Changes

My dad moved into a nursing home today. It's close, it's a good place, and the fellow in charge is a family friend, so the whole thing went smoothly. We've known this was coming but tried to put it off. It'll be an adjustment for him, but we're hoping he'll like it once he gets used to it. For one thing, there are all those people there who have never heard all his stories. And he's already discovered he can get around all over the place in his wheelchair. We're hoping for the best.

Meanwhile, I've been reading that issue of STARTLING STORIES I mentioned last night and thoroughly enjoying it. There's quite a line-up of authors in it: Jack Vance, John D. McDonald, William Campbell Gault, and a full-length novel by Sam Merwin Jr., "House of Many Worlds" (I also have the Galaxy Novel version of this book and a later Curtis Books PB reprint; there's an Ace omnibus edition of it and the sequel, THREE WORLDS OF TIME, but I don't have it). Merwin was my first editor, back when I started selling short stories to MSMM in the Seventies, so I have a real soft spot for him and his work. The Vance story and the JDM story could have been published now with only minor changes. The Gault story hasn't aged as well, but it was still fun. I think the Forties and Fifties are my favorite decades for science fiction.