NEBULA SCIENCE FICTION
Guided Missives
Letters to the Editor
Eric Bentcliffe John Brunner Bob Bloch 1 Bob Bloch 2 Joan W. Carr Joy Clarke 1
Joy Clarke 2 J. Donaldson J. Curzon Peter Evans V. Leleux Jules Mocabee
L. D. Nicholls Alan Rispin Michael Sherry Barbara Spork Walt Willis S.Wright
First Issue - Autumn 1952
DEAR PETER: I've been hearing about Nebula for months now, and believe me its very good news. What s-f. needs in this country is new blood. The London people are all right, but they do tend to suffer from mental inbreeding. I doubt if they'd ever wake up without competition from someone with new ideas and a new approach. You look like providing that and I wish you the best of luck.
Sincerely,
Walter. (Walter A. Willis)
Thanks a lot Walter. I'll do my best to live up to your expectations.
Number 3 - Summer 1953
DEAR ED: I have read Nebula with interest and enjoyment but cannot too strongly endorse Lugos' letter in issue No.1. I regard letters to fiction magazines as a waste of space and money, so regret the mag is only worth 1/11. I do not want to meet other fans or know what they think of you, me, the stories, each other or the Universe. I am willing to pay 2/- for a good magazine, but want it full of meat, not mush. So abolish your Guided Missives.
V. Lelueux, A.C.W.A. Surrey
No comment.
Number 4 - Autumn 1953
DEAR ED: Thanks for being the only Editor who didn't mention the Coronation in your magazine. Both of the other two reputable British magazines mentioned the event and one gave a whole page to a pointless lecture on the Queen. I would like to point out to these people that they edit Science-Fiction rnagazines and at least one of their readers wants to read Science-Fiction or allied material between their covers.
MICHAEL SHERRY, GIASGOW.
Well . . .
Number 6 - December 1953
DEAR MR HAMILTON, There are few pleasures one has available here in Korea, and reading your excellent mag is one of the greatest. When in answer to an advertisement of Mr. Schmidt, I sent in my $1.50 for a 1-year subscription, I did so primarily out of curiosity, since I had never read any non-U.S. science fiction. When I received your issue 1 I was very disappointed. It appeared to me to be of the type of mag that represented the best in the U.S-about 12 years ago. Science fictional tastes have changed greatly since then, commensurate with the growing up of the authors in this relatively new field. Particularly I was greatly disappointed in the cover. The second ish didn't improve my opinion very much. BUT . . . since then I have read issues 3 and 4, and now I have become addicted to your very fine publication. There was an abrupt change in cover design, and I feel that it is now up with the best produced on this side of the Atlantic-and Pacific too. I am very happy to see that you now come out bi-monthly. If your issues show the same degree of improvement as the recent ones, they soon will be out of this world. Please accept my heartfelt congrats on your present success, and my best wishes (which are quite selfish) for the future. Sincerely yours,
PETER M. EVANS, U.S. ARMY, KOREA.
Many thanks for writing, Peter. I can't say how glad I am to know that NEBULA brings a bit of entertainment and diversion even to a place like Korea. Write again, please.
Joan W. Carr (Sandy Sanderson)
Number 8 - April 1954
DEAR ED: I prefer those stories-especially those with a "snapper" at the end. Why this should be I don's know, unless it has a connection with the fact that my favourite author prior to s-f was O. Henry. Ted Tubb is relegated to second place in No. 7 mainly because I think he is doing the same thing too often. His Story, "Emancipation ", is a fine piece of mood writing, but if he doesn't watch out, he will be classed as the British Ray Bradbury. They both play on the same themes-children and the evilness of Man. "Troubleshooter" comes last because I found the "snapper" too obvious. It must be well concealed, as in "Cold Storage," before I rate the story as good.
Artwork in this issue was fair. The cover was excellent as far as actual illustration was concerned. The four-colour reproduction resulted in almost photographic clarity. My only objection was to the theme. This subject has been drawn so often in the past that no matter how good the present one is artistically, it only raises a rather bored "What, again?" from the viewer.
As for Walt-Will his punning never cease? Honestly, this puts me in a quandary because he seems to have the right slant on things. Do you think he might be fission for compliments?
JOAN W. CARR, M.E.L.F. 17.
Nice punning, Joan. You should get a Willis Cross (perhaps you have) for that last paragraph. There are plenty of fine short stories coming next time - their "snapper-endings" all carefully concealed! Don't you think you are being just a little harsh when you class Clothier's fine cover painting for my last issue as commonplace? However, his next two for me, in all modesty, are ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC.
Joy Clarke (nee Goodwin)
Number 14 - November 1955
Dear Ed: Here are a few comments on the *Special Features* in NEBULA No.12:
First, Ken Stater who says that Hobbits don't exist outside of Tolkien's book. Shame - has he never a little Wolf Cub? Hasn't he ever heard that if Wolf Cubs and Brownies don't do their good deeds for the day they are little Hobbits instead? Not outside of that mythology, Ken? Tut-tut.
Now for the reader's letters. Let's take Frank Clare first as he can be disposed of more quickly than Mr Cazly. He said non-existent "Imagination". Now look, Frankie, I've four copies at least of that non-existent magazine sitting on my bookshelves right now. Don't tell me I've got a matter transmitter that actually manufactures something out of thin air . . . if I'd known about it before I might have been rich by now! *Madge*, as she's known in the States, does very well in-deed over there, Just. because a magazine does not put out a British Reprint Edition doesn't say it's non-existent.
Now let me get at Mr. Cazly. Women are so utterly out of place in space-travel, eh? Now let me tell Mr. C. something. Women are, usually, (a) smaller than men, (b) able to endure more than men, so it is very likely that when spacetravel comes they and not men will be chosen to pilot the ships Why? Because, my dear Mr Cazly, (a) they will need less less food, less oxygen and less water, therefore the rocket can be smaller, or, with the size that would be used for a man, go further with a woman piloting it . And as (b) women a layer of subcutaneous fat they can stand more cold-which may be necessary-and being to endure more, generally speaking also, will probably be far more satisfactory in space than ever men could be. Many women have been pioneers-Florence Nightingale for instance-or have tolerated conditions that men just bore-the "Angel of Dien Bien Phu".
So, Mr. Cazly, don't be snobbish about women. After all, were it not for a woman, you would not have been able to have written that letter Which reminds me, how are you going colonise a planet without women?
JOY K. GOODWIN, London, S.E.6.
Okay, Joy, you women go off and conquer space and leave us men to read our science-fiction in peace.
Number 16 - March 1956
Dear Mr. Hamilton: I have received a copy of NEBULA No. 14 and am very pleased with it. Most specifically with Kenneth Bulmer's powerful "Sunset." I had the pleasure of meeting the author at the Cleveland Convention some months ago and had I known at the tirne he had produced this effort, I would have treated. him with cringing deference. It's a remarkable trenchant story and precisely the thing we are denied over here, due to the general belief that "downbeat" stories are to be avoided.
The same holds true in Frank Russell's "Down, Rover Down." For some reason or other the average American seems to prefer stories with a build-in pat on the back: even when social aberrations are presented, there. is generally a hero who is eventually able to rectify the situation with the aid of the omnipresent Underground and restore matters to rights-the said "rights" being an approximation of today's mores.
Consequently. I find it refreshing to read stones like these in a science fiction magazine with a broader policy, particularly when they are so well written as these two.
I could not let go by without going on record for my admiration of it.
ROBERT BLOCH, Wisc. U.S.A.
Many thanks for your letter, Robert. I was extremely glad to hear from you. As you remark, I have always attempted to follow a broader policy when choosing stories to appear in NEBULA than is possible for the majority of other Editors who are unfortunately tied down by long list of narrow taboos and rules which considerably limit their choice of material regardless of its quality. If a story is well written and of good entertainment value, I am prepared to consider it, providing, of course, that any "risky" ingredient is a necessary part and not dragged in for vulgar effect.
Number 17 - July 1956
Dear Ed.: Further from to the letter from Joy Goodwin in NEBULA No.14, I would like to say that ! have seldom read so much nonsense on one page.
There can be no serious comparison of the capabilities of men and women when it come to enduring physical stress, as can be proved by the absence of women test pilots, soldiers (in the true sense of the word), and miners, as well as a whole host of other jobs which females find too dirty or too nasty to do.
The human male has always been more physically stronger, more imaginative, and has a greater creative and scientific ability. His decisions under stress are not perpetually coloured by emotionalism as are a female's. If this was not so we might have women prime rninisters, lawyers, and business executives.
Women have their own place in the scheme of things, an important part of which is the bearing and rearing of children and when they step outside of it they merely become feeble imitators of men.
I challenge Miss Goodwin to disprove the facts in this letter from a scientific and unemotional point of view, if possible
J. DONALDSON, Glasgow.
NEBULA remains impartial but I don't suppose many of our readers will be able to follow suit after reading this letter.
Joy Clarke (nee Goodwin)
Number 18 - November 1956
Dear Ed. Mr. Donaldson with his antifeminist viewpoint did not only write while emotionally moved but has also got the facts nowhere near right. Let's take it line by line. So much nonsense-let's pass that others will answer for me. no doubt.
Capabilities of men and women. Women in almost all countries except the Western European ones are very efficient soldiers, dustrnen, tramdrivers. maids-of-all-work and farmers. Russia and Egypt are two out-standing examples of this and only recently several magazines showed photographs of girls of. 13 training as soldiers for front line use. As to the jobs which are nasty and dirty, I believe it is women who do most of the dirty work in hospitals, it isn't. often you see male nurse or ward orderly (except in mental homes where a degree of strength is necessary) and that is some of the dirtiest work I know. Would Mr Donaldson be willing to swab up vomit and blood? Or is he dodging a job which is too dirty to be done by any but women?
As for physical stress, I consider the labours women endure under childbirth far exceed any a man may go through. What man may labour in physical pain for as long as three days, a comparatively common length of time for a first child.
While the male may be physically stronger, his imagination and creative and scientific abilities are no greater than those of a woman Until this century women were prevented from using their abilities by the male myth that women were supplied to men in order to gratify the male sexual desires, to keep their homes, to bear and rear their children (often by the dozen) and generally slave as the male desired. As for decisions under stress being coloured by emotion, what might I ask was the cause of the sabre-rattling when the Suez Canal was nationalised? Rational, unemotional and scientific decisions? Men are as much at fault as women when it comes to being dominated by their emotions. (It's only in this century that men consider it unmanly to weep; in the golden age of Queen Elizabeth, honourable tears were shed by many men in public.)
The reason we have no women prime ministers or bankers is because of the male's desire to be cock of the roost. Now women are fighting their way against blind prejudice into business and the law. One name immediately springs to mind when lawyers' are mentioned-Miss Rose Heilbron.
As to women's place in the scheme of things, I suggest Mr Donaldson leaves Britain and lives in Germany , he would be perfectly happy with their philosophy of Kinder, kuche, kirche (I think that's right but as I do not at have any knowledge of German I am unsure. However, it is the appropriate meaning that counts).
I feel that I have been not only scientific but unemotional in this reply. I could have laughed Mr. Donaldson off and refused to answer, but if he likes, although I have had no education beyond that of secondary school (except what I have picked up myself), I would willingly challenge him to a test of his imagination, creative and scientific abilities, if someone is willing to devise such a test. Over to you, Mr D.
JOY CLARKE (formerly Goodwin), London, S.E.6.
Over to you it is Mr Donaldson. I am looking forward to your reply as well as that of any other mere male to the broadside delivered above. My only personal comment on Joy's letter is that from the feminine viewpoint at least we appear to have reached a greater state of enlightenment here in Glasgow than in the rest of Western Europe-I came to work on a tram driven by a woman this morning!
Number 20 - March 1957
Dear Ed: I have been an avid Science Fiction reader for some years, but this is the first time I've been moved to burst into print. Mr Donaldson's letter in No. 17 prodded me into it. His sweeping generalisations are not borne out by the facts. Statistics show that the life expectancy of women is greater than that of men, also male suicides greatly outnumber female. How does Mr Donaldson reconcile these figures with his statement that males stand up to mental and physical stress more than women?
In Russia, China and to a lesser extent the U.S.A. there are female soldiers, ship's captains, engineers, business executives, miners etc., and as for women quote "finding whole hosts of jobs too dirty or nasty to do" this seems to be just nonsense.
He speaks of women's role as childbearers and raisers. What a poor opinion of Nature he must have if, as he infers, she leaves the bearing of all important early care and training of the helpless human young to the inferior half of the human race.
So a woman's decisions are perpetually coloured by emotion? Do not despise emotion Mr Donaldson. Even a robot can make decisions but only human beings possess emotions, and remember, intellect is sexless.
Also, Mr Donaldson's own opinions are coloured by emotion. He possesses prejudice unsupported by facts. Prejudice is an emotion compounded of resentment and fear. Perhaps an overbearing female relative has left him with hidden resentment from childhood or maybe having found himself unnatractive to females he finds it necessary to his ego to find them and therefore their opinions inferior? (Can you decry feminine imagination after that bit, Mr Donaldson?).
He states that women's emotionalism prevents them from becoming Prime Ministers, etc. He must read the papers. Does he seriously content that the present world situation is the outcome of the cold and logical outcome of its leaders? Is it not rater the result of the emotions of hate, fear, greed and envy on part of the whole human race? Yes, women are to blame, too, after all in one or two countries they have had the vote for forty years or so.
By the way, Mr Donaldson wants his answer scientific. Well, it has been advanced as a probability by several hundred learned biologists that in the dim past our progenitors were hermaphrodites but changing environment brought about specialisation of pursuits and functions and physical differences evolved as a natural consequence. Remember that the race environment and way of life now obviates this need for specialisation-what if Evolution should turn the wheel full circle! But being perfectly logical and unswayed by weak emotionalism you will find nothing objectionable in this thought. Certainly men and women differ slightly, but these differences are complimentary and in no way constitute inferiority on either side. It is my opinion, for such as it's worth, that men and women working together in any sphere make a perfect team, and I hope that by the end of the century at the latest, people will be able to develop their talents irrespective of sex. The present set-up of society will have to be modified to make this possible.
Mrs. BARBARA SPORK, Perth, W. Australia.
I really feel somewhat inadequate to answer such a passionate feminine broadside, Barbara, so we will just have to leave Mr Donaldson to undertake this duty in a future letter column.
[ Mr Donaldson did not respond to Joy Clarke or Barbara Spork's letters-JL ]
Jules Mocabee (Mrs)
Number 21 - May 1957
Dear Ed: I was delighted to receive my copy of NEBULA No. 16 and have just finished a cover to cover reading (and re-reading some passages) of this exceptionally fine issue.
Each story held especial personal interest for me hence a comparative judgment of their merits is very difficult.
I was one time leading lady at the Pasadena Playhouse and later turned to technical work as secretary after which I was head of the music department at Columbia Picture Corporation in its formative years (1930-1932). Sometimes I doubled for the stars in such miniscule details as a close-up of a female hand signing a letter (one star had burned the index finger of her right hand and though make-up could cover the ugly spot-the finger was still too sore to stand the pressure of pen to paper for an effective close-up-so I "was" the lady's right hand in the close-up shot). I was the voice of another star who "couldn't carry a tune in a bucket" and who had to hum a few notes of a familiar old lullaby in a dramatic scene in the picture. I made the sound-track for those few notes after the picture had been cut.
Hence, "Dying to Live" the story of old actors turned into the personnel of Mannikin Theatre Puppets had a great appeal for me. Tubb's excellent and casually realistic style made the story a living tribute to the actors dying in emotional responses only so they could earn the money to live.
Then I read "The Moron" by John Seabright and my six years as a university student of Philosophy and Psychology rose u and cheered the courageous bravery of an author who dares to bludgeon educational complacency with the terrible term "moronic".
In all my years of study I was fortunate, perhaps, in only once encountering that frightening mentality-the educator who was over-educated beyond his own intelligence-a Moron in his own conceit of himself and his fear of students who used their own brains and experiences instead of his "dixits".
So-from that personal experience Seabright's "Moron" simply enthralled me. His ending hit me with a deep sense of tragedy and insecurity.
"Frontier Encounter" by Sydney J. Bounds wins first place in my judgment however. I have for a long time been hammering away at editors, "fans", writers and the casual readers of science fiction to get away from the damnable species-centric and solar-centric view of the Universe which assumes that out of all space and time only we furless bipeds are beneficent in our colonization.
It is with hopeful joy that I must give my first choice for plot to this story and also my first choice for characterizations. I, too have been for most of my life the sort of woman who had the admiration and respect of the men with whom I worked but could not get the critters to notice me as a woman. I cannot see either any reason to be afraid of another life form simply because of a difference in shape and clour or number of limbs or eyes.
I especially liked Bounds' warmth in ending his story in the most universally understood cooperative motive of all-the love of man and woman.
Mrs JULES MOCABEE, Stockton 6, California, U.S.A.
Thank you very much indeed for an exceptionally interesting letter Mrs Mocabee. I trust you will find the stories in other issues as much to your liking as they were in our 16th issue. In any case I am sure I am speaking for all my readers when I say how much I look forward to hearing from you again.
Number 26 - January 1958
Dear Ed: Regarding your editorial (which I did, most highly) I have a slight demurrer to contribute. You mention the bursts of laughter attendant on the local screening of "The Incredible Shrinking Man". As an old and hardened viewer of science fiction and so-called "Horror" movies. I can assure you that this phenomenon is more or less of a commonplace and and has been since the days of the silent cinema. There are very few such films which haven't evoked laughter from the audience, and only a few; in each case there was such a contrived shock that the audience was caught off-balance and forced to react instinctively and instantaneously (as in the silent Phantom of the Opera when Lon Chaney's mask is removed).
But unless the reaction is instinctive and instantaneous you can expect laughter. Not, however, because the spectator is amused. In my opinion, he is merely reassuring himself, and the rest of the audience , that he is a superior sort of fellow, and not easily frightened. If you stop to analyse, you will realise that your average citizen, confused with something he does not understand, is immediately disconcerted. In "real life", the unknown is regarded as a threat to personal security. Even an odd fact is enough to throw him off balance, or the presence of an unusual stranger in the local pub.
But there is a great socially-imposed taboo against any show of fear or alarm. Consequently, the natural reaction is usually suppressed-and the two other reactions substituted. In "real life", your average man will either hit out at the unnatural phenomenon (physically or verbally) or he'll laugh at it. Set an Eskimo with an Oxford accent wearing a top hat and furs, in a pub-and either somebody will pick a quarrel and try to hit him, or he'll be ridiculed.
Now in the cinema, your average man is better able to control his instinctive fear-reactions because he knows what he sees is illusion. So although he may be impressed, or even disconcerted, he will endeavour to laugh heartily, nevertheless, to show his "superiority". Teen-agers are particularly prone to this ploy. But (and this is the clincher) teen-agers and others continue to attend such showings of s.f and "horror" films. If they were really convinced these offerings were "silly" they'd go elsewhere. It is a sad truism that all too many of the films are silly; but even the good ones, barring moments of contrived shock which catch the audience unprepared, will continue to evoke laughter. And if science-fiction as literature fails to gain a wide public, it's because it deals with the unfamiliar-and the average man, as Willis points out in his article, feels safer with a known quantity.
ROBERT BLOCH, Weyauwega, Wis., U.S.A.
Thank you for your interesting letter, Robert, and now for a few demurrers from me.
You classify "horror" and science fiction films together which is, to my way of thinking, out of order to begin with. Anyone who has experienced the fear of loneliness, silence, the dark, or of the supernatural-and it is an unusual man who has not had an unhappy or fearful moment, through any of these illogical fears-can identify himself easily with the characters in a horror film. This does not apply to science fiction, most of which is, as I pointed out in my editorial, without a point of contact with the evryday life of the "man in the street".
Logically, then, the laughter which is heard during the showing of a horor picture is the type of contrived self-assurance which you mention in your letter, while that heard during the screening of a science fiction movie is the laughter of people who find themselves out of their depth and consequently unable to "get the feel" of the events and characters they are watching. This laughter is a case of ridicule and not reassurance, and we must search for a more familiar and understandable approach before this reaction turns from ridicule to positive dislike.
Number 29 - April 1958
Dear Mr Hamilton: The comments in your editorial in NEBULA No.26 about the poor little space dog disgusted me. If mankind cannot reach the stars without subjecting helpless animals to the horrors of "takeoff" and "free fall" so graphically described by your authors, then let the human race stay where it is. In fact, since the human race has proved so often that it is incapable of getting along without wars, perhaps it would be better for any really civilized race in the galaxy if man never really got away from Earth at all.
Man will have to answer for what he has done and continues to do to the animals put into his care.
S. WRIGHT, London, S.W.18.
As you are possibly aware, Mr Wright, the precise physical and mental reactions of a living creature to the unusual conditions aboard a vessel orbiting in space are not yet fully investigated. So, when the Russians decided that they were capable of building and launching an artificial satellite large enough to contain a "passenger" they had the option of sending a human being to almost certain death, or of sending a dog, whose chances of getting back were much greater.
The only possible choice was made and, while "Little Lemon" did not reurn, the information collected as a result of her flight brings the day much closer when a man can venture out into space-and return unharmed.
The sacrifice of the life of one dog seems a very small price to pay for such a decisive step towards the ultimate goal of spaceflight and the new age of peace, expansion and racial maturity which it will surely bring.
Number 30 - May 1958
Dear Ed: At the moment we are at the tail end of an ice age, so why, in stories of the future, although the climate is often controlled, it is almost always described as being a similar climate to that which we enjoy today? It is going to be much hotter.
Also at the present rate humanity is unlikely to survive, and I don't refer to the threat of atomics. The human race shows every sign of species decline. Large increase of numbers, increasing size of individuals, no predators, no food hunting or disease, and living in large groups. In any case, up to the present time in the history of this planet mammalian species have thrived in cold weather; while the reptiles have passed through two ice ages, surviving a period of decline during each. After the first ice age, the reptiles spread out and they may well do so again providing the weather is warm enought. The reptile needs less food for its size, recovers from injuries more easily, can go long periods without food, is extremely hard to kill and suffers less risk and inconvenience in reproduction. I think the most likely future dominant will look rather like a Tyrranosaurus.
J. CURZON, Buckinghamshire.
Providing humanity avoids near future destruction in a nuclear war and is not wiped out by the attack of a mutated virus I am very much of the opinion that the reptiles will have to wait until the Earth becomes a candidate for Solar absorption before they will have an opportunity to produce their "dominant race".
The limitless challenge of spaceflight and the dangers involved in exploring and colonising new planets will, if humanity has to face them soon enough, provide more than adequate substitute for the stimulative effect of bygone dangers. If, however, spaceflight is delayed for some period, it seems likely that the dynamic energy which has driven the human race upwards from the Caves would have to expend itself in one final stupendous war which would, of course, mean the end of everything, including the planet Earth.
These, to me, are the two most likely "future histories" for the human race. The one a story of expansion and fulfilment; the other, one of frustration and final self-destruction.
Which is the more likely? Why don't you write giving your opinion? Your letter might be printed in a future issue of NEBULA.
Number 32 - July 1958
Dear Ed: How on earth do you expect any author you puts a reasonable amount of thought into his depiction of future societies to create believable concepts unless he recognises that codes of morality are changeable, not only from place to place but from generation to generation? It's conceivable that there might be a swing back to Puritanism-say in a century's time-meanwhile this trend which you define as "towards violence and loose morals" which I personally regard as an increasing recognition of the individual's responsibility to think about the system under which he lives and not accept it uncritically, exists, and will probably increase.
JOHN BRUNNER, London N.W.3.
No matter what high-sounding reasons you choose to explain it, John, the fact remains that today's standards of good taste, moral ethics and sobriety are fast becoming non-existent.
Novels and films which suggest by their subject-matter that the ideal way to spend a pleasant evening is in the close proximity of a co-operative female with a plentiful supply of alcohol to hand are quite unworthy to be classified as science fiction, regardless of how well-written or produced they are, as they sully the high ethical and moral ideals inherent in by far the greater part of this type of literature.
If the current moral decline is, as you suggest, the result of the individual's reassessment of society, his automatic return to murder, rape and violence is a sad revelation of just how far homo sapiens is still removed from homo superior.
Number 37 - December 1958
Dear Sir-I have always been a keen science fiction fan. I have just finished the third part of the serial story, Kenneth Bulmer's "Wisdom of the Gods", in NEBULA No. 34. It ends with a young woman having been flogged into a state of collapse, with her back suitably cut up by the whip.
In my time I have lived through ten years of war; the last six as a regular army reservist. You may be assured that I am not unaccustomed to blood and anguish.
To put the matter simply, there are things we just don't want to read about. We know they exist, but we don't want you to tell us. We buy you magazine for adult entertainment, and I for one do not require scenes in a story that would entertain only a psychotic case.
Please tell your authors to grow up.
L. D. NICHOLLS, London, N.W.6., England.
I am sorry you don't care for our serial, Mr Nicholls, but as you will no doubt have realised by now, you were just a little hasty in complaining about that particular scene.
It became apparent in "Wisdom of the Gods", part four, that the girl had not been injured in any way and that the whole incident you describe had been mere play-acting on the part of those involved to obtain a certain result from the story's central character. This being the case, I do not feel you have any legitimate complaint against our serial, except, of course, on grounds of personal taste.
Perhaps in future it would be advisable for you to finish reading each story before jumping to conclusions regarding the mentality and intentions of he person who has written it.
Number 40 - May 1959
Dear Editor, I would like to disagree most heartily with G. A.Cooper of Derby, who in a recent issue's "Guided Missives" makes a statement to the effect that there should be more realism in science fiction.
Personally I disagree completely with this opinion. I feel that since space travel is fast becoming a fact, and the nearby planets household names, it is time for science fiction writers to "move farther out". Science fiction , like most other popular forms of literature, is basically escapist in nature. It will fail in its purpose if the authors merely try to compete with the current news.
By all means let us have logical backgrounds for our science fiction (whether they be set on Tyrann or Earth), but the emphasis should be on imagination, not realism That old bone of contention "what will happen to science fiction when we get into space" has often been gnawed upon by the fans, but it is my personal opinion that now that this is happening, science fiction must keep ahead of fact and not try to compete with it. Otherwise, the non-science fiction reader will be heard to remark: "Science fiction? Old hat . . ."
ERIC BENTCLIFFE, Stockport, Cheshire.
A very interesting point, Eric, which I am sure our authors will take seriously to heart.
The really important thing, to my way of thinking, is that although science fiction will definitely have to develop and change as time (and scientific progress) catches up with it, this type of writing will continue to be enjoyed by all those who wish to speculate on and, incidentally , contribute to, the future of the human race.
Number 40 - May 1959
Dear Editor, What will be the outcome of the Russian attack on space? My bet is that the first man round the Moon will be a Russian. If the Americans don't buck up, they are in for a big surprise when they eventually start to get rockets anywhere near the Moon.
ALAN RISPIN, Higher Irlam, Manchester.
True enough, Alan, but we should not forget that if the U.S.S.R. were to occupy the Moon effectively, it is almost certain that the whole of the satellite would be denied to the Western Powers for all but the most limited kind of exploration. The Moon is an important strategic prize, not only in relation to the balance of power on Earth, but also as a jumping board to the nearer planets. It could only be the cause of the very greatest international tension if either of the Earth's power blocs was to gain control of it to the complete exclusion of the other.