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Fantasy News, v. 3, issue 1, whole no. 53, June 25, 1939
31858063100923_017
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The White Elephant By Ross Rocklynne I STARTED reading science-fiction with "The Astouding Discoveries of Dr. Mentiroso", and today, eleven years later I find that I remember it no more for its great stories than for its bad. I was one of science-fiction's most avid critics: seldom an issue came out that I had a really good word go say about it. I was invariably disappointed, yet I hung around the newstands, even as you and you and you, waiting for the magic sight of a new AMAZING cover. I never wrote but a few letters to magazines. In one of them I am astounded to find out that I denounced the use of rocket ships, because it was hackneyed. Similarly, rays, unless carefully handled, were a source of irritation. I was never really cover-conscious, by the way, until a few years ago; nor did I pay much attention to interior illustrations. I always looked at the forecast for the next month first; then at the contents page; then read Discussions, very closely. After that I read, faithfully enough, what came with the forecast and the letters to the editor -- the stories. How very strange that the stories should actually be the secondary intereste. The item of most interest to me, for some reason, was the announcement of the forthcoming two - or three part serial. Remember how very long they were, and --- dare I say its ---un---for--mula---ized, and uncommercialized. Science-fiction was only one of my activities, but I had great burning desire to make other people see the worth of it. After a while, I learned that my enthusiasm was looked on askance. So I decided that one is born with the peculiar stuff that makes the science-fiction fan a science-fiction fan. One good story is enough to start him tmbling down tre grade. thus-pardon mw while I get bitter about it all --- fools are born, not made. I also had the belief that the stories should be beautiful, literary, should appeal subtly, achingly, to the emotions, Men should be men, and women should be women, and not melodramatic brains. The awesome, frightening grandeur of empty space should be portrayed as such. For that reason, the first science-fiction stories I ever wrote were oh, such lovely, unpublishable things. I never belived that the editors actually wanted the type of stories they published. So I tried to write stories so great that they would be on the lips of science-fiction readers for years to come. I never did quite realize that it didn't really matter to the true science-fiction fan wheter the stories were good, bad or indifferent -- he'd remember them anyway, because all the bad stories: all the bad illustrations; all the empty promises of the editors: all the silly letters; all the bad papers; all the scienctific errors; all the un-smcoth edges; and conversely, all the Edward Elmer Smith, Ph. D's; all the John W. Campbell, Jrs: all the David H. Keller, M.D's; all the Aladra Septamas (what happened to him); and all the Stephen Hales --- well, they, the good bad, and indifferent, were (and are) what constituted his mostalgic re-
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The White Elephant By Ross Rocklynne I STARTED reading science-fiction with "The Astouding Discoveries of Dr. Mentiroso", and today, eleven years later I find that I remember it no more for its great stories than for its bad. I was one of science-fiction's most avid critics: seldom an issue came out that I had a really good word go say about it. I was invariably disappointed, yet I hung around the newstands, even as you and you and you, waiting for the magic sight of a new AMAZING cover. I never wrote but a few letters to magazines. In one of them I am astounded to find out that I denounced the use of rocket ships, because it was hackneyed. Similarly, rays, unless carefully handled, were a source of irritation. I was never really cover-conscious, by the way, until a few years ago; nor did I pay much attention to interior illustrations. I always looked at the forecast for the next month first; then at the contents page; then read Discussions, very closely. After that I read, faithfully enough, what came with the forecast and the letters to the editor -- the stories. How very strange that the stories should actually be the secondary intereste. The item of most interest to me, for some reason, was the announcement of the forthcoming two - or three part serial. Remember how very long they were, and --- dare I say its ---un---for--mula---ized, and uncommercialized. Science-fiction was only one of my activities, but I had great burning desire to make other people see the worth of it. After a while, I learned that my enthusiasm was looked on askance. So I decided that one is born with the peculiar stuff that makes the science-fiction fan a science-fiction fan. One good story is enough to start him tmbling down tre grade. thus-pardon mw while I get bitter about it all --- fools are born, not made. I also had the belief that the stories should be beautiful, literary, should appeal subtly, achingly, to the emotions, Men should be men, and women should be women, and not melodramatic brains. The awesome, frightening grandeur of empty space should be portrayed as such. For that reason, the first science-fiction stories I ever wrote were oh, such lovely, unpublishable things. I never belived that the editors actually wanted the type of stories they published. So I tried to write stories so great that they would be on the lips of science-fiction readers for years to come. I never did quite realize that it didn't really matter to the true science-fiction fan wheter the stories were good, bad or indifferent -- he'd remember them anyway, because all the bad stories: all the bad illustrations; all the empty promises of the editors: all the silly letters; all the bad papers; all the scienctific errors; all the un-smcoth edges; and conversely, all the Edward Elmer Smith, Ph. D's; all the John W. Campbell, Jrs: all the David H. Keller, M.D's; all the Aladra Septamas (what happened to him); and all the Stephen Hales --- well, they, the good bad, and indifferent, were (and are) what constituted his mostalgic re-
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