MitroiiiWlBi You get i**ii/Tii!S mmt get'this book. V\ all of ^ Needs Send Coupon \.thcser Send coupon today fi •Trained special limited offer, incln [nil particulars by' return Men National Radic Institute GZ7-, Washington, D. C. OfiWNATORS OF RAOLO HOMt-STUDY TWINING MAGAZINF OF SCIENTIFICTION HUGO GERNSBACK, Editor DR. T. O'CONOR SLOANE, Ph.D. ; Associate Editor WILBUR C. WHITEHEAD, Literary Editor j: C. A. BRANDT, Literary Editor ' /' Editorial and General Office?: 53 Park Place, New Vorl;, N. Y. Extravagant Fiction Today ------- Cold Fact Tomorrow FICTION VERSUS FACTS By HUGO GERNSBACK liberties, as happened, for instance, in the conclusion of j| FEW letters have come to the Editor's desk from some readers who wish to know what "A Trip to the Center of the Earth," printed in this Issue. prompts us to so frequently preface our stor- Jules Verne b-'uii.L.hf b.Lck his heroes in ;i most improbable ies in our introductory remarks with the state- manner. But this one defect does not detract from the story ment that this or that scieniilk plot is not as a whole, throughout which good science is maintained. impossible, hut quite' probable. It is only when the entire plot becomes frankly impossible, These readers seem to have the idea that we try to impress or far too improbable, that we draw the line. our friends with the fact that whatever is printed in Amaz- And It should never be forgotten that the educational of the scientific! ion type oE story tremendous. .t lv«; Stories is mil necessarily pure fiction, but could or can value is be fact. Mr. G. Peyton Wcrtciibaker, author of "The Man from That impression is quite correct. We DO wish to do so, the Atom," says this on the same subject: and have tried to do so ever since we started Amazing "Amazing Stohies should appeal, however, to quite a dif- Stories. As a matter of fact, our editorial policy is built ferent public (referring to the sex- type of literature). upon this structure and will be so continued indefinitely. Scientifiction is a branch of literature which requires more The reason is quite simple. The human mind, not only of intelligence and even more [esthetic Sense than is possessed today, but of ten thousand years ago also is and was so con- by the sex-type reading public. It is designed to reach those stituted that being merged into the present if can sec neither qualities of the mind which are aroused only by things vast, the past nor the future clearly. If only five hundred years things cataclysmic, and things tinfathoraably strange. It is ago (or little more than ten generations), which is not a designed to reach that portion of the imagination which long" time as human progress goes, anyone had come along grasps with its eager, feeble talons after the unknown. It with a story wherein radio telephone, sii-am-.hips, airplanes, should be an influence greater than the influence of any electricity, painless surgery, the phonograph, and a few other literature I know upon the restless ambition of man for modern marvels were (Inscribed, he would prohably have been further conquests, further understandings. Literature of the promptly flung into a dungeon. past and the present has made the mystery of man and his All these things sounded preposterous and the height world more clear to us, and for [hat reason it has been less of nonsense even as little as one hundred years ago, beautiful, for beauty lies only in the things that are mysteri- and, Io and behold! within two generations we take these ous. Beauty is a groping of the emotions towards rcaliza--^ marvels and miracles as everyday occurrences, and do not tion of things which may be unknown only to the intellect. get in the least excited when we read of recent reports "Scientifiction goes out Into the remote vistas of the uni- ' that it will be possible, within a year or less, to see as well verse, where there is still mystery and so still beauty. For as hear your sweetheart a thousand miles away, without that reason scientifiction seems to me to Be the true literature intervening wires or connections of any sort. of the future. So when we do read one of these to us "impossible" tales, "The danger that may lie before Amazing Stories is that in Amazing Stories, we may be almost certain that the of becoming too scientific and not sufficiently literary. It "impossihiliiy" will have become a fact perhaps before an- is yet too early to be sure, but not too early for a warning other generation—if not much sooner. It is most unwise to he issued amicably and frankly. in this age to declare anyfhinjx impossible, bucause you may "It Is hard to make an actual measure, of course, for the never be sure but that even while you are talking it has determination of the correct amount of science, but the already become a reality. Many things in the past which [esthetic instinct: can judge. I can only point out as a model were declared impossible, are of everyday occurrence now. the works of Mr. H. G. Wells, who hits instinctively recog- There are few stories published in this magazine that nized, in his stories, the correct proportions of fiction, fact, can be called outright impossible. As a matter of fact, in and science. This has been possible only because Mr. Wells selecting our stories we always consider their possibility. is a literary artist above everything, rather than predomin- We reject stories often on the ground that; in our opinion, antly a scientist. If he were a scientist, his taste and sense the plot or action is not in keeping with se'ence as we know would permit him only to write books of scientific research. it today. For instance, when we see a plot wherein the hero Since he is an artist, he has given us the first truly beautiful is turned into a tree, later on into a stone, and then again work in this new field of literature." back to himself, we do not consider this science, but, rather, These opinions, we believe, state the case clearly. If we a fairy tale, and such stories have no place in Amazing may voice our own opinion we should say that the ideal pro- Stohies. portion of a scientifiction sK>rv slumlr, [»- seventy-five per cent Of course once in a great while author may take some literature interwoven with twenty-five per c 291 StmionX ®.if G.McLem plain!/ Visible from your earth, eland Jo Uiis day, in jthdr roofiei 222 . " STATION X 293 CHAPTER I "Well, yes, you are right. May. The time will seem long, no doubt; but as it carries double I ought The New Post pay not to grumble." He smiled down at her, adding, IB^^^^^IS Alan Macrae watched the last hues of "That it will bring a certain day nearer is the best sunset from Plymouth Hoe pale part of it." L^^^^fiM over Mount Edgcumbe, he stood out in "Meanwhile," said May, "I shall picture you lead- marked contrast to the stolid West ing a sort of lighthouse existence, and pSp5K«tlL^&aSg in off-duty l jj| Country types around him. His tall momenta thinking about me." As she spoke her loose-limbed figure, his brooding gaze, his nervous eyes-rested on the beam of Eddystone, which the highly-strung maimer, marked him as a stranger. A gathering darkness already made plainly visible off . touch on the arm recalled him from his apparently the Cornish coast. sombre thoughts—the touch of a girl who had ap- proached him unobserved. Discussing the Dangers at Station X (( At the sight of her his melancholy vanished. "\7"0U are right! On duty and off, my thoughts "I'm so sorry I'm late, Alan," she cried gaily, "but Y will run pretty much on you, dear," he the manager had a fit." A said. "4 fit?" questioned Macrae. ^Now, Alan, tell me why you aren't, or should I 'TfiS, of work," exclaimed the girl: "and he kept say weren't, a bit cheerful this evening. It's a com- m&wgomg letters, quite indifferent to the fact that pliment, of course, but is there anything that's this is our last night together. Let's walk, shall worrying you?" She looked up'at him inquiringly. we?" "1 suppose I've got the blues. I find myself op- Aa they walked slowly along the Hoe, the con- pressed with the feeling that something is going to trast between the two was remarkable. The brisk happen. I can't tell what, but I fee! that the future alertness of May Treherne seemed to accentuate holds something dark and horrible." her companion's moodiness and psychic gloom. "Tell me, Alan, dear, do you know of anything in They had been engaged for a year, and were your coming duties that suggests danger to you? waiting only for Fortune to smile upon them to Will you be among savages? Has anything hap- get married. As May had expressed it, "Bread and pened to any one at the post? Or is it only just a cheese and love are all right; but you must be sure feeling?" of the bread and cheese." "It rests on nothing, but-^— Macrae had by sneer "Then for goodness merit obtained an ap- ir^wWii>>riiHiBiTiBi immTii 'sake, my dear boy, don't pointment at "a foreign (worry yourself about radio station." That was ire beginning in this issue, STATION X, which nothing," said May, with wi consider by far the greatest radio story that ail he knew, beyond the was relief.