coupled with a continued exposure to human biological urges, had sort of undermined her alien thought-patterns and substituted those of a normal human female, if you get what we mean. Anyway, be that as it may, you may rest assured that love interest does not occupy a very important place in this yarn which doubtless was intended for ASF and had a slight love interest revised into it when Smith decided to send it to SS instead. For the entire approach and tone of the yearn is that of an ASF tale rather than of the usual type of yarn published in SS -- at least until Merwin began to really take hold of get his present improvement campaign under way. We personally wonder how such a yarn as this got by the watchful eye of Margulies. For, if we are not mistaken, the general readership of STARTLING STORIES does not consist of the same group of people who are habitual fans of Astounding SCIENCE FICTION. This yarn is definitely for the latter group. There are --------------------------- QUEST WITH YOUR LETTERS, CONTRIBUTIONS OF MATERIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTIONS!
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