Sunday, July 29, 2012

ERRATA, The Time Masters, Wilson Tucker


ERRATA

search tags: wilson tucker, time masters, sfbc, science fiction book club, 1971, lancer books

[ last 5 missing paragraphs from SFBC hardcover edition of 1971 revised edition of Wilson Tucker’s The Time Masters. Text taken from Lancer Books, 1971, paperback printing. Missing paragraphs begin after === sentence. Page number is from Lancer pb. ]

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===Another deflection was noted, a new line of flight that would carry the ship wide of its programmed target.===

The great ship hurled itself through space on invisible wings, driven by controlled atomic power that was supposed to be at rest. An opening appeared in the hull and a long tubular rod was thrust out to catch the sunlight. The antenna began hurling a distress signal into space.
Page 159 (Lancer pb, 1971, revised)

Instruments in the earth-bound operations room picked up the signal but read it as only gibberish—as one more malfunction of the first starship. Tracking personnel watched the atomic motor build up acceleration. A tentative computer reading gave information that the ship was on an apparent course for a point in the constellation Ophiuchus. A sudden loss of fluid in the heavy-water tanks encasing the drive motor suggested a small but damaging leak. The vehicle was going wildly wrong.
The range safety officer looked across the room to Flight Command for confirmation. At a sharp nod, he triggered the destruct switch and touched off a cry of bitter disappointment from the technicians.
Two ships ten thousand years apart suffered a curiously similar fate. Gilbert Nash counted himself the only living survivor of the first catastrophe,
Time had finally ended for Carolyn Hodgkins.

THE END

copyright 1971 by Wilson Tucker
Lancer Books


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Wednesday, July 11, 2012

What they wanted, 1951

The editors of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction solicited their readers on what format of content they wanted in the magazine. This in the day of all postal mail. They published the results in the June 1951 issue, page 21 ...
  • Shorts, only, no novelets ......... 40%
  • An occasional novelet, but only
    if of very high quality ........... 17%
  • A regular policy of a novelet
    in each issue ..................... 20%
  • Serials ...........................  7%
  • Anything the editors think best ... 12%
They did not cite how many responses they received.

In June 1951 F & SF was published bi-monthly, with 128 pages per issue.

If you read F & SF, here are the same options (plus one new option and question) in an UNOFFICIAL, uncontrolled  online survey.

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Sunday, July 01, 2012

Deming's Law

Deming's Law: The accuracy of an extrapolation varies inversely as the square of the author's conservative adherence to probability.

Corollary: It is impossible for a science fiction writer to extrapolate fast and far enough to keep up with factual progress.

-- from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, editorial introduction (Anthony Boucher?), December 1955 (vol 9, No. 6), page 36

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