In appreciation of the good stories published both in A. S. and S. T., I have written a verse about each:
I like to read good stories,
With thrills in them galore;
Astounding Stories has them all,
But try and give us more.
I'd like to meet the authors,
Ray Cummings and the rest,
They all sure know their onions,
But tell me who's the best?
And now Strange Tales you've printed;
It makes your backbone cold;
It grips you till you're finished,
Whether boy, girl, young or old.
I've read your first edition;
And though I get it late,
It's something I just live for—
One hundred years I'd wait!
—Thomas McCartin, 10 Rossendale Rd., Collokshaws, Glasgow, Scotland.
A. S. and S. T.
Dear Editor:
I have just read a group of old copies of Astounding Stories, and I want to tell you I think A. S. is simply great. I read most every Science Fiction magazine I can buy, trade, or borrow, but yours gets my attention first.
Now just a word of praise for A. S.'s companion magazine, Strange Tales. It's the best yet. I can assure you that I will never miss a copy. Why can't we have a "Readers' Corner" in Strange Tales? I'm sure all the readers will agree with me that it would be a good idea. [All right—accept our "Cauldron."—Ed.]
I think the best stories in the three issues that I have read were: "The Dead Who Walk," "The Thirteenth Floor," "Webbed Hands," "Cassius" and "Wolves of Darkness." I can't say enough for this last; it was the best story I have read in any magazine of the type of Strange Tales. "Dead Legs" was so good a second as to almost be a first. Be sure and keep Edmond Hamilton on the staff; he's great. "The Door of Doom" comes next and "The Smell" last. "The Moon Dial" I did not like at all nor "The Door to Saturn." "The Black Laugh" and "The Shadow on the Sky" were not too bad.
If this letter is printed, and anyone reading it would like to correspond with me, I would be glad to hear from them.—Chester A. Payfer, Rte. 3, Yale, Mich.
Ride 'Im, Cowboy!
Dear Editor:
Toosday I stops by Hogan’s hole-in-the-wall to buy me a seegar like I do reg'lar sence I come off the range an' play like I'm a city guy; an' I gits me a Strange Tales offen Hogan, an' reads it, same as I do reg'lar ever' time it comes out. That is, callatin' I'm sober at the time.
Pardner, you got a good book o' yarns in the Jinuary number. I could feel myself runnin' an' snarlin' with that green-eyed girl an' them wolves Jack Williamson tells about, an' the bristles raisin' on my backbone when Hamilton's "Dead Legs" uses the ax, an' on along through the whole mess o' darn good ghost stories—thankful for one ladleful o' happiness dished out in the "Moon Dial" by that feller Whitehead—just smokin' along casual an' havin' a good time, not takin' any of 'em too serius.
But for Pete's sake! That Francis Flagg, him that wrote "The Smell!" Somebody hawgtie him and git a iron on him! Pronto! You can round up a critter an' deal with him when you know where he b'longs, but this Flagg, now, a man don't know whether to tell him to set an' chaw or git to hellengone outa here. Is this slick-ear tryin' to tell us that if the decent part of us could see what we reely injoy to waller in it would prove plumb fatal? Or is he sayin' that if the orneriness in us could ever meet up square with the shinin' face of what we'd aspire to be that the lousy old beast would lay right down with its hoofs up an' the best of our constitushun would float off an' be a angel? Or is he throwin' a skeer into us an' givin' us the horse laugh?
Good gravy! My hair ain't laid down sence Toosday. Come again, Strange Tales.—Buckaroo Hart, 553 Natoma St., San Francisco, Cal.
Now, You See!
Dear Editor:
There is a little final touch to a story I came across in the British Medical Journal not long ago which might be of interest to readers of Strange Tales. It occurs at the end of an account, by a medical officer in West Africa, of how fourteen native women were all struck and killed by lightning while under the same galvanized iron shelter.
All the natives, including the driver of the motor-lorry which had been sent to remove the bodies to a mortuary, firmly refused to enter the shelter, as there was a prevalent belief that anyone removing the bodies before the "ju-ju" had been appeased by a ceremony of purification by the "thunder women" would die within a week.
However, the European manager of the local transport company drove the bodies to the mortuary in spite of the warnings he, too, received. And three days later he was admitted to the European hospital at Accra, where he lingered for three more days and then died from yellow fever.—Allen Glasser, 1610 University Ave., New York, N. Y.
