not think that I am decrying, or even criticizing,
Science Fiction. I consider it a highly important and
significant branch of present-day writing, and have hopes of
contributing to it myself. I am merely advocating an open
attitude of mind and imagination. For those who think that
the "impossible" requires justification--or cannot be
justified--I would suggest that the only impossible thing is
to define and delimit the impossible. In an infinite,
eternal universe, there is nothing imaginable--or
unimaginable--which might not happen, might not be true,
somewhere or sometime. Science has discovered, and will
continue to discover, an enormous amount of relative data;
but there will always remain an illimitable residue of the
undiscovered and the unknown. And the field for imaginative
fiction, both scientific and non-scientific, is, it seems to
me, wholly inexhaustible.--Clark Ashton Smith, Auburn, Cal.

_Heroes Too Heroic?_

Dear Editor:

I wrote you a letter last month. I'm writing you a letter
this month, and I'll write you a letter next month. In fact,
I'm going to write you a letter every month just as soon as
I finish the latest issue of Astounding Stories, so you
might as well have a special department installed in
Astounding Stories right away entitled "Letters from the Sap
Who Thinks He Is So Smart," or something else equally
appropriate.

Have you ever noticed that 99% of Edmond Hamilton's stories
have the same plot as "Monsters of Mars"? The plot I mean is
this:

A group of men, preferably three, get into enemy territory.
As to the enemy (if the enemy are not lizards or some other
repulsive form of life), Mr. Hamilton has them wear
repulsive clothes, live in ugly buildings, etc., to make the
reader dislike them at the start. An old, old idea, and
quite a commonly used one, is to have these creatures about
to declare war and conquer the hero's country with the
enemy's super-weapons; and after capturing our brave, bold,
and heroic heroes, proceed to tell the heroes the way the
weapons work, the zero hour set for attack, and the line of
march of the enemy's armies (as if prisoners are told all
these things!). Our heroes then cleverly escape and grab an
enemy machine. About two thousand of the enemy close in