 All of the following factors reveal that the Cosmic Express is in the initial stages of development EXCEPT for
Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December 1961 and was first published in Amazing Stories November 1930. Experimenter Publications Inc. The Cosmic Express By JACK WILLIAMSON Introduction by Sam Moskowitz He followed his initial success with two short novels , The Green Girl in AMAZING STORIES and The Alien Intelligence in SCIENCE WONDER STORIES , another Gernsback publication. When the vogue for science-fantasy altered to super science, he created the memorable super lock-picker Giles Habilula as the major attraction in a rousing trio of space operas , The Legion of Space, The Cometeers and One Against the Legion. Finally, when only psychological studies of the future would do, he produced "With Folded Hands ..." "... The Cosmic Express is of special interest because it was written during Williamson's A. Merritt "kick," when he was writing little else but, and it gave the earliest indication of a more general capability. The lightness of the handling is especially modern, barely avoiding the farcical by the validity of the notion that wireless transmission of matter is the next big transportation frontier to be conquered. It is especially important because it stylistically forecast a later trend to accept the background for granted, regardless of the quantity of wonders, and proceed with the story. With only a few thousand scanning-disk television sets in existence at the time of the writing, the surmise that this media would be a natural for westerns was particularly astute. The discovery of AMAZING STORIES was the escape he sought and his goal was to be a science fiction writer. But after a few half-hearted movements, he gave it up, and walked through an open door into a small bright room, its walls covered with bookcases and also with scientific appliances that would have been strange to the man of four or five centuries before, when the Age of Aviation was beginning. Recklessly, he slammed the machine back into its place, and resolved to forget that his next "red-blooded action thriller" was due in the publisher's office at the end of the month. Even though the whole world had grown up into a city, the birds were extinct, there were no wild flowers, and no one had time to bother about sunsets. "Yes, Kinsley, with his new infra-red ray telescope, that penetrates the cloud layers of the planet, proved that Venus rotates in about the same period as Earth; and it must be much like Earth was a million years ago."
 the lack of micrometer readings
 the qualifications of the operating staff  the limited number of receiving stations  the disappearance of Violet  the lack of micrometer readings