Reading, Short And Deep #201
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Faithful by Lester Del Rey
The Faithful was first published in Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1938.
Here’s a link to the PDF of the story.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
3 thoughts to “Reading, Short And Deep #201 – The Faithful by Lester del Rey”
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Steven King is someone with excellent story ideas, but for me, not a super writer
Ive not read a ton of SK, but I think his RUNNING MAN book is pretty solid. His writing certainly doesnt excite me the way Donald Westlake’s or Lawrence Block’s does. But SK certainly is a fount of ideas.
Lester wrote in The Early del Rey that “The Faithful” was accepted by John W. Campbell. Your detailed deconstruction of the story is interesting, and you bring up many interesting points about the story. However, you are imposing your 2019 views on a work written in 1938 and I think most of the readers then would have no issues with points you discuss if they even thought of them. I know that when I read it as a thirteen year-old in 1975 I didn’t notice the issues you brought up. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t. Now that you have brought them to my attention I will have to re-read the story with them in mind, especially the religious angle, since he wrote other stories with it clearly in the forefront.
As for Lester’s writing, I read most of his works in my teens and he has been one of my favorite writers ever since. However, over the course of my reading S-F I have found that I generally enjoy the works written from the late thirties into the the mid-sixties more than works written since.