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Banshee, whole no. 4, March 1944
Page 14
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14 * * * Banshee gave the whole story away. Not that the story needed a great deal of suspense, though. How about the fine illustrations for that yarn, too? The year's best. In fact, the best since Rogers and Schneeman were snatched away. Kolliker, it seems, almost invariable does better as Williams. his work has really improved vastly of late, and Orban has picked up too. Our objection, in the past, to Orban's drawings is that they have been too black. Compare his usual run of work with the pix for "Fricassee in Four Dimensions." Can a machine look alien--well, we don't like to adkit it, but we're forced to agree with Larry. The answer is no. (We hate that, too. Here we were hoping to start a nice, hot argument with the Hermit--sorta pay him back, by disagreeing with him, for all those nasty little comments in our last installment of this thing. Besides, we could have filled a goodly amount of space that way.) We think that when Claude claims some of the early Paul covers contained machiner that was alien, he interpreted alien as unusual, which they certainly are. And just to heap a few more coals on the hotly raging fires of discussion, it is our opinion that nothing but life forms totally different from those to which we are accustomed could really look alien. Actually, there are certain life forms here on good old Earth that impress us as alien. F'rinstance, inspect a caterpillar closely sometime. Not the fuzzy kind, but the ones with little or no hair, or whatever you want to call it--and outre colorings. Or tomato worms. Nearly all of the half plant, half animal things to be found in the ocean have an alien appearance, too. It's only natural--we don't make a habit of walking around the ocean floor every day. If we did, they would of course be quite commonplace. We are used to fish, though, so if you were to dredge up an unknown species it would appear grotesque and unusual, but not alien. See what we mean? It's all a matter of being accustomed to a general class of things, whether it's machinery, plants, or animals. To a person familiar with Terrestrial machinery, a Martian automatic feed, atomic powered triple-decker nut cracker would look different, and its purpose would perhaps be quite difficult to puzzle out, but all in all--just another machine. To add a little to our topic of two paragraphs back, those strange underwater life forms fit out description of alien to a T. We are accustomed to plant life and to animal life, but those--quasi creatures? --are neither and yet both. At this point we feel called upon to reply to the little query Spencer directed at us in the second issue of CALIBAN. While we will not burst forth into a heated defense of Rap, we have a little, age old question to ask. The name of the mag Amazing Stories; does the word "stories" imply science fiction, period? Personally, we rather suspect that the purpose of including fantasy was to perhaps snag a few more readers for FA. Palmer is strictly business, you know, and what's wrong with that? Magazines are generally published to make money, and the "gruesome twosome" seem to do right nicely be Ziff Davis. One the basis of circulation here in Indianapolis they rate right under Blue Book, which tops the pulp list. Besides, we think most of youse guys go to Amazing with the idea in mind that everything in it is going to stink like hell, just as sure ((continued on page 17))
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14 * * * Banshee gave the whole story away. Not that the story needed a great deal of suspense, though. How about the fine illustrations for that yarn, too? The year's best. In fact, the best since Rogers and Schneeman were snatched away. Kolliker, it seems, almost invariable does better as Williams. his work has really improved vastly of late, and Orban has picked up too. Our objection, in the past, to Orban's drawings is that they have been too black. Compare his usual run of work with the pix for "Fricassee in Four Dimensions." Can a machine look alien--well, we don't like to adkit it, but we're forced to agree with Larry. The answer is no. (We hate that, too. Here we were hoping to start a nice, hot argument with the Hermit--sorta pay him back, by disagreeing with him, for all those nasty little comments in our last installment of this thing. Besides, we could have filled a goodly amount of space that way.) We think that when Claude claims some of the early Paul covers contained machiner that was alien, he interpreted alien as unusual, which they certainly are. And just to heap a few more coals on the hotly raging fires of discussion, it is our opinion that nothing but life forms totally different from those to which we are accustomed could really look alien. Actually, there are certain life forms here on good old Earth that impress us as alien. F'rinstance, inspect a caterpillar closely sometime. Not the fuzzy kind, but the ones with little or no hair, or whatever you want to call it--and outre colorings. Or tomato worms. Nearly all of the half plant, half animal things to be found in the ocean have an alien appearance, too. It's only natural--we don't make a habit of walking around the ocean floor every day. If we did, they would of course be quite commonplace. We are used to fish, though, so if you were to dredge up an unknown species it would appear grotesque and unusual, but not alien. See what we mean? It's all a matter of being accustomed to a general class of things, whether it's machinery, plants, or animals. To a person familiar with Terrestrial machinery, a Martian automatic feed, atomic powered triple-decker nut cracker would look different, and its purpose would perhaps be quite difficult to puzzle out, but all in all--just another machine. To add a little to our topic of two paragraphs back, those strange underwater life forms fit out description of alien to a T. We are accustomed to plant life and to animal life, but those--quasi creatures? --are neither and yet both. At this point we feel called upon to reply to the little query Spencer directed at us in the second issue of CALIBAN. While we will not burst forth into a heated defense of Rap, we have a little, age old question to ask. The name of the mag Amazing Stories; does the word "stories" imply science fiction, period? Personally, we rather suspect that the purpose of including fantasy was to perhaps snag a few more readers for FA. Palmer is strictly business, you know, and what's wrong with that? Magazines are generally published to make money, and the "gruesome twosome" seem to do right nicely be Ziff Davis. One the basis of circulation here in Indianapolis they rate right under Blue Book, which tops the pulp list. Besides, we think most of youse guys go to Amazing with the idea in mind that everything in it is going to stink like hell, just as sure ((continued on page 17))
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