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The Alchemist, v.1, issue 3, Summer 1940

Page 28

the surface of our sphere.
	Again unlike any other tales of racial disaster, no handsome hero appears on the scene, nor is the world saved at all. A reporter, his wife, Dr. Arnoldi, and a sharply vulgar-tongued Jewess, constitute the only persons which pass for main characters. They wander aimlessly throughout the book, and Dr. Arnoldi seems to be the only comparatively real thing in a completely unreal world. He merely sits placidly where he can, and thinks, making pseudo-sage observations from time to time. 
	The whole thing, as I remember it, is a hopeless jumble, and ends as if the author just got tired of writing and left it where it was. I'm afraid Imissed the point of the book altogether, if it ever had one. Nevertheless, it's anything but dull.

	Another piece of fantasy that is much better, and entirely different, and rarely, if ever mentioned, is Rudyard Kipling's THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD. This concerns reincarnation, and is the most masterfully told of any story o f this type that I have read.
	A young clerk has vivid dreams of his previous incarnations as a slave on a Greek galley, a Norse adventurer under Eric the Red, and several others, nearly always connected with the sea, about which he tells the writer. The writer (first person telling the story) is fascinated, and begins to piece together bits of unknown history from the young man's talk. The writer's only fear--as foretold by a Hindu mystic--is that the young man may fall in love, and have no more ancestral memories. The writer resorts to hypnotism, and is preparing to use a drug in an effort to obtain more and detailed information--from which he plans to write THE

Saving...

the surface of our sphere. Again unlike any other tales of racial disaster, no handsome hero appears on the scene, nor is the world saved at all. A reporter, his wife, Dr. Arnoldi, and a sharply vulgar-tongued Jewess, constitute the only persons which pass for main characters. They wander aimlessly throughout the book, and Dr. Arnoldi seems to be the only comparatively real thing in a completely unreal world. He merely sits placidly where he can, and thinks, making pseudo-sage observations from time to time. The whole thing, as I remember it, is a hopeless jumble, and ends as if the author just got tired of writing and left it where it was. I'm afraid Imissed the point of the book altogether, if it ever had one. Nevertheless, it's anything but dull. Another piece of fantasy that is much better, and entirely different, and rarely, if ever mentioned, is Rudyard Kipling's THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD. This concerns reincarnation, and is the most masterfully told of any story o f this type that I have read. A young clerk has vivid dreams of his previous incarnations as a slave on a Greek galley, a Norse adventurer under Eric the Red, and several others, nearly always connected with the sea, about which he tells the writer. The writer (first person telling the story) is fascinated, and begins to piece together bits of unknown history from the young man's talk. The writer's only fear--as foretold by a Hindu mystic--is that the young man may fall in love, and have no more ancestral memories. The writer resorts to hypnotism, and is preparing to use a drug in an effort to obtain more and detailed information--from which he plans to write THE