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Fan-Atic, v. 1, issue 2, March 1941

Page 12

FAN-ATIC, Vol 1, No 2.     March 1941.     Page 12.
AS THE WIND LISTETH, SO WANDERETH MY THOUGHTS.
by D.B. Thompson.

Do you remember "the good old days" of science fiction? The days when you used to hang around the nearest magazine stand for a week or two before publication date, hoping that, by some miracle, AMAZING STORIES would, just once, arrive ahead of schedule? It never did, you know; though not infrequently it was a little late. 
In those days, every issue was a new adventure, a glimpse of the unknown, such as all the magazines on the stands can not furnish to the sophisticated modern fan. Every issue featured a Wells reprint. Poe's literary pseudo-science and horror stories appeared at regular intervals. Jules Verne's novels--actually, excellent travelogues, filled from beginning to end with odd bits of information of the "what every boy should know" type--ran as serials.
New writers, some young and others not so young, wrote stilted, formless, plotless tales, in which 500-mile-per-hour airplanes, flying submarines, submerged cities, lost races, plant-men, and giant insects--always, always, giant insects--vied for your interest, and the puppet like human "characters" moved almost [indecipherable word] among these marvels.
Do you remember those days--or do you remember only the one or two or three really good new stories which appeared each year, and which, telescoped by the passing years, seem now to have come in an unending stream? For, if you don't, you've forgotten just what "the good old days" were really like.
Even as early as 1929, the cult of "the good old days" was a flourishing one. I remember writing, some time between 1929 and 1931, a long letter to the old AMAZING, protesting against this curious veneration of "the good old days". I think I compared it the man who recalls the days when he was a small boy, when the snowdrifts along the country roads reached his shoulders, or even higher, and who, because the drifts now reach only to his waist, concludes that the winters in "the good old days" were far more severe than now. I listed the outstanding stories of the first few years--and they were not many--and compared them with the stories of that year, whenever it was. I found that, issue for issue, the AMAZING STORIES of that day was better than it had been in these first years.
Today readers of five or ten years standing bemoan the passing of "the good old days" of the early thirties. There were three science fiction magazines then, and the writers had learned their trade a little better. The supply of old classics had begun to wane. Stories presenting entirely new ideas,--stories such as Tremaine came to call "thought-varients"--appeared with considerable frequency. The old "classic" was on the way out. The stories had plots, centered around the of the human characters, rather than around the marvels of their environment. Yet science was still an important element in most of the stories. Some of the best science-fiction of all time was being written. But there were still very many stories that were exceedingly poor. Were those "the good old days?"
Today,  you may take your choice of more than a dozen magazines, varying widely in type of story and style of writing. If you select the one which suits you best, you are sure to get, in every issue, three or four stories as good as the best in any one year of the late twenties. Or, with the exception of one or two magazines which reached (and have since maintained) a high standard in the middle thirties, your favorite magazine today will give you three excellent stories for every one you could find in the early and middle years of the thirties. 
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FAN-ATIC, Vol 1, No 2. March 1941. Page 12. AS THE WIND LISTETH, SO WANDERETH MY THOUGHTS. by D.B. Thompson. Do you remember "the good old days" of science fiction? The days when you used to hang around the nearest magazine stand for a week or two before publication date, hoping that, by some miracle, AMAZING STORIES would, just once, arrive ahead of schedule? It never did, you know; though not infrequently it was a little late. In those days, every issue was a new adventure, a glimpse of the unknown, such as all the magazines on the stands can not furnish to the sophisticated modern fan. Every issue featured a Wells reprint. Poe's literary pseudo-science and horror stories appeared at regular intervals. Jules Verne's novels--actually, excellent travelogues, filled from beginning to end with odd bits of information of the "what every boy should know" type--ran as serials. New writers, some young and others not so young, wrote stilted, formless, plotless tales, in which 500-mile-per-hour airplanes, flying submarines, submerged cities, lost races, plant-men, and giant insects--always, always, giant insects--vied for your interest, and the puppet like human "characters" moved almost [indecipherable word] among these marvels. Do you remember those days--or do you remember only the one or two or three really good new stories which appeared each year, and which, telescoped by the passing years, seem now to have come in an unending stream? For, if you don't, you've forgotten just what "the good old days" were really like. Even as early as 1929, the cult of "the good old days" was a flourishing one. I remember writing, some time between 1929 and 1931, a long letter to the old AMAZING, protesting against this curious veneration of "the good old days". I think I compared it the man who recalls the days when he was a small boy, when the snowdrifts along the country roads reached his shoulders, or even higher, and who, because the drifts now reach only to his waist, concludes that the winters in "the good old days" were far more severe than now. I listed the outstanding stories of the first few years--and they were not many--and compared them with the stories of that year, whenever it was. I found that, issue for issue, the AMAZING STORIES of that day was better than it had been in these first years. Today readers of five or ten years standing bemoan the passing of "the good old days" of the early thirties. There were three science fiction magazines then, and the writers had learned their trade a little better. The supply of old classics had begun to wane. Stories presenting entirely new ideas,--stories such as Tremaine came to call "thought-varients"--appeared with considerable frequency. The old "classic" was on the way out. The stories had plots, centered around the of the human characters, rather than around the marvels of their environment. Yet science was still an important element in most of the stories. Some of the best science-fiction of all time was being written. But there were still very many stories that were exceedingly poor. Were those "the good old days?" Today, you may take your choice of more than a dozen magazines, varying widely in type of story and style of writing. If you select the one which suits you best, you are sure to get, in every issue, three or four stories as good as the best in any one year of the late twenties. Or, with the exception of one or two magazines which reached (and have since maintained) a high standard in the middle thirties, your favorite magazine today will give you three excellent stories for every one you could find in the early and middle years of the thirties. Continued on next page.