FOR SOME TIME I have heard it said soberly enough
that science fiction would take the place of the detective story as relaxing reading for tired business men and intellectuals. But it was not until I heard of the Science Fiction Lunchebn Club, and looked at its membership, that I realised that this was a possibility seriously considered by serious people. At the club's seventh luncheon, which I attended the other day, I saw several pub- lishers and agents—all anxious not only that science fiction should make money but also that it should qualify as a category of serious literature. The speaker was Mr. E. J. Cornell, the editor of a science fiction magazine, who recently made a survey of his readership. Twenty-six per cent. had university degrees, 35 per cent. had technical jobs, 95 per cent. were men, and 8 per cent. earned more than £1,000 a year. In the past year or so the number of science fiction magazines published in this contry number of science fiction mag&nes published in this country has dropped from' fifteen to six, but the nine 'which have dis- appeared were all straight reprints from American plates and not right in idiom for England. This is obviously a case of the good Bems (Bug-Eyed Monsters) driving out the bad. My neighbour at luncheon told me that a glossy book on space- flight which he had published at 25s. had sold 20,000 copies, and a further 10,000 in a cheaper book-club edition. A journa- list sitting apposite confessed his ambition to be the first to file a story datelined 'Moon, Monday.'
PHAROS
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