I'll prove to the world that science fiction is the great source from which all engineers get their ideas, even if it kills my magazine to do it. My mag is always two jumps ahead of the world, providing the world jumps the way I say. We hit the radar idea first, nearly. Of course in the story the author didn't use radio waves and didn't use the echo timing principle, but the idea was the same. And of course we were the first with the atom bomb idea. It's been so long since E=MC2 was first published and the amounts of power represented have so fascinated authors that they've written literally thousands of stories in which every means of transportatioon from space ships to water skis and every weapon from planet blasting ray-projectors to water pistols have been atom powered, so they just had to hit on an atom bomb. Otherwise known as the shotgun effect.
Or take the super-streamlined silver slivers in which the heroes flit from star to star. For twenty years now the fans have been harping on the shape of spaceships to come,and since they are right and since an English mag has already published an article saaying so, why I guess it's just about time for me to get on the wagon. And then there's those crushing 15 g. accelerations that the super heroes so willingly subject themselves to in a casual jaunt to the corner store. All the planners who have published anything on the subject for about fourteen years now have said that, once free (as on a space station), it's the obvious thing to build your space ship spherical and use as light a construction as practical and accelerate it as gently as possible because of the light structure, so if I'm going to maintain that science fiction is infallible in its prophecies I'll just have to do an about face.
Just to prove I'm on the ball (even if it is the one that's 8000 miles in diameter) I'll point out to the readers that on a space ship coffee will be drunk from a balloon instead of a cup. Not too many of the readers will remember back to "The Shot Into Infinity" published more than twenty years ago in which the same idea appeared.
And then there's that matter of space suits. For twenty-five years the artists and authors have portrayed them hanging on our hero like a suit of G.I. fatigues. Now that even the Victorean publicity agents of the air force have been showing a practical space suit on their recruiting posters that fits skin tight, a suit already in use in the form of a high altitude suit, it looks like I'm finally going to have to admit we prophesied that one too.
Yep, I've gotta admit I'm pretty good as a prophet. I even pick in advance the way the fans will rate the stories. Of course I have to rewrite my three best authors to get their stories to slip in the third instalment, but you gotta admit I'm some shakes as a prophet.
Text versions by Judy Bemis, page scans by Judy Bemis and Kim Huett
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Updated June 19, 2015. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.