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Vanguard Variorum, May 1946

VANGUARD VARIORUM     3

are trying to obtain books on the subject of semantics. For the record I might say that I had my story "plot" before I thought of using the semantic philosophy as the science background. I had the machine, I had the idea of Venus as heaven and so on. Semantics just happened to fit into this set-up, and accordingly I put it in with a certain amount of satisfaction.

The regiphile trend which Knight has discovered in my writings is really amusing. He cites particularly THE WEAPON MAKERS series and THE MIXED MEN series. Mr. Knight, I am afraid, has read into words meanings that might apply now, but surely will not always apply. Did he not recognize (it was stated plainly) that the governmental system in the world of the weapon shops was a development of the two party system, where the weaker party was always in power, and the stronger acted as a constant check on its excesses. As for the Mixed Men, a few references to Imperial Earth, one reference to a king--and Mr. Knight was up in arms. The truth is that, in planning the necessary background, I had to decide, what would be the nature of a system where a woman would be in command of a battleship? So far as I'm concerned, no arguments will ever convince me that anybody but the Lady Laurr of Noble Laurr, and others like her, would ever get such commands. Having solved that problem, I forgot all about Imperial earth, except for occasional references. Mr. Knight, on the other hand, states plainly that he does not intend to say what he thinks of a man who loves monarchies ( a devastating attack in itself) but then over a period of three paragraphs he proceeds to say what he thinks in no uncertain terms. Permit me to say, so that there may be no mistake, that I do not like monarchies, not even the constitutional kind, not even the Swedish brand, nor do I like them by any other name, like secretary or comrade, nor do I like the "presidents" of certain of our southern neighbors. There is no title, however harmless it originally was, that cannot be used as a concealment for a bloody dictatorship. In actual practice, there is as wide a variance between dictatorships as there is between democracies. Americans, generally, hate the ones that are particularly militaristic and oppressive, but only when these are brought to their attention via a press campaign.

All this is partly beside the point. I have written dozens of stories in which there are no dictators. These do not apparently constitute a trend. I have written a handful of stories in which dictators or kings were mentioned. A few readers have taken this as a trend. They have assumed that, because I treat all my characters as human beings (which I shall continue to do) I must be sympathetic to the baddies. Because of their obsession with the monarchial idea, they failed to see the overtones of the stories in question, the two party system in WEAPON MAKERS, the fact that imperialism is only a vague background in THE MIXED MEN series, and they certainly failed to recognize that the dictator of HEIR APPARENT was a product of atomic disaster. Believe me, my friends, if there is an atomic war there are going to be some political changes on this earth. And if a man should invent such a weapon as I described in HEIR, he will very likely make those changes. However, nothing so fortunate is liable to happen. In the event of an atomic war, the world will collapse from chaos to chaos until finally one power emerges to rule the world.

But now, I come to Mr. Knight's specific criticisms of my plot. I am going to change his interpretation of the story slightly. My version is as follows: The Gosseyn, discovering some hundreds of years before the story opens, that a secret base of an interstellar empire has been illegally established on Venus, decides to make his stand there and on that issue. He is no super strong man, no super-genius, but he manages to establish the machine on earth, and he manages to start the process of non-Aristotelian training, which he regards as the only hope of the entire universe. Somebody becomes aware of what he is trying to do, and therefore, when the final crisis comes, the Gosseyn has not only

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VANGUARD VARIORUM 3 are trying to obtain books on the subject of semantics. For the record I might say that I had my story "plot" before I thought of using the semantic philosophy as the science background. I had the machine, I had the idea of Venus as heaven and so on. Semantics just happened to fit into this set-up, and accordingly I put it in with a certain amount of satisfaction. The regiphile trend which Knight has discovered in my writings is really amusing. He cites particularly THE WEAPON MAKERS series and THE MIXED MEN series. Mr. Knight, I am afraid, has read into words meanings that might apply now, but surely will not always apply. Did he not recognize (it was stated plainly) that the governmental system in the world of the weapon shops was a development of the two party system, where the weaker party was always in power, and the stronger acted as a constant check on its excesses. As for the Mixed Men, a few references to Imperial Earth, one reference to a king--and Mr. Knight was up in arms. The truth is that, in planning the necessary background, I had to decide, what would be the nature of a system where a woman would be in command of a battleship? So far as I'm concerned, no arguments will ever convince me that anybody but the Lady Laurr of Noble Laurr, and others like her, would ever get such commands. Having solved that problem, I forgot all about Imperial earth, except for occasional references. Mr. Knight, on the other hand, states plainly that he does not intend to say what he thinks of a man who loves monarchies ( a devastating attack in itself) but then over a period of three paragraphs he proceeds to say what he thinks in no uncertain terms. Permit me to say, so that there may be no mistake, that I do not like monarchies, not even the constitutional kind, not even the Swedish brand, nor do I like them by any other name, like secretary or comrade, nor do I like the "presidents" of certain of our southern neighbors. There is no title, however harmless it originally was, that cannot be used as a concealment for a bloody dictatorship. In actual practice, there is as wide a variance between dictatorships as there is between democracies. Americans, generally, hate the ones that are particularly militaristic and oppressive, but only when these are brought to their attention via a press campaign. All this is partly beside the point. I have written dozens of stories in which there are no dictators. These do not apparently constitute a trend. I have written a handful of stories in which dictators or kings were mentioned. A few readers have taken this as a trend. They have assumed that, because I treat all my characters as human beings (which I shall continue to do) I must be sympathetic to the baddies. Because of their obsession with the monarchial idea, they failed to see the overtones of the stories in question, the two party system in WEAPON MAKERS, the fact that imperialism is only a vague background in THE MIXED MEN series, and they certainly failed to recognize that the dictator of HEIR APPARENT was a product of atomic disaster. Believe me, my friends, if there is an atomic war there are going to be some political changes on this earth. And if a man should invent such a weapon as I described in HEIR, he will very likely make those changes. However, nothing so fortunate is liable to happen. In the event of an atomic war, the world will collapse from chaos to chaos until finally one power emerges to rule the world. But now, I come to Mr. Knight's specific criticisms of my plot. I am going to change his interpretation of the story slightly. My version is as follows: The Gosseyn, discovering some hundreds of years before the story opens, that a secret base of an interstellar empire has been illegally established on Venus, decides to make his stand there and on that issue. He is no super strong man, no super-genius, but he manages to establish the machine on earth, and he manages to start the process of non-Aristotelian training, which he regards as the only hope of the entire universe. Somebody becomes aware of what he is trying to do, and therefore, when the final crisis comes, the Gosseyn has not only