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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41627 ***
+
+                           FUTURIA FANTASIA
+
+                             Winter 1940
+
+                           By Ray Bradbury
+
+
+
+
+LAST ISSUE: We made a mistake that we will try not to repeat again very
+soon. We printed the editorial page three weeks ahead of the remainder
+of Futuria Fantasia, thereby creating no end of humorous confusion. We
+babbled glibly, in the editorial, about two or three yarns that we later
+decided were unprintable, and, at the same time, threw in some horrible
+mistakes in grammar that must have left Shakespeare doing nip-ups in his
+shroud.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THIS ISSUE; J. Harvey Haggard bows into what we hope will be a regular
+spotlight in Futuria Fantasia.... Emil Petaja, whose verses have
+appeared in Weird Tales, makes his self known with a neat little weird
+yarn and a poem.... Again H.V.B. comes to the fore with a sequel to THE
+GALAPURRED FORSENDYKE--THE VOICE OF SCARILIOP ... and, in case you have
+wondered about or will wonder about these two unusual yarns, we are
+printing them for no other reason than that we like their description,
+they tickle our mental palate, they are word pictures of surrealistic
+dreams ... and anyone who guesses who H.V.B is will get the next edition
+of Futuria Fantasia gratis.... Henry Hasse blows in and blows up with a
+rebuttle against Foo E. Onya and does himself right proud by
+science-fiction.... Ross Rocklynne, prominent Eastern schlameel, offers
+us a pitiful excuse for an article, HOW TO GET ABOUT.... Ron Reynolds,
+we have no doubt, will manage to get into the magazine somehow with his
+horrendous FIGHT OF THE GOOD SHIP CLARISSA, but if we can do anything at
+all we'll print it on invisible paper.... Anthony Corvais, if you start
+guessing who did it, wrote the short story in the rear by the title of
+THE SYMPHONIC ABDUCTION.... Hannes Bok, who has another cover on Weird
+Tales for March, has drawn our cover again and many inside
+illustrations, including a large advertisement for Hell, under which you
+will find a descriptive poem written by Guy Amory. Unlike Finlay, who
+draws pictures from poems, we procure pictures from Bok and write poems
+about them. In fact, I blushingly admit, I even wrote a ten thousand
+word novelette around that little creature on the cover of the first
+Futuria Fantasia ... which, no doubt, will have its share of rejections
+very soon, in which case I will foist on my poor unsuspecting public,
+both of them, this story now titled LORELEI. I would have included it in
+this issue, but Russell J. Hodgkins threatened me so venemously that I
+gave in told him to put down his gun. It might be a good idea, by the
+way, if more of you readers wrote us letters criticizing FuFa. So far we
+have heard nothing from Madle, Baltadonis, E.E. Smith, Kuslan,
+Marconette, Taurasi, Dikty, Wilson, or Speer. How in hell, we ask you
+guys, can we improve if you won't write in and tell us if and why we
+stink? Co-operation, please....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NEXT ISSUE: Robert A Heinlein, of the LA SFL, whose _noval_ is now
+current in Astounding, will begin the first of a series of short stories
+written on order for Futuria Fantasia. Ross Rocklynne, also, takes an
+encore with a thot-provoking, accent on provoking, story or article.
+Henry Hasse will be here in company with Ross Hodgkins. Hodgkins
+possibly writing on Technocracy. And, if schedules go through, an
+article to end all articles, by Charlie Hornig, fresh and sassay from
+New Yawk. Other possible bets are Fred Shroyer, Guy Amory, Anthony
+Corvais, Emil Petaja, Willy Ley, Doug Rogers, August Derleth, Ackerman
+and T. Bruce Yerke. Send your dime for the Spring Edition now--or a
+quarter for the Spring, Summer and Fall issues. Introduce FuFa to your
+friends and help us grow.
+
+
+
+
+THE VOICE OF SCARILIOP
+
+H. V. B.
+
+
+Four pillars, arising out of the stone like strange growing things of
+demoniac shape--these Redforth saw and comprehended, knowing full well
+that Tarath had always abounded in monstrosities. "But what," he asked
+himself, "will knowing of such as this, be of use to me, as I search for
+Ghiltharmie?" For he had at last come to realise, to admit even to
+himself, that he was a lost thing. The Yulphog had taken his soul. They
+had exiled him to this lost land of dread. But they'd hinted of escape,
+if he could find it. "Si Yamlon," he had told him, pointing to a
+writhing belt of suns, lifting and lowering at the horizon like the
+yellow crest of a flaming wave. And he had nodded his head. They had
+vanished, disintegrating, it seemed. He didn't then know that they were
+related to Topper's friends and the jeep in one thing: that their
+Typonisif and Tregoifer was applicable to the atmosphere.
+
+The four pillars were bending from their own weight. Strange
+colors--like an idiot's conception of a spectrum, spectrally rippled
+like irid waves across the columns. Like music in color. Assailed by
+their complex harmonies, Redforth could only stand speechless, hands
+thrust defensively forward. IT WAS THEN THAT HE SAW EIRY.
+
+The pillars split. From each of then drifted a whiff of steam. They
+united into a wavering cloud which shimmered an instant in mid-air, then
+settled to the ground. And as it touched the metallic grass blades which
+stretched on and on like the upraised swords of a midget army, the
+vapor-cloud condensed into a woman's body. EIRY. Queen of Scariliop!
+
+He recognized her at once, tho he had only read of her. She was not
+human. Her body was like a snake's, and she had bat wings. From a
+cluster of writhing worm-tentacles leered her face, like a mask in the
+heart of a seething flower. It was oval, and the scarlet mouth was like
+a velvet cushion--disproportionate--waiting for some priceless burden.
+Her nose was negligible, but her lone eye was vast and blue; like a
+doorway opening upon a sky too blue to belong to our world. Like blue
+incarnate: and blue is the color of MYSTERY.
+
+She opened her mouth, and her tongue unrolled, uncoiled toward Redforth.
+Three feet long, the tongue was filamental, like a strand of red cobweb,
+tipped by a touch of fluff like a dandelion's seed. This member wandered
+lightly over Redforth's cheek, and for the first time EIRY spoke: "It
+comes to me that here is the man for whom we have been seeking,
+Yasgorphitove." Her voice was soft as clouds. Redforth in vain peered to
+behold her companion. "Now shall we enlighten him as to the ways of
+escape? In return for a favor, of course."
+
+The air about her, for a fleeting instant, had turned blue. Then she
+nodded. She leaned forward, to whisper, but suddenly there was a
+crackling. "The rock!" she cried. "The rock! I must return before it is
+too late and I too am trapped!" She writhed, became coiling wreathes of
+smoke, and the smoke flowed back to the rocks, hovered over it. The four
+pillars quivered and joined into one and then, in a twinkling, had
+crumbled to powder.
+
+But there was an uncanny blueness in the air about Redforth. And that
+night he had a dreadful dream.
+
+For he had become--Yrthicaol! And EIRY had been merely--THE BAIT!
+
+
+
+
+AW G'WAN!
+
+_HENRY HASSE_
+
+
+THERE! If "Foo E. Onya", in the last issue, could use a pseudonym so can
+I. I read his article, I'M THROUGH, with varying degrees of interest. If
+an answer were really necessary, it could be found more appropriately in
+the two words of my title above, than in any words that might follow.
+And that brings up my first point in my rebuttal--
+
+Why is it that people, including the lowly science-fiction fan, (to
+paraphrase Mr. Onya) always feel it necessary to hide behind a pseudonym
+when they have something to say which they think will displease someone?
+I've seen this happen so many times! And, coincidently, why SHOULD Mr.
+Onya take such pains to be unpleasent in print? Why should he feel it
+necessary to make one final, grand broadcast to the effect that he will
+no longer read paltry science-fiction? Does he think that any real lover
+of sci-fic gives a damn whether there is one less reader, especially a
+reader who crawls behind such a silly pseudonym as "Onya"? I've seen
+other broadcasts such as Mr. Onya's, and they always puzzled me. It
+surely can be nothing else but the egotistical urge.
+
+But I'm convinced that Onya isn't half so bitter really against
+sci-fiction as he tries to pretend. He's not really through. Because
+anyone really bitter against and through with sci-fic would simply stop
+reading it, not start deriding it! And I doubt if any person, once a
+fan, has ever completely broken away from sci-fic, THEY ALWAYS COME
+BACK.
+
+And right here I'd like to say that a good deal of my doubt as to Onya's
+sincerity is because I'm fairly certain of the fellow's real identity.
+The general tone of his article, and several clues he divulged, convince
+me I'm right. And if I AM right, I can assure you, Brad, and any other
+readers who nay have been picqued at Onya's tone, that he shouldn't be
+taken seriously, and the less attention paid to his rantings, the
+better. I'm sure Onya would feel flattered if he thot someone took his
+article so seriously as to answer it. Yet here I am answering it, and
+damned if I know why, except that I think I took some of Mr. Onya's
+phrasing personally, almost. I don't think he should have gone to the
+extent of calling names and using words such as "moronic", "arrogant",
+etc.
+
+Aside from this his piece seemed to me a conglomeration of
+contradictions, inconsistencies, praises here, derisions there, pats on
+the back, exaggerations, sneers and scorn, and, oh yes, a book review.
+Yes, I liked and appreciated and mostly agreed with Onya's comments on
+BRAVE NEW WORLD. It's a book which I'm sure sure many of the _moronic_
+sci-fic fans appreciated as well as Mr, Onya. But here's where Mr.
+Onya's and my tastes differ slightly, for I _also_ liked PLANET OF THE
+KNOB HEADS in the Dec. issue of SCIENCE FICTION, whereas Mr. Onya
+probably wouldn't deign to read it because it's in one of the pulp mags.
+that he so deplores; thereby Mr. Onya would be missing a really
+entertaining and meaningful piece of writing, but that's all right,
+since Mr. Onya's own words said: "There is so much else of importance
+that has been written--".
+
+You know, somehow I cannot bring myself to be as vitriolic against Mr.
+Onya as he was against sfn at moments. He tried hard to work up a case
+against sfn, poor fellow, and became (to me at least) amusing instead of
+convincing. Do you know what I saw? I saw a person who is temporarily
+_satiated_, as he said, with sfn,--but more than that, a person who is
+merely trying to persuade _himself_, more than other people, that sfn is
+as bad as he painted it! Naturally every fan has his likes and dislikes
+of the various stories, authors and magazines. Some have more _dislikes_
+than likes. I think even I do. But it must be admitted that every once
+in a while, usually unexpectedly, there pops up a story which is a
+delectable gem and a masterpiece, either of ingenuity or writing or
+both. Then one is exultant, and one continues reading sfn, even some
+trite and bad sfn, knowing that regularly he will encounter one of the
+gems which he wouldn't have missed reading for the world! Meanwhile we
+have with us Clark Ashton Smith, C. L. Moore, Stanton Coblentz
+(delightful sometimes, not always), A. Merritt, and an occasional few
+others, whose work I doubt if even Mr. Onya could glibly pronounce as
+ordinary pulp. And we did have Lovecraft, Weinbaum, Howard, and others
+of whom the same thing can be said.
+
+Naturally, too, a lot of criticism can be directed against sfn and sfn
+readers. A lot of criticism can be directed against _everything_, and
+usually is, by certain people who take an unholy delight in it. I myself
+have sometimes snorted in wrath at the gross egotism and, yes, stupidity
+and childishness, of certain fans. I would have taken great delight in
+kicking their blooming teeth down their bloody well bally throats. But
+did I do this? Did I succumb to this desire? No, I did not. I never got
+close enough. A more important reason is that I had the patience to
+realize this type of fan is a minority (_not_ a majority, Mr. Onya, by
+any means!). But what I did _not_ do was write bitter articles about it.
+
+Here is only one of Mr. Onya's inconsistencies: he makes such
+statements as "fans are arrogant, blind, critically moronic", etc.--and
+"editors and writers as well cannot see anything beyond their own
+perverted models." In virtually the next breath he admires P. Schuyler
+Miller's intellectuality. Yet P. Schuyler Miller continues to write
+sfn, reads it, and is one of the active fans.
+
+Furthermore, I disagree outright and violently with Onya's statement,
+"When literature becomes possessed of _ideas as such_, it is no longer
+literature." And I'd like to challenge Onya to a further debate on this,
+if he _dares_. Also his statement about Wells' early stories. It so
+happens (what a coincidence!) that I also read Wells' EXPERIMENT IN
+AUTOBIOGRAPHY--and yes, while Wells did admit his early sfn stories were
+a preparation for his later and more serious writing, he did _not_
+disclaim them as not being literature of their own type. The trouble
+with Mr. Onya, I'm afraid, is that he has (deliberately?) lost sight of
+the fact that there is literature _and_ literature. Instead, he wants
+everything to conform precisely to his own rather peculiar conception of
+literature. I'll make a statement right here that will undoubtedly shock
+Mr. Onya: I'll go so far as to say that pulp fiction, even the pulpiest
+of pulp fiction, is really and truly LITERATURE, insofar as it has its
+own special niche, its own certain purpose for being. There, I've said
+it! I'll admit, Mr. Onya, that it took a little courage to say it. But I
+ask all who read this, isn't it true when you come to think of it?
+
+I have not dealt with Onya's article nearly to the extent that I might,
+but I don't think it's really necessary, mainly because, as I said, I
+have a very strong idea who Foo E. Onya is. I wish I could hazard my
+suspicion right here, but I'm so sure I'm right, and both the editor and
+Onya seem so determined to keep it secret, that I cannot be otherwise
+than silent. I will merely conclude by reiterating my doubt that you,
+"Foo E. Onya", are really disclaiming sfn. At least I hope you will
+continue both reading and writing it. But I swear, if I ever hear of you
+doing so, I shall feel sorely tempted to broadcast what a hypocrite you
+were with that article!
+
+
+
+
+THE FIGHT OF THE GOOD SHIP CLARISSA
+
+by one who should know better
+
+
+The space rocket Clarissa was nine days out from Venus. The members of
+the crew were also out for nine days. They were hunters, fearless
+expeditionists who bagged game in Venusian jungles. At the start of our
+story they are busy bagging their pants, not to forget their eyes. A
+sort of lull has fallen over the ship (Note: a lull is a time warp that
+frequently attacks rockets and seduces its members into a siesta). It
+was during this lull that Anthony Quelch sat sprawled at his typewriter
+looking as baggy as a bag of unripe grapefruit. ANTHONY QUELCH, the
+Cosmic Clamor Boy, with a face like turned linoleum on the third term,
+busy writing a book: "Fascism is Communism with a shave" for which he
+would receive 367 rubles, 10 pazinkas and incarceration in a cinema
+showing Gone With The Wind.
+
+The boys upstairs were throwing a party in the control room. They had
+been throwing the same party so long the party looked like a worn out
+first edition of a trapeze artist. There is doubt in our mind as to
+whether they were trying to break the party up or just do the morning
+mopping and break the lease simultaneously. Arms, legs and heads
+littered the deck. The boys, it seems, threw a party at the drop of a
+chin. Sort of a space cataclysm with rules and little regulation--kind
+of an atomic convulsion in the front parlor. The neighbors never
+complained. The neighbors were 450 million miles away. And the boys were
+tighter than a catsup bottle at lunch-time. The last time the captain
+had looked up the hatch and called to his kiddies in a gentle voice,
+"HELL!" the kiddies had thrown snowballs at him. The captain had
+vanished. Clever way they make these space bombs nowadays. A few minutes
+previous the boys had been tearing up old Amazings and throwing them at
+one another, but now they contented themselves with tearing up just the
+editors. Palmer was torn in half and he sat in a corner arguing with
+himself about rejecting a story for an hour before someone put him
+through an orange juice machine killing him. (Orange juice sorry, now?)
+
+And then they landed on Venus. How in heck they got back there so quick
+is a wonder of science, but there they were. "Come on, girls!" cried
+Quelch, "put on your shin guards, get out there and dig ditches for good
+old W.P.A. and the Rover Boys Academy, earth branch 27!"
+
+Out into the staggering rain they dashed. Five minutes later they came
+back in, gasping, reeling. They had forgotten their corsets! The
+Venusians closed in like a million land-lords. "Charge, men!" cried
+Quelch, running the other way. And then--BATTLE! "What a fight; folks,"
+cried Quelch. "Twenty thousand earth men against two Venusians! We're
+outnumbered, but we'll fight!" BLOOSH! "Correction--ten thousand men
+fighting!" KERBLOM! "One hundred men from earth left!" BOOM! "This is
+the last man speaking, folks! What a fight. I ain't had so much fun
+since--Help, someone just clipped my corset strings!" BWOM! "Someone
+just clipped me!"
+
+The field was silent. The ship lay gleaming in the pink light of dawn
+that was just blooming over the mountains like a pale flower. The two
+Venusians stood weeping over the bodies of the Earthlings like onion
+peelers or two women in a bargain basement. One Venusian looked at the
+other Venusian, and in a high-pitched, hoarse, sad voice said: "Aye,
+aye, aye--THIS--HIT SHOODEN HEPPEN TO A DOG--NOT A DOIDY LEEDLE DOG!"
+And dawn came peacefully, like beer barrels, rolling.
+
+
+
+
+_The Intruder_
+
+_emil petaja_
+
+
+It was in San Francisco, on the walk above the sand and surf that
+pounded like the heart of the earth. There was wind, the sky and sea
+blended in a grey mist.
+
+I was sitting on a stone bench watching a faint hint of distant smoke,
+wondering what ship it was and from what far port.
+
+Mine was a pleasent wind--loneliness. So when he came, wrapped in his
+great overcoat and muffler, hat pulled down, and sat on my bench I was
+about to rise and leave him. There were other benches, and I was not in
+the mood for idle gossip about Hitler and taxes.
+
+"Don't go. Please." His plea was authentic.
+
+"I must get back to my shop," I said.
+
+"Surely you can spare a moment." I could not even to begin to place the
+accent in his voice. Low as a whisper, tense. His deep-set eyes held
+me ... his face was pale and had a serenity born of suffering. A placcid
+face, not given to emotional betrayels, yet mystical. I sat down again.
+Here was someone bewilderingly strange. Someone I wouldn't soon forget.
+He moved a hand toward me, as tho to hold me from going, and I saw with
+mild curiosity that he wore heavy gloves, like mittens.
+
+"I am not well. I ... I must not be out in the damp air," I said. "But
+today I just had to go out and walk. I had to."
+
+"I can understand." I warmed to the wave of aloneness that lay in his
+words. "I too have been ill. I know you, Otis Marlin. I have visited
+your shop off Market Street. You are not rich, but the feel of the
+covers on a fine book between your hands suffices. Am I right?"
+
+I nodded, "But how...."
+
+"You have tried writing, but have had no success. Alone in the world,
+your loneliness has much a family man, harassed might envy."
+
+"That's true," I admitted, wondering if he could be a seer, a fake
+mystic bent on arousing in me an interest in spiritism favorable to his
+pocket-book. His next words were a little amused, but he didn't smile.
+
+"No, I'm not a psychic--in the ordinary sense, I've visited your shop. I
+was there only yesterday," he said. And I remembered him. In returning
+from my lunch I had met him coming out of my humble place of business.
+One glimpse into those brooding eyes was not a thing to soon forget, and
+I recalled pausing to watch his stiff-legged progress down the street
+and around the corner.
+
+There was now a pause, while I watched leaves scuttling along the oiled
+walk in the growling wind. Then a sound like a sigh came from my
+companion. It seemed to me that the wind and the sea spoke loudly of a
+sudden, as tho approaching some dire climax. The sea wind chilled me as
+it had not before, I wanted to leave.
+
+"Dare I tell you? DARE I!" His white face turned upward. It was as
+though he questioned some spirit in the winds.
+
+I was silent; curious, yet fearful of what it might be he might not be
+allowed to tell me. The winds were portentously still.
+
+"Were you ever told, as a child, that you must not attempt to count the
+stars in the sky at night--that if you did you might _lose your mind_?"
+
+"Why, yes. I believe I've heard that old superstition. Very reasonable,
+I believe; based on the assumption that the task would be too great for
+one brain. I...."
+
+"I suppose it never occurred to you," he interrupted, "that this
+superstition might hold even more truth than that, truth as malignant as
+it is vast. Perhaps the cosmos hold secrets beyond comprehension of man;
+and what is your assurance that these secrets are beneficent and kind?
+Is nature rather not terrible, than kind? In the stars are
+patterns--designs which if read, might lure the intrepid miserable one
+who reads them out of earth and beyond ... beyond, to immeasurable
+evil.... Do you understand what I am saying?" His voice quivered
+metallically, was vibrant with emotion.
+
+I tried to smile, but managed only a sickly grin. "I understand you,
+sir, but I am not in the habit of accepting nebulous theories such as
+that without any shred of evidence."
+
+"There is, sad to say, only too much evidence. But do you believe that
+men have _lost their minds_ from incessant study of the stars?"
+
+"Perhaps some have, I don't know," I returned. "But in the South of this
+state in one of the country's leading observatories, I have a friend who
+is famous as an astronomer. He is as sane as you or I. If not saner." I
+tacked the last sentence on with significant emphasis.
+
+The fellow was muttering something into his muffler, and I fancied I
+caught the words "danger ..." and "fools ..." We were silent again. Low
+dark clouds fled over the roaring sea and the gloom intensified.
+
+Presently, in his clipt speech, the stranger said, "Do you believe that
+life exists on other planets, other stars? Have you ever wondered what
+kind of life might inhabit the other stars in this solar system, and
+those beyond it?" His eyes were near mine as he spoke, and they
+bewitched me. There was something in them, something intangible and
+awful. I sensed that he was questioning me idly, as an outlander might
+be questioned about things with which the asker is familiar, as I might
+ask a New Yorker, "What do you think of the Golden Gate Bridge?"
+
+"I wouldn't attempt to guess, to describe, for instance, a Martian man,"
+I said. "Yet I read with interest various guesses by writers of
+fiction." I was striving to maintain a mood of lightness and ease, but
+inwardly I felt a bitter cold, as one on the rim of a nightmare. I
+suddenly realized, with childish fear, that night was falling.
+
+"Writers of fiction! And what if they were to _guess too well_? What
+then? Is it safe for them to have full rein over their imaginations?
+Like the star-gazers...." I said nothing, but smiled.
+
+"Perhaps, man, there have been those whose minds were acute beyond most
+earthly minds--those who have guessed too closely to truth. Perhaps
+_those who are Beyond_ are not yet ready to make themselves known to
+Earthlings? And maybe THEY, are annoyed with the puny publicity they
+receive from imaginative writers.... Ask yourself, _what is
+imagination_? Are earth-minds capable of conceiving that which is not
+and has never been; or is this imagination merely a deeper insight
+into worlds you know not of, worlds glimpsed dimly in the throes of
+dream? And whence come these dreams? Tell me, have you ever awakened
+from a dream with the sinister feeling that all was not well
+inside your mind?--that while you, the real you, were away in
+Limbo--_someone_--some_thing_ was probing in your mind, invading it and
+reading it. Might not THEY leave behind them in departure shadowy
+trailings of _their_ own minds?"
+
+Now I was indeed speechless. For a strange nothing had started my
+neck-hairs to prickling. Authors who might have guessed too well....
+Two, no three, writers whose stories had hinted at inconceivable yet
+inevitable dooms; writers I had known; had recently died, by accident.
+
+"What of old legends? Of the serpent who shall one day devour the sun.
+That legend dates back to Mu and Atlantis. Who, man, was and is Satan?
+Christ? And Jehovah? benevolent and all-saving, were but a monstrous
+jest fostered by THEY to keep man blindly content, and keep him divided
+among himself so that he strove not to unravel the stars?"
+
+"Man, in my foolish youth I studied by candleflame secrets that would
+scorch your very soul. Of women who with their own bare hands have
+strangled the children they bore so that the world might not know....
+Disease and sickness at which physicians throw up their hands in
+helpless bafflement. When strong men tear at their limbs and heads and
+agony--seeking to drive forth alien forces that have netted themselves
+into their bodies. I need scarcely recount them all, each with its own
+abominable significance. It is THEM. Who are eternal and nameless, who
+send their scouts down to test earth-man. Don't you realize that they
+have watched man creep out of primal slimes, take limbs and shamble, and
+finally walk? And that they are waiting, biding their time...." I
+shivered with a fear beyond name. I tried to laugh and could not. Then,
+bold with stark horror, I shouted quite loudly: "How do you know this?
+Are you one of THEM?" He shook his head violently. "No, no!" I made as
+to go, feeling an aching horror within me.
+
+"Stay only a moment more, man. I will have pity on you and will not tell
+you all. I will not describe _them_. And I will not assay that which,
+when upon first seeing you here by the sea, _I first intended_...." I
+listened. Not daring to look at him; as in the grip of daemonaic dream.
+My fingers clutched at the edges of the bench so tightly that I have
+been unable to write with them until now. He concluded thus:
+
+"So you see that I am everywhere a worldless alien. Sometimes this
+secret is too great for one mind to contain, and I must talk. I must
+feel the presence of someone human near me, else I shall attempt to
+commit suicide and again fail. It is without end--my horror. Have pity
+on me, man of earth, as I have had pity on you."
+
+It was then that I gripped him by the shoulders and looked with pleading
+desperation into his staring eyes. "Why have you told me? What--" My
+voice broke. My hands fell to my sides. I shuddered.
+
+He understood. Shrieked one word: "PITY!" into my insensible ear, and
+was gone.
+
+That was 3 nites ago and each nite since has been hell. I cannot
+remember how long it was after the STRANGER left that I found myself
+able to move, to rise, hobble home, suddenly ancient with knowledge. And
+I cannot--WILL NOT--reveal to you all that I heard.
+
+I thot myself insane, but after an examination, a physician pronounced
+me that I had been strained mentally. I am competent. But I wonder if he
+is wrong.
+
+I view the silken stars tonight with loathing. HE sought to master their
+inscrutable secret meaning, and succeeded. He imagined, he dreamed; and
+he fed his sleep with potions, so that he might learn where his mind
+might be during sleep, and himself probe into the mind that wandered
+from space into his resting body-shell. I am no scientist, no
+bio-chemist, so I learned little of his methods. Only that he did
+succeed in removing his mind from Earth, and soaring to some remote
+world over and beyond this universe--where THEY dwell. And THEY knew him
+to be a mind of Earth, he told me. He but hinted of the evil he beheld,
+so potent with dread that it shattered his mind. And THEY cured him, and
+sent him back to earth.... "They are waiting!" he shrieked, in his
+grating skeleton of a voice. "They are contemptuous of man and his
+feeble colonies. But they fear that some day, like an overgrown idiot
+child, he may do them harm. But before this time--when Man has
+progressed into a ripeness--THEY will descend! Then they will come in
+hordes to exploit the world as THEY did before!"
+
+Of his return, and his assuming the role of a man, the Alien spoke
+evasively. It was to be assurred that this talk of his was not some
+repulsive caprice; to know that all of it was true, that I gripped him
+and beheld him. To my everlasting horror, I must know. Little in itself,
+what I saw, but sufficient to cause me to sink down on the stone bench
+in a convulsive huddle of fear. Never again in life can I tear this
+clutching terror from my soul. Only this: That when I looked into his
+staring eyes in the dimness of murky twilight, and before he understood
+and quickly avaunted, I glimpsed with astoundment and repugnance that
+between the muffling of his coat and black scarf _the INTRUDER wore a
+meticulously painted metal mask--to hide what I must not see_....
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+ASPHODEL:
+
+by E. T. PINE
+
+
+    Down where skies are always dark,
+    Where is ever heard the bark
+    Of monstrous ebon hounds of hell,
+    In a dreadful fearsome knell,
+    Never fading, ever bright,
+    With a weird and spectral light,
+    Blooms a flower of ancient days,
+    Shining in a crimson maze;
+    When the black bat shrilly screams
+    Asphodel, you haunt my dreams--
+
+    From the lands of distant death
+    Steals the perfume of your breath:
+
+    Some night soon the wind will blow
+    Saffron seeds to fall and grow
+    By my casement window, where,
+    Sleeps my loved one, still and fair;
+    Then, the night you are to bloom
+    I shall creep from out my room,
+    From your blossom by the wall
+    Shall I hear her dear voice call:
+    Mournfully the wind will cry,
+    And shadows cover all the sky--
+    My lips will touch the loved dead
+    When where you nod I lay my head....
+
+
+
+
+MARMOK
+
+by Emil Pataja
+
+
+    Sleep that doth harbour a dream of dread,
+    Whence come the fingers that beckoned and led
+    My dream-stung soul from my canopied bed--
+    Whither dost take me, ere I am dead?
+    Beyond the skull-grinning mid-March moon
+    Over the phosphorous-lit lagoon
+    Out past the darkest pits of the night,
+    Fast thru the stars in this evil flight;
+    Lead thee me out past the rim of space,
+    Show me that ravenous, pain-black face,
+    Marmok, whose myrmidons ever are questing
+    For souls who wander at nite, unresting.
+    Then shall I know an ultimate bliss
+    Tasting the fury of that cosmic kiss,
+    Whilst my earth-cloak lies limply on the floor
+    To waken and gibber forevermore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What is the dim monstrosity that shimmers across the stars, what hand is
+that to cradle planets, earth and mars. What misshapen gargantuan of
+nebulous formed flesh, hurls out its flood of darkness, the systems to
+enmesh. What is it walks across the universes chanting cosmic choruses
+with endless verses--what thing unutterable has visited our Earth long
+years ago, and now, tonite, returns, in the shadows lurking glow. What
+ancient fear is with me, cold and terrible? Is that the shape of man
+upon the constellations, blotting out the light--or something gasping in
+hideous delight, plucking at the planets in insanity, at play, causing
+suns to boil like cauldrons, meteors to sing upon their way with
+mournful voices, lost ghosts upon lonely trails--wailing--wailing. Is
+tonight our rendezvous with the Cosmos Thing, the Colossus bigger than
+Andromeda that sits upon the throne of space--or are these fantasies
+upon my aged eyes?
+
+
+
+
+HADES
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+    Upon the shores of molten seas stand men, stand men alone,
+
+    And down below, in the molten flow, in the waves that cry and moan
+
+    Are women bare with flaming hair, whose passions have no surcease.
+
+    And in the air, midst the scarlet glare, are more who will never
+    know Peace.
+
+
+
+
+THE BEST WAYS TO GET AROUND
+
+
+I don't mean socially; I mean off the Earth and between the planets.
+There are a few really good ways, as invented by perspiring authors in
+science-fiction magazines. And if I miss any, which is extremely
+doubtful, remember that I'm writting from memory, that I hadn't read
+_all_ the scientifiction magazines from 1926 and on, and that I am not
+going to go researching through the tremendous stacks of old
+scientifiction magazines that I now have in my possession.
+
+Now, what DO I mean by THE BEST WAYS TO GET AROUND? Briefly, by the word
+BEST, I mean so pseudo-logical that you could almost leave off the
+"pseudo". See? (No)
+
+For instance, Jack Williamson's geodesic machinery, wherein he warps
+space around, appeals to me as being pure fairy tale stuff. He just
+gives a lot of verbal hocus-pocus, and runs off reams of litterary
+fertilizer until we throw up our hands in disgust and say; "O.K., O.K.,
+Jack, to hell with that, let's get on with the 'story'. We'll grant you
+that you _can_ get around."--And we're willing to grant E.E. Smith the
+same privilege. He _DOES_ get around--anybody disagree? The question is;
+how? Oh, by useing "X", and the inertialess drive. The same with brother
+Burroughs. What do we care if dear old John Carter "yearns" himself to
+Mars? He gets there, and we are happy, or were happy.
+
+So, we exclude all those from THE BEST WAYS TO GET AROUND. They are very
+nice and convenient to get people places; but, when we run across one of
+the "BEST WAYS" we often wonder if it REALLY WOULDN'T be possible,
+provided----. Of course, that word "provided" is the catch--the reason
+why we really aren't going around that way.
+
+Again--So, way back there, Edmond Hamilton, and a hundred others, have
+used the idea of _light-preasure_ in an attempt to get away from
+rockets. But he didn't tell us how, scientifictionaly. In direct
+contrast to vauge statements made regarding the use of _light-preasure_
+as propulsion, I remember the MOON CONQUORS, by R.H. Romans, in a 1931
+(I think) (You're right, 4SJ) quarterly. You've seen radiometers. The
+things with black and white vanes placed in a vacuum. The theory is that
+the opposite shades cause unbalanced light preasure, so that the vanes
+go around and around. Romans invented a pseudo-scientifically logical
+way to use _light-preasure_, once he got his ship in space. His
+scientist invented a compound of _absolute black_. (Which is also
+obtainable in a darkroom) A small square of darkroom--or, I mean,
+absolute black painted on the posterior of the ship, and regulated at
+will, gave the same ship quite respectable speeds. Certainly it won't
+work outside of a story--but, I'm talking scientifictionally. Romans
+used his imagination, and we all had fun.
+
+In the same story, Romans used a swell device to get the ship off the
+earth. He used a mile-long tube, composed of circular magnets. It was a
+_magnetic gun_. Each magnet pulled the ship towards it, and then, as the
+ship passed it, the magnet's poles were reversed, and made to repel the
+ship. With each magnet at maximum charge, either pulling or pushing the
+ship, according to whether it was in front or behind the latter, the
+same erupted from the tube with the necessary 7 M.P.S. velocity of
+escape, and so was off on the way to the moon. What's wrong with the
+idea? I dunno.
+
+John W. Campell (Jr.) used to have brainstorms: in fact, he invented
+_two_ of THE BEST WAYS TO GET AROUND. One, in the first of the ARCOT,
+MOREY, and WADE stories, "PIRACY PREFERRED", was that of molecular
+motion. All the little molecules in a bar of metal go madly around in
+every possible direction. If you could invent, as Campbell did in the
+story, an electro-magnetic vibration that would force all the mollecules
+to go in the same direction, then the bar of metals would go in that
+direction, since it would be them. So Mr. Campbell hooked the thing up
+to his ship, and off he went to Venus, or some other planet. Well, it
+_would_ work, wouldn't it, _provided_ (ah yes!) you could make all the
+mollecules go into one directional flow.
+
+And the other brainstorm was when Aarn Munro, in the MIGHTIEST MACHINE,
+decided that momentum and velocity were wave formations, and therefore,
+one should be able to _tune into them_! (Anyone should be able to think
+up a simple theory like that.) Not a bad WAY TO GET AROUND--in a
+science fiction story.
+
+Back in 1930, or some such year, Charles R. Tanner wrote THE FLIGHT OF
+THE MERCURY, in the old WONDER STORIES. In that story he told you just
+how to go ahead and make an ETHERPROPELLER, provided there is such a
+thing as ether, and Osmium B. The theory is: you use water screws, air
+propellers, and so why not an ether propeller? Put a cork in motionless
+water. Start a wave motion in the water with your hand. If the length of
+the wave is greater than the diameter of the cork, the cork just bobs up
+and down and stays where it is. If the lengths of the waves are shorter
+than the diameter of the cork, the waves go around it, and the cork still
+stays right where it is. If the length of the wave is exactly the
+diameter of the cork, tho cork rides right off, in the trough of the
+wave, at the same speed as that of the wave formation. Now invent an
+electro-magnetic vibration--by useing the metal Osmium B--exactly the
+length of a Copper atom. Make your ship of copper, putting the ether
+propeller, that which causes vibration in the ether, at the end of the
+ship, and presto! all the copper atoms move along in the trough of the
+ether waves, at the same speed as the other waves, which is the speed of
+light. And, Mr. Tanner is off for Mars, in a super-plausibly
+scientifictional way.
+
+HELL SHIP, in last year's ASTOUNDING, Arthur J. Burks put forth an idea
+which had been discussed by engineers before he had ever used It. They
+just didn't know how to do it. Mr. Burks did--didn't he write the story.
+At least, the idea gave him more earthly benifit than it gave the
+engineers. Maybe he thinks he invented it--I don't know, nor does it
+matter: He used it, the idea of gravatic lines of force, forming a
+spider web throughout the solar system. With the proper machinery,
+which he ascribed with good attention to detail, you could crawl up
+those lines of force like a spider. This idea is so plausable that it
+might be placed in the same catagory as rocket propulsion, which is
+fact.
+
+THE MOTH, in this year's ASTOUNDING, contains another of those ideas of
+interplanatary locomotion which I call one of THE BEST WAYS TO GET
+AROUND. Don't worry, I'm not pointing to myself with pride. I just wrote
+the story, Charles R. Tanner conceived the idea. He tossed it off
+paranthetically one night, and promptly forgot about it. The idea----If
+all objects are in motion, according to the Lorentz-Fitzgerald
+contraction theory, lose length in the direction of motion, why couldn't
+an artificialy produced cause instantaneous motion, why couldn't an
+artificialy produced contraction cause instantaneous motion,
+proportional to length-loss? Not a thing in the world against it, my
+friends, all you have to do is to find a way to cause the artificial
+contraction of the ship in question. Of course, in my story, I invented
+a force-field----very handy when you're in a tight spot!----which caused
+tho electrons to flatten out. This force acted on the ship and
+everything within. Therefore, any speed up to a little below that of
+light could be obtained, and that bogey man so often ignored in
+scientifiction, acceleration, was disposed of at the start, since there
+was nothing that had a tendancy to stay behind. There is the real
+inertialess drive, which E.E. Smith talked of, but never used.
+
+(Paranthetically: When Charles R. Tanner saw the story containing his
+idea in print, he became enthused, and promptly invented and named all
+machines used in the process, discovered a new and ultimate particle
+called the "graviton", that which makes the proton 1846 times heavier
+than the electron, and practically drew plans for the force field which
+caused the contraction. When he finished we knew exactly _how_ to obtain
+speeds far exceding both those of Smith and Campbell. Our inventions
+were plausable, and they'd work, provided----)
+
+I've just about reached the end of the list, though there are one or two
+others that might be mentioned right here at the tail end of the
+article. Jules Verne, I suppose, has to be credited with the first ship
+fired from a canon, in ONCE AROUND THE MOON. Wells takes the bow for
+gravity plates, which Willy Ley so neatly disposed of, only he called it
+"cavorite" in THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON., and Roy Cummings used it
+effectivly in AROUND THE UNIVERSE (and a hundred others). In a story in
+the old WONDER Donald Wolheim put his rocket ship on a huge wheel,
+rotated the wheel and flung it off into space. Fair, except that the
+acceleration would be killing.
+
+AND THAT'S ABSOLUTLY ALL THE BEST WAYS TO GET AROUND. Unless there are
+some of those which I haven't heard of. If you know of some, I would
+like to be enlightened.
+
+--ROSS ROCKYLYN
+
+
+
+
+--THE SYMPHONIC ABDUCTION--
+
+
+"I suppose you've heard about what happened to my brother Jerry?" Ray
+Spencer asked me; I shook my head. "The whole family was worried about
+him for a while: couldn't tell whether he had sleeping-sickness, or
+what. All we knew was that he'd gone coma listening to some phonograph
+records when he was alone in the house. Perhaps the intense emotional
+effect of the music, plus its stentor, was the cause.
+
+"When I returned home, he lay cold on the floor in front of the
+radio-phonograph. The automatic release had shut off the record, but the
+current was still on, and the volume dial was turned full strength.
+Nothing I could do would rouse my brother, so--scared--I put him to bed
+and called a doctor, who had him taken to a hospital for observation. No
+one could determine what was the trouble, and since we couldn't afford
+to keep him at the hospital indefinitely, we brought Jerry back home.
+And although it wasn't exactly appropriate, I couldn't help remembering
+the story of the Sleeping Beauty whenever I looked into his room and saw
+him, apparently only napping.
+
+"Then one day I heard him--still in his trance--whisperingly singing.
+The indistinct notes were reminiscent of one of Chaikovsky's ballet
+pieces. I tried vainly to wake him. He sighed on and on until the faint
+breath of a voice softened into silence....
+
+"When at last he did awake, I had been listening to some continental
+communiques in the adjoining room, with the door open so that I could
+look in on him in case of emergency. The program ended and was followed
+by concert music. I don't care much for symphony, so I arose and went to
+the radio to switch it off. At the same time, Jerry stirred: I heard his
+bed creak. Turning to look his way, I twisted the wrong dial, and the
+music thundered: my brother began to toss on his bed. Disregarding the
+racket for a moment in excitement at seeing him move, I ran in to him,
+shouting, shaking him a little. His hands groped, found mine, and clung
+to them. Painfully he endeavored to raise himself, dropped back
+perspiring and panting. Then he screamed--horribly!--as if all Hell's
+devils were shovelling all Hell's coals on him, and opened his eyes, his
+face taut with dread. He recognized me. In a moment I had soothed him
+back to normalcy. He was perfectly all right from then on.
+
+"Or at least we thought so. But since you're so interested in
+metaphysics, get him to tell you about the vision he had during his
+catalepsy. He won't feel embarrassed; he's told it to others. Just say
+that I mentioned it to you." Ray had finished. Later, when I chanced
+upon Jerry Spencer, I brot him up to my apartment for dinner. The meal
+over, he smiled at my query concerning his comatose dream, and related:
+
+"None in my family are as interested in music as I: my belief is that to
+realize its full magic you must leave off talking--better still, listen
+to it alone--and, closing your eyes, open your mind to it. Relax--forget
+yourself. All of my folks poke fun at me when I sit on the floor by the
+radio during the concert broadcasts, my ears close to the speaker. But
+that is the only way by which I can really enjoy music. The very
+loudness, blasting at my hearing, emphasizes the tone-magic,
+overwhelming everything else. And sometimes, if my eyes are shut, I can
+see fantastic dream worlds, fiery pageants inspired by thundrous
+harmonies.
+
+"I had never dared to turn on the amplifier as loud as I'd have wished.
+My family said that it would annoy the neighbors. So that day when I was
+alone at home, I thot that then was my chance, if ever, and proceeded
+to play my favorite record; the first scene of Chaikovsky's SWAN LAKE
+ballet, as loudly as possible. The sound was not so deafening
+as--maddening, or better still, intoxicating. How I Loved it! I sat
+cross-legged, eyes shut, dreaming, at last absolutely happy. More:
+ecstatic.
+
+"The first notes were like an invitation emanating from a lost
+dimension, calling me, wheedling. Promising haven, peace. The call of
+the unknown: not the lure of dashing adventure but of mystery, mournful
+sorcery, epic splendors....
+
+"Deep in my heart there's a sort of innate Slavic sadness which
+responded to the music's plaint, and my thought traveled with the melody
+effortlessly on and on. The warm darkness of my closed eyes lightened to
+infinities of cold, deep-blue emptiness, through which I felt myself
+gliding as the theme progressed.
+
+"Each harmonic burst, every wailing echo, dominated me. My thought was
+borne farther and farther like a leaf in a tempest.... There were base
+chords which made my throat quiver, and tears burned under my lowered
+eyelids. I felt a tingling at my shoulders, and with eyes still closed
+but discerning by a sort of dream-vision, I half-consciously turned,
+beheld luminous yellow--draperies?--fluttering behind me, bouying me:
+like scarf-wings, whipping comet-tails.
+
+"An instinctive transient fright gripped me, admonishing me to withdraw
+from this blue region into the calid darkness from which I had come--but
+the melody's urge was stronger than my feeble urge to retreat. The azure
+became flecked with diamond points of light which augmented into great
+white moons, and from one to another in a vast network rayed pulsing
+filaments, vascular channels of fluid light.
+
+"A stupendous chorus of clear unhuman voices, as from diamond throats,
+emanated from these linked moons, of which the music which had conveyed
+me was only a distorted, ghostly echo.... In tangible waves this greater
+music rippled around the webbed moons, beating against me as though to
+force me away on its tides I know not whither.
+
+"Beneath me was a limitless tract of grey slime which rose and fell
+torpidly as with the breathing of a somnolent subterranean thing. The
+moonlight burned brightly on it, and crawling across it from some remote
+place came--trees?--snaky-rooted things whose prehensile branches bore,
+instead of leaves, flexible lenses.... They left behind them red trails
+on the slime, and excrementory ribbons of thin blue vapor streamed from
+their topmost appendages. Occasionally they paused to feed, focussing
+their lenses upon the gelatinous ground, which became luminously white
+under the concentrated light. The sucking mouths of the serpentine roots
+absorbed this matter, and red viscosity seeped into the eaten places,
+greying rapidly under the moon's effulgence, chemically affected by it.
+
+"And the trees mated. Gynandrous, they converged in pairs or groups,
+pressing close together, thrusting their limbs into one enormous
+cluster, aggregating their lenses into a series of complex, compact
+forms ... shuddering with a violent ardor.... From erectile
+protuberances rimming the lenses ruby liquid spurted, bursting with
+incandescence under the condensed moonlight.
+
+"Spent, drooping, the trees separated, and the radiant orgasmic matter
+drifted lightly down to the slime, burning fitfully as the trees moved
+away indifferently.
+
+"Apparently these flickering radiances fed, for gradually they grew,
+dulling, becoming opaque, substantial----thrusting out probing roots,
+developing limbs, wandering like their parents. They snailed onward out
+of sight, all of them.
+
+"Silently, a phosphorescent green river raced like a bolt of furcate
+lightning over the green wastes. It was composed not of water but of
+myriad tiny luminous crawling insects. A conscious river, altering its
+tortuous course at will, small streams deviating from the main body and
+meandering erratically, then rejoining the general current. This river's
+end drew into sight, flashed under me and into the distance, leaving
+fast-greying red paths on the slime.
+
+"The moon's music assailed me; simultaneously I felt those man-measures,
+which had carried me so long, cease, leaving me without a link to my own
+world--helpless against the inexorable tide of the lunar melody, which,
+bursting more loudly, swept me higher, through an interstice of the
+circulatory web, into blue infinity. And there it left me; fading
+ripples of it would lap me, but were too dissapated then to sweep me
+farther.
+
+"I floated aimlessly in the void, it seemed for ages, less a body than a
+mind, aware of neither hunger nor thirst nor ill of any sort other than
+a dreadful sapping weariness.
+
+"There was no way of reckoning time, but after an eternity of loneliness
+and self-boredom, I heard a glissando of mellow tintinabulations. A
+troop of small stars flashed toward me like a scattered handful of
+sparkling white gems, whirling in interweaving dance of enchantment,
+tinkling glad clear tunes like the babbling of crystal brooks. The
+joyous, youthful essence of their song so charmed me that I forgot my
+weariness and vocally ventured to imitate it.
+
+"At last they broke their circle and swept away, single-file, out of
+sight, diminishing with distance.
+
+"For awhile I hummed their song, but with every repetition it lost some
+of its starry quality and gained a human-ness, earthiness,
+animalism--until it impressed me no longer beautiful, and I was
+silent.... Wearily the sluggish ages passed ... in the illimitable blue
+solitudes....
+
+"Eventually I heard the man-music, again like a summons--its vibrations
+piercing the moon-net, receding, drawing me with it. Its power increased
+with every unit of retregression, dragging me with it. Over the wastes
+of slime it dragged me, all in a fraction of seconds. Wind tore at me,
+racketing in my ears, drowning music of both moons and man.
+
+"In a flash of cataclysm, of cosmic pandemonium, the moons, jostled out
+of their places by my abrupt passage through the web, strained apart,
+snapping their pulsant filamental arteries. White, searing drops of
+blood of light oozed from the severed ducts, hissing as they fell, and
+splashed on the slime, which heaved torturedly. The crawling trees
+reared upon their writhing roots, flailing their lensed limbs, and the
+phosphorescent rivers halted suddenly, piling into swiftly
+disintegrating mounds.
+
+"The rain of light blood thinned and ceased: the moons dimmed and
+plunged earthward, lusterless. As they touched the tempestuously tossing
+slime, it shrieked stridently, deafeningly--_cosmically_! An outcry
+voicing all life's inherent dread of the horror of pain and death, which
+arose from all sides, like an auditory vise, tightening upon and
+crushing me. The blue chaos was wiped away by utter blackness; the
+shriek weakened, ceased.
+
+"I opened my eyes, shut them--dazzled by daylight, and opened them
+again, but cautiously. My brother Ray was standing over me, shaking me,
+calling my name ... AND IT WAS I WHO HAD SCREAMED!"
+
+
+
+
+as i remember----
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+As I remember, August Derleth wrote, a time back: "My personal favorite
+of the Lovecraft stories is THE RATS IN THE WALL, followed by DUNWICH
+HORROR, COLOUR OUT OF SPACE, THE OUTSIDER, WHISPERER IN DARKNESS." H.P.L.
+liked MUSIC OF ERICH ZANN as well as anything he did, COLOUR next.
+Donald Wandrei is busy in St. Paul writing plays and shorts. "My average
+day brings me anywhere from ten to fifty letters that must be answered."
+
+As I remember one night in Coney Island found seven strange looking
+fellows, fans and authors, crowded into a car for a posed picture. Ross
+Rocklynne, freshly freckled by a New Yawk sun, at the steering wheel,
+Jack Agnew at his side with Mark (I'm makin' my mark in pulps) Reinsburg
+and immediately in back of Rocklynne a fellow with too much hair, a tan
+that would make an Ethiopian blush, and teeth, Bradbury, augmented by
+the humorously verbose Erle Korshak, the professorly nice Bob Madle and
+one V. Kidwell. I recall also a night at Mort Weisinger's home during
+July with Rocklynne, Ackerman, Morojo, Hornig, Binder, Schwartz, Darrow
+and again Bradbury. A picture was taken that night and the only ones
+with decent smiles were Ackerman and the under-done personality who
+edits this magazine. Hornig looked strangely thoughtful with his hand to
+his chin, Mort had a cigarette drooping from his lip and Darrow,
+Schwartz and Binder all were lost in profound contemplation of the
+little birdie which Mort's brother held. I remember also a night on
+Central Park, a stag night, when it was raining convulsively and Binder,
+Bradbury, Hornig, Rocklynne and Darrow all clambered into a rocking boat
+and swished out onto the glittering water, yodeling popular tunes at the
+way-way top of their corny contraltos. Binder has a pleasing bath-tub
+baritone, while Hornig can imitate a frog at the drop of a body. Darrow
+was strangely silent, but that man Bradbury and Rocklynne set up such a
+howl that the Park authorities came out in a submarine, thinking that
+the Loch Ness monster had turned up again. This was all settled when
+someone pulled the plug and everyone drowned peacefully.
+
+Going way back in the cobwebs I seem to recall a letter arriving at an
+Eastern post-office addressed to Mars. It was returned marked:
+Insufficient Postage.
+
+As I remember Charlie Hornig wrote, on January 9th: "On Tuesday,
+February 20th, 1940, I'll be in Los Angeles. I will write for Futuria
+Fantasia, but my rates are 12 cents a word, before acceptance. I haven't
+seen GONE WITH THE WIND yet, but if I stop off to see it on the road,
+expect me two days later than heretofore planned. If I walk it, expect
+me at the city limits on the R car-line, Whittier, the same time of the
+morning, only about 18 months later. I'll bring my overcoat and shovel
+along for the annual sun showers and orange blizzards." And later, from
+Hornig: "I liked the latest issue of Futuria Fantasia very much,
+especially the page of conventional descriptions over which I laughed
+myself sick and silly. The note about Bradbury and the mask and the
+blonde in the Paramount is the funniest thing I've ever read in a
+fan-mag."
+
+I seem to remember being at someone's house not so long ago and glancing
+thru a thick manuscript under submission to John W. Campbell. I seen to
+remember that the author was Robert A. Heinlein, member of our LaSfl.
+And the other day that story popped up in Astounding as a Nova, "IF THIS
+GOES ON--" And it seems to me that here and now Bob should take a bow
+for a swell story. And thanks to Campbell for providing it with a Rogers
+cover and Rogers interiors. OMEGA----
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _COMING in MAY_
+
+    "DARKNESS AND DAWN"
+
+    FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES
+
+    MARCH
+
+    15¢
+
+    "BLIND SPOT"
+
+    THE IMMORTAL
+    HALL _and_ FLINT
+    FINLAY
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Futuria Fantasia, Winter 1940, by Ray Bradbury
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41627 ***