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Banshee, whole no. 3, December 1943
Page 2
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SAYINGS OF THE SPENCE Quarterly (?) Quibblings by Pfc. Paul Spencer * * * It's rather dizzying to consider all that's happened to me since I wrote the last "Sayings." I composed that, I recall, on my desk in my room at the Pawling (N.Y.) School for Boys -- said school having been occupied by the Army for the purpose of teaching Air Forces men (?) cryptography. I had been out of basic training only a couple of weeks, and had never been farther west than Pennsylvania. Ah how may years have gone their weary way since then! It must be nearly six months.... After graduating from crypto school, I was hustled off, diploma in hand, Pfc stripes on arms, to Bolling Field, D.C. There I visited "the nation's capitol," failed to contact either Speer or Singleton (because by the time I'd located them I and everyone in my squadron was quarantined for possible mumps, and after the quarantine we shipped out), and learned what it is to be a general duty man. It means KP and assorted details, interspersed with close-order drill. Well, after a month and a half of that, I was glad to ship out, even though I went to what has been called (in one of the army's less profane moments) "the hell-hole of creation" -- Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. As a matter of fact, I found it a hot, rigidly disciplined place but I endured it surprisingly well. I spent my time taking overseas training -- such diversions as bayonet drill, combat sports, and l . . . o . . . n . . . g hikes (with rifle and pack). This, too, came to an end. I expected it to be follows by immediate shipment overseas, but no, I went some fifteen or so hundred miles to McChord Field, Washington (just outside Tacoma), and thence after a week to Seattle. At the latter place I am now, doing, for a change, cryptographic work. I room in the city, and when not actually on duty am practically a civilian again. Oh, that this would last the duration! But it won't. * * * A person of my bookish habits wouldn't neglect to investigate the local public library. I didn't; I looked it up, and examined their card-index for material by such authors as Dunsany, Cabell, Hodgson, Machon, a. s. c. I was disappointed in my search for Hodgson (they have just one short story of his, in an anthology), but was restored to good spirits by fairly decent representations of the others. And I was really startled to discover on their shelves Stapledon's "Star Maker." I'd longed to read this ever since perusing the enthusiastic review of it in Cosmic Stories. Now having read it at last, I'm prepared to say it lives up to everything Wollheim said of it. You might suppose that Stapledon's imagination would be pretty well spent by the time he finished "Last and First Men" with the death of mankind five billion years hence; yet his questing mind has in "Star Maker" gone far beyond this point -- so far, indeed, that the whole drama of man becomes insignificant by contract. That "Star Maker" is not more widely known as one of the very greatest classics of scientification is probably due to its rarity, certainly not to lack of merit. Stapledon has a tremendously bold imagination, considerable scientific knowledge, and a fine literary style; all these gifts are much in evidence in this volume. There is a touch of mysticism here and there in "Star Maker," but wherever possible Stapledon adhered to scientific plausibility in
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SAYINGS OF THE SPENCE Quarterly (?) Quibblings by Pfc. Paul Spencer * * * It's rather dizzying to consider all that's happened to me since I wrote the last "Sayings." I composed that, I recall, on my desk in my room at the Pawling (N.Y.) School for Boys -- said school having been occupied by the Army for the purpose of teaching Air Forces men (?) cryptography. I had been out of basic training only a couple of weeks, and had never been farther west than Pennsylvania. Ah how may years have gone their weary way since then! It must be nearly six months.... After graduating from crypto school, I was hustled off, diploma in hand, Pfc stripes on arms, to Bolling Field, D.C. There I visited "the nation's capitol," failed to contact either Speer or Singleton (because by the time I'd located them I and everyone in my squadron was quarantined for possible mumps, and after the quarantine we shipped out), and learned what it is to be a general duty man. It means KP and assorted details, interspersed with close-order drill. Well, after a month and a half of that, I was glad to ship out, even though I went to what has been called (in one of the army's less profane moments) "the hell-hole of creation" -- Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. As a matter of fact, I found it a hot, rigidly disciplined place but I endured it surprisingly well. I spent my time taking overseas training -- such diversions as bayonet drill, combat sports, and l . . . o . . . n . . . g hikes (with rifle and pack). This, too, came to an end. I expected it to be follows by immediate shipment overseas, but no, I went some fifteen or so hundred miles to McChord Field, Washington (just outside Tacoma), and thence after a week to Seattle. At the latter place I am now, doing, for a change, cryptographic work. I room in the city, and when not actually on duty am practically a civilian again. Oh, that this would last the duration! But it won't. * * * A person of my bookish habits wouldn't neglect to investigate the local public library. I didn't; I looked it up, and examined their card-index for material by such authors as Dunsany, Cabell, Hodgson, Machon, a. s. c. I was disappointed in my search for Hodgson (they have just one short story of his, in an anthology), but was restored to good spirits by fairly decent representations of the others. And I was really startled to discover on their shelves Stapledon's "Star Maker." I'd longed to read this ever since perusing the enthusiastic review of it in Cosmic Stories. Now having read it at last, I'm prepared to say it lives up to everything Wollheim said of it. You might suppose that Stapledon's imagination would be pretty well spent by the time he finished "Last and First Men" with the death of mankind five billion years hence; yet his questing mind has in "Star Maker" gone far beyond this point -- so far, indeed, that the whole drama of man becomes insignificant by contract. That "Star Maker" is not more widely known as one of the very greatest classics of scientification is probably due to its rarity, certainly not to lack of merit. Stapledon has a tremendously bold imagination, considerable scientific knowledge, and a fine literary style; all these gifts are much in evidence in this volume. There is a touch of mysticism here and there in "Star Maker," but wherever possible Stapledon adhered to scientific plausibility in
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