The Golf-ball on the December 1949 ASF is the first spherical spaceship on an ASF cover since February 1944, according to my encyclopaedic partner James White. (The two rugby balls seem to be quite without precedent). I think it is very nice indeed (atta Zboyan!) but James says it is all spheroids and very hard to draw. He hopes it doesn't represent a Trend. The next development, he fears, is a Clarke type dumb-bell spaceship, but I told him he's lucky I don't ask him for BEMs or Beautiful Unclad Maidens. Incidentally, the Ladies' Home Journal in an article on Sex Education carried a photo of a sexy bookstall where, among all the 'dirty books', was the Avon Fantasy Reader. Oh, the shame of it.
HAS BEACHCOMBER BEEN READING VAN VOGT?
'She is embarrassed, and only wishes the floor would open and swallow her. It does.' [By The Way, 28.10.49]ODE TO MR. CAMPBELL
Thanks for letting Dr. Winter rest.BREAK FOR ASIMOV
He didn't rouse our interest.
Though we do admit he's usually
Better than Ole Doc Methuselah.
Let them practice in private and some happy morn your
Medical man may discover a corn cure.
'While taking his oral in chemistry recently, a professor posed a final question. 'Mr. Asimov, will you please tell us something about the thermo-dynamics of thiotimoline?' [Saturday Review of Literature]
OFF THE CUFF
Bradbury series currently running in British ARGOSY . . Merwin seems to have fallen under Sneary's spell, or else his compositors are slipping . . Shouldn't Lafayette's series be called 'The Waste of Space?' Youth must be served, of course, but surely not with BAD corn . . Nice to see a compatriot (Dr. Armattoe of Londonderry) mentioned in ASF . . Let's hope Literaturnaya Gazyeta never gets to hear about the second part of 'Gulf' . . Auld Lang Syne is all very well but if Zamba and Finished are the best he can do I'd be quite happy to see Sprague decamp. The title of his last story was only too appropriate . . Nicest subscription yet received by Slant is The Magazine of FANTASY, beautiful outside and excellent inside, the most elegant production we have ever seen . . Wish we could say the same of OTHER WORLDS but at least it's the first magazine we've seen with the guts to admit that one of its stories had been rejected by a rival, and it has good ideas. Good luck to it.
Data entered by Judy Bemis
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