(listen to episode on Spotify)
(music: reverby ambience)
Rocklynne background, non-spoiler discussion
Gretchen:
Hello, you are listening to Chrononauts, a science fiction literature history podcast. This segment is part of our episode covering the July 1939 issue of Astounding.
According to Ross Lewis Rocklynne, his parents convinced him they found him in a basket of tomatoes eating his way out. He later found out, though, that he was born the usual way in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 21, 1913. His father worked with machines and spent his life attempting unsuccessfully to build a perpetual motion machine.
JM:
Another one.
Gretchen:
Yeah, another one. That seems to be a running theme.
JM:
Yes.
Gretchen:
Yes. Something that Ross himself tried to help him with. His mother played piano and had a passion for words she passed on to her son. During the mid to late 1920s, Rocklynne attended a boy's boarding school, Kappa Sigma Pi, where his desire to write was influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Amazing Stories, which he began reading during his time there. Rocklynne worked in a variety of jobs, including furnace caretaker, handyman, several positions in a department store, and a nurse for guinea pigs, which is how he described it, before becoming a full time writer.
His first story published was "Man of Iron" in 1935, found in the August issue of Astounding Stories. After this piece, he contributed various works across a number of sci-fi pulps, including Astounding, Fantastic Adventures, and Planet Stories. Besides science fiction, he also wrote westerns. His work was quite prolific and is considered by a number of science fiction fans and scholars, such as Bleilar, to be of a high quality for the era. In fact, he was a professional guest at the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939.
Rocklynne married a fellow writer in the 1930s and had two sons, but after the Second World War, his life grew a bit too hectic to write frequently. He divorced and took on other jobs besides writing, such as working in a literary agency, driving taxis, and being a salesman for an art shop. He mostly retired from writing by the late 1950s, but did make a notable return in the early 1970s with his novelette "Ching Witch!", a work included in Harlan Ellison's collection, again, "Dangerous Visions". Ellison's introduction to the story reflects his admiration for Rocklynne, who, unlike a number of his contemporaries, accepted Ellison's request to contribute to the collection and was not intimidated or frustrated with newer trends and styles in sci-fi at that time.
The story we're covering from him tonight is "The Moth", and this is another one, unfortunately, a weaker story in this issue.
JM:
Yeah, I agree. It's one of the weaker ones, but I thought this was okay. I like this more than the Bond story, for sure.
Nate:
I don't know. I did not. I really did not like this at all. I thought this was super sexist, and that just annoyed me the entire time. The woman character in this is just... Yeah.
JM:
Well, she starts out seeming pretty strong, and then she just fades into nothing, which I think is disappointing, but I don't really think that... I don't know. I mean, the engineer guy has such a bad attitude, but Rocklynne is kind of making fun of that, I think. I do agree that she kind of starts out promising and then kind of fades to pretty much nothingness. That is disappointing, because this is our first female character of the entire issue, by the way.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
And there aren't that many more. I mean, I don't know. It would have been nice, I guess, if he'd done more with her, but I didn't find it necessarily totally sexist. I mean, I don't know. What do I know, right? Maybe I just don't. But it didn't necessarily strike me that way. It was just like she was kind of a poorly inserted character, kind of.
Nate:
It was more the way that the other characters talk about her, including the narrative voice that I thought was sexist, rather than anything she actually does in the story, though. I mean, she's portrayed as the two-timing cheat or whatever. She's just trying to use her flirtatious means to get company secrets or whatever. I don't know.
JM:
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess I just thought the idea of the industrial sabotage and so on was intriguing enough to start with. And I also liked that this is one of the only stories that I read from this time period, which bothers to try and make something of future fashion. Nobody else does that. Ross Rocklynne's like, hey, man, they're going to be wearing chains, right? And it's going to be cool. And there's one guy is like, he doesn't think it's cool. So he's like the most uncool person in the room, right? And he also speaks like really slowly and kind of stupidly, even though he's really smart. Like, I don't know, for me, even the humor in this one did work a little better. I'm not saying it's any kind of masterpiece or that probably the faults that we'll all find with it are not faults. But I don't know. I didn't mind this. I will say by the end, I was like kind of wanting to finish it. Like I was like, okay, thankfully, I can finish this soon. But I don't know. I didn't really mind it. The beginning was kind of cool. I liked the more like kind of hard boiled tone that it had to kind of made me think of a detective story from the era.
Gretchen:
Yeah, I have a couple times where I point out some of the sexist stuff that happens in this story. That is one of the flaws. But the flaw that really I did not care for. And I sort of understand now, Nate, how you felt about "Black Destroyer", where something is in it that's so obvious. And it takes forever for a character to figure out what's going on. And I was just thinking like, Oh, my God, can you understand you have all the pieces there? And he's still like, I don't understand why the interaction went like that.
Nate:
It's like the cops from "Blood Feast".
JM:
Yeah, again, I feel like that was kind of part of the humor, like there's some dopishness going on with the characters. And like, I don't know, I think that it was a little more subtle with the humor than Bond and that could work against it and that it could come across annoying if you're not like, in tune with its funniness. But I don't know, it sort of did work for me, even in that aspect. But I know what you're saying. It is kind of obnoxious when characters are like that. Yeah.
Nate:
Yeah, so I don't really have too much to say about this in general sense. It's short. So yeah, that's one good thing about it.
JM:
Yeah, okay, fire away then. Well, we'll see another couple of words at the end. But yeah, I don't have a lot to say about it either. Yeah, it was a it was a reasonably enjoyable way to pass like 40 minutes or whatever.
Gretchen:
Also, once again, another warning of the scientific principle that I try to describe in my own words, and I'm not sure how well I succeeded.
(music: eerie low rumbling ambience)
spoiler summary, discussion
(1939 ad read)
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Gretchen:
"The Moth" starts with the narrator, Bill King, coming to chat with a man named Harry Bournjeurs, the president of a shipping corporation called Bay-Mars. Bill urges Harry to talk with a woman named Anna Granview, who apparently has information regarding a significant new device that could give Harry an advantage. When finally confronted with the woman, Harry is taken aback by her. Bill supposing that he is hardly prepared to see a trim little blue eyed girl trying to sell him a billion dollar scientific discovery. However, it becomes clear to the reader that there is likely more history between the two than Bill assumes.
JM:
Yeah. So at first, I was actually a little bit excited because I was like, Oh, is she actually going to be some like smart engineer person who's come up with this thing? Like, because that's how it seems at first. But now I saw that at all.
Gretchen:
I wish. It would have been a cooler story if that was the case.
Nate:
It definitely would have been.
JM:
Yeah.
Gretchen:
But when Anna mentions that her discovery made with the help of a friend will make rocketry obsolete, Harry allows her to elaborate. If there's a new advantage, Harry wants it before a rival company owned by a man named Rimpler, supposedly responsible for some crimes against Harry's can get it. Her invention is a field that surrounds a ship and flattens electronic orbits and shortens the length of the ship, which works on the basis that an object in motion not only appears to lose physical length in the direction of motion, but actually does so. While questioning her about it, Harry gets her to confirm the friend she worked with on this discovery was Felix Rimpler. Anna gets up to leave, but Harry grabs her and shoves her back into a chair, demanding to know the catch for considering what she's told him. She tells him that Felix didn't send her, but Harry is still suspicious, knowing the other man is behind the invention.
Anna offers to give Harry a demonstration of the device early the next day, then leaves. Harry says he can't take that chance, but when Bill starts trying to convince him to check out the device that he says that isn't what he's talking about, Bill is left confused by the entire interaction. The two men meet up the following morning for the demonstration. Anna is there, acting more amiable towards Harry than the day before as they fit the ship with the new invention.
After working on the ship, another one approaches the group, driven by Felix Rimpler. Felix confirms Anna was working against him as he denounces her and threatens Harry for stealing an invention from him, which he doesn't rescind even as Harry physically threatens him. However, Harry still punches Felix before the latter man can leave in his own ship and places him on board the one they had been fitting with the device, then he forces Anna into the ship as well.
Bill follows, upset with Harry's actions. Once in the ship, Harry tests out the device, which works, taking them instantly out of Earth's atmosphere and past the moon. Felix soon regains consciousness and accuses Harry of kidnapping, but the latter just threatens him again and questions Anna in Felix's presence. Anna reveals it wasn't Felix who made the discovery, but a scientist working under him. Felix becomes upset that Anna seduced him to get the device, but Anna justifies it by claiming he has stolen from Harry, so Harry has the right to steal from him.
Bill finally realizes Anna did this for Harry because they are ex-lovers, then concludes Harry called Felix himself to see the device because Harry believed that everything was all a trick on him. Felix taunts him and claims he'll press charges against him, but then Harry brings out a list of charges he has on Felix, asking him to sign it and confess.
Nate:
Yeah, the confession that he just has in his pocket, like literally the entire story.
Gretchen:
Yes, he keeps it on him at all times. Felix refuses, but is relieved when Harry backs down, which Harry takes as proof of Felix's guilt and knocks him out again. Which I just remember thinking, yeah, that's enough proof. I'm not going to have charges pressed against me, so I would also be relieved.
JM:
Yeah.
Gretchen:
Bill is left to guard Felix, but grows horrified when they approach the earth and moon and sees them in black and white. As he's focused on the site before him, Felix wakes up and leaves the ship on an escape pod or lifeboat. Bill only snaps out of it when Harry appears, unmoved, and reveals that he used the device on the ship to make it and everything in it 100 times larger than everything outside of it, senses only accepting infrared. Bill doesn't think Felix should have to withstand a fate like that, but Harry says he'll return him to normal once he gets the patent for the device and his signature on the confession. However, after a few days without any direct contact with Felix, Bill and Harry begin to worry, the latter wondering if Felix had gotten lost or gone crazy, stating he wouldn't want to do that to a man. But Bill thinks it's out of spite, Felix wanting the two men to worry about him.
Then Harry realizes a way to get Felix to come near them, setting up a device, emitting infrared rays and like a moth to a flame, Felix is drawn to it and circles it, trying not to draw too near for fear of burning. Harry communicates with Felix his terms for reversing the process, to which the other man reluctantly agrees. As they watch Felix is circling and approaches them Anna expresses no hard feelings for Harry's accusations of double crossing. After Felix's agreement, she and Harry appear to be on the cusp of resuming their past romance.
Nate:
The physics of changing size, you know, growing larger or smaller or whatever, is kind of neat that we get at the end. It was kind of a throwback to some of those stories we covered from the 18th century, like the Voltaire's "Micromegas" in their first episode.
JM:
It also reminds me of a more famous, more modern story, "The Shrinking Man", also known as the "Incredible Shrinking Man". Richard Matheson's story, also a pretty good film, was made of it, about a guy who gets exposed to some weird radiation and just gets smaller and smaller and smaller until he can't interact with the world normally anymore. But he can interact with like things like house fires and stuff like that in a really scary, terrifying way.
And it's just, I don't know, that thought of Felix just kind of wandering around, like, not really sure what the hell happened and being all alone and not able to really communicate. It was like, I don't know, it was kind of effective. I don't know if Ross Rocklynne did this on purpose and if it was part of the funny or if it was just a total coincidence. Because Felix, although it is a somewhat common name, it's actually the Latin word for "lucky". And Felix does not really seem all that lucky in this story. So, I don't know.
Gretchen:
Yeah, he gets knocked out twice and then he's left to roam for days.
JM:
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty unlucky. Not particularly Felix.
Nate:
Yeah, exploring those concepts at the end and making that the story would have been cool instead of this like double crossing industrial love triangle sabotage thing we get. I don't know.
Gretchen:
I think I even think that the double crossing would have been interesting. Maybe if they had cut out the romance, like make Anna an inventor and then have her just being like, well, I don't like Felix. He's a corrupt guy. Here's the invention.
Nate:
Yeah, right.
JM:
That would have made more sense.
Gretchen:
Yeah.
JM:
So, I mean, I guess it's really a failure of execution. Again, yeah, people talk about Campbell being a conscientious editor, but it could be that even he sometimes was like, yeah, that's good enough. Just put it in. I kind of does have a little bit of that feeling to it.
Nate:
Yeah, which makes me wonder, like I mentioned it, I forget what segment it was now, but I wonder what it would be like to read the rejection pile of any given issue of Astounding if these are the level of stories that made it in. I mean, I'm sure we can imagine what they would be like, but some of the stories that I guess have gotten a cult reputation like "The Eye of Argon" or whatever nowadays. Is there anything like that that there was ever written to Astounding that's just like so ridiculously bad that in retrospect would be amusing or hilarious to read?
JM:
I'm sure, yeah. But it would be interesting to see his letters too, because I mean, the writers who do comment on it, usually say that his rejection letters were some of the nicest and best they ever received because they offered very, very constructive criticism rather than just no, sorry, we can't use this. Yeah. So the fact that he actually took the time to do that was very good. But then again, Leigh Brackett did say she received a particularly awful one that she thought was vicious. And that's why she never wrote for him again. Right. So I don't know, it's, it's one of those things. So who knows what he was, what mood he was in or what, but I don't know, it's just, it's, it is interesting to look at. Yeah. And I wonder if Nevala-Lee, when doing his research, came across stuff like that. I mean, he mostly talks about the actual authors and their point of view on things, but he does spend a good amount of time on Campbell's background and his life and stuff.
Nate:
And yeah, I don't know how much if any archival material from the Astounding offices survives, I'd imagine probably none. But if anything survives, it would probably be within the papers of the authors themselves who either received.
JM:
Yeah, they would have kept the letters.
Nate:
Right.
JM:
For sure. And Asimov seems like somebody who would have kept a lot of that stuff.
Nate:
Yeah, or the manuscripts they submitted, which, right. Asimov, as we mentioned, a couple of his earliest stories are lost.
JM:
So I am curious to read more Rocklynne. I didn't love this. But again, I thought that for me, it was a cut above Bond just because I thought the humor was actually funny for me sometimes. I liked the future fashion digs. Like kind of, it seemed very, I don't know, it was, it was kind of odd point. In my opinion, like it was just, it was just kind of funny. And the fact that all the writers don't do that kind of made it stand out to me. Because, I mean, it seems natural to think about, right? Like, what would people be wearing? And for sure, or some older writers did think of that. I mean, they talk about that in some of the things that we've already read.
Nate:
C.L. Moore.
JM:
Yeah.
Gretchen:
Yeah. You know, it was funny that just a while after reading the story, I read this, I had a collection of Doctor Who comics from like the Doctor Who magazine. And one of them was called "Victims". And it was a fourth Doctor story where they go to like this planet that's supposed to be the fashion capital of like the human race at this point. So it was very cool. So I guess it's, there are a couple things that have covered fashion. But of course, that's quite a while later.
Nate:
Yeah, that was one of the wildest parts about the first book of "The Mummy!", the future fashion, as well as the ridiculous techno babble.
JM:
Yeah. Yeah. "That Mummy!", you know what, it's one of the books that I, even though it's not a masterpiece either, and it's not brilliant, it is one of the early books we did on the podcast that I remember quite fondly for it's just general craziness and weirdness and like the awesome mummy reminding me of "The Shadow" just sort of teleporting everywhere and revealing everybody's guilty conscience about whatever. Just like, yeah. And yeah, there was all kinds of weird stuff like that, like future fashion and future court system and the way it worked in the future with the automated clerks and everything that they would just feed a roll into and they would start speaking. But for some reason, they forgot to do something and it was speaking French instead and nobody could understand it.
Yeah, but yeah, I would read more. And you know, I am a little disappointed because this is my first Ross Rocklynne story and I was so hoping he would be awesome because he has such a great name.
Nate:
Yeah.
Gretchen:
So according to Bliler, he said that his stories were typically above the standards of other sci fi writers, although in that work, he does say, don't take these following stories as examples. So I don't know, maybe there's some other ones that are a little later from him that are better.
JM:
Yeah.
Gretchen:
And I think I would like to try out the story that's in Ellison's collection just because I'd like to read some of the stories and "Dangerous Visions" in general.
Nate:
And it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of these guys who just wrote a whole bunch of stories for a whole bunch of different kinds of magazines were wildly uneven in their quality.
JM:
Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, even Robert E. Howard, who I mentioned a lot, just because he was like one of the most prominent pop writers, like he wrote immensely speedily, right? The fact that he pretty much 10 years was the prime of his writing career. He died in 1935, I think. And he must have written hundreds and like hundreds of stories to various magazines because this is how he kept his family alive pretty much in like the middle of nowhere, Texas, in the depression. So yeah, there's a lot of questionable things in some of his stories quality wise, but all the main is pretty good. Like I would say it's above average for a pulp writer, probably in terms of just being able to write really awesome things.
Nate:
Right.
JM:
Yeah. But yeah, I mean, somebody like Rocklynne, again, yeah, he was probably writing to different markets and maybe he uses a similar tone in a lot of his stories. And I guess that was one of the things that I liked about the story was yeah, it had that like kind of, I don't know, it felt like it had that stereotypical 1930s hardboiled sensibility to it that I just find really amusing. So I just kind of like liked it a little bit for that.
But I don't really have a lot more to say about it. I mean, the trap was interesting and cool, but I think a whole story could have been written around somebody in that state and how I tried to get out of it. That would have been a cool alternative version of this or yeah, or like expressing the industrial sabotage in a more sympathetic way where it's like, yeah, she's trying to do something like I kind of thought maybe it was the case in the beginning where she's either come up with an idea herself or she's like, yeah, she's taking a moral ideological stand. Right. One of those things would have been cool.
Gretchen:
Yeah, I feel like it's definitely that like you said, the execution is what's the problem. The ideas are interesting. And I would like to read something where they're expressed in a better way.
JM:
Yeah. And the kind of thing that makes me wonder why Campbell didn't like write him back and be like, Hey, here's a couple of ideas on how you could make this story better. But maybe those were like his weaknesses, like maybe those kind of ideas that we're talking about right now are not the kind of advice that he gave his writers. I am kind of wondering about that too. You know, that's why I would like to see some of that myself.
Gretchen:
There's that one fan fiction of "The Sea Witch" that all it does is change the pronouns. So, you know, maybe we'll write a fan fiction where it's a lot better. It's edited to be a better executed story.
JM:
Yeah. Yeah. But I'm not giving up hope yet on the brilliantly named Ross Rocklynne. I still I'll consider him to be a potential in my good books yet.
(music: weird echoey piano and beeps)
"Brass Tacks" letters section
So should we get into the letters?
JM:
Yeah, what next is the letters, eh?
Nate:
Yep.
Gretchen:
Let's get down to "brass tacks".
Nate:
Yeah. So we have one of our authors writing in as a mob.
JM:
Yeah, who is his usual chatty self. And you can tell he's younger too. And he's like really enthusiastic. And it's fun. Yes, it's cool.
Gretchen:
Yes, he has a lot of discourse to to discuss.
Nate:
Yeah. And I didn't look back to the previous issues to try to figure out what he's responding to. But it's really cool that these columns more or less function like an early science fiction forum, where the fans can talk to one another and respond to each other's comments and get into these back and forth discussions about stories and writing and science fiction and all that stuff. And it's just really neat that the magazine took the space of a couple pages to print it.
JM:
We do want to bring up what Asimov was talking about though. And he's arguing with somebody about the statement that they made where only men cause war or something like that.
Gretchen:
Yes, it says "who says the only men are responsible for war or oppression? Yes, I mean you, James Michael. How about Catherine II of Russia? How about Catherine de Medici of France? How about Semiramis of Assyria? How about Queen Elizabeth of England? A sweet lot - not. The very Joan of Arc you mentioned while an inspired national heroine was chiefly remarkable in the fact that she led men to slaughter and be slaughtered."
Nate:
Yes, we get a "not" joke in print from Asimov.
JM:
It's so funny because he takes them down so good, but then goes on to say, but all the philosophers that best world thinkers and everything are still back.
Nate:
Yeah, right.
Gretchen:
Yeah, which you know. I did think it's very interesting considering future story we'll be talking about later tonight.
JM:
Right. Yeah. Yeah, it'll be really interesting to talk about that. I will say, yeah, like the heavy stories are coming up. Yeah, I don't know. I might be making a mountain out of a molehill with mine and it'd be interesting to see what you guys think, but I have a lot of thoughts. But it's interesting that yeah, these arguments were going on. It is it is kind of like how I felt about the Amazing pieces to where I was like, yeah, I'm really we're really looking into this time period now because we're seeing what the people thought. And yeah, they also have a lot to say about the covers, don't they?
Nate:
Yeah, they do. One guy even took the trouble to put together a table with his own rankings and like scores of the various artists who appear in a stunning and he doesn't really seem to like any of them.
Gretchen:
Isn't that Damon Knight? Wasn't it Damon Knight that did that?
Nate:
I think so. Yeah, that was Damon Knight. Yeah.
JM:
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. It's Damon Knight is is yeah, I wanted to comment on him specifically just because of who he would become in the science fiction community. Damon Knight was huge and he he is single handedly responsible for, I guess, inspiring a lot of writers to improve their craft. And he kind of was the first person to really get out there and say, look, literary standards for science fiction should be the same as the literary standards everywhere else. And we kind of mentioned him in Van Vogt and Knight was not a fan of his and took him down pretty hard. Maybe that's unfair. I mean, I kind of think so. But it's interesting just that he and also Damon Knight wrote a lot himself. And he wrote mostly short stories. I don't know that he wrote any longer works. And he was really responsible for some of the early efforts in the science fiction criticism, I think. So, yeah. And the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" is based on one of his stories. So that's kind of cool.
Nate:
Yeah, definitely.
Gretchen:
Yes. Was he responsible for Galaxy? Or did he just contribute?
JM:
I think he wrote a lot for them. I don't think I don't know if he was on the staff. I guess we'll get to that because I'm not quite sure maybe he did. I don't think he was an editor, though.
Gretchen:
All right. I couldn't remember specifically.
JM:
Yeah, I mean, he did actually start a science fiction writing workshop called Clarion. And a lot of people attended that workshop. If you read like the introductions to a lot of North American, especially science fiction writers works from like the 50s to the 70s, they always thank him pretty much. So, and yeah, he was definitely more, more of a Galaxy type than a Astounding type. Like, I think that his politics, he didn't probably like Campbell's politics very much. It's interesting that yeah, there's there's all this nerdy stuff going on where they're ranking the covers, they're ranking the stories. It's just like being on YouTube and seeing all these videos.
Nate:
People really like "Who Goes There?". So that's no surprise. But yeah, yeah, a lot of negative reactions to the art and the illustrations, which I don't know, there it's not like a masterpiece in every issue. But I think it's definitely better than Amazing.
JM:
Yeah, I mean, things seem to have come a bit of a way in that department, but it is a different magazine also. But I think Paul Wesso did some stuff for Amazing as well. He's mentioned a lot with Astounding. Yeah. Yeah. I guess they had run some short comic pieces or something like not comic isn't funny, but comic is in panels and pictures and stuff. And one of the letter writers was like, we don't need that in this magazine. Get it out of here.
Gretchen:
It's the first letter from Ralph C. Hamilton. It says, "while I'm on the subject of artwork, I'd like to ask you to give Wesso a little prod for me. He's capable of much better work than he's been doing for Astounding lately. See if you can get him to revert to the style in which he illustrated "Invaders from the Infinite" or the August 1936 Astounding, especially "The Incredible Invasion". Also, go easy on these oversimplified book jacket illustrations. We can read the comic strips in the daily paper, you know. I suppose they're intended to convey the idea and atmosphere of the story. That's okay. They might do it a little less crudely.
JM:
Yeah. Our next writer is has a thing about that too, actually. It's really interesting to read because I mean, comics have always been a closed off thing to me anyway. And like, so my almost like gut instinct has always been to dismiss them because of that reason. But like, I know they're not really necessarily an inferior art form. And I know that nowadays quite a lot of them are quite well respected at not just the Marvel and DC stuff, but a lot of serious stuff, right? And that seems fair. But it seems to me at the time, like, especially a lot of the, well, some of the prose writers and the fans were like really opposed to it. And they really didn't want this to be associated with their field. But on the other hand, like people like Jack Williams and seem kind of happy to get involved with it.
Nate:
Yeah, I don't really know too much about the history of comics. I never really got into comics myself. But I'd imagine in the 30s, they were really more cultivating a juvenile younger audience.
Gretchen:
Yeah, I mean, it would be more like Superman and Captain America, the Marvel comics that we see today. But I feel like maybe there's a sense of at the time, obviously, there are a lot of people who probably did equate the comics to the pulps, you know, the sci fi pulps, and they kind of wanted to separate themselves from that.
Nate:
Yeah, I would imagine so because some of these people definitely think of themselves as like serious, scientific thinkers. And they probably want to distance themselves from what they perceive as being a medium for kids.
JM:
I guess so. I mean, that's the thing where I like some of the founders of the Superman and the Marvel tales and stuff, they were science fiction fans, and they were directly inspired by those magazines. And there was a lot of cross, even like, at least by the 40s, there was a lot of cross writings.
Nate:
Well, the Buck Rogers stuff, I mean.
JM:
Alfred Bester fit stuff for comics as well, I believe. And some of the writers, I guess, Marvel, like the Marvel company had started out as a fan thing, and they had a magazine called Marvel Tales, and it was like a prose magazine. I don't know, maybe it had some comic content too, but it was probably like less than the prose content. And then some of our writers today wrote stories for Marvel Tales, including Amelia Reynolds Long, who doesn't like comics. So yeah, I don't know. It's just kind of interesting. Yeah, the dichotomy, I mean, obviously, it would have been greater at that time because the idea of having science fiction comics would have been relatively new, I suppose.
Nate:
Sure, absolutely. Yeah.
JM:
Although apparently, in France, in the 1800s, Albert Robida was already doing stuff with that.
Nate:
I mean, I'm sure there is precursors in certain ways. I mean, you could argue that the level that the Jules Verne books were illustrated or whatever. That was a big selling point is the large amount of illustrated content in the books.
JM:
Yeah. So overall, I appreciated the chatty tone of many of the letters. It was just very laid back and these people were really relaxed writing in. It almost feels, I don't know, it's funny sometimes now, looking at social media on the internet. You feel like people have to be very restrained in what they say. You always have to watch your comments because who knows who could jump down your throat and stuff like that. Even if that's not true, that's the perception. It just seems like these guys are pretty relaxed just writing in their letters to the fellow science fiction aficionados. Yeah, it's cool. It's fun to see.
Any other particular ones or comment that either of you guys want to highlight before we move on to the next story?
Gretchen:
Yeah, just the Asimov one specifically, just for later context.
JM:
Yeah. Yeah, and apparently he wrote in a lot.
Gretchen:
I tried to look at the last two issues. I looked through the Brass Tacks sections of that and I couldn't find what he was referring to. So it might have just been from issues a while before that or something.
Nate:
Yeah, there's probably a couple months lag time for publication and all that. So I'm sure the correspondence is a bit slow, especially compared to modern days.
Gretchen:
Yeah. And especially, I think he starts saying, because it's a conspiracy is like the title of his letter. And it's like, I think he implies that it's been several months since what he's talking about. And like, there was no letter that he sent that was published.
Nate:
Right.
JM:
Yeah, pretty much. I would say like at least two months, probably give people time to receive the magazine, read the thing, compose a letter. Things were just a lot slower in those days. Not a bad thing. But just, yeah, this is the way it is, you could be having a conversation with somebody for years that dwells on the same topic, right, which is writing letters. And you think about like, some of these really prolific letter writers like HP Lovecraft, always writing letters so much so that there's now several volumes of his published letters. That guy wrote a lot of letters and I kind of what I realized in reading the biographies and stuff and thinking about him was reading about what people said was that if you really, really want to find out what HP Lovecraft was like, you have to read his letters. Most people would not be willing to do that, which is understandable.
Nate:
Right.
JM:
But again, you get to that point where we are now where you got to have a middleman kind of like an aggregator to say, this is the stuff you should read. Like, then it's like, do you trust that? Do you trust that source? Or do you take the time to really dig into it yourself? And I'm sure some of the other big writers and stuff had probably volumes worth of correspondence to. So definitely quite interesting. And even when I was reading Asimov Science Fiction magazine in the early 1990s, the letter column was still quite vibrant. So that's cool to see.
But why don't we take a short break and then we can talk about really interesting, very colonial or is it anti-colonial kind of story?
Nate:
Yeah, I suppose we'll see.
Gretchen:
Yes.
JM:
We will.
Bibliography:
Ellison, Harlan - "Dangerous Visions" (1967)
Rocklynne, Ross - "Introducing the Author", Fantastic Adventures, May 1939
Rocklynne, Ross - "Meet the Author", Startling Stories, November 1942
Rocklynne, Ross - "PS's Feature Flash", Planet Stories, May 1943
Rocklynne, Ross - "Introducing the Author", Imagination, January 1954
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