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Scientifictionist, v. 1, issue 4, April 1946

Page 17

to realize the implications of decentralization that were at least recognized in the City-Census and Baldy series; but they're a good deal prompter on that than the microcosmic authors were in realizing that the solar-system model of the atom was twenty years out of date.
I noted one prominent omission from Coslet's article this time; Donovan's Brain. Methinks that articles like this involve much more work, with less likelihood of being comprehensive, than they will after all stories have been arranged on a decimal classification. 
Not being an esthete, I can't criticize THE ART OF THE SUN properly, but I suspect that it's invalid as all get-out. It's certainly absurd to try to draw social significance out of Emily Dickinson's "I'm Nobody". What was Root driving at, anyhow, stated in simple terms? He seemed to be opposed to "the war in the cave" which has produced much of our greatest literature of the past, tremendous stories spun our of an author's intense acquaintance with his lonely secret self. He seems to find greatest value in immediate sense impressions and closely related feelings, such as empathy with the sturdiness of a bridge. But I'm inclined to think that the larger abstractions and nonapparent collectives are signs of greater minds. The "unity" that Root talks about, and which Whitman blatted for page after page, arouses a hostility in me. It is the basic ingredient of mysticism, the last unassailable fastness of unreason. 
KayMar says: "If the public didn't want them, how come they still buy 'em?" as if it were an answer to "Both Laney and Stadter seem to knock 'pulp'". It's not an answer at all. As intelligent people, the majority of us should be able to agree that soap operas stink; they may even be, as Wylie contends, pernicious. The fact that they're commercially profitable (quaere) doesn't keep them from stinking. "Give them what they want" is the ethic of either a decadent or a perfected culture. I submit that we are not the latter. --Jack Speer 4518 16th NE, Seattle 5, Washington.
On Space War
I fear the lead article, THE AMERICAN ROCKET SOCIETY didn't interest me as much as I thought it would. There seemed so little point to it. It didn't give a very good history of it or tell much of what it is doing now. It told fans they should be interested in the society, but not what to do. Except to write to the society and read books. It was vague as to what the society has done or is getting done. An article telling of experiments or plans and ideas would be an interesting follow up article. Stadter did a good job of telling what he did, though. I don't know how much he had to work with. If he didn't have much to go on, he did a masterful job.
As I haven't read WORLD OF A yet, I didn't get much out of the article by Bratton. It was well done, and fairly interesting.
POINT OF VIEW by Bridges was, for me, the most interesting thing in this issue. Only one thing; he couldn't have read an article by Willy Ley in ASF some years back. Tho he didn't go as far as to picture the battles, he did say some things rather interesting. One was that he did not think that rays would ever be used in space warfare. He told how much power would be needed to run a heat ray or a disintegrator. (And in another article Campbell said that a "Death Ray" wouldn't pass through the walls of a ship till it had eaten them away.) Ley said that even if a ray was built strong enough to burn through the walls of a ship, it couldn't do it in a second; and to hold a ray on one spot of a speeding ship for any length of time would prove almost impossible. He seemed to think that improved guns like we use today would be of better use. In fact he said that cannon would be better than a rocket gun. The reason being that a rocket gun and 100 shots (self-propelled rockets) would weigh (if I remember right) 1/5 more than a cannon and 100 shells. (Both shells and rockets carrying
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to realize the implications of decentralization that were at least recognized in the City-Census and Baldy series; but they're a good deal prompter on that than the microcosmic authors were in realizing that the solar-system model of the atom was twenty years out of date. I noted one prominent omission from Coslet's article this time; Donovan's Brain. Methinks that articles like this involve much more work, with less likelihood of being comprehensive, than they will after all stories have been arranged on a decimal classification. Not being an esthete, I can't criticize THE ART OF THE SUN properly, but I suspect that it's invalid as all get-out. It's certainly absurd to try to draw social significance out of Emily Dickinson's "I'm Nobody". What was Root driving at, anyhow, stated in simple terms? He seemed to be opposed to "the war in the cave" which has produced much of our greatest literature of the past, tremendous stories spun our of an author's intense acquaintance with his lonely secret self. He seems to find greatest value in immediate sense impressions and closely related feelings, such as empathy with the sturdiness of a bridge. But I'm inclined to think that the larger abstractions and nonapparent collectives are signs of greater minds. The "unity" that Root talks about, and which Whitman blatted for page after page, arouses a hostility in me. It is the basic ingredient of mysticism, the last unassailable fastness of unreason. KayMar says: "If the public didn't want them, how come they still buy 'em?" as if it were an answer to "Both Laney and Stadter seem to knock 'pulp'". It's not an answer at all. As intelligent people, the majority of us should be able to agree that soap operas stink; they may even be, as Wylie contends, pernicious. The fact that they're commercially profitable (quaere) doesn't keep them from stinking. "Give them what they want" is the ethic of either a decadent or a perfected culture. I submit that we are not the latter. --Jack Speer 4518 16th NE, Seattle 5, Washington. On Space War I fear the lead article, THE AMERICAN ROCKET SOCIETY didn't interest me as much as I thought it would. There seemed so little point to it. It didn't give a very good history of it or tell much of what it is doing now. It told fans they should be interested in the society, but not what to do. Except to write to the society and read books. It was vague as to what the society has done or is getting done. An article telling of experiments or plans and ideas would be an interesting follow up article. Stadter did a good job of telling what he did, though. I don't know how much he had to work with. If he didn't have much to go on, he did a masterful job. As I haven't read WORLD OF A yet, I didn't get much out of the article by Bratton. It was well done, and fairly interesting. POINT OF VIEW by Bridges was, for me, the most interesting thing in this issue. Only one thing; he couldn't have read an article by Willy Ley in ASF some years back. Tho he didn't go as far as to picture the battles, he did say some things rather interesting. One was that he did not think that rays would ever be used in space warfare. He told how much power would be needed to run a heat ray or a disintegrator. (And in another article Campbell said that a "Death Ray" wouldn't pass through the walls of a ship till it had eaten them away.) Ley said that even if a ray was built strong enough to burn through the walls of a ship, it couldn't do it in a second; and to hold a ray on one spot of a speeding ship for any length of time would prove almost impossible. He seemed to think that improved guns like we use today would be of better use. In fact he said that cannon would be better than a rocket gun. The reason being that a rocket gun and 100 shots (self-propelled rockets) would weigh (if I remember right) 1/5 more than a cannon and 100 shells. (Both shells and rockets carrying page 17