I have often wondered why no mention has been made among fans of Ray Cummings' World of Tomorrow sketches in Liberty two or three years ago. So far as I know, no fan column ever mentioned these; yet Liberty is surely widely-read, and Ray Cummings well known to us.
The series ran in "boxes" on an inside page irregularly for quite a few months; I have nothing like a complete collection. Not all would come under the heading of "science fiction", but all concerned the future of science.
Perhaps the most distinctive thing about them was the tense and person. You may remember that Ray Palmer once announced as the objectives of a certain writers' group the writing of a story in the second person (you) and a story in the present tense. These two objectives had already been realized at once in several pieces, of which The World of Tomorrow was one.
Each sketch had a different title, and there was no continuity in them. A typical one leads off something like this: "You are driving along quietly when a Peace Guard leaps onto your running board. 'Follow that car!' he orders. The car he points to is plunging for the take-off incline --", and the action ends with the officer bringing down the outlaw by means of an ignition-killer, and the sketch winds up with a protestation that these things could so happen to you; that they are in the near future, the air-land amphibian auto being an accomplished fact and the ignition-killer in the experimental stage; also other devices in the sketch explained. Other sketches in the series concerned three-dimensional movies, undrwater landscaping, etc.
Apparently, however, the series made no impression on Liberty readers, as I never saw a single Vox Pop comment on them. Nor have I heard any fan mention of them.
But here's the pay-off. Some of the sketches evidently were rejected by Liberty. These are now appearing as science fillers in the new AMAZING: "He Lives -- But He Does Not Breathe" in the October issue, for example.
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Updated June 23, 2015. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.