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((carbon copy illegibly feint, so page retyped - all sic))
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Science Facts etc. Any chance of getting Leslie to defend his flying saucer book in the 'zine? There's a chance for a lovely arguement.
The Inevitable Conflict That title was used way back in '29 or so, but the story is pure Tubb, especially the opening. Lovely. This story opens with a splash. Wish it had been a longer instalment; I take it that the serial won't be the most important story in the 'zine, as it is in US 'zines? TT is the biggest prospect in British s-f.
The Copper Bullet Better than averagew, but 'Wernheim' seemed to have some difficulty in deciding from what viewpoint he was writing. The idea's an old one, but fairly well done.
Who's Who This is, and will be, ver' interesting.
Fanfare etc. Ahh...genius!
(Surely Stuart Hardy Ltd. should offer to submit an estimate?)
Breathing Space Now and again I feel desirous of tearing to bits some story in which an alien, with a science for transcending ours, makes some dam fool mistake. Then consider how far ahead of the middle ages we are.... technically, and almost only technically. This story an interesting trifle.
Pendulum of Power I like the writing, except for a conglomeration of adjectives at the start, but the fear of the creature seems out of proportion to the general set-up of the story. I feel I could write a nice piece about a passion for cream-buns.
I shall never buy a PB called The Purple Wizard
The title sticks in my rose-pink gizzard.
Which seems to tie the 'zine up. If you want a printable letter any time, let me know.
Re, this business of Varitypers. I don't know a lot about them; I've had my hands on an old model, non-electric and justifying, which I bought on behalf of Walt Willis once, but I've written out a rough draft of the sort of thing that you may want and am enclosing it herewith. I can't see the readers, let alone clubs, having the wherewithal to buy these lovely things (I see there's no price quoted but I presume they are around the £150 mark),but as you say, wheels within wheels. Have you or your advertising people approached the telescope firms? Plenty of s-f readers, including myself, have a far-away ambition to make their own large 'scopes. It's always seemed to me that a lot of opportunities have been missed in s-f 'zine advertising in this way.
That's about all for now, and about time. Oh no, one more thing. Is this 'Simpson Stokes' the chap who wrote Air Gods Parade way back in the mid-20's... a book dealing with the horrors of a poison gas war? It contains a wonderfully prophetic passage re, V-1's which would be meat for the column.
With best wishes,
Sincerely,
A.Vincent Clarke
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Here's Vince's original rough draft:
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There are already robots amongst us; not the ten-foot character with red-gleaming eyes, the strictly non-mechanistic desire for the heroine and the ability to get drunk by inserting his steel index finger into a light-socket... the fairly standardised s-f robot...but very prosaic commercial
machines. The automatic telephone exchange; the weighing machines that 'speak your weight'; linotypes; beer-bottling machines. It depends upon what you mean by robot, of course, and what you expect when you press a button and stand clear (...and in certain philosophies, human beings work in exactly the same way; press a conditioned reflex and stand clear.)
These solemn thoughts are occasioned by the appearance of two desk-top robots which should interest fan magazine editors in particular, the Model 120 Varityper Office Composing Machine and the
Coxhead DSJ Office Composing Machine. These don't exactly write your stuff for you, but they do practically every thing else.
The principle of both machines is that of a typewriter, but where in the ordinary model typer each type is permanently fixed into the machine, one type-face to a type-bar, in this pair the type faces are quite separate. The type-fount, the complete 90 characters of letters and figures, is cast on a
semi-circular metal plate. This plate is fixed to a horizontal wheel on top of the machine, and every time you press the typewriter key, this wheel moves around to bring the desired character opposite the paper in the machine. At almost the same time, a small hammer pushes the paper in the machine towards the wheel. As there is a typewriter ribbon between type and paper, the paper is printed.
You'll notice that the type-plate is semi- circular. That means that another plate, with an entirely different type-face, can be fitted to the other half of the central wheel, and put into operation with no more effort than is needed to lift the wheel into a different position. You can therefore, at any one time, have two different type-faces, say, ordinary and italic, on your machine. Moreover, the semi-circular plates are interchangeable with very little effort;
literally hundreds of typefaces are available!
This isn't of course the end of these machine's resources. There is variable line spacing, variable letter spacing, and automatic justification of lines. This latter means that each line has an even right hand edge, as in all printing, and in fact the typewriting is indistinguishable from ordinary printed matter. As a final touch, the machines mentioned are electric; a flick with the finger and a perfectly even impression appears on the paper.
Does any composing machine manufacturer want to buy a soul?
*********************
A. VINCENT CLARKE
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Gestetner's changes consisted of substituting "in fact the varityping is practically indistinguishable" for "in fact the typewriting is indistinguishable". One puzzling aspect of all this is that I've been unable to find any evidence that Gestetner ever produced varitypers. Indeed, the models quoted above are from American manufacturers. The obvious inference is that Gestetner were acting as the UK agent in this case.
Oh, and Paterson finally begins a letter 'Dear Vince' on 25th February, presumably as a result of the pair finally meeting at the Globe and him feeling his previous formality was now no longer necessary.
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