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For science fiction, read adventure fiction, for that is what it was for many decades. In their time H. G. Wells' books were referred to as "scientific romances." No, not like Barbara Cartland's tales of snogging and bodice ripping. This is romance meaning "a tale depicting heroic or marvelous achievements, colorful events or scenes, chivalrous devotion, unusual, even supernatural, experiences, or other matters of a kind to appeal to the imagination." A description not too wide of the mark of describing science fiction itself.

Then science fiction came of age. In the magazines of the fifties the softer sciences were featured side by side with the traditional physics, chemistry and engineering. Ecology came on the scene, along with psychology and psychiatry. Not to mention Scientology a few years later. This was a freedom that SF really needed. A chance to look inside the protagonist's skull — as well as into the guts of his rocket engine.

I enjoyed this new freedom as you will see here.

The morning mail had arrived while Amos Cabot was out shopping and had been thrown onto the rickety table in the front hall. He poked through it even though he knew there would be nothing for him; this wasn't the right day. On the thirteenth his Social Security check came and on the twenty-fourth the union check. There never was anything else, except for a diminishing number of cards every Christmas. Nothing, he knew it.

A large blue envelope was propped against the mirror but he couldn't make out the name, damn that skinflint Mrs. Peavey and her two-watt bulbs. He bent over and blinked at it — then blinked again. By God it was for him, and no mistake! Felt like a thick magazine or a catalog: he wondered what it could possibly be and who might have sent it to him. Clutching it to his chest with a knobby and liver-spotted hand he began the long drag up the three flights of stairs to his room. He dropped his string bag with the two cans of beans and the loaf of day-old white bread onto the drainboard and sat down heavily in his chair by the window. Unsealing the envelope he saw that it was a magazine, a thick glossy one with a black cover. He slid it out onto his lap and stared at it with horrified eyes.

Hereafter the title read in black, prickly Gothic letters against a field of greenish-gray. Underneath it was subtitled "The Magazine of Preparedness." The rest of the cover was black, solid midnight black, except for an inset photograph shaped like a tombstone that had a cheerful view of a cemetery filled with flower blossoms, ranked headstones, and brooding mausoleums. Was this all a very bad joke? It didn't seem so as Amos flipped through the pages, catching quick glimpses of caskets, coffins, cemetery plots, and urns of mortal ashes. With a grunt of disgust he threw the magazine onto the table and as he did so a letter fell out and drifted to the floor. It was addressed to him, on the magazine's stationery, there was no mistake.

My Dearest Sir: