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Banshee, whole no. 4, March 1944
Page 12
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12 * * * Banshee PURELY PERSONAL by Len Marlow It sez in the papers that jet propulsion is here. However, the papers--the local ones at least--seem to have been misinformed as to how jet propulsion functions. "The jet propelled airplaned," they would have us believe, "operates on the rocket principle, with a series of short, sharp blats." That doesn't even sound like a definition of how a rocket functions, almost all the rocket devices we've ever heard of using a continuous blast. So we were going to write some nice little letters to the editors of the various papers and tell them just how the thing works--but as usual we didn't get around to it. Why we're telling you thin, we don't know, but after all, we had to start somewhere. Magazines lately have been full of things like "Your Life Tomorrow" in Collier's, "The Rocket Grows Up" in This Week, etc, etc. You find manufacturers of alcoholic beverages using drawings of future inventions in their ads. The public, one suppose, is becoming future conscious. Fanzines are full of articles, very idealistic articles, painting a rosy picture of Stfdom after the war. Stf, they say, will be more recognized ATW, and may even play a part in shaping the future. We're slightly dubious. While of the opinion that a wider field is opening up for stfantasy as a form of literature, we can't quite picture complacent old John Q. Public viewing it as having any merits along the line of predicting possible futures. People as a whole are so exasperatingly unimaginative. Most of the articles in the slicks concern not the far distant future, but the very near future--after the war. All the predictions are logically based on present developments, and, we might point out, the magazines in which they appeas carry quite a bit more weight than does a pulp. So it seems to boil down to this: in the future we will see a lot of predicion and stuff in the slicks, written by some supposedly authoritative names. But as for the stf mags--they'll still be "that crazy trash." Just a passing thought--will we see all the great inventions and improvements after this war? Some of them, naturally. But what about all these wonderful predictions--ideas on which a certain amount of work has been done, but which lack a lot of development yet. A lot of these predictors have no connection whatsoever with the manufacturers who will produce these "miracles of tomorrow." The ideas outlined are, we believe, pretty much just what the "prophet" would like to see developed ATW. Undoubtedly they could be, but they probably won't for quite a while. Businessmen are shrewd old boys--why should they hand J.Q. Public a batch of improvements all at once, when they can string them out over a period of years and make him pay ten times as much for 'em that way? Automobile manufacturers are now saying that postwar desings will be much the same as prewar. Thousands of war planes will be converted to
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12 * * * Banshee PURELY PERSONAL by Len Marlow It sez in the papers that jet propulsion is here. However, the papers--the local ones at least--seem to have been misinformed as to how jet propulsion functions. "The jet propelled airplaned," they would have us believe, "operates on the rocket principle, with a series of short, sharp blats." That doesn't even sound like a definition of how a rocket functions, almost all the rocket devices we've ever heard of using a continuous blast. So we were going to write some nice little letters to the editors of the various papers and tell them just how the thing works--but as usual we didn't get around to it. Why we're telling you thin, we don't know, but after all, we had to start somewhere. Magazines lately have been full of things like "Your Life Tomorrow" in Collier's, "The Rocket Grows Up" in This Week, etc, etc. You find manufacturers of alcoholic beverages using drawings of future inventions in their ads. The public, one suppose, is becoming future conscious. Fanzines are full of articles, very idealistic articles, painting a rosy picture of Stfdom after the war. Stf, they say, will be more recognized ATW, and may even play a part in shaping the future. We're slightly dubious. While of the opinion that a wider field is opening up for stfantasy as a form of literature, we can't quite picture complacent old John Q. Public viewing it as having any merits along the line of predicting possible futures. People as a whole are so exasperatingly unimaginative. Most of the articles in the slicks concern not the far distant future, but the very near future--after the war. All the predictions are logically based on present developments, and, we might point out, the magazines in which they appeas carry quite a bit more weight than does a pulp. So it seems to boil down to this: in the future we will see a lot of predicion and stuff in the slicks, written by some supposedly authoritative names. But as for the stf mags--they'll still be "that crazy trash." Just a passing thought--will we see all the great inventions and improvements after this war? Some of them, naturally. But what about all these wonderful predictions--ideas on which a certain amount of work has been done, but which lack a lot of development yet. A lot of these predictors have no connection whatsoever with the manufacturers who will produce these "miracles of tomorrow." The ideas outlined are, we believe, pretty much just what the "prophet" would like to see developed ATW. Undoubtedly they could be, but they probably won't for quite a while. Businessmen are shrewd old boys--why should they hand J.Q. Public a batch of improvements all at once, when they can string them out over a period of years and make him pay ten times as much for 'em that way? Automobile manufacturers are now saying that postwar desings will be much the same as prewar. Thousands of war planes will be converted to
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