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FA NI TASY REVIE VV Vol. If. No. 10 SIXPENCE AUG.-SEP.'48 DEYELOPMENT The pla,n to tnvite famtasy fa,ns to assist in financing a new publishing company to taJre over .New Tgorlds, is now being referred to writers and otJrers who may partici- pato in tlre renture. The story of fantasy-fiction's development in this oGuntry is one of mag:azines that have failed eventually if not soon after their launching, or that have not materialised at all. Always such projects have been stalled by hesitant publishers, adverse conditions or, now, the frustrations of the paper shortage. Yet thqse who refuse to accept these repeated setbacks as any more ttran temporary have found a widespread interest among Britain's fantasy followers in the prcposal for continuing New Worl<ls through an organisation which they would set up and control them- selves. It is suggested that not only those who would produce and distribute the magazine, but the authors whose stories it would present, should share the financial brunt of re.launching it on a sound commercial basis. and that those readers interested enough should be invited to give further backing to the project. Whether any profit would accrue to all these sponsors, apart from the satisfaction of rescuing the magazine from its suspension, i,s a matter of some doubt. But the prime movers of the proposal feel confldent that on such a mutually co-operative basis the venture would have every chance of succeeding and, equally important, of maklng possible more ambitious enterprises which would ensure the continued development of British fantasy by those who are most con- cerned with its sensible presentation. While other publishers, obviously with mistaken ideas of the real potentialities of the fleld, are content with producing cheap imitations of its less attractive elements, how can we expect it to flourish as we would wish? Such a project as is now being considered cannot be embarked upon withouu careful thought of the complications involved; for its success must depend largely on the goodwill of those readers who will be most interested in the progress of the magazine and who may have divergent opinions as to how lt can be secured. Still, we hope these plans, once formulated, will not be kept in cold storage as long as some which have been prepared in the past by established pub- lishers. The current interest in science flction among the larger audience which has been attracted to it must not be allowed to flag before New Worlils is once more appearing on the bookstalls. FA NTASY ERIC FRAilK RUSSELL on CHARIES F0RT - THE BRONX fEER In spito of hls fubunking of science-and practlcally evcrything else-moat sciencefanta.sy readers have a soft spot for the la,te Cbarles ("I b€lieve nothing") f'ort, whse peculiar philosophy has inspired rnany stories; nota.bly Eric Frank Russell'e "Sinister Barrier." lIere the British writer, who is alm a prominent supporter of the Fortean attitude, claims that the man who pa.ckeil four books with marvels science cannot a"dequately explain deserves to rank as a giant, of fantasy. During the last twenty years we have fantasy, each according to his own seen the passing of some doughty especial virtues, to such an extent that ngures in pulp magazirj.e fanta-sy. Some, much of what we read today might be like Ernst, packed up and left for lusher termed an end-product. Much, but not flelds. Some, like Hilliard, faded out all. There are other forces operating, mysteriously and efiectively. Some, such as those of young and uninhibited like Weinbaum, were taken before their publishers, unusually competent time, scintillating all too briefly and editors, new, brash and individualistic leaving us a memory full of vain re- writers. But the formative forces of grets. the giants can still be felt The names of many no longer with Which of the bygone names exerted us to-day are the names of giants. Mer- the most potent efieet upoir modern ritt, Lovecraft, Kline-the list now fantasy is a question any band of old- seems appallingly long-were of calibre time fans could debaLe until the crack big enough to get by without benefit of of doom; for the respective sfatures of pulps. lhat they did pour their talents great penmen are measured not in into magazines, and that magazines inches of lineal marking but in years eagerly featured them, was lucky for of reader-€steem. To each reader his those who, like myself, thirsted for fan- own measure, to each his own colossus. tasy when too young to afford expen- It wouid ill-become any of us to deny sive books. another his personal yaxdstick with Those departed great ones shaped which to estimate the worth of this" ttrat or bhe other author, Iiving or dead. If this appears to contradict lurid com- ments of mine made many years ago, FANTASY REVIEW accept that I am now cured, or half- A Journal for Readers, Writers and cured, or on the way to tecovery. Collectors of Imaginative Fiction By my yardstick-which I have no BI-MONTHLY: SIXPtrNCE reason to suppose is more or less accur- Editorial, Advertising ate that anyone else's-the late and Pub- Charles Fort was enough of a titan to lishing Ofrce: 115 Wanstead Park pulp Road. Ilford. Essex. influence fantasy as much as any other wliter, and possibly Subscription rates: In Great more than Britain and Dominions (excepl most. Perhaps the most amazing fea- Canada) 3/6 per year. Single cop- ture of his influence is the way in which ies, 7d., post free. In Canada and it has been put across. He w-as no wel- U.S.A., 75c. per year. Single copies, come Lovecraftian visitor, given the 15c., post free. best chair, eniertaining wonderfully Vol. 2, No. 10 Aug.-Sep.'48 night after night; no Weinbaumian stlanger-in-town dazzling spectacularly Editor: Walter GiUings. before leaving for keeps. He walked in Associate Editors: John Carnell. the front door and walked out the back, J. Michael Rosenblum, D. R. Smith, quietly, craftily, and was some Arthur F. Hillman, Fred C. Brown, it time Nigel Lindsay, Frank Edward Ar- before it was noticed that the house- nold, J. O. Newman. A. Vincent hold silver had vanished; There has CIarke. been much counting of spoons ever A m er i c a n Correspondents: since. David Kishi (New York), !'olrest I have a hazy recollection of when, J. Ackerman (Hollylvood), Sam in a moment something-or-other Moskowitz (Newark, N.J.), Joseph of B. Baker (Chicago). which has never been explained, Astounding Stories serialised Fort's BEVIEW 3 "Lor"i At that time my wits must been located in my tail end, for I read it with little inlerest, and to the present day my sharpest memory concerning jt is of a letter to Astounding from a reader yclept "Zero" who sensed Fort as a foul smell made manifest at Holy Communion. I don't recall that I re- sented Zero's yardstick. Mv indifier- ence was not Fort's fault: he iought me out when I was spending too little time in study. But, a couple of years later, Fort hit home in wtrat I used for a mind. "Lol" reappeared in book form. I read it again, decided that Astounding had cast an unnoticed pearl before me. How many others reached a similar conclusion is something I'll never know. That some did is evident by the fact that in the world of pulp fantasy Fort is more alive to-day than when "Lo!" flrst came out. Here I am disregarding Fort's phil- osophy of determined scepticism a.nd his ethic of temporary acceptance, look- ing at him only as one of the fantasy- forces discernible to-day. Fort was the writer who never turned out a DulD story in any accepted sense. Ilis'solb Photo : Pincus Horn performance, "Lo !" was a masterfullv -CIIARLES HOy FOR,T, called by his written piece of scienrif,c heresy which follori/ers- "tlre man caused many who tiberated minas,; fans-and vet causes Iived _qnd died (aged b?r. in T'he Broni, many-to view him as The Bronx Jeer. New York. Starting out as a naturalist, Since then no writer has copied his 9.e t99I( to writing novels and ended up stark literary style, or at least imitated (rn nls own words) ..an ultra-scientific it successfully. No writer has become realist." For 26 years he kepb notes and his stooge cuttings-40.000 of them-on earth- in the sense that other gugkes, giants have been offered the sincerest -tidal waves, comets, meteorites; form falls of frogs, stones and red rafur; strange of flattery. Indeed, the bias he footprints. poltergeists, and ali thin-Ea has given to fantasy seems due to one spooky and fanlastic for which. accordirig ,aptitude which, by my yardstick, towers to him, there was no explan'ation thaT hugely above the parallel aptibudes of could be relied upon. He had his own contemloraries; he had a mind of such theories for such phenomena. which he presented in "The Book of th6 Damned" astounding imaginative scope and fer- (19.19)- tility that he could think up ptots "New Lands,' ('2S), ',Lot" (.Bi) and "Wild Talents" ('A2); these have faster than the average author- can been assembled in an omnibus, ,,The spit. p99ks_of Charles Fort', (Holt, New yor[: John W. Campbell, reviewiag that fat lal),. In '31., Tifiany Thayer, Ben Hecht, omnibus "The Books of Charles Fort," Booth Tarkington and orhers founded thti commented that it contained probably Fortean.

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