Sublime

« Vous tous ici présents — et je peux compter avec vous une bonne moitié de la population de Terminus —, vous ne valez guère mieux. Nous sommes là, béats d'admiration devant l'Encyclopédie. Nous estimons que l'ultime but de la science est la classification des connaissances acquises. C'est une tâche importante, mais n'y a-t-il pas autre chose à fai

The Machine is only a tool after all, which can help humanity progress faster by taking some of the burdens of calculations and interpretations off its back. The task of the human brain remains what it has always been; that of discovering new data to be analyzed, and of devising new concepts to be tested. A pity the Society for Humanity won’t under

Once I had moved to Boston, I took the manuscripts to the Boston publishing firm of Little, Brown, and they turned it down also.

It was to Astounding that I wrote my first letter in 1935, and it was printed. In the usual fan fashion, I listed the stories I liked and disliked, said why, and asked for smooth edges, rather than the typical messy rough edges of the pulps that shredded and left paper lint everywhere.

“Who Goes There?” (August 1938 Astounding). This may possibly be the greatest science fiction story ever written.