COVER
We start off with a man sitting in a chair alone in a red-walled room. He's freaked out at something, like the pair of glasses suspended in mid-air and all the buttons, pocket watch, and other metallic objects floating nearby. There are a pair of footprints on the carpet in front of him, so obviously there's someone invisible there. A much more subdued cover than most of the ones the magazine has had so far; no aliens, spaceships, or other worlds. It's a cool visual, but it's not quite as Amazing as most of them have been to this point.
Our cover trio is once again led off with H.G. Wells and Garrett P. Serviss, while Murray Leinster gets his first crack at cover immortality. I'm thinking that the cover names, for the most part, are going to be the long-form writers in the issue, unless it's someone like Wells or Verne, one of the Big Names in sci-fi at the time. Burroughs would qualify, as would Merritt, although he's not really a science fiction writer as we understand it.
EDITORIAL
Entitled 'Incredible Facts', Gernsback leads us off with a stirring discussion of some of the real-world scientific advancements that were drawing attention, including the discovery of the element 'Neutronium,' a super-dense material that would forevermore be linked to starship armor; an early mention of what be cosmic rays; a magic potion used by certain tribes that paralyzes poisonous snakes, and a rather sad tale of a young man who was 'raised' in a horrible way, whose senses were warped by his captivity. Not exactly a happy way to lead things off, but it just goes to show that while Amazing Stories was publishing fiction, there was always the tantalizing lure of facts to go along with it.
THE RED DUST, Murray Leinster
In the pole position is this sequel to "The Mad Planet," which appeared in the November 1926 issue. "The Red Dust" first appeared in Argosy All-Story Weekly back in April of 1921, and it runs for nearly 22 pages. It tells of the further adventures of Burl and his tribe in the post-apocalyptic nightmare insect-world the Earth has become tens of thousands of years in the future. Burl is the first man in millennia to actually fight against the insects that dominate the world, using primitive weapons and wearing moth-wings for clothes.
The story begins with Burl, now the tribal chief, leading his men in an assault on a giant spider's lair. Unfortunately, the rest of the men of the tribe haven't quite got the knack for not running like hell in the face of danger, so Burl has to take the spider down himself. Which he does, which makes him even more of a rock star among his people.
But their newfound freedom is threatened by a fungal spore that starts spreading over the land, killing every living thing it comes into contact with. Burl, no fool, leads his people in search of a safe place to stay away from the lethal red dust. After overconfidence nearly costs him his mate, Saya, Burl wises up and brings them safely to a valley where the dust does not appear. They even find a big stash of food (insect eggs; don't think about it too hard) and settle down for good.
It's a good story, lots of action and danger, as any good post-apocalyptic nightmare scenario should have. Burl's character arc is solid, as well; he started out as a terrified man alone in an impossible wilderness, and survived by sheer luck, then by his wits. Now he's a confident leader trying to get his tribe to emulate him instead of relying on him to do it all. His victories over the spiders, ants and other nasty man-eating bugs made him believe he was invincible, but every man has a weak spot...his love. By the end of the story, Burl is a much wiser, capable leader, and there's a sense that humanity has a chance of surviving as something more than food. Thumbs up for this one.
THE MAN WHO COULD VANISH, A. Hyatt Verrill
Dr. Verrill has been pushed away from the cover trio, but it's his story that got the cover art, so that's a win for him. This story is another original, making its first appearance here. It will be reprinted later on this year in the Amazing Stories Annual, too. It's 14 pages long, and tells the tale of Dr. Unsinn, who has devised an invention that can make a man invisible. We're introduced to this device by a wild newspaper headline describing a disappearing building, a scene that appears later in the story. Unsinn is obsessed with perfecting the device, as at the beginning it doesn't make metal invisible (hence the freaky cover art). Eventually, however, he does get it to work as desired, and starts testing it out. There is some humor, such as when the invisible Unsinn and the unnamed narrator are riding a trolley and carrying on a conversaton; the narrator, caught out by the curious onlookers, mumbles something about being a ventriloquist.
Unsinn's goal is simple: make this technology available to anyone and everyone on Earth, not realizing just how dangerous that technology would actually be in the wrong hands. Or any hands, for that matter. He is finally persuaded to hold off on giving the technology to anyone, although he doesn't destroy it, like many scientists do. It will be interesting to see if there's a sequel to this story at some point; Verrill wrote a lot of stories for the pulps. This story was a bit of a slog at first, but eventually it got better. I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty more of Dr. Verrill in these pages.
THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, Part II, H.G. Wells
Our first continued serial of the issue, we pick up where we left off; Cavor (the brilliant scientist) and Bedford (the shrewd narrator) have begun their exploration of the moon. The first part was dry and slow; the second part is nothing of the sort. Before long, the two intrepid explorers have lost sight of their Cavorite sphere that brought them to the moon, desperately eaten some local flora to avoid starving to death, and been drugged (or gotten drunk) by the same food. They are then captured by the Selenites, the inhabitants of the moon, who think they are some sort of mutated moon cattle. The Selenites are insectoids, and have some pretty advanced technology underground, although it's unclear whether they actually understand the technology or just use it. Communication is never established between the humans and the Selenites, other than some impressive feats of violence from the much-stronger Earthmen in the moon's lower gravity.
Bedford, the businessman, is amazed to discover that the Selenites use gold for a lot of things, and proposes that once they return to Earth, they set up a military expedition to conquer and plunder the virgin territory. Cavor is creeped out by this, and insists they must never tell anyone about what they found because he doesn't want the Selenites destroyed by the greed of humanity. They eventually escape to the surface of the moon, with only a few days before the lunar sunset will kill off the vegetation (and them along with it) in the darkness and freezing temperatures of the 'dark side'. The installment ends with them spreading out to search for the sphere, their only hope of getting home safely.
A lot more action in this episode, and it was a good one, packed into 25 intense pages. The first installment dragged, as I mentioned; this one raced along, with Bedford demonstrating the strength of humans under the moon's low gravity and the cunning that comes with being a successful entrepreneur. Cavor is the naive one, wanting nothing more than to obtain more knowledge and explore this new civilization. The Selenites, on the other hand, are suitably inhuman. They are so alien that Cavor, despite his intelligence, is at a loss to figure out to even communicate that he and Bedford are intelligent, sentient beings and not merely animals. I'm looking forward to the third installment, which will conclude the story.
THE MAN WITH THE STRANGE HEAD, Dr. Miles J. Breuer
This is Dr. Breuer's pulp debut, and he would continue to write in the pulps until World War II. This story is a bit of a mystery, with a heavy dose of science fiction thrown in as well. It's only four pages long, and the mystery isn't revealed until the very last couple of paragraphs. The story is told by a doctor who has been summoned to care for a Josiah Anstruther, but who refuses to answer the doctor's persistent knocking. Another man, a reporter named Stoner, tells what he knows about the mysterious Anstruther, which isn't very much. Looking into Anstruther's apartment through a periscope, they see the man walking back and forth around the room, never stopping for an instant. Eventually, however, he falls over and stops.
Reluctantly, the building manager acquiesces to the doctor and Stoner, along with the police, to get into the room and find out what's wrong with Anstruther. The post-mortem done on his body reveals the truth, which I won't spoil for you. Of course, if you're a sci-fi fan, you'll probably figure it out before the end anyway, but in 1927, that solution wouldn't have been so obvious to people. It's a decent story, and it certainly didn't take long to read it. Gernsback obviously liked it, as Breuer would return in the future.
THE SECOND DELUGE, Part III, Garrett P. Serviss
Once again, Dr. Serviss closes out the issue, giving us another action-packed, 24-page installment of this post-apocalyptic story. We start off with a mutiny about the Ark, as a group of men attempt to take it over, not believing that the world has actually been flooded. Cosmo shows a particular ruthlessness in putting down the mutiny, and the ringleader ends up walking the plank into the endless ocean that covers the world. Rather harsh, but then Cosmo considers himself responsible for what's left of humanity, and something as nasty as mutiny can't be tolerated.
The Jules Verne submarine meets up with the Ark, with its crew of six and a very special passenger: Richard IV, the King of England, the only survivor of the Royal Family, who lost his wife and children in the torrential downpour that caused the flooding. There are a few Englishmen aboard the Ark, who are ecstatic that the King survived. Not that there's much left to be King over, of course, but they still love him.
Apparently, the deluge isn't actually over, although there's a lull. The French Alps and the Rocky Mountains in Colorado are still above the water, and there are more survivors. The Ark picks up the ones in the Alps, and heads toward Egypt, sailing over submerged Europe to save time. The Jules Verne joins them, and the two vessels work together when they encounter an erupting volcano and underground mountains that threaten to beach the Ark. Later, Cosmo joins the submarine's crew as they explore the Egyptian 'desert' and the pyramids, where they uncover a shocking truth: The Sphinx, long a mystery to humanity, holds the secret: A prophecy about the second deluge 'at the end of time.'
Meanwhile, the President of the United States and his family, along with Professor Pludder, reach Colorado and Pike's Peak, and find a small colony of survivors. Being intrepid wilderness types, they've managed to get by, although their refuge is illusory and temporary. Pludder, now wholly on Cosmo's side (even though they are half a world apart) helps organize them in case of a recurrence of the flood.
Well, there's a reason I really like Serviss. He writes a fascinating story and leaves us with a tantalizing mystery at the end regarding the Sphinx. It will be interesting to see how it turns out, as the last installment is next month. I'm looking forward to it.
At the end of the story, there's a little cut-out box where readers are invited to rank the stories and why, good and bad. It was a great way to encourage reader interaction...and also a great way to collect a mailing list for potential subscribers to other magazines, too. And, after the remnants of the stories at the end of the issue, we have...Letters from readers!
DISCUSSIONS
The first letter is actually a paraphrase, since the letter was rather nasty toward, of all stories, The Island of Dr. Moreau and its scientific impossibilities. Chill out, dude; the story was already thirty years old by then anyway. Gernsback responds by pointing out that there have been cases of feral people in the wild, and that the reader should lighten up. Good advice.
Next up, someone actually wrote a letter to Cosmo Versal of the Second Deluge, asking for Ark plans. Gernsback uses it as an opportunity to point out how awesome Serviss' writing is that someone would believe it was a documentary. Well, he was a famous scientist, and knew what he was writing about. Also, by the time the letter writer could have gotten the Ark plans, he would have already been drowned by the flood anyway.
Man, these letters are hilarious. I can only imagine at the ones that didn't get printed. The next one praises the Jules Verne story in the October issue, which was the second part of The Purchase of the North Pole, one of Verne's lesser stories (in my opinion). This reader, however, disagrees, calling Verne a 'very promising writer.' Well, he'd already been dead for twenty years, but you never know.
Next up, a complaint that Verne's writing isn't that amazing anymore, because the stuff he wrote about fifty years or more earlier is now commonplace technology. Well, you can't please everyone. The writer continues with a criticism of the Station X naval battle. Gernsback's response is clear enough: Lots of people enjoyed it, so phooey on you.
The next letter asks for a semi-monthly issue. Nice dream, but Gernsback was already talking about going bi-monthly instead; adding more issues isn't likely (and never happened).
Next we have another criticism of using Verne's stories, because this particular writer doesn't like them. Well, your opinion is noted, sir, but you're definitely in the minority. He doesn't just go after Verne, though, attacking the 'Fosdick' and 'Hackensaw' stories, which I admit I didn't particularly love, either, and Edgar Allan Poe. Now we're going to have words, Mister. You don't diss Poe. He also criticizes the Moon Hoax as not belonging in this magazine. Well, it certainly fit the 'science fiction' mold. At least he likes Serviss, Wells and England, so he's not a total loss. Still, if you're going to dislike the majority of the stories, why bother buying it in the first place?
Man, there are a lot of letters. The next one sends an excerpt from a German scientific journal, as a story suggestion. Well, why not? Gernsback likes the notion, and links the article to Blasphemer's Plateau from the October 1926 issue.
Next, Ralph Campbell wants original, or at least newer, stories instead of the 'Old Masters' like Verne, Wells, and Serviss. See? I knew he was a member of that Big Three, even if he wasn't as prolific as the other two. Anyway, Mr. Campbell wants newer stories because they are more likely to appear to sci-fi fans, who have already read the other three guys to death. Once again, though, the letter-writer is outvoted by the thousands of readers who do want to see those three authors represented in the magazine.
J.L. Brett is a lunatic, wanting three issues a month. It's a bit early in sci-fi canon history to be drawing that much material to cover a tri-monthly schedule, unless you want absolutely everything, including the crappy stories, included. Brett also gets that the point of these stories is more for entertainment than actual scientific accuracy, which is why Amazing sold so well.
A. Van Rooy doesn't like MacRae's fate in Station X or the 'macabre' type of story, such as Poe or "The Thing from Outside" (from the first issue, remember?)
Lastly, a female reader! Meredith Gardner is unhappy that the magazine is printing sequels (like The Purchase of the North Pole) before the first stories in the series. She also wants the Burroughs books to be published in the magazine in the proper order. Well, that would depend on what rights the publisher is able to secure, wouldn't it?
And...that's it! No poem that I found in this issue, but the letters column more than made up for it, taking up several pages (in the middle column only, surrounded by ads).
CONCLUSION
Amazing Stories enters a new era as the readers now have a say. The stories in this issue were solid, although I had a bit of a time getting through the cover story, The Man Who Could Vanish. Other than that, though, this was an excellent issue. Next month, two serials conclude, and I assume another one will begin. Let's see what happens.
No comments:
Post a Comment