So, let's see what the latest issue in my reading is all about.
COVER
Okay...we've got a couple of sinister-looking men looking at what appears to be a metallic head on a small plate, with wires and electrodes linking it to a vacuum-tube machine. Well, that's different. So far, we've seen wider landscapes with the human characters being a minor part of the image, if they're even present. This time, it's a much more focused setting, as the scene is obviously getting away from exotic locations and sticking to a lab. The background is pure blue, so there's nothing but the men and their robot-head going on.
EDITORIAL
Gernsback gives us a run-down of how the stories being criticized as 'impossible' aren't necessarily so; technology is always changing, always improving, and who's to say what kind of life might exist outside of our atmosphere? There could very well be some sort of life form that can survive in a vacuum; just because we haven't encountered it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, right? Of course, he then points out that it's possible that there's life on the moon (which he believes to be true), which obviously turned out to be wrong. Still, it's a passionate defense of the 'maybe, we don't know' school of scientifiction thinking.
A COLUMBUS OF SPACE, Part I, Garrett P. Serviss
Ah, an excellent choice to lead off the issue. In the past I've talked about how a good story has to grab the attention, and realism isn't nearly as important as engaging the imagination with adventure and romance. Well, this story is a prime example of that. Sure, we can read it today and say, 'what an idiotic premise; everyone knows that Venus is uninhabitable and deadly, but when Serviss published this story in All-Story Magazine in 1909, nobody had a clue about what conditions on Venus were actually like. After all, it's engulfed in clouds.
So, this is a tale of a brilliant scientist and engineer who actually designs (again, 1909) a submarine-like device that can not only fly, but leave the atmosphere entirely and fly to other planets. Much faster than our current estimates, too; Edmund Stonewall (the titular Columbus of the story) figures out how to use atomic energy to power his masterpiece. He and three friends (including the narrator) embark on a journey that takes them to the wondrous planet Venus. There, they encounter strange alien beings on the 'dark side' of Venus, hairy ape-like men, one of whom ends up joining their expedition. They also encounter a race of beings that are much more human, and fly airships. Stonewall, of course, falls for the beautiful alien (but human) princess.
Does this sound at all familiar to anyone? It should, if you've ever read Edgar Rice Burroughs. It didn't strike me until right now, but Burroughs must have read this story, which predates his first novel, A Princess of Mars, by three years (in the same magazine that Burroughs sold his first stories to). Sure, John Carter gets to Mars by some unknown, astral means, while Serviss simply has his super-scientist build a working interplanetary spaceship, but there are plenty of parallels between the two stories. Burroughs is better known, since John Carter of Mars and Tarzan of the Apes are two of the most famous adventure characters of all time, and Serviss didn't write a recurring hero.
This serial covers 23 pages in total, almost all of them action-packed and fun to read. This went by quickly, and I highly recommend it to science fiction enthusiasts who want to be entertained, especially Burroughs fans.
THE EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, H.G. Wells
This short story first appeared in The Strand magazine, the same one that published all those Sherlock Holmes stories, back in 1905. It was reprinted in the American version of the same magazine the following year, then printed again this magazine twenty years later. It's six pages long, and basically recounts the attack of a colony of poisonous ants that turn on humanity.
It's not as apocalyptic as "The Star" was a couple of issues ago, but it certainly doesn't bode well for the future of the human race. Wells' anti-human ants are effective, efficient, and deadly in their coordinated attacks. The humans, by contrast, seem almost helpless in the face of the threat. The boat captain, in particular is portrayed as someone who should never have been given command of anything more complex than a rowboat. I don't know what Wells' overall view of humanity was, but he really sticks it to us in this one. I'm a bit tepid on this, as the most noble and heroic character, the stalwart Lieutenant, gets taken out by the ants. Sorry for the spoiler.
THE INTERNATIONAL ELECTRO-GALVANIC UNDERTAKING CORPORATION, Jacque Morgan
Yes, it's another Fosdick story, one that was first printed in Gernsback's Modern Electrics in December of 1912. I'll let Gernsback's own introduction speak for itself:
"Dr. Fosdick...takes a new departure and proposes to electroplate the dead in order to preserve them as beautiful statues for posterity."
Um, yeah. So, that's a thing that happened. And, as was the case in the first two stories we saw about Dr. Fosdick, it goes about as well as you would expect, i.e., not at all. He tests it out on someone who really should have known better, having been the victim of another one of Fosdick's experiments, and ends up trapped in a metal shell that he can't move in, and can't get out of. It's only four pages, and it's mildly amusing; perhaps the humor would have worked better back in the 1910s.
DR. OX'S EXPERIMENT, Jules Verne
Well, well...a short story by the master of scientific romance novels. How interesting. And this one is much less of an adventure and much more of a light-hearted romp than we're used to seeing from Verne. First published in 1874, this was its only appearance in the pulps.
So, what's going on here? Well, there's this little Flaemish town that doesn't appear on any maps. It's pretty much a complete dead-zone, in that nobody ever actually makes a decision to act. On anything. The town's leadership does meet regularly, but they are the ultimate bureaucrats: Doing absolutely nothing whatsoever. Three weeks into a fire in the leather-market, they still haven't bothered to do anything to put it out, except express regret that the accident that threatens to flood another part of the town didn't happen near the leather market to put out the fire and save them the trouble of having to continue talking about it. Yeah, it's like every city council meeting you ever heard of.
Anyway, Dr. Ox decides to liven things up by doing an experiment to change things in this sleepy town. How he does so, and what the effects of the experiment are, I will leave to the reader to discover. It's nineteen pages long, so it's not exactly a quick read, but it's not a serial, either.
THE TALKING BRAIN, M.H. Hasta
This is where the cover image came from, and allow me to make a correction: That wasn't a robotic head; it's was an actual human head, and the scientist in the story is communicating with the brain through his device. Yikes. This one is straddling the sci-fi and horror lines; it would not have been out of place in Weird Tales. However, this is an original story, and the author's only published pulp work. It was also never reprinted anywhere, so odds are pretty high you haven't read it before. It's only five pages long, so it won't take long to get to the climactic reveal at the end. Which I won't spoil.
HIGH TENSION, Albert B. Stuart, M.D.
And that makes two stories in a row that are a) original, b) never reprinted since, and c) the author's only published pulp work. It's a story about a doctor, written by a doctor. This doctor is a bit of an engineer, and gets to consult with the police on murders, including the one in this story. It's...not much of a mystery story, and more of a way to show off some new tech the doctor came up with. It's also only five pages long, and doesn't really have much to it. Frankly, I'm not surprised this writer never shows up again; it wasn't much of a story.
STATION X, Part 2, G. McLeod Winsor
The second part of this serial sees the actual hero of the story, Professor Rudge, take over the story. Macrae, the lead up until now, becomes a background character as he falls in behind Rudge. Rudge's primary goal here is to get himself to Station X with Macrae in tow, but Macrae is quite reluctant to do so...until one day, when he's fine with the idea.
There's a big chunk in the middle that's taken up with backstory on the various aliens involved in this story, as told by a 'Venerian,' which is really not the best name to use when you think about it. Call them 'Venusians' or something, man! 'Martian' worked fine for the bad guys, after all.
This installment takes up 21 pages, six of which are essentially backstory. So, it does drag in the middle. However, at the end things do pick up, as Rudge joins forces with the English Navy in an attempt to destroy the station before the Martians can use it as a staging base to psychically invade the whole planet. The third installment promises to be quite interesting.
CONCLUSION
And that wraps up another fine issue, with some great action (A Columbus of Space and Station X providing the majority of that), some comedy, and lots of 'someday this will be real' science. Seven stories in all, as three of them took up 20 pages each. All in all, a decent collection. Not necessarily the best, but it's nice to see some more original work come in, even though it's from authors who are never heard from again in pulp fiction.
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