Word: yarns
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...fictioneer almost beat Byrd to the icecaps. A gaudy pseudo-scientific yarn called The President of the United States, Detective, by H. R. Heard (who, as Gerald Heard, is also a Southern California cult-leader), last week won first ($3,000) prize in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine annual story contest. Heard's plot: What would happen if the icecaps completely melted? The year is 1977, and an expanded U.S.S.R. has fallen under the domination of a vicious Oriental named Yang, who plots to destroy the U.S.A. by geological warfare. Yang's plan is to melt...
...over 3,000 years, this yarn has been good enough for millions of people.* But in the current issue of American Scientist, Dr. Arthur F. Taggart belittles it to pieces. The Golden Fleece, Dr. Taggart explains, was probably nothing but a detail of Heroic Age mining technique. The early Greeks lined their gold-washing sluices with sheepskins. The gold dust stuck to the natural grease in the wool. The same principle (the selective attraction of oily substances for certain mineral particles) is widely used today in the flotation process of concentrating metallic ores. Jason, then, according to Dr. Taggart...
...diversified fare offered at the local lyceum, "Lady Luck" comes off as the more entertaining of the lightweight screenings. A sly yarn about the gambler who combined good luck at the board with a full house in the boudoir, the film moves smoothly along paced by the tangy dialogue taken straight from the gaming tables. Some of the best scenes involve Jimmy Gleason, Hollywood's finest con-man, bluffing Frank Morgan, no sucker himself--while various types of bait get their just dues...
...Yearling. Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman in a costly, elaborate, Techni-colored version of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' simple yarn about the Florida scrub country (TIME...
Heroes in war novels usually wear an enlisted man's stripes, sometimes bars, rarely anything as awesome as an oak leaf. But the hero of this fast-moving, funny, occasionally angry yarn wears a general's star. Earnest, hard-working Brigadier General K. C. Dennis, who commands the 5th U.S. Bombardment Division, is worried about a new super-secret jet plane which the Nazis are about to put into production. He knows where its factories are hidden, also that his 6-175 could blast them sky-high were they given a chance. But the factories are deep inside...