Seekers of Tomorrow Read Free Page B

letter from Bob Davis, editor of argosy, in 1922. Davis liked the story immensely, but felt it was just too "far out" to be accepted by his readership.
    "Every" book publisher in the country had a look at the manuscript and turned it down. Whenever a new magazine appeared, Smith hopefully sent it out. Finally, one day he picked up the April, 1927, amazing stories at a newsstand, read a few pages on the spot of the first story, The Plague of the Living Dead, by A. Hyatt Verrill, dashed home, got the manuscript, and mailed it out.
    Editor T. O'Conor Sloane replied with high enthusiasm and a low offer of $75 for the 90,000 word novel. Smith accepted (though he had spent more than that on postage through the years), but by the time the novel appeared, amazing stories had examined its conscience and a check arrived for $125. He split the sum with Mrs. Garby and The Skylark of Space was published as a collaboration. The first installment had not been on sale a month when Sloane wrote asking for a sequel. Mrs. Garby wasn't inter-ested in participating further, so Smith started on his own.
    The sequel, Skylark Three, was in every sense a continuation of the first novel. As science fiction it was also a better novel. The story was unified and the pace sustained. Most important, Smith showed that, whatever his weaknesses at dialogue and love interest, his ability to develop suspenseful action grippingly on a cosmic scale was limited only by the scope of his imagination. He was probably the only writer alive who could weave a thousand words of scientific explanation into a battle scene and not slow the pace for an instant.
    Skylark Three, upon its appearance in the August, Septem-ber, and October, 1930, issues of amazing stories, did more than even its predecessor to change the paraphernalia of science fiction. Tremendous battles of conflicting forces with an assortment of offensive rays and defensive force screens were popularized by the new novel. Spaceships miles in length and a fabulous array of bizarre aliens which justified the novel's subtitle: "The tale of the galactic cruise which ushered in universal civilization," became standard science-fiction fare. Science-fiction writers would never again be bound to their solar system. Smith had sold all rights to The Skylark of Space but he released only magazine privileges for its sequel, amazing stories voluntarily paid him 3/4 of a cent a word for that second story, 1/4 of a cent more per word than they had paid any author up to that time.
    The Skylark stories had been carried as far as Smith planned, and he now proceeded on what he thought would be a new series. The Spacehounds of IPC began in the July, 1931, issue of amazing stories, before the letter column had ceased ringing the praises of Skylark Three. It was an excit-ing, imaginative story depicting space battles, stupendous scientific discovery, and ingeniously conceived alien intelli-gences, every bit as good and as well-sustained as Skylark Three. It even predicted the ion drive for spaceships decades before Herman Oberth proposed it in radio electronics magazine in the early fifties. Nevertheless, letters tem-pered praise with protest because Smith had stayed within the confines of our solar system in the development of the story. Editor Sloane sided with the readers and made a point of suggesting that Smith make the setting of his next story far out in the Milky Way.
    Smith was angered at Sloane, not only for the reprimand but for unauthorized changes in the published story, so when Harry Bates, editor of Clayton's astounding stories, dan-gled the carrot of 2 cents a word on acceptance for first look at his next story, he agreed. A sequel to The Spacehounds of IPC was now impossible, since the new story must be offered to a competing magazine. Instead, Smith wrote Triplanetary, a novel of the unified worlds of Earth, Mars, and Venus attacked by an amphibian menace from a distant star. Though much of the action appeared to