Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/177

Rh popular and classic stories ever published in the same fan groups' favorite magazine, Unknown, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr., "Sinister Barrier" by Eric Frank Russell. We quote the statement made at that time (March 1939) by editor Campbell: "Fifty thousand words that will make you unsure of your certainties—unsure that Man rules Earth! A full-length novel based on weird and discomforting facts. The greatest imaginative novel in two decades!"

ERE is Eric Frank Russell's comment in preface to his novel. These are quotes: "It would be idle to pretend and dishonest to suggest that 'Sinister Barrier' is anything else than fiction. Some may regard it as fantasy, because it is placed in the future and depicts certain developments that have been predicted by those qualified to forecast the coming triumphs of science. But I regard it as a sort of fact-fiction solely because I do sincerely believe that if ever a story was based upon facts it is this one.

Sinister Barrier' is as true a story as it is possible to concoct while presenting believe-it-or not truths in the guise of entertainment. It derives its fantastic atmosphere only from the queerness, the eccentricity, the complete inexplicability of the established facts that gave it birth. I have them in the form of a thousand press clippings snatched from half a hundred newspapers in the Old World and the New. A thousand more were given me by adventurers hardier than myself; people who have explored farther and more daringly into forbidden acres than I have done.

"But perhaps my greatest debt is to two friends, one of whom asked me, 'Since everybody wants peace, why don't we get it?' while the other posed me this one, 'If there are extra-terrestrial races further advanced than ourselves, why haven't they visited us already?' Charles Fort gave me what may well be the answer. He said, I think we're property.

"Critics are entitled to say, 'If you believe your plot has a factual basis, you are running an awful risk of removal by merely developing it.' I run no risk. Sinister Barrier is not fiction offered as truth: it is offered only as fiction. Therefore, it will not be believed. The natural skepticism of my readers is my safeguard."

INISTER BARRIER" was part and parcel of the same mystery we call "The Shaver Mystery" today! And like ourselves, Campbell called it factual in basis. Fans, consistency is a jewel! You, and Shaver, and your editor agree about about "Sinister Barrier" and its FACTS! Take a look at more of these SAME FACTS in the Shaver Mystery. We submit that Shaver has not been original. Campbell and Russell did it first! And they did it well! We agree with them to the bitter end—Man does not rule this Earth, and it is based on fact that he does not. Roll on, Shaver Mystery!

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