Page:Weird Tales Volume 45 Number 3 (1953-07).djvu/8



The Editor, 9 Rockefeller Plaza, New York 20, N. Y.

Since I am one of your oldest and certainly one of your most faithful readers, I feel that I have more than a casual interest in

It is this fact that emboldens me to speak my piece.

''As I can recall, I have bought the magazine as far back as the late '20s without ever missing a copy. I have watched the quality wax and wane. I would say that it is in the intermediate stage now.''

''However, I am not critical, being satisfied to having one magazine consistently fantastic. If there were a few uncertain notes struck, they were more than compensated for by the remainder.''

''As events shape themselves, there seems to be a sharper line being drawn between Science Fiction and Fantasy. There is even caste system evolved and we have an intelligencia. I enjoy both types and read all that I can find. In fact, I set aside a special fund for the purchase of these magazines and books. The magazines, because storage space is at a premium, I exchange file by file with a friend for books. Of the books, I read all and shelve some, displacing the mediocre with the better.''

I would also give place on my bookshelves to hard cover copies of collected stories from

''The world wants and needs escape literature these days. This fact was never demonstrated more clearly than by what happened to me the other evening on the way home. Sitting on the bus and examining my selection of Science and Fantasy magazines just purchased, I became aware of someone breathing down my neck. Turning, I met the beseeching gaze of а woman standing in the aisle behind my seat. She excused herself, (a rarity in these days) and asked if I would mind telling her where such magazines might be purchased. She was especially interested in''. ''After giving her exact directions, I offered her my copy and told her that I would buy another for myself the next day. Result—a new reader for you. She might never have ventured had I not cinched the deal right there. Of course, having read it, I knew she would keep coming.''

I should certainly like to see more often and if an increase in price would guarantee it, well—so be it.

''Marty Hyde, Chicago, Ill.''

The Editor, 9 Rockefeller Plaza, New York 20, N. Y.

''Judging from the vehement nature, even the torridity, so to speak, of the Lovecraft controversy, hubbub and rumpus, this author and writer of the spectral and spooky must have been the savant of the savants, the pundit of the pundits. In fact, when it comes to the haunted and eerie, the weird and unearthly, this moolvi of the moolvis must have been the jacal god, brother of Horus and conductor of the dead all in one. Yea, he must have been the reincarnation of old Anubis himself. What this guru's got to warrant all the encomium on the one side and the combination scourge, whammo''