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Southern Star, v. 1, issue 3, August 1941
Page 18
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From the Starport SOUTHERN STAR Page 18 THE SAPPHIRE DEATH - George F. Worts THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED - Sax Rohmer Vampires, Werewolves, etc. THE WEREWOLF OF PARIS - Guy Endore DARKER THAN YOU THINK - Jack Williamson DRACULA - Bram Stoker Oddities INTO THE INFINITE - Austin Hall BURN, WITCH, BURN! - A. Merritt THE PHANTOM IN THE RAIBOW [RAINBOW] - Slater LaMaster Well, that's my outline and those are my selections for the best three stories in each group. Why don't you compare your favorites with mine? We will probably be in agreement just about as often as I draw all hearts in a bridge game. Isn't it sad the way AMAZING has gone to seed? Of course Fantastic Adventures has gone to seed, too, but after all, it's just a baby in the fantascience fold and can't be expected to know any better. But AMAZING should! Yet it's garish, blatant, deliberately childish. The editor has arbitrarily accepted it as a cold fact that the majority of readers have adolescent mentalities, and the format, the contents and the general calibre of the magazine is style exclusively for such a group. Perhaps the policy is a good one, financially speaking. If the claim were made that AMAZING has a better circulation than any other scientifiction magazine, I would not contest the statement. But it is nevertheless a disappointment to the mature, sophisticated fan that AMAZING now caters to infants rather than to adults, and even the shining name of Burroughs won't boost it much higher, because Burroughs isn't at his best in AMAZING. He is writing down to his public, rather than over his head. I once wrote an article which was published in Lew Martin's ALCHEMIST under the title of "Astounding - Highhat but Tophole." If I were not overcome with laziness at the very prospect I would be tempted to send him a companion piece entitled "Amazing - Lowbrow but Definitely." It makes me rather sad to remember the way AMAZING plunged into print in the good old days when it was the sturdy pioneer destined to courageously blaze the way for a horde of fantasy folios, and then to recall its slow decadence into the respectable quasi-existence it barely survived under T. O'Connor Sloane, and then - today! Ugh! I shudder with shame for the traitorous editor who sold AMAZING down the river - for the man who swapped the shining standards of around scientifictional fatherhood, the honor of being FIRST, for the dubious pleasure of being last. Who swallowed the lure of gold and increased circulated and regurgitated the odor of tripe. Better literary death than dishonor! Another complaint I'd like to register most emphatically is this: the presiding editor of ARGOSY has not only ruined the readers' page with his very unfunny cracks, but has completely ruined the magazine by re-sizing it. THE END
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From the Starport SOUTHERN STAR Page 18 THE SAPPHIRE DEATH - George F. Worts THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED - Sax Rohmer Vampires, Werewolves, etc. THE WEREWOLF OF PARIS - Guy Endore DARKER THAN YOU THINK - Jack Williamson DRACULA - Bram Stoker Oddities INTO THE INFINITE - Austin Hall BURN, WITCH, BURN! - A. Merritt THE PHANTOM IN THE RAIBOW [RAINBOW] - Slater LaMaster Well, that's my outline and those are my selections for the best three stories in each group. Why don't you compare your favorites with mine? We will probably be in agreement just about as often as I draw all hearts in a bridge game. Isn't it sad the way AMAZING has gone to seed? Of course Fantastic Adventures has gone to seed, too, but after all, it's just a baby in the fantascience fold and can't be expected to know any better. But AMAZING should! Yet it's garish, blatant, deliberately childish. The editor has arbitrarily accepted it as a cold fact that the majority of readers have adolescent mentalities, and the format, the contents and the general calibre of the magazine is style exclusively for such a group. Perhaps the policy is a good one, financially speaking. If the claim were made that AMAZING has a better circulation than any other scientifiction magazine, I would not contest the statement. But it is nevertheless a disappointment to the mature, sophisticated fan that AMAZING now caters to infants rather than to adults, and even the shining name of Burroughs won't boost it much higher, because Burroughs isn't at his best in AMAZING. He is writing down to his public, rather than over his head. I once wrote an article which was published in Lew Martin's ALCHEMIST under the title of "Astounding - Highhat but Tophole." If I were not overcome with laziness at the very prospect I would be tempted to send him a companion piece entitled "Amazing - Lowbrow but Definitely." It makes me rather sad to remember the way AMAZING plunged into print in the good old days when it was the sturdy pioneer destined to courageously blaze the way for a horde of fantasy folios, and then to recall its slow decadence into the respectable quasi-existence it barely survived under T. O'Connor Sloane, and then - today! Ugh! I shudder with shame for the traitorous editor who sold AMAZING down the river - for the man who swapped the shining standards of around scientifictional fatherhood, the honor of being FIRST, for the dubious pleasure of being last. Who swallowed the lure of gold and increased circulated and regurgitated the odor of tripe. Better literary death than dishonor! Another complaint I'd like to register most emphatically is this: the presiding editor of ARGOSY has not only ruined the readers' page with his very unfunny cracks, but has completely ruined the magazine by re-sizing it. THE END
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