“DEAR RON, I REALIZE THAT DIANETICS MUST HAVE KEPT YOU BUSY...”


     Beyond the spring of 1948, LRH correspondence with the publishing realm becomes virtually one-sided. That is, while the likes of a Sam Merwin, Jr. at Standard Magazines still regularly called for L. Ron Hubbards fiction, Ron’s typical reply was but a cursory note attached to a submitted manuscript. The reason for such brevity is not hard to figure. Although he still managed to meet editorial demands, the sheer intensity of research towards the founding of Dianetics gave him little time for editorial discussion. Hence, Merwin’s gentle nudge, “let’s hear from you soon,” while Martin Greenberg so rightly surmised, “I realize that Dianetics must have kept you busy . . .”

      Lest one miss the larger point, however, LRH output from this period never actually flagged for a moment. As a matter of fact, a chronology of published works between that spring of 1948 and the autumn of 1950 reveals some forty novelettes and short stories. Moreover, those forty titles include such fully memorable tales as the deeply moving TO THE STARS – among the most widely reprinted short works of science fiction in the whole of the genre – and “Hoss Tamer,” later inspiration for a teleplay of the same name and aired on NBC’s Tales of Wells Fargo.





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