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Dream Quest, v. 1, issue 1, July 1947
Page 41
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DREAM QUEST 41 psychological terms, technical sections, and so on, which would be absolutely incomprehensible to the reader who is accustomed to sagas in which the barrelchestpeabrained hero rescues the gorgeous damsel from the drooling, mad Blatant Beast by means of popping rayguns and the like. Their exposure to a yarn like THE KINGDOM OF THE BLIND we do not believe will raise the circulation of STARTLING STORIES any, unfortunate as that fact may be. But, after all, this department is not for the benefit of the average reader. We can safely state that any fan reading TKOTB will find it worthy of a place high in his estimation; just as high as the current output of ASF, if not higher. Congratulations to Merwin for having the guts to print it! Frankly, we were astonished out of our wits. We still are. Read it and see if you aren't too. Now to the shorts. The first is entitled THE RING BONANZA and is authored by none other than good old Otto Binder -- writing under his own name now, having dropped the brotherly association of Eando. Apparently he has decided to take a holiday from the comic books, or at least let his old fans know that he isn't dead. We wish the comic books for which he draws were all dead. Then this creator of such things as AFTER AN AGE and VASSALS OF THE MASTER WORLD would return to the fold. However, at least this is something -- we sincerely hope that it is the beginning of the Binder renaissance...and re the story itself, it is a neatly-done, if not overly sensational, little tale of how an honest ring prospector was victorious over his crooked opponent. They were prospecting in the rings of Saturn, incidentally. The honest guy found a hunk of gold, which the crook promptly stole from him. They could get away with it, out there, because there were no witnesses and hence a complaint from the person from whom the goods were stolen had no value. Tale tells how good luck gave the eventual victory to the honest man, as is always the case...and the hall of fame story continues to testify that the axiom mentioned above, the hall of fame story is always the worst in the issue, is true. This one is "The Life Detour," by David H. Keller. The yarn is quite a bit like "Stenographer's Hands," in Avon Fantasy Reader, reviewed up above, although not quite so silly. Not quite. This one is about a city of the future which is divided into two sections, one for the ruling class and the other for the common crud. When a person in the lower section proves himself to be outstanding, he is invited to cross the Bridge and join the Elite. Our brave hero is summoned across; the achievement which makes him worthy is the fact that he has discovered a way to make heavy water cheaply. The idea that the rulers have is to introduce heavy water into the lower humans' water supply, hence killing them all off. They assume that the young scientist will not have enough imagination to see through their evil scheme. Matter of face, he doesn't -- but his sweetheart does. Together they proceed to conquer the elite's dirty plot. The young man switches the pipes so that the heavy water goes to the elite rather than to the herd; everybody is happy. Except, of course, the elite...this story demonstrates once again that the stf of the olden days wasn't half so good as our superior modern day product. Some of the old stories, like this one, are -------------------------- VOTE FOR THE FRISCON WHEN YOU GO TO THE PHILCON! GOLDEN GATE IN '48!!!
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DREAM QUEST 41 psychological terms, technical sections, and so on, which would be absolutely incomprehensible to the reader who is accustomed to sagas in which the barrelchestpeabrained hero rescues the gorgeous damsel from the drooling, mad Blatant Beast by means of popping rayguns and the like. Their exposure to a yarn like THE KINGDOM OF THE BLIND we do not believe will raise the circulation of STARTLING STORIES any, unfortunate as that fact may be. But, after all, this department is not for the benefit of the average reader. We can safely state that any fan reading TKOTB will find it worthy of a place high in his estimation; just as high as the current output of ASF, if not higher. Congratulations to Merwin for having the guts to print it! Frankly, we were astonished out of our wits. We still are. Read it and see if you aren't too. Now to the shorts. The first is entitled THE RING BONANZA and is authored by none other than good old Otto Binder -- writing under his own name now, having dropped the brotherly association of Eando. Apparently he has decided to take a holiday from the comic books, or at least let his old fans know that he isn't dead. We wish the comic books for which he draws were all dead. Then this creator of such things as AFTER AN AGE and VASSALS OF THE MASTER WORLD would return to the fold. However, at least this is something -- we sincerely hope that it is the beginning of the Binder renaissance...and re the story itself, it is a neatly-done, if not overly sensational, little tale of how an honest ring prospector was victorious over his crooked opponent. They were prospecting in the rings of Saturn, incidentally. The honest guy found a hunk of gold, which the crook promptly stole from him. They could get away with it, out there, because there were no witnesses and hence a complaint from the person from whom the goods were stolen had no value. Tale tells how good luck gave the eventual victory to the honest man, as is always the case...and the hall of fame story continues to testify that the axiom mentioned above, the hall of fame story is always the worst in the issue, is true. This one is "The Life Detour," by David H. Keller. The yarn is quite a bit like "Stenographer's Hands," in Avon Fantasy Reader, reviewed up above, although not quite so silly. Not quite. This one is about a city of the future which is divided into two sections, one for the ruling class and the other for the common crud. When a person in the lower section proves himself to be outstanding, he is invited to cross the Bridge and join the Elite. Our brave hero is summoned across; the achievement which makes him worthy is the fact that he has discovered a way to make heavy water cheaply. The idea that the rulers have is to introduce heavy water into the lower humans' water supply, hence killing them all off. They assume that the young scientist will not have enough imagination to see through their evil scheme. Matter of face, he doesn't -- but his sweetheart does. Together they proceed to conquer the elite's dirty plot. The young man switches the pipes so that the heavy water goes to the elite rather than to the herd; everybody is happy. Except, of course, the elite...this story demonstrates once again that the stf of the olden days wasn't half so good as our superior modern day product. Some of the old stories, like this one, are -------------------------- VOTE FOR THE FRISCON WHEN YOU GO TO THE PHILCON! GOLDEN GATE IN '48!!!
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