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Southern Star, v. 1, issue 3, August 1941
Page 19
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THE PREPOSTEROUS PROPHESYING OF TIM P O'NAUTISSHAN by JACK SPEER .Washington - -A MUTANT Article April 1, 1928 Dear Mr. Gernsback-- I know you to have been the founder of the first regular science fiction magazine, and at this time still its editor. I am therefore sending the enclosed manuscript to you. You may consider it for publication as fiction, but as a matter of fact, it is a brief history of the next twleve years. Yours, Tim P O'Nautisshan. June 2, 1928 Dear Mr. Nautisshan: I have read with much interest the manuscript you sent me, but for a number of reasons find it unsuitable for publication. I might say that I do not usually go into any great detail with the author concerning the reason for rejecting his story, unless there is a possibility of its being re-written to suit our requirements. However, for a new author you show definite promise, and I hope that you will try again with some other story. You show an unusual ability to string words together smoothly -- that is to say, you have a good writing style; and while this is not the most important thing in writing scientifiction, it is a big advantage. Your story also had an unusually strong effect of realism, perhaps because of your employment of irrelavant detail to give the tale substance a device employed by the immoral H. G. Wells and other well-known novelists. You seem to have gone to far in this direction, however, so that your story lacks unity. Also, the general subject matter of the manuscript is not exactly the kind of thing we publish. While it is true that most scientifiction tales take place in the future, the emphasis is upon the mechanical and social advances, rather than political and economic movements on which there is great disagreement. In the last page of your manuscript, you mention a derivative of Uranium which supposedly heralds the advent of atomic power, and you mention crude television broadcasting George VI's coronation. If you had developed these subjects here, the story would have been more in line with the type of fiction we print. However, the idea of atomic power and television are old ones now and probably their realization will come sooner than you expect. As it is, the only scientific advances that figure largely in your story are the tanks and bombers employed by the Germans, which are slight improvements upon the World War models. Your description of your ideas of future military tactics might conceivably be of interest to military men, except that any army man could see many flaws in the picture you present. For example, the thin line of German soldiers depicted on your map as stretching from Laon to Abberville would be utterly broken up in a day by the Allied armies on both sides of them, so that in stopping your story at this supposedly crucial point, you do not achieve the "Lady or the Tiger" effect which you apparently intended. This is entirely aside from the fact that France would never permit Germany to build up a new military machine, even if the highly successful German
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THE PREPOSTEROUS PROPHESYING OF TIM P O'NAUTISSHAN by JACK SPEER .Washington - -A MUTANT Article April 1, 1928 Dear Mr. Gernsback-- I know you to have been the founder of the first regular science fiction magazine, and at this time still its editor. I am therefore sending the enclosed manuscript to you. You may consider it for publication as fiction, but as a matter of fact, it is a brief history of the next twleve years. Yours, Tim P O'Nautisshan. June 2, 1928 Dear Mr. Nautisshan: I have read with much interest the manuscript you sent me, but for a number of reasons find it unsuitable for publication. I might say that I do not usually go into any great detail with the author concerning the reason for rejecting his story, unless there is a possibility of its being re-written to suit our requirements. However, for a new author you show definite promise, and I hope that you will try again with some other story. You show an unusual ability to string words together smoothly -- that is to say, you have a good writing style; and while this is not the most important thing in writing scientifiction, it is a big advantage. Your story also had an unusually strong effect of realism, perhaps because of your employment of irrelavant detail to give the tale substance a device employed by the immoral H. G. Wells and other well-known novelists. You seem to have gone to far in this direction, however, so that your story lacks unity. Also, the general subject matter of the manuscript is not exactly the kind of thing we publish. While it is true that most scientifiction tales take place in the future, the emphasis is upon the mechanical and social advances, rather than political and economic movements on which there is great disagreement. In the last page of your manuscript, you mention a derivative of Uranium which supposedly heralds the advent of atomic power, and you mention crude television broadcasting George VI's coronation. If you had developed these subjects here, the story would have been more in line with the type of fiction we print. However, the idea of atomic power and television are old ones now and probably their realization will come sooner than you expect. As it is, the only scientific advances that figure largely in your story are the tanks and bombers employed by the Germans, which are slight improvements upon the World War models. Your description of your ideas of future military tactics might conceivably be of interest to military men, except that any army man could see many flaws in the picture you present. For example, the thin line of German soldiers depicted on your map as stretching from Laon to Abberville would be utterly broken up in a day by the Allied armies on both sides of them, so that in stopping your story at this supposedly crucial point, you do not achieve the "Lady or the Tiger" effect which you apparently intended. This is entirely aside from the fact that France would never permit Germany to build up a new military machine, even if the highly successful German
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