Authentic Science Fiction, December 1951 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

MEMORY In The Last ‘Mutation’ « mutant is put away at the age of two. After twenty-four years he is set free. He catches a glimpse of a city and imme- diately recognises it as London. He must have had a remark- able memory. DEREK KEATES (Highbury, N.5) he had more than a glimpse.- He flew over it in a ’copter. Besides, as it says on page 18, he knew it was London because he could see the giant Security building not far distant. Another thing is that the whole point of the story is that the mutant had a remarkable memory! Come now, x MORE MACARTNEY Have just finished Ten Years 10 Oblivion and now £ want more Macartney, but it isn’t quite your best yet; you have never equalled Energy Alive. You would have beaten it easily with The Last Mutation, this was a better story in many ways—but that awful style... . K. POTTER (Lancaster) * COVERS It seems you do take notice of your readers’ views after all! From No 9 your covers have been first rate—well, perhaps not first, but pretty good any- way. You can have the satis- faction of knowing that there 3 are only two American maga- zines that run tetter covers than yours. Keep it, and get even better if you can. P. F. WILSON (Bedford) We certainly do take notice of our readers’ letters. The main: points of every one of them are taken out and filed together, so that we can see at a glance what your views are to the various aspects of our magazine. Thanks for . the compliments about our covers. * ALL DEPENDS } have been having an arsu- ment with some friends. Per- haps you could settle it for us, even if it does seem elementary. How long would it take to get to Venus? K, J. SLOANE (Selsey) All depends on how fast you are travelling! — Seriously, the Jourkey would take 145 days if you used the: most economical route, le, the one requiring the least fuel. In this, you just need fuel for taking-off and landing, the greater part of the journey being carried out in free coasting between _ the orbits. That is the route that will be used first. When better rockets become available, and better fuels, it may be possible to travel in a more or less straight line between the planets. This will make the Journey much shorter, but it will have ta be done under power—and an awful lot of power at that. And if we ever attain the velocity of light, we could get there in three and three-quarter minutes! comicbooks.com