Citation: |
Tne morning some fifty-five years ago I came into the office of John W. Campbell, Jr., the already legendary editor of Astounding Science Fiction, greatest of all SF magazines, and there, leaning against the wall behind his desk, was a new painting that cover artist Ed Emshwiller had just brought in. “What do you think of it, Bob?” John asked. In his Socratic way he was always asking the visitors to his office for their opinions about this or that—even his newest and youngest regular contributor, which is what I was. The painting puzzled me. At first glance it looked like a cheerful rural scene somewhere in New England or Kansas: a boy walking down a rutted dirt road with a fishing rod over his shoulder, a cow thrusting its head through a barbed-wire fence to slurp up some flowers by the roadside, a couple of birds standing in the path. At second glance I saw that it wasn’t Kansas. The “cow” had a face like that of no cow ever seen on Earth, the “birds” looked more like little dinosaurs, and there were two crescent moons visible in the pleasant blue sky. I smiled. And then I took a third glance. There was a pelican sitting on one of the fence posts. “That isn’t Earth,” I said. “So what’s that pelican doing there?” |