As part of
my continuing effort to read old science fiction stories about telepathy, I finally read
Isaac Asimov's 1940 short story "Half-Breeds on Venus" (download
here). Originally published in the December 1940 issue of
Astonishing Stories, this story features telepathic contact between Martian-Human "half-breeds" and the green, aquatic "Phibs" who live on Venus.
Big Hair Hybrids
Asimov had previously introduced these half-alien "half-breeds" (he called them "Tweenies") in a story that he wrote in 1939 and that was published in the first issue of
Astonishing Stories, in February 1940.
There was a short excerpt from "Half-Breeds on Venus" in the October issue of
Astonishing Stories. That short excerpt reads like a story of the old West, with pioneers settling the Great Plains. That strikes me as a strange way to entice Sci Fi fans into buying the next issue of a magazine, but maybe in 1940 there was significant overlap between cowboy adventures and Sci Fi.
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| promotional blurb in the October issue |
I don't know that Asimov ever tried to explain why it was that he knew the basic premise of these stories was bogus, yet he went ahead and wrote them anyhow. "
I can only shake my head... I knew better in 1939; I really did. I just accepted science fictional clichés, that's all." (source:
The Early Asimov) I suspect that Asimov was writing to please the editors of the Sci Fi pulp magazines, since that was the only way to get his science fiction stories published.
Asimov's story "Half-Breed" seems like it was intentionally written with the looming presence of
John Campbell in Asimov's mind. A
tobacco-smoking physicist (Scanlon) from MIT is trying to create an atomic power source (in his back bedroom). He has all of the tricky equations figured out! But his nuclear reactor does not work. 😢
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| Atomic power! Atomic power! Atomic power! |
"Half-Breed" reminds me of Asimov's
Forward the Foundation. The great mathematician
Hari Seldon adopts Raych as his son. Raych's daughter Wanda turns out to have telepathic powers and goes on to establish the
Second Foundation. In "Half-Breed", Scanlon adopts a Tweenie named Max. After a few minutes with Scanlon's nuclear reactor that will not react nuclei, Max quickly gets the reactor working. The world is transformed and space flight to Venus now becomes simple and cheap. Eventually, all the Tweenies leave Earth and move to Venus.
Asimov never provides an account of the origins of the Tweenies. Their most distinguishing feature is their big hair, possibly covering their large heads (big brains?). Asimov implies that they are smarter than the typical human.
Once the Tweenies arrive on Venus, they discover that by touching the Phibs, some limited telepathic contact is possible. Right at the end of "Half-Breeds on Venus", Asimov suggests that it will be possible for the Tweenies and the Phibs to inter-breed.
Apparently Asimov was asked to write a sequel to "Half-Breed". The resulting story ("Half-Breeds on Venus") seems like it was quickly cobbled together without much in the way of inspiration. The Phibs seem eager to help the Tweenies in their struggle against the human settlers of Venus.
Right at the end of "Half-Breeds on Venus", there is one last telepathic communication between a Phib and two Tweenies who seem to be "given" a vision of the future.
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| The ending of "Half-Breeds on Venus". |
It is that vision of the future that seems to suggests the possibility that Tweenies and the Phibs will also be able to inter-breed. Eventually, Asimov wrote some time travel stories, but it is a bit of a surprise to have a vision of the future suddenly plop down in front of readers of "Half-Breeds on Venus".
I like to imagine that maybe there were technologically-advanced
time-traveling aliens lurking off stage who had long ago populated Mars, Earth and Venus with genetically-related humanoids. The type of atomic power that is invented by Scanlon depends on mysterious "
space-distortion fields". Maybe the Scanlon "destorters" give access to alternate dimensions such as the
Sedronic Domain.
Related Reading:
more telepathy on Venus
John Brunner on Venus
Next:
temporal pardoxes
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