Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 66 — page 3: what you’re looking at

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

Editorial |” A LITTLE WORRIED. TOO many people are writing in to say that the magazine is a hundred per cent. perfect. It frightens me a little to read letters like that for, if they are right, where do we go from here? But I do not believe that they can. be right. Nothing subject to human influence can ever be a hundred per cent. perfect, and it is a good thing that this is so. For utter perfection means ultimate death. A thing, man, animal, fabrication, choose what you will, must forever be expand- ing, growing, altering and adapting to the need of the time. Utter perfection means immobility, stasis, and, more important, it can move only in one direction—down. So I refuse to believe that the magazine is a hundred per cent. perfect. Not a hundred per cent. Ninety-nine per cent., perhaps, but that single remaining portion is the thing which allows us, you and me, to experiment, adapt, alter and be forever striving to reach that unreachable pinnacle— the perfect magazine. For a magazine must please all its readers, not just a few of them. Some of you would like to see more illustrations, some less fiction, others want full-length novels, and their opponents want more short stories. While a single reader remains who has a single constructive criticism to make, then the magazine is not that falsely attractive hundred per cent., and it is a good thing it is not so. For where would be the fun in reading a_ perfect magazine? Where would be the thrill of striving and trying to please ali of you all of the time, and not a few of you some of the time? Man is a peculiar animal. He will work for years to achieve a result and then, when he has achieved it, he will lose interest. Losing interest is the one thing I do not want any reader of comicbooks.com |