(Cover Earle Bergey)
Thrilling Wonder Stories - Aug 1947
Letter
SHIP'S CHANDLER
By A. Bertram Chandler
Dear Ed.: When first my spies informed me of the impending clean-up I said - not too regretfully - "Cor lumme, they've been and shoved the poor old basket out through the airlock without a spacesuit..."
Joking apart - it has made one helluva difference to the magazine. As a fan one could enjoy some of the correspondence, especially when one’s own pet likes or dislikes came in for a first class mauling. But it meant that TWS was the kind of publication to be kept in a locked drawer and not, like some of your contemporaries, lent to shipmates short of reading matter as being representative of the best in science fiction.
Which was a pity, as you have published of late some beautiful stories. It was the correspondence that let the side down with a resounding crash. The uninitiate would gain from them the impression that s/f readers - and writers - were fit and proper candidates for the nut house.
Congratulations on getting Finlay back to the fold. He is a fine artist and - surprisingly for one in his profession - can read. Dona’s spacesuit in the first illustration to THE MANLESS WORLDS may be tight fitting but it is a spacesuit within the meaning of the act. Bergey - despite a slight misapprehension on his part regarding the heat, cold and anything else resistant properties of the female human skin - I also like. Sorry - slight error. For "despite" read "because of"...
And that - as we say after making an announcement over the public address system - is all. Just thought that I’d get my two bits worth - R. M. S. Tamoroa.