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Fanfile, issue 1, February 1942

Page 2

Another play in Washington found us in a double role of a reporter questioning a scientist about his Mars bound rocket, and as a stowaway on that same rocket who is pitched out into space. If more than one installment had been given we were scheduled to return again as a Martian but we left town before then.

A trip to California, then, and soon after we read our only ASTOUNDING - "Fifth Dimension Tube" of Leinster alone remaining in our memory. AMAZING was a bit too austere under Dr. Sloane, but "Tomb of Time" and "Flame -Worms of Yokku" interested us, but the real prize was WONDER, in which Manning's "Man Who Awoke" went through various concepts of the future - all influenced, of course, by the new fad of Technocracy which was springing up. Then came the March, 1933, Long Beach earthquake and in the rush of events that followed soon after we had little time to read any science fiction at all.

Except for one or two mags in 1936 - WONDER'S, probably - we did no reading from 1933 to 1939 in sciencefiction. Somewhere along the line, however we did run across some copies of WEIRD TALES. One story was about Ascot Keene's adventures, while the only other two we remember were C.L. Moore's "Jirel" stories, which made cold shivers run down our spine.

But in late 1935, when we were a senior in High School, an idea began to percolate in our so-called mind about a fiction story for the daily paper there. The editor was not exactly adverse, but he insisted that the whole story be done before he started running it. But on the morning of December 30, 1935, the staff returning from Christmas vacation suddenly remembered that they hadn't done much work on the paper before leaving two weeks before! Huge blank spaces had to be filled that morning, and the first installment of "Vampires of Tycho" was tossed in to make up the difference - and only two more chapters were written. So from then until January 1936 - 23 installments later - we were seldom more than one chapter ahead of the deadline. Three of the schools best artists did illustrations and linoleum blocks for it and the sarcastic and defensive comment that flew about the paper's first serious serial was amazing. Cartoonists and humorists lampooned it and us, but all in all it was a definite success.

In 1939 we bought a copy of AMAZING for the allegedly "censored" radio script therein printed ("History in Reverse, Lee Laurence Oct. 1939), read that and "The Priestess Who Rebelled", and promptly forgot the whole thing. In the summer school of 1940 we ran a fifteen-part serial in which the detective hero used some scientifictional gadgets, but that was all.

Were we a fan - had we ever been a real fan? Nope. Had we ever read the letters in the mags - did we ever write the letter ourselves? Nope. For two reasons. In the first place, almost all the letters griped about something, and we didn't have anything to gripe about. The editors knew their business as far as we were concerned, and we let them do it without help of comment from us. In the second place we were lazy. Writing letters wasn't worth the effort. Ergo, no letters.

But the fates conspired. One evening in August, 1940, while passing a news stand, we noticed a large number of STF magazines prominently displayed. Unfortunately having some money to spare, we bought half a dozen. PLANET, SUPER SCIENCE STORIES, THRILLING WONDER, ASTONISHING, MARVEL, FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES.We took them all home, and plunged into reading them. To say we were delighted was to put it mildly. This stuff was practically literature after that we had read so many years ago! "Dimension Hazard" in SSS, "The Tomb of Time" in THRILLING WONDER (how unlike the previous story of that name) and the gripping "Ultimate Salient" in PLANET. Of all the mags I had there, PLANET seemed the most interesting. and near the back I found something which was to change my whole next year.

Saving...

Another play in Washington found us in a double role of a reporter questioning a scientist about his Mars bound rocket, and as a stowaway on that same rocket who is pitched out into space. If more than one installment had been given we were scheduled to return again as a Martian but we left town before then. A trip to California, then, and soon after we read our only ASTOUNDING - "Fifth Dimension Tube" of Leinster alone remaining in our memory. AMAZING was a bit too austere under Dr. Sloane, but "Tomb of Time" and "Flame -Worms of Yokku" interested us, but the real prize was WONDER, in which Manning's "Man Who Awoke" went through various concepts of the future - all influenced, of course, by the new fad of Technocracy which was springing up. Then came the March, 1933, Long Beach earthquake and in the rush of events that followed soon after we had little time to read any science fiction at all. Except for one or two mags in 1936 - WONDER'S, probably - we did no reading from 1933 to 1939 in sciencefiction. Somewhere along the line, however we did run across some copies of WEIRD TALES. One story was about Ascot Keene's adventures, while the only other two we remember were C.L. Moore's "Jirel" stories, which made cold shivers run down our spine. But in late 1935, when we were a senior in High School, an idea began to percolate in our so-called mind about a fiction story for the daily paper there. The editor was not exactly adverse, but he insisted that the whole story be done before he started running it. But on the morning of December 30, 1935, the staff returning from Christmas vacation suddenly remembered that they hadn't done much work on the paper before leaving two weeks before! Huge blank spaces had to be filled that morning, and the first installment of "Vampires of Tycho" was tossed in to make up the difference - and only two more chapters were written. So from then until January 1936 - 23 installments later - we were seldom more than one chapter ahead of the deadline. Three of the schools best artists did illustrations and linoleum blocks for it and the sarcastic and defensive comment that flew about the paper's first serious serial was amazing. Cartoonists and humorists lampooned it and us, but all in all it was a definite success. In 1939 we bought a copy of AMAZING for the allegedly "censored" radio script therein printed ("History in Reverse, Lee Laurence Oct. 1939), read that and "The Priestess Who Rebelled", and promptly forgot the whole thing. In the summer school of 1940 we ran a fifteen-part serial in which the detective hero used some scientifictional gadgets, but that was all. Were we a fan - had we ever been a real fan? Nope. Had we ever read the letters in the mags - did we ever write the letter ourselves? Nope. For two reasons. In the first place, almost all the letters griped about something, and we didn't have anything to gripe about. The editors knew their business as far as we were concerned, and we let them do it without help of comment from us. In the second place we were lazy. Writing letters wasn't worth the effort. Ergo, no letters. But the fates conspired. One evening in August, 1940, while passing a news stand, we noticed a large number of STF magazines prominently displayed. Unfortunately having some money to spare, we bought half a dozen. PLANET, SUPER SCIENCE STORIES, THRILLING WONDER, ASTONISHING, MARVEL, FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES.We took them all home, and plunged into reading them. To say we were delighted was to put it mildly. This stuff was practically literature after that we had read so many years ago! "Dimension Hazard" in SSS, "The Tomb of Time" in THRILLING WONDER (how unlike the previous story of that name) and the gripping "Ultimate Salient" in PLANET. Of all the mags I had there, PLANET seemed the most interesting. and near the back I found something which was to change my whole next year.