I've just about reached the end of the list, though there are one or two
others that might be mentioned right here at the tail end of the
article. Jules Verne, I suppose, has to be credited with the first ship
fired from a canon, in ONCE AROUND THE MOON. Wells takes the bow for
gravity plates, which Willy Ley so neatly disposed of, only he called it
"cavorite" in THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON., and Roy Cummings used it
effectivly in AROUND THE UNIVERSE (and a hundred others). In a story in
the old WONDER Donald Wolheim put his rocket ship on a huge wheel,
rotated the wheel and flung it off into space. Fair, except that the
acceleration would be killing.
AND THAT'S ABSOLUTLY ALL THE BEST WAYS TO GET AROUND. Unless there are
some of those which I haven't heard of. If you know of some, I would
like to be enlightened.
--ROSS ROCKYLYN
--THE SYMPHONIC ABDUCTION--
"I suppose you've heard about what happened to my brother Jerry?" Ray
Spencer asked me; I shook my head. "The whole family was worried about
him for a while: couldn't tell whether he had sleeping-sickness, or
what. All we knew was that he'd gone coma listening to some phonograph
records when he was alone in the house. Perhaps the intense emotional
effect of the music, plus its stentor, was the cause.
"When I returned home, he lay cold on the floor in front of the
radio-phonograph. The automatic release had shut off the record, but the
current was still on, and the volume dial was turned full strength.
Nothing I could do would rouse my brother, so--scared--I put him to bed
and called a doctor, who had him taken to a hospital for observation. No
one could determine what was the trouble, and since we couldn't afford
to keep him at the hospital indefinitely, we brought Jerry back home.
And although it wasn't exactly appropriate, I couldn't help remembering
the story of the Sleeping Beauty whenever I looked into his room and saw
him, apparently only napping.
"Then one day I heard him--still in his trance--whisperingly singing.
The indistinct notes were reminiscent of one of Chaikovsky's ballet
pieces. I tried vainly to wake him. He sighed on and on until the faint
breath of a voice softened into silence....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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