After my May 1938 scare concerning the demise of Astounding , I began sending monthly letters to the magazine, carefully rating the stories. (I stopped after I began selling stories myself.) These were all published, and, in fact, I had sent a letter to Astounding , which was published, back in 1935. Two established science fiction writers wrote me personally in response to remarks I made concerning their stories. These were Russell R. Winterbotham and Clifford D. Simak.
With both, I maintained a correspondence, quite regular at first, and with long dry intervals in later years. The friendship that resulted, though long distance, was enduring. I met Russ Winterbotham in person only once, and that was at the World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland in 1966. He died in 1971. I have met Cliff Simak three times, the most recent occasion being at the World Science Fiction Convention in Boston in 1971, where he was guest of honor.
Simak’s first letter to me was in response to a letter of mine printed in Astounding that had given a low rating to his story “Rule 18,” in the July 1938 issue. Simak wrote to ask details so that he might consider my criticisms and perhaps profit from them. (Would that I would react so gently and rationally to adverse criticism!)
I reread the story in order to be able to answer properly and found, to my surprise, that there was nothing wrong with it at all. What he had done was to write the story in separate scenes with no explicit transition passages between. I wasn’t used to that technique, so the story seemed choppy and incoherent. The second time around, I recognized what he was doing and realized that not only was the story not in the least incoherent but it moved with a slick speed that would have been impossible if all the dull, breadand-butter transitions had been inserted.
I wrote Simak to explain, and adopted the same device in my own stories. What’s more, I attempted, as far as possible, to make use of something similar to Simak’s cool and unadorned style,
I have sometimes heard science fiction writers speak of the influence upon their style of such high-prestige literary figures as Kafka, Proust, and Joyce. This may be pose or it may be reality, but, for myself, I make no such claim. I learned how to write science fiction by the attentive reading of science fiction, and among the major influences on my style was Clifford Simak.
Simak was particularly encouraging in those anxious months during which I was trying to sell a story. On the day I made my first sale, I had a letter, all sealed and addressed and stamped, waiting to be mailed to him. I tore it open to add the news, and destroying a stamped envelope, which represented a clear loss of several cents, was not something I did lightly in those days.
It has always pleased me, therefore, that my first sale to Campbell had, as its first-person narrator, a character named in Clifford Simak’s honor.
One more point about “Trends”-
In my early sessions with Campbell, he had occasionally pointed out the value of having a name that wasn’t odd and hard to pronounce, and suggested the use of a common Anglo-Saxon name as a pseudonym. On this point, I clearly expressed intransigence. My name was my name and it would go on my stories.
When “Trends” was sold, I steeled myself for what I thought might be a struggle with Campbell that might even cost me my precious sale. -It never happened. Perhaps it was because my name had already appeared on two stories in Amazing , or perhaps Campbell recognized I would not agree to a pseudonym, but he never raised the point.
As it happened, my disinclination for a pseudonym was lucky indeed, for the name Isaac Asimov proved highly visible. No one could see the name for the first time without smiling at its oddness; and anyone seeing it the second time would instantly remember the first time. I’m convinced that at least part of my eventual popularity came about because the readers recognized the name quickly and became aware of my stories as a group.
Indeed, matters came full circle. In later years, I frequently met readers who were convinced the name was a pseudonym designed to achieve visibility and that my real name must be something like John Smith. It was sometimes hard to disabuse them.
While I was revising “Trends” for Campbell, I was also working on another story, “The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use.” That one I did not submit to Campbell. Either I did not wish to push him too hard immediately after I had made a sale to him, or I suspected the story wasn’t good enough for him and didn’t want to spoil the impression “Trends” might have made. In either case (and I don’t really remember the motive) I decided to try it on Amazing first. It was also a one cent market, after all, and perhaps I thought I owed them another chance, now that I had made my Campbell sale.
I mailed “The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use” to Amazing on February 6, 1939, and on February 20 received notice of acceptance. Amazing may have bought it because it needed a story in a hurry, for it appeared in the May issue, which reached the newsstands only three weeks after the sale. That made it my second published story, for it appeared two months before “Trends.”
The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use
Karl Frantor found the prospect a terribly dismal one. From low-hanging clouds, fell eternal misty rain; squat, rubbery vegetation with its dull, reddish-brown colour stretched away in all directions. Now and then a Hop-scotch Bird fluttered wildly above them, emitting plaintive squawks as it went.
Karl turned his head to gaze at the tiny dome of Aphrodopolis , largest city on Venus.
“God,” he muttered, “even the dome is better than this awful world out here.” He pulled the rubberized fabric of his coat closer about him. “I’ll be glad to get back to Earth again.”
He turned to the slight figure of Antil, the Venusian, “When are we coming to the ruins, Antil?”
There was no answer and Karl noticed the tear that rolled down the Venusian’s green, puckered cheeks. Another glistened in the large, lemur-like eyes; soft, incredibly beautiful eyes.
The Earthman’s voice softened. “Sorry, Antil, I didn’t mean to say anything against Venus.”
Antil turned his green face toward Karl, “It was not that, my friend. Naturally, you would not find much to admire in an alien world. I, however, love Venus, and I weep because I am overcome with its beauty.” The words came fluently but with the inevitable distortion caused by vocal cords unfitted for harsh-languages.
“I know its seems incomprehensible to you,” Antil continued, “but to me Venus is a paradise, a golden land-I cannot express my feelings for it properly.”
“Yet there are some that say only Earthmen can love.” Karl’s sympathy was strong and sincere.
The Venusian shook his head sadly. “There is much besides the capacity to feel emotion that your people deny us.”
Karl changed the subject hurriedly. ‘Tell me, Antil, doesn’t Venus present a dull aspect even to you? You’ve been to Earth and should know. How can this eternity of brown and grey compare t© the living, warm colours of Earth?”
“It is far more beautiful to me. You forget that my colour sense is so enormously different from yours. [The Venusian eye can distinguish between two tints, the wavelengths of which differ by as little as five Angstrom units. They see thousands of colours to which Earthmen are blind.-Author.] How can I explain the beauties, the wealth of colour in which this landscape abounds?” He fell silent, lost in the wonders he spoke of, while to the Terrestrial the deadly, melancholy grey remained unchanged.
“Someday,” Antil’s voice came as from a person in a dream, “Venus will once more belong to the Venusians. The Earthlings shall no longer rule us, and the glory of our ancestors shall return to us.”
Karl laughed. “Come, now, Antil, you speak like a member of the Green Bands, that are giving the government so much trouble. I thought you didn’t believe in violence.”
“I don’t, Karl,” Antil’s eyes were grave and rather frightened, “but the extremists are gaining power, and I fear the worst. And if-if open rebellion against Earth breaks out, I must join them.”
“But you disagree with them.”
“Yes, of course,” he shrugged his shoulders, a gesture he had learned from Earthmen, “we can gain nothing by violence. There are five billion of you and scarcely a hundred million of us. You have resources and weapons while we have none. It would be a fool’s venture, and even should we win, we might leave such a heritage of hatred that there could never be peace among our two planets.”
“Then why join them?”
“Because I am a Venusian.”
The Earthman burst into laughter again. “Patriotism, it seems, is as irrational On Venus as on Earth. But come, let us proceed to the ruins of your ancient city. Are we nearly there?”
“Yes,” answered Antil, “it’s a matter of little more than an Earth mile now. Remember, however, that you are to disturb nothing. The ruins of Ash-taz.-zor are sacred to us, as the sole existing remnant of the time when we, too, were a great race, rather than the degenerate remains of one.”