Transcribe
Translate
Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 3, September 1944
Page 36
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
36 FANTASY COMMENTATOR Forgotten Classics by Sam Moskowitz The veteran science-fiction reader sighs as he scanes some modern neophyte's list of "classics". And his sigh is not one of distaste or impatience, for the list before him may contain many fine stories, true. Rather, he grieves for those tales which might have been named, yet were not. Even the old-timers are prone to forget, and with the passing of years only the "big names" remain unfaded in their minds. "The Skylark of Space" by Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby, A. Merritt's "Moon Pool" and "Twilight" by Don A. Stuart----and then, all too often, the remainder of the list is composed of contemporary stories, outstandingly merely because they happen to possess the questionable virtue of readability. Some of the most enjoyable moments I have experienced as a reader of science-fiction have been spent in comparisons of great stories with other fans, equally well-read. At first the choice of "greats" is painstaking and difficult---but practice lends facility to the mind and suddenly the gates of memory open wide and one's fund of memorable stories swells from a meagre trickle to a raging torrent, and we are overwhelmed with nostalgia. I wonder how many fans have bought old and rare issues of Amazing Stories, Wonder Stories, and Weird Tales, and, though delighted by the grand atmosphere of these magazines, nevertheless laid them aside unread simply because no familiar titles were to be seen on the contents-pages. Let such fans in particular read this article carefully, and at least preserve in memory those titles mentioned herein. In the files of science-fiction magazines you will find the name Chester D. Cuthbert mentioned but twice. It is with only one of his stories that we are at all concerned: "The Sublime Vigil," which appeared in the February 1934 issue of Wonder Stories. If you are searching for blazing rockets and hissing ray-guns, do not read this story, for you will not find them there. Or if your taste inclines toward Venusian princesses and Martian gadzooks you will be likewise disappointed. But---if you have ever wished to read science-fiction that bordered upon literature; science-fiction that successfully absorbs a touch of fantasy and is the better for it; science-fiction of so unusually human a quality that it has appeared but once in the broad annuals of the field; science-fiction that broaches a theory so startling, so vast and so distinct that it could appear but once---if you have longed for such qualities read "The Sublime Vigil" for in no other science-fiction story has the cold cosmos been more completely blended with burning human emotions. When it appeared the editor remarked that it was "undoubtedly one of the most beautiful stories we have published in a long time." After it was published the readers could give it no higher praise than "We shall reread this story many times." Read, then, this tragic epic of a man who resolved to remain true to his love throughout all eternity. It is a story of the strangest vigil ever held---a sublime vigil. It is hard for new fans to believe that at one time a science-fiction tale stood little or no chance of acceptance unless it contained a new idea or a novel twist of an old one. It is hard for those miserable beggars who prattle about "escape literature" to comprehend that once science-fiction was more than escape literature. ---That once it was an inexhaustible fund of new, creative, unique ideas. Once it was a type of fiction that appealed as much to the intellect as it did to the emotions. It is hard for the sterile, prostituted mind of today's "typists" (for by no strength of the imagination are they writers) to believe that once science-fiction did give one a basic insight into the sciences
Saving...
prev
next
36 FANTASY COMMENTATOR Forgotten Classics by Sam Moskowitz The veteran science-fiction reader sighs as he scanes some modern neophyte's list of "classics". And his sigh is not one of distaste or impatience, for the list before him may contain many fine stories, true. Rather, he grieves for those tales which might have been named, yet were not. Even the old-timers are prone to forget, and with the passing of years only the "big names" remain unfaded in their minds. "The Skylark of Space" by Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby, A. Merritt's "Moon Pool" and "Twilight" by Don A. Stuart----and then, all too often, the remainder of the list is composed of contemporary stories, outstandingly merely because they happen to possess the questionable virtue of readability. Some of the most enjoyable moments I have experienced as a reader of science-fiction have been spent in comparisons of great stories with other fans, equally well-read. At first the choice of "greats" is painstaking and difficult---but practice lends facility to the mind and suddenly the gates of memory open wide and one's fund of memorable stories swells from a meagre trickle to a raging torrent, and we are overwhelmed with nostalgia. I wonder how many fans have bought old and rare issues of Amazing Stories, Wonder Stories, and Weird Tales, and, though delighted by the grand atmosphere of these magazines, nevertheless laid them aside unread simply because no familiar titles were to be seen on the contents-pages. Let such fans in particular read this article carefully, and at least preserve in memory those titles mentioned herein. In the files of science-fiction magazines you will find the name Chester D. Cuthbert mentioned but twice. It is with only one of his stories that we are at all concerned: "The Sublime Vigil," which appeared in the February 1934 issue of Wonder Stories. If you are searching for blazing rockets and hissing ray-guns, do not read this story, for you will not find them there. Or if your taste inclines toward Venusian princesses and Martian gadzooks you will be likewise disappointed. But---if you have ever wished to read science-fiction that bordered upon literature; science-fiction that successfully absorbs a touch of fantasy and is the better for it; science-fiction of so unusually human a quality that it has appeared but once in the broad annuals of the field; science-fiction that broaches a theory so startling, so vast and so distinct that it could appear but once---if you have longed for such qualities read "The Sublime Vigil" for in no other science-fiction story has the cold cosmos been more completely blended with burning human emotions. When it appeared the editor remarked that it was "undoubtedly one of the most beautiful stories we have published in a long time." After it was published the readers could give it no higher praise than "We shall reread this story many times." Read, then, this tragic epic of a man who resolved to remain true to his love throughout all eternity. It is a story of the strangest vigil ever held---a sublime vigil. It is hard for new fans to believe that at one time a science-fiction tale stood little or no chance of acceptance unless it contained a new idea or a novel twist of an old one. It is hard for those miserable beggars who prattle about "escape literature" to comprehend that once science-fiction was more than escape literature. ---That once it was an inexhaustible fund of new, creative, unique ideas. Once it was a type of fiction that appealed as much to the intellect as it did to the emotions. It is hard for the sterile, prostituted mind of today's "typists" (for by no strength of the imagination are they writers) to believe that once science-fiction did give one a basic insight into the sciences
Hevelin Fanzines
sidebar
