Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 107: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY when the quality of many is consid- ered. This statement does not imply that good science fiction is not pub- lished in Britain, for it is. What it does mean is that most of their top-quality books, such as ‘““The Sand of Mars’ or “The Day of the Triffids’” (“Re- volt of the Triffids’”) are reprinted over here, just as our science fiction is reprinted across the Atlantic. Since the number of science fiction and fan- tasy books that\appear in Britain is only a trickle compared to our copious flow, it can readily be seen that when reprints in both countries are sub- tracted, the meager remainder cannot be, as a rule, of their best. A decided contrast appears when one compares conditions facing British and American science fiction authors. Very few “British only” science fiction magazines are published: Authentic, Nebula, New Worlds and _ Science Fantasy, with three pocket-sized magazines that are sometimes listed as pocketbooks, Futuristic Science Stories, Tales of Tomorrow and Worlds of Fantasy. British writers have the problem of a very limited native market and so must look to American publications to see their work in print. Our magazines also pay much higher rates—this is, of course, greatly to our advantage as some British authors are very good indeed. Here, on the other hand, with our current flood of magazines and deluge of hard-cover books, we do not have enough good writers to spread around. The thin veneer of good material barely covers the terrible tripe that is inflicted upon us only too often. Oddly enough, although so few “British only’ magazines are pub- lished, a great many United States magazines—including ASF—are re- printed in England, and their number is increasing. These British reprint editions—known as “BRE’s’—are 105 usually incomplete reprints of issues published here several months before. The scarcity of “British only” science fiction does not, sad to re- late, apply to pocketbooks, for the presses—somehow side-stepping the paper shortage—troll on, pouring forth gadget-gimmick-ridden trash. The ma- jority are what I call bathtub litera- ture: one can read them there in per- fect safety, as one can drop them, dunk them, destroy them and never shed a tear for the departed. Some, admittedly, have a certain peculiar fascination of their own, and some are really good, but the latter are few in number compared to the expendables. E. J. Carnell—editor of New Worlds and Science Fantasy Britain’s two leading short-story science fiction magazines—says in a recent Operation Fantast: “Several titles . . . have been pronounced ‘almost readable’ by the fussiest of fans! Personally, I will agree an improvement is noticeable, but there is still room for considerably more ‘improvement’ before most of them become ‘readable,’ except under duress.” The foremost companies publishing original science fiction pocketbooks at present are Curtis Warren Ltd. (“Cur- tis Books’), Hamilton & Company (“Panther Books’’), and Scion Ltd. (“Scion Scientific Novels’’). These three publish “British only” (although Hamilton has just issued S. Fowler Wright’s ‘““The World Below” as their forty-fourth ‘‘Panther’’), and of the three the selections of Hamilton are occasionally quite good. Several pub- lishers who produced science fiction in 1951 did not continue to do so last year, but others (Archer Press Ltd., Brown Watson Ltd., Edwin Self & Company Ltd., Gaywood Press, John Spencer & Company, Milestone Ltd.) took their places with such enchant- ing titles as “‘Curse of Planet Kuz,” connicloooks.c© iim