Stories. There
should be at least five or six in each magazine, and I think most of
the readers would prefer them at the end of the stories instead of in
the back of the magazine. Another thing that is absolutely essential
if Astounding Stories would hold its own as a high-class Science
Fiction magazine is a scientific editorial in the front of the book.
The way it starts off abruptly onto a story gives the impression of a
cheap publication.

A lot of your readers have been setting up a clamor for stories by Ray
Cummings. While it is true that he has written a few good stories, you
will find that his antiquated stuff is not being printed in any of the
other Science Fiction magazine, but only in ones devoted to
adventure-stories. For the sake of your many readers who would like to
see "our magazine" keep abreast of the times, Cummings should be
dropped and some of the peerless authors of to-day employed. As an
advance along this line you already have Capt. S. P. Meek, Harl
Vincent, Lilith Lorraine, Edmond Hamilton, and, in the latest copy, R.
F. Starzl. "The Planet of Dread," by R. F. Starzl was the best story
in the August issue. A wealth of ideas was contained in that treatise
of life on a young, warm planet, and the idea of fooling the liquid
intelligence by thought-suggestion is quite novel but entirely
reasonable. Mr. Starzl is an author of the highest type and ability,
and you will do well to secure more stories from his typewriter.

I was glad to see that the cover has finally been changed from the
conventional blue background, and I hope we will have a little
variation from now on. Concerning illustrations, Wesso is a great
artist, and aside from a few scientific errors his covers are
excellent. The inside drawings could be improved, however.

I hope for your continued success--Wayne D. Bray, Campbell, Mo.

_Are We All "Morons?"_

Dear Editor:

Having perused three issues of your magazine, I must agree that its
title is well chosen. The stories are nearly all "astounding";
astounding in that they utterly ignore every scientific fact and
discovery of the past ten centuries.

The cold of inter-stellar space; its lack of oxygen; the
interplanetary effects of gravitation--all are passed over as if
non-existent.

An "anti-gravity ovoid"--of which no description is given--if worn in
a man's hat, makes his whole body weightless.

Men, buildings and cities float through the air or become invisible,
yet no