Theoretically, this blog post is a retro-review of a Stanley G. Weinbaum story called
"
The Black Flame". However, I'm most interested in the role that Weinbaum played as a link between older style adventure stories and the new literary genre of
science fiction that was being created during the short period of time when Weinbaum was actively publishing his stories. "The Black Flame" is a story that was rejected by publishers during Weinbaum's lifetime, but it was eventually published after his death. It is fun to imagine reasons why editors originally refused to publish "The Black Flame".
Weinbaum is famous for his stories such as "
A Martian Odyssey" that include alien creatures from other planets. I suspect that I first read "A Martian Odyssey" in
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame (although it may have been in
this anthology). I don't think I bought that book, but I probably read just the first story (which was "A Martian Odyssey") while standing in a book store. I've previously mentioned some stories that I first saw in
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame volume
IIA and
IIB.
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on Mars in 1934, click to enlarge
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I still (more than 40 years later) remember my distaste for "A Martian Odyssey". I felt that Weinbaum's depiction of Mars and life on Mars was absurd, silly and at the outer fringes of science fiction. Of course, opinions of what constitutes science fiction vary from person to person. What did people think about science fiction back in 1934?
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| July 1934 |
This editorial (above) suggests that science fiction is educational and it introduces new ideas that can lead to scientific advances. I'm not sure that those lofty ideals apply to the works of Weinbaum, a man who apparently began a pursuit of an engineering education but dropped out of college. Weinbaum's 1934 imagined account of life on Mars was completely unbelievable by the time I read it 30 years after its publication.
I found "The Black Flame" the be an odd mixture of fantasy, romance and science fiction. It would be interesting to know which pulp magazines rejected the story; it was finally published after his death when fans were lamenting Weinbaum's loss and publishers were willing to alter their standards and publish anything that Weinbaum had ever written.
"A Martian Odyssey" begins with the crew from the first ever expedition to Mars learning about the alien beings who reside on the surface of Mars. After landing on the planet, it is their job to fly around and do aerial photography. In contrast, for "The Black Flame", Weinbaum imagined a future in which giant Earthly telescopes had been able to obtain high resolution images of the surface of Mars long before an expedition was ever sent from Earth to Mars.
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| includes "A Martian Odyssey" |
Of course, Weinbaum, living in the pre-computer age, never imagined that automated spacecraft would be sent to Mars and obtain high resolution images of the surface by means of digital photography from orbit. And certainly "The Black Flame" came closer to reality than did "A Martian Odyssey", which reads just like some old-fashioned adventure story in which white explorers go to deepest darkest Africa, find a
man Friday and plunder the precious jewels of the native tribe. I have to say, I feel that "The Black Flame" is a better science fiction story than "A Martian Odyssey", so I need to explain why it was that "A Martian Odyssey" got published and "The Black Flame" got rejected.
I feel that "The Black Flame" is essentially an early story about what we call the "
technological singularity", the idea that scientific discoveries and technological advances are coming at increasingly fast rates and sometime soon we will reach a discontinuity after which the world will be completely transformed by technology and will then exist in a new domain, distinct from all previous human history. Today, most people who predict the imminent arrival of such a "technological singularity" usually predict that humans will produce super-intelligent artificial lifeforms who will then dominate Earth and be cognitively as far above we humans as we are above ants. Weinbaum imagined a different kind of future for human advanced technology development, one that I find more interesting than the current craze for shouting "Super-intelligent A.I. is coming; it is the end of the world!".
I believe that the likely reason for why editors rejected "The Black Flame" is that Weinbaum did not have an original idea for how to get his story started. In fact, I can understand if pulp magazine editors thought Weinbaum had inexcusably stolen too many plot elements from other authors. Rather than just write a story about an imagined future of Earth with advanced technologies, Weinbaum wanted to provide a direct connection between his readers in the 20th century and the world that he imagined existing 1000 years in the future. He did this by putting the hero of the story (
Thomas, a man from the 20th century) into suspended animation.
Suspended animation
Suspended animation has long been a popular plot element of stories. I was first exposed to the idea of a "long sleep" by the story
Rip Van Winkle in which a man drinks something magical and falls into a long sleep.
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Han rocket and
disintegrator beams |
The story "
Armageddon 2419 A.D." (published in 1928 in
Amazing Stories) by Philip Francis Nowlan (1888 - 1940) introduced Anthony Rogers, who eventually became Buck Rogers. Anthony miraculously "arrives in the future" just when the Americans are ready to revolt and get rid of the "Han Airlords" and their leader (who is known as "the Most Magnificent"). The "Han Airlords" are invaders from Asia who reside in 15 cities while the defeated Americans still have most of the land in North America. Rogers arrives in 2419 A.D. through accidental suspended animation. The magical mechanism: he gets trapped in a mine with radioactive gas that puts him into suspended animation. In Nowlan's story, Rogers has to fight the Second Revolutionary War in order to liberate the Americans from the Han invaders. I suspect that when editors received "The Black Flame" as a new story from Weinbaum, they could not publish it due to its many plot similarities to Nowlan's famous "Buck" Rogers saga.
The closest I've come to buying a magazine so that I could read a Sci Fi story was when I bought a few issues of
Omni magazine back in the late 1970s during the period of time when Ben Bova was the fiction editor for
Omni. These days, we can
download PDF copies of the old Sci Fi magazines like
Amazing Stories.
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| 1995 |
When I first saw the
drawing in
Amazing Stories of an immortal Jules Verne coming out of his
grave (see below), I was creeped out.
I suspect that
Weinbaum was inspired to sit down and write the first few pages of "The Black Flame".
For "The Black Flame", Weinbaum imagined that an electrocuted man could be inadvertently put into a state of suspended animation. He wakes up 1000 years later, at which point he has been reduced to little more than a dried-up walking skeleton.
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| the immortal Jules Verne in Amazing Stories |
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| future war: 2419 A.D. |
I Died, But I Got Better
The version of "The Black Flame" that I've read is the one published in 1939. I've never seen an expanded version that apparently is some
18,000 words longer.
At the start of "The Black Flame", we are provided with a sickening account of the near-skeletal body of
Thomas being eroded out of an old cemetery, a thousand years after his death. Thomas Connor was electrocuted as punishment for killing his soon-to-be wife's lover in a fist fight. Weinbaum did not expend much effort providing a fictional science explanation for how someone could survive being buried for a thousand years.
Masterpiece
In the 1939 issue of
Startling Stories where "The Black Flame" was first published, there was also a tribute article written by Otto Binder. Binder wrote that "The Black Flame" might be Weinbaum's masterpiece.
Since 1920 when Arthur Eddington proposed the idea that stars might get energy by fusing hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei, there had been speculation about fusion power. One of Weinbaum's imaginary future technologies in "The Black Flame" is fusion power, both for industrial use and for powering spaceships. I'd be interested to know if there was any earlier fictional account of using hydrogen fusion as a power source.
In the first page artwork for "The Black Flame" (shown below) there is a triangular fusion-powered spaceship just below the "L" in "FLAME". Also visible on the coin that partially covers the "B" in "BLACK" is the Black Flame herself, who becomes part of a love triangle with Thomas (image to the right) and Evanie (image to the left).
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| Evanie and Thomas fight to depose The Master (click image to enlarge). Interior art by Hans Wessolowski |
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| Ruler of Earth |
The Black Flame is the sister of The Master, ruler of Earth. The Black Flame gives Thomas a ride in her spaceship, but since she only has an hour to spare out of her busy schedule, they only get into Earth orbit. However, readers learn that humans have visited the Moon. Given the availability of fusion-powered spaceships, I was left wondering why there had been no trip to Mars or even more distant destinations.
The center of the
universe
St. Louis is the center of the
universe. Not only does our hero, Thomas, get buried there, but he "wakes up" at
exactly the right time to join Evanie in her revolt against The Master. Evanie's father previously tried to lead an insurrection against The Master, but he was killed for his attempt to depose The Master. AND, as further proof that St. Louis is the center of the
universe, one day while Thomas is recuperating from his death and walking on the outskirts of town, the Black Flame,
out randomly slumming in the wilds (and first seen gazing lovingly at her own reflection in a pond), bumps into our hero.
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| Thomas tries to kill The Master. |
Mutants
Evanie is the first woman that Thomas meets in the future and he thinks she is "gloriously beautiful". However, Evanie has a dark past: she is part mutant. While trying to genetically engineer immortal humans, several types of mutated humans were created, and Evanie carries some mutant genes. Evanie's mutant genes are supposed to explain why such a gloriously beautiful woman is single and available to become Thomas' girl friend.
The Black Flame and The Master are also mutants: two of the Immortals. There are only about 50,000 Immortals, most of them the nerdy scientists who The Master has deemed worthy of being made immortal. The Master became ruler of the world when his friend, an uber-scientist, discovered the secret of immortality. With his cadre of immortal scientists working for him, The Master has the technological power to rule the world. In this technological singularity story, it is not an evil A.I. that takes over Earth, but the Immortal Master.
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| The Black Flame takes Thomas for a ride in her spaceship. |
Thomas thinks that the Black Flame is endowed with "goddess-like beauty". Eventually Thomas ditches Evanie and hitches up with the Black Flame. Sadly, one limitation of immortality is that it causes infertility. However, (as Weinbaum patiently explains to readers) Thomas and the Black Flame must mix their superior genes and make a batch of babies, so she will allow herself to become mortal again, for a time. The plan: after they've had children, both Thomas and the Black Flame will be given immortality.
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| drone attack |
What about the dumped girlfriend, Evanie? After her revolution against The Master fails and her attempt to kill the Black Flame with a nuclear weapon fails, she decides to live happily ever after with her long-time admirer, Jan Orm, who is willing to ignore her mutant genes.
Why does the Black Flame fall in love with Thomas? After a few good meals, Thomas recovers from his death and regains his normal manly proportions. But "normal" for the 20th century is unusual compared to the small, effeminate men of the future. Also, the Black Flame tries to intimidate and scare Thomas, but unlike the men of the future, he acts tough and unafraid; The Black Flame swoons. So much for the "triangles", both nuclear powered and romantic in Weinbaum's story.
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| artificial life |
In my view, what makes this an interesting science fiction story is the "technological singularity" depicted by Weinbaum. Yes, The Master rules the world, but he is actually a benign and enlightened dictator.
One of the Master's Hi Tek™ tools for keeping control of the world is his drone surveillance system. When Evanie and Thomas and their gang of incompetent revolutionaries attack The Master's palace, they discover that their lame plot is known to The Master and their actions have been anticipated. When the revolutionaries storm The Master's palace, the palace guards are safe behind a hi tek deflector field. Evanie and Thomas run off after their coup fails, but they are tracked down by The Master's drones and returned to the palace. There, Thomas tries to shoot The Master as he sits on his thrown, but The Master is also safe behind a deflector screen. By this point, The Master is losing his patience and is ready to kill Thomas, but the Black Flame intercedes to save Thomas; after all, she's bored with her endless life and views Thomas as a manly man from the ancient past who might enliven her tedious existence.
Most people in this futuristic, post-scarcity Earth are happy. Advanced technologies have been used for projects such as irrigating the Sahara desert (image to the left). Nuclear-powered factories provide enough
Stuff to meet everyone's material needs. Only a few malcontents like Evanie want revolution, for reasons that she has difficulty expressing. Thomas eventually develops a man-crush on The Master and decides to move into the Palace and live forever with The Master's sister. It is easy to imagine that Weinbaum, had he lived longer, might have written a sequel to "The Black Flame" in which Thomas and his wife would go off together in a fusion-powered spaceship to explore outer space.
Logarithms
The funniest part of "The Black Flame" comes when Thomas must divulge what he knows about lost knowledge from the 20th century. Here, Weinbaum's engineering education shines through and he has Thomas carefully explain logarithms to an enthralled Black Flame. She gushes, "We must have ten-place logarithm tables worked out".
Related Reading:
Weinbaum in an alternate Reality
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| Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1939 includes the S. G. Weinbaum story "Dawn of Flame" |
Next:
telepathy
In the first page artwork for "The Black Flame" (shown below) there is a triangular fusion-powered spaceship just below the "L" in "FLAME". Also visible on the coin that partially covers the "B" in "BLACK" is the Black Flame herself, who becomes part of a love triangle with Thomas (image to the right) and Evanie (image to the left).
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