Novelettes Metamorphosite by Eric Frank Russell For The Public by Bernard I. Kahn Hand Of The Gods by A. E. van Vogt Short Stories The Impossible Pirate by George O. Smith Time Enough by Lewis Padgett Article Bikini A And B by John W. Campbell, Jr. Readers' Departments The Editor's Page (Our Monthly Contest) The Analytical Laboratory (August & September) In Times To Come (A new novel by Lewis Padgett) Brass Tacks (including Willy Ley) COVER BY ALEJANDRO |
OUR MONTHLY CONTEST The war is over, many men are back, including tens of thousands of professional technicians. Many readers of Science Fiction recently servicing radar, sonar, and similar equipments, engineers at home who were doing research on such devices, are now free to carry on civilian operations again. I'd like to point out that Astounding Science Fiction pays cash money for stories; that we need stories constantly; that we are found with beaming smiles and great joy when a new, unknown author shows up with a bell-ringer, and that we need new authors. It works like this: each month we run a contest, open to all comers. We pay up to $2,000 first prize for a long novel, and about $300 goes out every month for a novelette. For a short story, we pay from $75 to $150, depending on length. You do not have to be an old-time author to sell stories; our regular buying is a wide-open, everybody-welcome contest. Many of our top authors today sold us the first story submitted - the first story ever submitted anywhere. We do not want stories "like" those of present authors; we want new angles, fresh ideas, a different, new, and interesting approach. While this contest is, in the nature of things, open to all comers, in practice only regular readers of Science Fiction are apt to make the grade. Of those readers, past experience indicates professional technical people have a better chance of becoming permanent top-rankers. We have no staff writers; every author is a free-lance. |
We don't recommend writing for Science Fiction as a full-time career, but it's a handy source of income for auxiliaries. You can buy a new radio with a short story, or a really fine camera. Or if you're really patient, you can buy a car with a couple of novelettes, or a short serial. With a long serial you can get the down payment on a house - if you can find a house! Incidentally, most of the authors, once they get started, tend to find that writing a story is something like reading one - it can be as surprising to find which way your characters take you as to find which way another author's plot twists! Mechanically, preparation of manuscript is simple enough. Type on one side of standard typewriter paper, double spaced. (We need room for printers' marks between lines.) There's one more important thing: most amateur authors fail to make the grade by omitting that very necessary final operation. We will not pay for a story unless you send it in. Finish it and send it - don't add dust-catchers in the overcrowded desk. If you do send it in, you'll hear from us in about two weeks or less. THE EDITOR |
December, 1946 |
