So, it's another Amazing Thursday, and time once again to review an issue the first science-fiction pulp magazine. This is the sixth issue, dated September, 1926, and we've got quite an interesting collection of five stories today. That, of course, means longer stories. So, strap on your rocket-belt, grab your ray gun, and assume a heroic pose as we venture into the future! Or, at least, a really old version of the future.
COVER
Well, we've got an interesting cover of a lizard-like humanoid trying to stab a man with a spear. The man, however, is in some kind of chamber or ball with a window, so he can point and laugh at the futility of the lizard man's attempt on his life. Looking at it more closely, it looks like it's underwater, so it's a submarine or a bathysphere. Good to know that sci-fi doesn't have to go out into space to be exciting.
EDITORIAL
Gernsback tells us that people have been writing asking that the name of the magazine be changed to 'Scientifiction.' Wisely, Gernsback chose Amazing Stories instead, and explains why: Because a name like 'Scientifiction' would scare off the average reader, while Amazing Stories holds a promise of wonder, adventure, and the fantastic. Circulation numbers seem to justify his decision, as the magazine is already at 100,000 copies printed a month., and still growing. He also lets us know that the majority of readers want the magazine to go semi-monthly instead of monthly, and he's planning to do that eventually, probably by the end of the year. Well, that sucks.
IN THE ABYSS, H.G. Wells
Well, the first story is the one that provides the cover; on the title page we see a similar scene, with no fewer than nine lizard-men surrounding the bathysphere, including three on top of it. Their spears still can't penetrate the glass, of course, since if it can withstand the pressure of the ocean floor, it's not going to even get a scratch from a spear. At just over five pages, it's the shortest story in the magazine.
First published in Pearson's Magazine back in August of 1896, it also appeared in Short Stories magazine in June, 1908, before being reprinted here. It tells the story of the first successful attempt to descend to the depths of the ocean and return safely. Of course, since this is Wells and this is science fiction, there's going to be some interesting discoveries down there. Sure enough, the adventurous Elstead (no first name is given, unless I missed it) descends in a sphere of his own design and doesn't return for several hours. When he recuperates from his adventure a week later, he relates the story of an underwater civilization peopled with bipedal frog/lizard men, who begin to worship his sphere as a deity. Eventually he does get to leave before he loses breathable air, and returns to the surface. Eventually, Elstead goes on another undersea trip, but never returns.
I like that this story goes somewhere Amazing hasn't gone yet: Under the ocean. It's a ripe environment for exploration even today; we haven't explored very much of the ocean bottom even today. Sure, we've mapped it out and know the contours and such, but there is a LOT of ocean that we haven't ever touched. So, this story is one that resonates with me, at least. One hundred and twenty-four years after it was written. Good stuff.
A COLUMBUS OF SPACE, Part II, Garrett P. Serviss
Here we go with the second part of this fascinating story. This is easily my favorite entry in the entire run thus far. Having read Burroughs, I'm struck by the parallels in the two stories; I still stand by my belief that Burroughs was familiar with this story, first published three years before Under the Moons of Mars.
Alright, so we start off with a reception in the capital city of the humanoid Venusians, where Edmund, the intrepid engineer/explorer, is catching the interest of Princess Ala. I forgot to mention in the last review that Venus has a warm side and a cold side; the first people they encountered were on the cold side, and of course there were glaciers and ice caves to contend with, as well as Juba's people. Juba is, of course, the humanoid they picked up and brought along with them, and it's a good thing, because he saves their bacon here.
The story takes some exciting twists and turns, and there's a daring escape from prison, lights that substitute as music (the atmosphere of Venus is thicker, remember, so sound travels through it with a lot more power), and aerial chases galore, not to mention exotically beautiful scenery and wildlife, and an even more exotically beautiful Princess. This story has everything you could ask for, and it's a crime that it's not better known. This would make an absolutely killer movie. This installment is nineteen action-packed pages long. I can't recommend it enough.
THE PURCHASE OF THE NORTH POLE, Part I, Jules Verne
Another serial entry here, we have another of Verne's scientific romances. This one doesn't have much in the way of action or adventure; it's basically a book-long discussion of groups of people attempting to, as the title says, buy the North Pole. The eventual winners are old friends to Verne readers: The Gun Club, the American firearms enthusiasts who built the world's largest cannon and shot a capsule to the moon, just to say it could be done, nearly twenty years earlier. You can read all about that in Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, if you like. This time, though, they're planning to do something a bit...crazier.
See, they are convinced that there's coal under the North Polar ice caps, and they're going to get it. How? After all, at that point in time the North Pole was still virtually inaccessible to humanity; it would be another twenty years after this book was first published (1889) until Robert Peary reached the Pole, and that's still under some debate. So, how is the Gun Club planning to dig up this buried coal?
By blowing it up, of course! That's what the Gun Club does! Actually, they're not really interested in coal; they're just going to set off a gigantic explosion up there that will reset the Earth's axis so that the pole is pointing straight up. This will, of course, eliminate seasonal changes in the climate, not to mention completely screwing up the world's ecology, but that wasn't really a major consideration in the 1880s like it is today.
Running seventeen pages, this installment ends with the revelation of the Gun Club's plan. It's mostly discussion and humor; as I said, no action to speak of, so it's a bit disappointing, especially compared to the previous story.
STATION X, Part III, G. McLeod Winsor
The concluding episode of this story takes us to the wonderful world of naval combat, as a task force of British ships seeks to stop the psychic invasion of Earth through the Martian-controlled Macrae. The goal: Blow up the island and prevent any chance of the Martian infecting anyone else on the planet. It takes just over 26 pages to finish the story, the last third or so of which is highlighted by the aforementioned naval battle.
The first part of the serial deals with the political fallout from the revelation that there's an alien psyche possessing a man on a military installation island, especially after a naval vessel lands there and is similarly possessed. Professor Rudge now has to work fast with his Venerian allies (that name still makes me chuckle) to contain the outbreak of Martian-itis, which culminates in a wild battle that involves alien technology being countered by good old-fashioned naval artillery. In the end, Rudge leads humanity to triumph, and since Macrae is out of the picture, he even gets the girl in the end.
This one was definitely action-packed at the end, and Winsor had some very creative alien tech (for 1919) with which to plague the Navy. The shift from Macrae to Rudge (who barely appeared in the first installment) as the main character takes a bit away from the story, but it's realistic that someone getting possessed by a murderous alien psyche isn't going to walk away from that experience. I liked it, though I don't know if I'll go back to it as I will A Columbus of Space.
THE MOON HOAX, Richard Adams Locke
This...is an interesting piece. It's not a science fiction story; it's actually a hoax that was printed in newspapers back in 1835, purporting to be relating astronomical discoveries on the Moon using super-powered telescopes. It was featured in the New York Sun in August of that year, and the result of it was to increase the small paper's circulation to over 50,000 within a week of the first installment being published. The whole thing was made up, however.
The alleged discoveries are described in detail, and whatever Locke's faults with honesty were, he certainly made up for them with imagination. This is way out there; seventeen full pages of description of the most fantastic and absurd things on the moon. Well, sixteen pages; the last one is simply a collection of quotes from contemporary newspapers about how astounding the discoveries were. It's quite amusing.
The first five-and-a-half pages of the story describe the telescope and the observatory it was supposed to have been built at. In 1835, not too many New Yorkers ventured down to the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, so it wasn't much of a risk to set the fictional observatory there. The invented observations include trees, inhabited valleys, magnificent gemstones much larger than those found on Earth, wildlife...and even a mention of how cloudy weather obscured the view on some nights. Islands surrounded by bodies of water, extinct volcanoes...and winged people flying around in what must have seemed like Eden to people reading it at the time.
This one is tough to judge, since it's obviously fiction, but it was originally presented as fact. It's an entertaining read in terms of world-building, but there really isn't anything going on. It's basically a long, drawn-out verbal illustration, rather than a story with a plot. So, I'll give it a thumbs-in-the-middle.
CONCLUSION
Well, this issue is full of big stories; only one short story, three serials, and a full novelette. The quality is still a bit uneven; I've already waxed enthusiastically about Garrett P. Serviss, while the Station X conclusion is also satisfying. The other three...not so much. The ideas are definitely wild and out there, but they weren't so much stories as they were scenery. Wells at least had a bit of story there in terms of things actually happening, but Verne, and of course Locke, didn't. So, overall, I'll say that while I would recommend this issue to anyone, there's only a couple of stories worth reading. But they make up for the others in a big way.
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