The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cosmic Express, by John Stewart Williamson

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Title: The Cosmic Express

Author: John Stewart Williamson

Release Date: July 15, 2008 [EBook #26066]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ December 1961 and was
first published in _Amazing Stories_ November 1930. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical
errors have been corrected without note.

A Classic Reprint from AMAZING STORIES, November, 1930

_Copyright 1931, by Experimenter Publications Inc._

_The Cosmic Express_

By JACK WILLIAMSON

Introduction by Sam Moskowitz

_The year 1928 was a great year of discovery for_ AMAZING STORIES. _They
were uncovering new talent at such a great rate, (Harl Vincent, David H.
Keller, E. E. Smith, Philip Francis Nowlan, Fletcher Pratt and Miles J.
Breuer), that Jack Williamson barely managed to become one of a
distinguished group of discoveries by stealing the cover of the December
issue for his first story_ The Metal Man.

_A disciple of A. Merritt, he attempted to imitate in style, mood and
subject the magic of that late lamented master of fantasy. The imitation
found great favor from the readership and almost instantly Jack
Williamson became an important name on the contents page of_ AMAZING
STORIES. _He followed his initial success with two short novels_, The
Green Girl _in_ AMAZING STORIES _and_ The Alien Intelligence _in_
SCIENCE WONDER STORIES, _another Gernsback publication. Both of these
stories were close copies of A. Merritt, whose style and method Jack
Williamson parlayed into popularity for eight years._

_Yet the strange thing about it was that Jack Williamson was one of the
most versatile science fiction authors ever to sit down at the
typewriter. When the vogue for science-fantasy altered to super science,
he cr