The news that we're going to have a story from Francis Flagg brings raptures of delight to my homely face. If it's a dimensional story, I'll cheer twice. When it comes to writing that kind of a story, Flagg's the king of them all. For sheer interest and originality, he's got his contemporaries in that field outdistanced with a distance that can only be counted by light-years.
A pat on the back for Booth Cody and Sears Langwell, two staunch supporters.
All our magazine needs is a story about time crusaders, or a planet of mechanical men.
Omitting the authors already mentioned, I considered my favorites to be Rousseau, Eshbach, Diffin, Ernst, and Hal K. Wells.
The best story you ever published? Who am I to answer? Why not put it up to the Readers for popular vote?—Jerome Siegel, 10522 Kimberley Ave., Cleveland, Ohio.
Explanation Wanted
Dear Editor:
This is my first letter to you, but I am a consistent Reader of Astounding Stories, and look forward to all of the coming issues. I have in mind a question, a friendly one, not one that I expect to or hope will seem to be trying to dampen any theories. This rocket-ship propulsion: as I understand it, there is a void between all planets, etc. If this is the case, how then can a rocket-propelled space ship go across this void? Since the exhaust of the rockets must rely on some material of a sort, or rather some sort of resistance to push the ship along, how does it push on nothing? Of course, near Earth it has the ground and then the atmosphere to push from, but out in the void, why not cut off and save fuel, therefore saving an extra heavy load of explosives, if rocket-ships were really practical in space flying? Yours for a thicker Astounding Stories—H. M. Crowson, Jr., Sumter, S. C.
Better Than Love Stories
Dear Editor: