SOME REMARKS ON THE "SKYLARK THREE" AND ABOUT ERRORS. A COMPLIMENT TODR. SMITH'S STORIES.
_Editor_, AMAZING STORIES:
Dr. Smith, in his foreword to "Skylark Three" mentions two errors whichhe made knowingly. I think I can recognize the astronomical one, at anyrate.
Of course, the acceleration of twice 186,000 miles per second, as usedin escaping the field of the great "dud" star, as told in "Skylark ofSpace" was impossible. Nothing could withstand that strain. Further, nogravitational field could be that intense. It would have exactly theeffect Dr. Smith describes and allots to the zone of force in "SkylarkThree"--it would make a hole in space and pull the hole in after it.Light would be too heavy to leave the planet. The effect on space wouldbe so great as to curve it so violently as to shut it in about it like ablanket. The dud would be both invisible and unapproachable.
The astronomical error? I wonder how Dr. Smith solved the problem ofthree--or more--bodies? Osnome is a planet of a sun in a group ofseventeen suns, is it not? The gravitational field about even two sunsis so exceedingly complex that a planet could take up an orbit onlysuch that one sun was at each of the two foci of the ellipse of itsorbit, and then only provided the suns were of very nearly the samemass, and stationary, which in turn means they must have _no_ attractionfor each other. No, I think his complex system of seventeen suns wouldnot be so good for planets. Celestial Mechanics won't let them staythere. And I really don't see why it was necessary to have so complex asystem.
Further, I wonder if Dr. Smith considered the proposition of his ammoniacooling plant carefully? The ammonia "cooling" plant works only to_transmit_ heat, not to remove it. The heat is removed by it from theinside of an icebox for instance, and put outside, which is what iswanted. However, it must have some place to dump the heat. In the fightwith the Mardonalians, Seaton has an arenak cylinder on his compressor,and runs it very heavily, but if he can't get the heat outside the ship,and away from it, he wouldn't cool the machine at all. Since theMardonalians kept the outside so hot, and the story says thecompressor-cooling was accomplished by a water cooler which boiled--someamount of water, too, if it would absorb all the heat of thatMardonalian fleet in any way--and this heat was then merely transferredfrom outside to inside--where they DIDN'T want it!
Again, in this battle, to protect themselves against ultra-violetradiation, they smear themselves with _red_ paint--presumably becausered will stop ultra-violet.
Personalty, I'd have picked some ultra-violet paint--if any were handyas that would _reflect_ the rays. Red wouldn't affect them at all, sofar as I can see--he might as well have used blue. What he wanted, was acomplementary color of ultra-violet, and I don't believe it isred--green is the complement of red. (Green light won't pass through redglass.)
Dr. Smith invited "knocks" with that foreword of his--I hope I amcomplying, as an interested reader, and a hopeful scientist. However, mypersonal opinion has always been that "Skylark of Space" was the beststory of scientifiction ever printed, without exception. I have recentlychanged my opinion, however, since "Skylark Three" has come out.
John W. Campbell, Jr.
Cambridge, Mass.
(This letter from a fellow author is an excellent comment on Dr. Smith'sforeword to "Skylark Three." But the writer of this letter is himselfinclined to deal with and use very large quantities and highaccelerations and velocities in his stories. We are going to let yourknocks await a reply from Dr. Smith. The Editor does not desire to findhimself between the upper and lower millstones represented by an authorand his critic. But you certainly make amends for your criticism by whatyou say about the merit of "The Skylark Stories." We hope to hear fromDr. Smith.--EDITOR.)
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note & Errata | | | | Images have been moved to their appropriate places in the | | text. | | | | All SmallCaps text has been changed to ALL CAPS. | | | | The heading and title of Chapter VII were reversed in order | | in the text. Restored. | | | | The following typographical errors have been corrected | | | | Error |Correction | | briar; |briar, | | musn't |mustn't | | heads |head | | torpedos |torpedoes | | corruscating |coruscating | | Tarnana |Tarnan | | The attackers |"The attackers | | concience |conscience | | tubular, |tubular | | psssible |possible | | trending |tending | | Normalin |Norlamin | | Seaton |Rovol | | gear-strain |gear-train | | long. |long." | | You are |"You are | | emperically |empirically | | desired." |desired. | | aways |always | | fast. |fast." | | acceleration? |acceleration?" | | | | Both 'cerebin' and 'cerebrin' were used once each. No | | changes have been made. | | | | Variable hyphenation has not been corrected. Numbers in | | parentheses in the following table indicate the number of | | times each form has been used. | | | | air-lock (3) |airlock (4) | | air-tight (1) |airtight (1) | | Earth-men (2) |Earthmen (1) | | head-set (1) |headset (12) | | inter-galactic (2) |intergalactic (1) | | stop-watch (1) |stopwatch (1) | | store-rooms (1) |storerooms (1) | +--------------------------------------------------------------+
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