The Synopsis Treasury by Christopher Sirmons Haviland Read Free Book Online Page B

established by late 1940, but Heinlein wanted more money for that, and Pohl chose not to afford it.
    Lost Legacy was first published in Super Science Stories as Lost Legion by Lyle Monroe. It appeared subsequently in several collections, including Assignment in Eternity , and would later in fact bear the Heinlein name. “Beyond Doubt” by Lyle Monroe and Elma Wentz was first published in Astonishing Stories in April, 1941, and would later be republished in Isaac Asimov’s anthology, Election Day 2084: Science Fiction Stories About the Future of Politics . Patterns of Possibility was first published as Elsewhen in Astounding Science Fiction in September, 1941 and also would get collected into Assignment in Eternity . “Pied Piper” by Lyle Monroe was first published in Astonishing Stories in March 1942 and would not be republished until 2005 in Off the Main Sequence: The Other Science Fiction Stories of Robert A. Heinlein . “My Object All Sublime” by Lyle Monroe was first published in Future Combined with Science Fiction Stories in 1942, also collected into the Off the Main Sequence anthology.
    —CSH

    October 23, 1940

    Dear Mr. Pohl,
    I have delayed ten days in answering your letter because I was engaged in finishing a novelette, and wished to give your letter a careful, thorough answer when I did so. I find it very [difficult] to write letters when I have a story on the fire.
    …
    Now to business—I was a bit surprised at the controversy started by “Let There Be Light.” It contained controversial matters, but the objection seemed to be entirely to the language used by the characters. Apparently some readers believe that scientists are different from ordinary vulgar human beings. Well—I know that they aren’t.
    I am sorry to say that I am unable to offer manuscripts under my own name at the cent-a-word rate. Sheer economic determinism, you will understand. For the same reason I would be unable to undertake to write stories by arrangement with you under pen names and at a lower rate.
    However I have five stories which for one reason or another did not sell when they were written. You may have any of those under the name of Lyle Monroe for half a cent per word.
    Let me make one point quite clear: Stories written under the name Lyle Monroe will receive every bit as careful attention from me as stories written under my own name. I will not be offering shoddy hack work for a lower rate. “Let There Be Light” was one of my favorite stories, written honestly and carefully. I will continue to be just as jealous of the reputation of Lyle Monroe as I am of the name with the higher rate.
    Now as to these five stories—each of them will probably need rewriting and I am willing to do any necessary amount of rewriting in order to get them in shape for market. In a way that will cost me money, for I am now selling every word that I write at a higher rate than they will bring and have been doing so for a year. But I am anxious to see these published for my own morale. These five manuscripts are the only things I have ever written which were not immediately sold. They sit here and shame me. You will appreciate, I believe, that I would labor mightily to dispose of them.
    It seems best to me that you see them unrevised, with all the mistakes I made while learning still in them. If I were to rewrite them without waiting for your advice I might greatly improve them, since I believe I know more about writing now than I did a year ago when they were written. But I think it would help a lot for you to indicate how you wish them changed. You may want more adventure, less adventure, more science, less science, a love interest introduced, or taken out, a grim treatment, or addition of humor. In fact I can do with a story almost anything that you want done, with the exception that the social evaluations expressed in a story must be my own.
    What I am trying to say is this: Where the writer speaks through the mouth of a