I suppose it was too much to hope for two good issues of Astounding in a row.  The magazine that Campbell built is back to its standard level of quality, which is to say the bar is not very high.  Still, I read the stories so you don't have to (if you don't want), so here's all the news that fits to print.

Randal Garrett's But I don't think isn't horrible.  It's actually genuine satire, about a ordnance evasion officer (a "Guesser") who ends up inadvertently jumping ship during shoreleave.  He is the denizen of a lawfully evil and hierarchical society, and the story is all about the miserable things he does and that are done to him in large part due to this evil culture.  It'll leave a dirty taste in your mouth, like old cigarette butts, but I think it was actually intentional this time. 

It's not exactly downhill from here, but there aren't exactly heights, either.  The next story, Broken Tool, by Theodore L. Thomas, is a short piece about a candidate for the Space Corps, who ends up washing out because he, ironically, doesn't have enough attachment to his home planet of Earth.  A "gotcha" story, the kind I might expect to find in one of the lesser magazines… not that they exist anymore.

I generally like Algis Budrys, and his Straw, about an entrepreneur who pulled himself up by his bootstraps and became the Big Man of the underwater community of Atlantis, isn't bad.  It's just not terribly great. 

Isaac Asimov has an interesting article entitled, Unartificial elements, explaining how all of the elements humans have managed to synthesize actually do exist in nature, albeit in rather small amounts.  This was the best part of the magazine.

There are two stories after the last installment of Dorsai, which I reviewed last time.  Chris Anvil's Leverage is a mildly entertaining story about colonists dealing with a planet's ecosphere that has a single-minded, but fatally flawed, vendetta against the settlers.  Another low-grade story I'd expect in Imagination or somewhere similar.

Finally, we have Vanishing Point, by C.C. Beck, the illustrator for D.C.'s Captain Marvel.  It's all about what happens when an artist learns the true nature of perspective.  Cute, but, again, not much to it.

Campbell published the user reviews for March and April 1959.  I won't go into great detail, but suffice it to say, Leinster's Pirates of Ersatz topped both months.  But in March, Despoiler of the Golden Empire got #2, whereas my favorite, The Man Who Did Not Fit was bottommost.  The April results were less disappointing–Now Inhale got #2, and Wherever You Are got #3.  I probably would have swapped the places, but I suppose a female protagonist may be too much for Analog readers to swallow comfortably.

Lots of space launches coming up–a Vanguard and a Discoverer, so expect some launch reports this week!

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