Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY who suggested the same thing!) the heavy nuclei in cosmic rays may actually hurl—a pricking or burning sensation—if they happen to plow through a pain receptor? That they may produce “spots before the eyes” by blasting holes in the retina of the eye? A book as good as this should be just a bit better. The illustrations are dashy sketches in the Gamow manner, but not as original or successful as Gamow’s “Man In Space’’ deserves, and I hope future editions will have as clear and graphic charts and diagrams as the tiny “Space Medicine’’ in which Mr. Haber also had a hand two years ago. The jacket is very eye-catching, however : let’s keep it. There are liberal quotations from very current sources, but no direct references which the reader can follow back directly to the source for further study. The book is of the dogmatic “this is how it is” type which simply states facts and findings without try- ing to document them. And there is no index—a fault of the publisher, who probably thought one would scare off the general dues-paying reader. All in all an excellent basic book which seems to me to be compre- hensive for the time, and which I sin- cerely hope will go on into later and thoroughly revised and improved edi- tions, as Willy Ley’s parallel classic has done. The two books would make ideal companions on the shelf. ee AWAY AND BEYOND, by A. E. van Vogt. Pellegrini & Cudahy, New York 1952. 309 pp. $3.50 The nine stories in this book and the ten in last year’s “Destination: Universe” make up the original ““Away and Beyond” which was to have come from Arkham House be- fore publication costs began to get 109 out of line. All but one are from this magazine. The critics who insist that van Vogt is preeminently a short-story writer certainly gain real reinforcement from a book like this. The ideas are as good, the action develops faster and more tautly, and there is less of the super- man mystification which has become identified with the writer’s novels. In fact, only one story in this collec- tion, ‘“‘Secret Unattainable,’’ leaves the secret in question unattainable to the reader as well as to the Nazi over- lords who were tempted by Herr Professor Kenrube’s invention. The collection opens with “Vault of the Beast,” available in various anthologies but just as good as it ever was. Next comes “The Great Engine”’ with its glimpse of a strange tech- nology, seen from outside the circle that produced it. Third a rather minor and very short item, “The Great Judge.’ Fourth, the very long Nazi opus, “Secret Unattainable,” which read better in 1942 than it does now. Not so “The Harmonizer,’” a de- lightful little item on the theme of war and what Disney seems to be calling pixie-dust. It’s one of van Vogt’s best. “Heir Unapparent’’ is another struggle of world dictators, using a typically van Vogtian force created for the occasion, the Contra- dictory Force. “The Second Solution” is another of my favorites—one of the Jamieson- Rull-ezwal series (which should have been reprinted all together, not scat- tered as they have been—paper-book publishers please note!), in which a ravening, vicious ezwal pup is loosed in the Canadian arctic, to be slaught- ered or caught alive. So is “Film Library,” since I worked with educa- tional films for two years and know how the average teacher would react to a film-from-the-future received in Cconmiclooolkks.e© im