Astounding Stories

“ Free from the superfluous, uninteresting machinery and apparatus that clutter up most illustrations in other Science Fiction magazines, your March cover remained fantastic, but human—a picture that expressed the very essence of super-scientific fiction as presented in Astounding Stories. Vivid in color, striking in subject, dramatic in treatment and drawn with consummate skill, that cover must have attracted many new Readers to this magazine. ”

“ I am here to say that Astounding Stories is the best of its kind.
What I have to say now is by no means a criticism. I am merely asking for an explanation. I have no regard for those people who are continually looking for flaws to peck about in various stories.
In the May, 1931, issue my choice of all the fine stories was "Dark Moon." That was a super-story and I enjoyed it from start to finish, even the third or fourth time I read it. If a story is worth reading once it is worth reading several times, is my belief. ”

“ I have read every one of your Astounding Stories and think there is no other magazine on the market like it. Only one kick: it doesn't appear often enough. I should like to see it every week; every two weeks, anyway. I like every story you print, and I think the size of your magazine is perfect. I have saved every issue I read, and now have seventeen of them.
"Phalanxes of Atlans" and "Marooned Under the Sea" were especially good. "The Readers' Corner" is fine, but I don't like so many brickbats thrown. ”

“ First of all, I must say that I raise my hat to you and your coworkers for having brought out another Science Fiction magazine—a real benefaction to readers like myself who thrive, as it were, on such stories. I can tell you my eyes grew big with delight when I saw the first number—to me—of Astounding Stories. Mille mercis. Why don't you try publishing a thick Quarterly? ”

“ Not that Astounding Stories fully deserves all that praise. As one Reader said, words are inadequate to describe how wonderful your magazine is; however, I do not agree with those who denounce some of the Readers for making criticisms and suggestions. No magazine can be absolutely perfect, although Astounding Stories comes pretty near it. ”

“ Miracles do happen! I was never so thoroughly astounded in all my life as when I received the great June issue of "our" magazine with straight edges! Thank you and all concerned for publishing "our" magazine sans rough edges. The smooth edges ought to cut the reading time of Astounding Stories down to an hour and forty-five minutes as we always used to waste a lot of time fumbling about with the pages. ”

“ It is very evident that you are on the road to perfection. Smooth cut edges, the acquisition of the greatest of artists, Paul, all point to the accelerating progress Astounding Stories is achieving.
We Readers are frequently asked as to how we would run the magazine if we were Editors. Well, here is my conception of the ideal magazine:
Smooth paper, no advertisements whatsoever, the interior illustrations done by an artist with the talent of a Paul and a Wesso combined, and made in water colors, too. ”

“ There's no sense in criticizing a magazine as some Readers do. I think if the Editor could make his magazine any better, he would do it without hesitation.—Charles Strada, 503 Olive Street, Kansas City, Mo.
Cummings and Wagner
Dear Editor:
Astounding Stories is in my estimation the best magazine on the market. Words are feeble when an accurate description of the pleasure that I receive from every issue of Astounding Stories is needed. However, I will say that next to my extreme appreciation of classical music, I rate Astounding Stories as being the best outlet of my emotions. ”

“ The story that belongs to them is one long since taken to the warm hearts of the people, and cherished as among the most touching in all the history of the realm—a realm rich in stories of a peculiarly heart-compelling kind. ”

“ In return the stories gave pleasure and knowledge and, at times, sadness, to the peoples of the world. Stories try to give those who listen carefully an understanding of how the Lord of the Sky means for the world to be. ”

“ A story of romance, mystery, and adventure, in which, as in many mystery stories, there is the adventuress, with whom, for some reason, the peer, notwithstanding his breeding and social position, becomes entangled, until he is mysteriously put out of the way. From this point on complication and adventure succeed each other in rapid succession, holding the reader in rapt fascination until the end of the story is reached, where the plots of love and mysterious disappearances are surprisingly unfolded. ”

“ What more lurid than the depths of desire, what more mysterious than the hinterlands of conscience? And what event is so great a mystery as life itself? I believe that every tale should be a mystery tale. ”

“ Being endowed by nature with a romantic imagination, I had become attached more than all the others to the man whose life was an enigma, and who seemed to me the hero of some mysterious drama. He was fond of me ”

“ There is romance of love, mystery, plot, and fighting, and a breathless dash and go about the telling which makes one quite forget about the improbabilities of the story; and it all ends in the old-fashioned healthy American way. ”

“ There were so many beautiful books which gave her unspeakable pleasure, and which she will never be able to forget; stories of strong characters nobly laying hold on life, of great souls and spirits, which would make her heart glow with enthusiasm and delight. ”

“ The life which was to most of their contemporaries a tragedy without dignity, or a comedy without humour, was to them a gift sweet and sacred, a race to be bravely run under that lucent cloud which shone with the faces of angel witnesses,—a mystery indeed, yet a mystery luminous with a ray which streamed to them out of God’s Eternity from the Glory of their Risen Lord. ”

“ To make my story end as all well-conditioned stories ought to end, I should here be able to wave my wand, or invoke some good genie, or however it is that the writer-folk bestow happiness at a stroke upon the helpless creatures whom they have been ruthlessly dragging through a sea of trial and tribulation, and show you the actors in my own drama transported with joy. ”

“ We get these stories so young and grow up with them so familiarly that when we finally come into a realization of them they hold no possible surprise and so their first charm is lost. Think of one story with such elements as a wonder-woman rising from a man's side while he slept—a talking serpent, persuasive in temptation as insidious in easy approaches—a flaming sword of wrath—a tree of knowledge—and the sounding voice of God as he walked through the garden "in the cool of the day"! ”

“ Each tale has at the end an unexpected turn or quick bit of action, and these endings are almost invariably tragic. The style is well suited to the character of the stories, which are wild, weird, and queer. ”

“ Well, but life is full, also, of endings, of the results in concrete action of character, of completed dramas. And we expect and give, in the stories we hear and tell in ordinary intercourse, some point, some outcome, an end of some sort. If you interest me in the preparations of two persons who are starting on a journey, and expend all your ingenuity in describing their outfit and their characters, and do not tell me where they went or what befell them afterwards, I do not call that a story. ”

“ Comedy, tragedy, character, plot—there seemed nothing in life but the writing of tales—watching, listening, dreaming, finding, then becoming deeply excited, feeling them grow inside of you, planning them out and writing them off, then working them over and over and over, little by little building them up. ”

“ We find actuality to support the weird and mysterious stories of fiction, which those of us who are honest enough to admit a lingering love of the marvellous must now doubly appreciate, from the fact that our school-day impressions of such things are not only revived, but are strengthened with the semblance of truth. ”

“ This is a story within a story, and will appeal to all; childhood and youth will devour it with a keen interest, and the maturer mind will detect in the simple, light, fantastic wording a portrayal of the deepest passion to which the human heart is susceptible. ”

“ The characters in them are living, breathing creatures, the kind that if met in real life would arouse affection and awaken both laughter and tears, and whether these stories are told in monosyllabic language or colored by fine rhetorical effects, they strike the tender places and appeal to the best. ”

“ CHAPTER III THE TELLING OF FAIRY TALES The telling of stories refreshes the mind as a bath refreshes the body. It gives exercise to the intellect and its powers. It tests the judgments and feelings. The story-teller must wholly take into himself the life of which he speaks, must let it live and operate in himself freely. ”

“ A small number of scriptural and legendary stories lend themselves quite particularly to the development of such beautiful accessory, which soon becomes the paramount interest, and vests the whole with a totally new character: a romantic, childish charm, the charm of the improbable taken for granted, of the freedom to invent whatever one would like to see but cannot, the charm of the fairy story. ”

“ But sometimes one thing would be left out and sometimes another, or different people would add wonderful stories of their own, which would become part of the true story. And so, when at last these histories come to us, we find we have lost a great deal, and perhaps not gained very much. ”

“ When I speak then of my books you will know what I mean. The chief charm of literature, old or new, lies in its high quality of surprise, unexpectedness, spontaneity: high spirits applied to life. We can fairly hear some of the old chaps you and I know laughing down through the centuries. How we love 'em! They laughed for themselves, not for us!
Yes, there must be surprise in the books that I keep in the worn case at my elbow, the surprise of a new personality perceiving for the first time the beauty, the wonder, the humour, the tragedy, the greatness of truth. ”

“ Throughout the first series of "Wonder Tales" there is a capital air of make-believe, which imposes upon you most delightfully, and makes you accept the most incredible doings, as you accept them in a dream, as the most natural thing in the world. ”

“ Some day they are overcome by that all-absorbing, dreamy sensation which forms the contrast to their whole secret and public life: like unto delightful mystery and miracle, full of golden splendour and baffling description and illustration. ”

“ It is based upon a plot that awakens curiosity and keeps it alive throughout. The hero and heroine are marked with individuality, the love-passages are finely drawn, and the story developed with judgment.”—The Civil Service Gazette. ”

“ There are those who contend that all the epical stories should be given in simplified form during this period, but why spoil the romantic, poetic ones which are so much more enjoyed a little later and so much better understood, when there are hundreds that can be given without pruning them to the heart? ”

“ Character, situation, incident, humour, pathos, tragic force, are all in abundance; words alone are at a minimum. Of course these are "plain" tales, lightning-flash tales. A gleam, and there the whole tragedy or comedy is before you—elaborate it for yourself afterwards." ”

“ Those are just a few of the questions you will ask yourself, as you rush through this baffling tale of mystery piled upon mystery. It's a breathless book—a story in which action never ceases for a moment, and whose outcome you never suspect until the last big moment of struggle when mystery ceases to be mystery, and you breathe the contented sigh that comes at the end of a good story well told—and thoroughly enjoyed. ”

“ Any charm of the story-tellers of the ages has entered into the body of the tale, which has become an objective presentment of a reality that concentrates on itself and keeps personality out of sight. ”

“ Here is a story whose artistic realism will appeal to everyone, while its distinction as a serious novel is made evident by its clever analysis, sparkling dialogue and thrilling and powerful situations. ”

“ And finally, the unending charm of these diversified adventures inheres not only in the narrative itself but in the human disposition which cherishes memories and hopes of a larger experience, free, abundant, glorious, and on but casual provocation will follow a great story-teller to the ends of the earth. ”

“ Accurate biographies record narratives which no romancer's imagination could hope to rival. Researches, sufferings, labors, triumphs, agonies and disasters, the defeats of destiny, glory, which is the "sunlight of the dead," illuminating the past, whether fortunate or tragic,—such is what the lives of Great Men reveal to us, or, if the phrase be allowed, paint for us in a series of fascinating and dramatic pictures. ”

“ Wonder grows, in analyzing this romance, that in these days of enlightenment, of writing and printing, this story could grow to such absurd proportions and to so many fiction details; that it could gain such wide credence. ”

“ Even the rarest of beauties lost charm under an electric glare, while in candle-light hair and eyes and lips and throat took on alluring mysteries—little half lights of confession, swift, fleeting, golden, high lights of revelation. ”

“ Our present-day mixers of fact and non-fact lean toward the probable, of course, rather than the marvelous, and would resent being classed with the heroic romancers; but any narrator would be proud to be able to tell well, as everybody with a child-like heart is delighted to listen to, an out-and-out story of mere wonder. ”