Айзек Азимов - Before The Golden Age

Sam shivered. It was cold, but it was not that which made his flesh crawl. Suppose the tale of Hispan had been true? Suppose there were no other cities, no other human beings in that shoreless jungle? Suppose--

He turned to the others, grinned. “At least one thing is certain,” he said lightly, “the air is good. If deadly gases once existed, they have long since been dissipated or made chemically harmless.” He raised his voice, “Forward, comrades, to whatever destiny awaits us!”

“Forward!” cried Kleon, the Greek.

“Forward!” spoke Beltan, the Olgarch.

The three men turned their faces resolutely toward the East, toward the home of the rising sun. Slowly, they descended the mountain.

Of the two stories in the September 1937 Astounding Stories, the serial, Galactic Patrol, did not stand up. Years later, I got a copy of the hard-back version and sat down to relive past glories—but they weren’t there. I found the book unreadable.

Yet, when I just reread “Past, Present, and Future” in the process of organizing this anthology, I found it just as much fun now as it had been then.

Schachner was alive to the gathering dangers of the 1930s and the mounting threat of Nazi Germany. His stories were filled with social problems therefore, with himself always on the side of the democratic angels.

I absorbed it all and I am glad of it now as I look back on it. Had the John Clark type of story been the only kind that had impressed me, I would have been sharply limited. (It is perhaps not for nothing that Clark wrote only two stories.) As it was when I came to write The Foundation Trilogy, there were times when the voice of Schachner sounded in my ear.

FROM THE START, the year 1938 brought changes both for me and for the science fiction world. I had written another letter to Astounding Stories, and it was printed. (Thereafter, for about half a year, I wrote one every month and it was printed every month.)

A fellow alumnus of Boys High saw the letter, recognized my name, noticed my address, and wrote to me, inviting me to attend a meeting of the Queens Science Fiction League. (Or perhaps it was the Greater New York chapter.)

In any case, I actually got time off from the candy store (it was Sunday afternoon, when business was slow anyway) and attended. For the first time, I was associated with other science fiction readers. I met a number of young men who were to stay my friends for decades and who were to become notable in the science fiction world. As examples, there were Fred Pohl, Richard Wilson, Donald Wollheim, Sam Moskowitz, and Scott Meredith.

After nine years of isolation, I was never to be alone in science fiction again.

A sadder note was struck by the fact that the Teck Amazing finally gave up. The April 1938 issue was the eighty-ninth under the editorship of T. O’Conor Sloane, and the last.

Amazing Stories itself did not die, or even skip an issue; at least, its name didn’t. It was bought by Ziff-Davis Publications, and the June 1938 issue came out in a new incarnation. The design of the name was changed, and the cover (horrors!) was a photograph rather than a painting.

The Ziff-Davis Amazing deliberately struck a lower level in writing and plotting, aiming for the younger reader. It proceeded to do well financially. With the October 1938 issue it went monthly, and there were to be periods when it had the highest monthly circulation ever achieved by a science fiction magazine.

Nevertheless, I considered it trash and disliked it intensely. It was the first science fiction magazine I did not read even when it was available. (It is rather embarrassing for me to have to admit, therefore, that my first two sales and my first two published appearances and my first two checks were to, in, and from the Ziff-Davis Amazing. I didn’t really feel that I had arrived till I appeared in the pages of Astounding, with my third published story.)

But the overwhelming fact of 1938 was John W. Campbell, Jr. With the October 1937 issue, he had taken over the editorship of Astounding Stories . He remained, however, under the direction of Tremaine, who moved up to the post of Editorial Director. For seven issues, Campbell had to move slowly.

Nevertheless, he did manage to introduce changes. The March 1938 issue, for instance, was no longer Astounding Stories. It was Astounding Science Fiction, and the design of the name was changed to something altogether tasteful and attractive. I don’t ordinarily welcome change in anything I have grown accustomed to, but that one I greeted gladly.

With the April 1938 issue, Tremaine left Street & Smith, and the fifty-fifth issue of the Tremaine Astounding was the last. It had been great while it lasted, but something far greater still was at hand. The May 1938 issue was the first of the Campbell Astounding. With that issue, Campbell was in complete charge and was to remain absolute ruler of the magazine for thirty-three years, up to the very day of his death.

Almost as soon as Campbell took over, the whole magazine breathed a new life. Campbell was looking for new authors and for a new kind of science fiction.

My fate had come to meet me. The June 1938 issue changed date of publication and was late. In mortal fear that the magazine had died, I actually traveled to Street & Smith Publications, Inc., to investigate (see The Early Asimov ). That trip, the stimulation of my contacts with other fans, the new excitement of the Campbell era in birth, drove me back to writing.

Late in May 1938, I dug out the nearly forgotten manuscript of “Cosmic Corkscrew” and got back to work again. Even as I finished it, the July 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction came out, and in it was “The Men and the Mirror,” by Ross Rocklynne. It was one of a series (and the best) that dealt with a detective who was pursuing a criminal only to find himself, and the criminal too, caught in a dilemma involving the laws of physics.

The men were plunging down the gently curving surface of the mirror.

Above them were the stars of the universe, whose light was caught by the mirror, radiated and reradiated by its concave surface, and, unimpaired, was flung back into space as a conglomerate glow.

There were two of these men. One was Edward Deverel, a worldly wise, carefree giant of a man whose profession—up until the recent past—had been that of pirating canal boats on the planet Mars. The other, a hard, powerful man, was Lieutenant John Colbie, whose assignment it was to apprehend this corsair of the canals.

Theirs was a real predicament, for they were unable to produce, at present, any means of escape from the prison this smooth, shining, deep bowl of a mirror presented.

As to how it all came about—

When Colbie, after his twelve-hour trek along the ammonia river which ran from the lake into which the Fountain poured its noxious ammonia liquids, finally reached Jupiter City, he was in a state of fatigue under which his muscles, every one of them, seemed to scream out a protest. He pressed the buzzer that let those within the air-lock understand that he was demanding admittance, and was decidedly relieved to see the huge valve swing open, throwing a glow of luminescence on the wildly swirling gases that raced across the surface of that mighty, poisonous planet Jupiter. Two men came forward. They covered him with hand weapons, and urged him inside the lock. The keeper of the lock desired to know Colbie’s business, and Colbie demanded that he be taken before the commander of the garrison—who was also mayor of the city—as things had, of necessity, to be run on a military basis.