Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 50 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION de-plume disguises the identity of a Professor of Mathematics at one of the provincial University Colleges. But don’t get scared; the articles are not on mathematics. Professor Delwood will be dealing with some of the odd cornérs in astronomy and physics, and space flight. His piece this month is in defence of the idea of an expanding universe. Other stimulating articles are about the ways of science, the brain and the mind, the march of science, Einstein, and how spaceships move around. The science fiction club that gets a boost this month is the Manchester crowd. This doesn’t seem to have an officia] name at the moment, but the article helps to clear. up a few of the puzzling points about this peculiarly friable group. Book reviews and fanzine reviews, together with readers’ letters, com- plete the bill of fare. Oh, and of course, some ads. I hope you like the repast. If you don’t, write and tell me. How else am I going to know what to give you? Some editors seem to think they have a God-given power of knowing what readers want. Not me! [ give you what you ask for, and if you don’t ask for it you don’t get it. Moral in that, some- where. Now read all about this month’s cover. See you in November. H.J.C. © THIS MONTH’S COVER We have moved on from Mer- cury to Venus. It is a little cooler, but not much. The sky is not so black, but it is nota pleasant blue, either. It is a horrible sulphurous yellow, murky and writhing, incredibly thick and opaque. In fact it seems to come right down and touch the ground only a mile or two away. There is no real horizon; only the deceptively close termination of a fog. Around our feet there is dust. Yellow dust, fine dust. Dust that would get into your eyes and your ears and your nose and stuff them all up tight until you died a_ choking, dust- vomiting death. It covers your boots. It covers your ankles. You wonder whether, at the next step, you might sink right down into the stuff. Surrounded by the dust and the sick-rolling clouds and the craggy rocks, sparseand mirage- like, there is only one point in living—to get to the top of the dune. Yet you know full well that when you get there, another dune will lie ahead, and beyond that another one. Just on and on, dune after dune around the whole hell-iike planet. Here is none of the lush vege- tation that science fictionists sometimes prattle about. Here are no slim-limbed princesses. Here there’s just the dust and the clouds and the rocks and the one foot after the other... and a tremendous dull ache in the heart. Anachefor Earth. commicloooks.com