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Pegasus, v. 2, issue 1, Summer 1943
Page 21
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Pegasus with the future, but are not strictly of the future. Another case in point is Robert Moore Williams' unforgettable "Flight of the Dawn Star", the quiet, masterly little story of two rocketeers who flew into a space warp, and emerged to find themselves on a planet that was paradise, and so unlike their own earth that it brought on a nostalgic longing for the eternally bitter struggle of their own planet; and how, in their search for it, they discovered that they had not only traveled in space but in time as well, and that this world they were on was but their own in the future. Then, too, Bob Williams' fantasy "City in the Far-Off Sky" (a favorite of mine), is probably the best example of a paradise that has its existence in the present as well as the future. C. L. Moore seems to be dominating this, but permit as to mention one other story by her -- in my opinion her best -- "Greater That Gods". This picture of two possibility features contacting the scientist who must be the deciding factor between them, is a story to be ranked for its superb writing skill among the best. This vivid conception of two futures, one with a surplus of scientific zeal and no time for human happiness, the other idle, beautiful, but without achievement, sterile scientifically, points out in the most fascinating manner, all extremes ate bad, and the middle course is beat. Too, Stuart's grisly powerful and pathetic "Twilight" shows how this happens when the peak of scientific accomplishment has been reached; how every comfort, every dream of perfection conceivable by the human mind has been granted, and how in the granting mankind was made the more unhappy. Which is the basic fault of all perfection -- being perfection, it is static. Happiness can come only through contrast, and he who had known only ultimate beauty and nothing else, can ever appreciate that beauty. Great happiness comes only after great sorrow and is made more welcome thereby. No paradise could be liveable if it did not have imperfections. If without fault, it would succeed only in boring its dwellers to a welcome death in short order. Paradises of an illusionary nature are a type which cannot be ignored. Manning and Pratt's "City of the Living Dead" tells the story of escapists who find paradise in a machine. Unpleasant indeed to speculate that today's motion pictures my evolve -- or degenerate -- to such a form! Weinbaum's "Pygmalion's Spectacles" with its transitory paradise is a device with which much fault may be found, on the grounds that it was fun while it lasted, but the waking up and knowing the fun is gone is a fate not at all enjoyable. It reminds me of the remark of the man who fell out of the fifth story window -- "Going down was a grand sensation, but hitting the ground! ---" The seventh subdivision is that of the Utopia. The very word Utopia has a connotation. It is not a complimentary connotation, indeed, rather the contrary. It carries with it a stigma of visionary impossibilities; of futile dreamers meditating inanely on millennia which one can never be. And it is a connotation that will remain forever justified until hu- 18
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Pegasus with the future, but are not strictly of the future. Another case in point is Robert Moore Williams' unforgettable "Flight of the Dawn Star", the quiet, masterly little story of two rocketeers who flew into a space warp, and emerged to find themselves on a planet that was paradise, and so unlike their own earth that it brought on a nostalgic longing for the eternally bitter struggle of their own planet; and how, in their search for it, they discovered that they had not only traveled in space but in time as well, and that this world they were on was but their own in the future. Then, too, Bob Williams' fantasy "City in the Far-Off Sky" (a favorite of mine), is probably the best example of a paradise that has its existence in the present as well as the future. C. L. Moore seems to be dominating this, but permit as to mention one other story by her -- in my opinion her best -- "Greater That Gods". This picture of two possibility features contacting the scientist who must be the deciding factor between them, is a story to be ranked for its superb writing skill among the best. This vivid conception of two futures, one with a surplus of scientific zeal and no time for human happiness, the other idle, beautiful, but without achievement, sterile scientifically, points out in the most fascinating manner, all extremes ate bad, and the middle course is beat. Too, Stuart's grisly powerful and pathetic "Twilight" shows how this happens when the peak of scientific accomplishment has been reached; how every comfort, every dream of perfection conceivable by the human mind has been granted, and how in the granting mankind was made the more unhappy. Which is the basic fault of all perfection -- being perfection, it is static. Happiness can come only through contrast, and he who had known only ultimate beauty and nothing else, can ever appreciate that beauty. Great happiness comes only after great sorrow and is made more welcome thereby. No paradise could be liveable if it did not have imperfections. If without fault, it would succeed only in boring its dwellers to a welcome death in short order. Paradises of an illusionary nature are a type which cannot be ignored. Manning and Pratt's "City of the Living Dead" tells the story of escapists who find paradise in a machine. Unpleasant indeed to speculate that today's motion pictures my evolve -- or degenerate -- to such a form! Weinbaum's "Pygmalion's Spectacles" with its transitory paradise is a device with which much fault may be found, on the grounds that it was fun while it lasted, but the waking up and knowing the fun is gone is a fate not at all enjoyable. It reminds me of the remark of the man who fell out of the fifth story window -- "Going down was a grand sensation, but hitting the ground! ---" The seventh subdivision is that of the Utopia. The very word Utopia has a connotation. It is not a complimentary connotation, indeed, rather the contrary. It carries with it a stigma of visionary impossibilities; of futile dreamers meditating inanely on millennia which one can never be. And it is a connotation that will remain forever justified until hu- 18
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