t the least semi-scientific explanation is made as to the how of
it all.

In other words, the pattern of your stories appears to have been taken
from the Arabian Nights and from Grimm's Fairy Tales--but with not a
millionth part of the interest.

How anyone, save a young child or a moron, can read and enjoy such
futile nonsense is incredible.

If your writers would (like Jules Verne) only invent some
pseudo-scientific explanation for their marvels, your publication
might then be read with pleasure--but why do so when trash is
acceptable without thought behind it!--M. Clifford Johnston, 451
Central Avenue, Newark, N. J.

_A Wesso Fan_

Dear Editor:

Let me congratulate you on the September issue of Astounding Stories.
It is the best issue you have published yet. I noticed in this issue
that you had four illustrations by Wesso. Though that is the most you
have ever had, I think it would be much better if all the
illustrations were by him.

However, getting down to brass tacks, the reason I'm typing this
letter is to ask you to publish an Astounding Stories Quarterly. You
could have it contain twice as much reading material as in the monthly
and charge forty cents a copy for it. It would be much better than a
semi-monthly and I am quite sure it would "go over" big.--Thomas L.
Kratzer, 3593 Tullamore Rd., University Heights, Ohio.

_Bang--Bang--Bang_

Dear Editor:

I have read the August Astounding Stories and greatly enjoyed the
fiction, but "The Readers' Corner" gave me a good deal of amusement.
Some of your readers take their fiction so seriously!

Take the "Brick or Two" from George L. Williams and Harry Heillisan,
for instance. They want Astounding Stories filled with material from
authors that appear in other magazines--because your readers "are used
to the standards set by those publications," etc. And again, "you
should have some one who is well qualified to pass upon the science in
the stories." For the love of Pete, if people want scientific
treatises, why don't they buy books and magazines dealing with the
subject? There are many on the market--serious and dull enough for
anyone. But for our fiction magazines, let's have it pure and
unadulterated, the more improbably the better.

What possible difference does it make if, in a story, the moon has a
crater every ten feet, or the black sky of outer space were blazing
with moons and aurora borealises, or the sun were in a double eclipse!

We re