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Short story idea: Grean the Kac'hin
and Fengtol (a positronic robot) at
the ball park. image source
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Short Format Fiction. The first science fiction story that I ever read, as a hard-cover novel, was The Gods Themselves. At the time, as a young school boy in a rural community, I had no idea that science fiction short stories existed. I also had no idea that The Gods Themselves had originally been published in a serialized magazine format. Thus began my infatuation with long-format science fiction and novels. However, nobody can completely ignore short format science fiction and back in 2014 I had a blog post called "Short Stories".
In the six years since 2014, I've read more short science fiction stories than I had read in the previous 50 years of my life. The old science fiction magazines have increasingly become available to readers via the internet. I usually seek out short stories that were written by my favorite authors, but while prospecting through old Sci Fi magazines you always bump into some authors that you never knew existed.
In this blog post, I discuss the short science fiction stories that were published by "
Kent Casey" in 1938 and 1939.
Not long after I discovered the existence of science fiction novels, I found and read my first science fiction short story anthology. The first anthology of Sci Fi stories that I bought was either
Nine Tomorrows or
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame volume
IIA or
IIB. I don't believe that I ever bought
Vol. I of
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, but I'm sure I read some of its stories while standing in bookstores.
Eventually, I actually saw some science fiction magazines in book stores, but I had a problem with both anthologies and magazines. While there might be a story that I enjoyed in among a collection of stories, there were always some other stories there that I did not enjoy. Why should I pay for science fiction stories that I did not enjoy reading?
The most intriguing "anthology" that I ever bought was
I, Robot. Asimov put some effort into linking together a set of short stories (published originally in magazines during the 1940s) about robots, creating a kind of "future history" of the development of positronic robots. This is the only "anthology" that I ever bought and still have on the shelf.
Later in life, Asimov wrote novels (such as The Robots of Dawn and Prelude to Foundation) that included robot characters and additional short stories about robots (such as "Cal"). All of those diverse robot stories by Asimov, when taken together as a whole, create an amalgamation that is vastly more satisfying than any single story, short or long. Thus, I started as a science fiction fan who enjoyed novels and grew into a lover of epic-scale fictional universes that sprawl over multiple novels. Isolated short stories seldom interest me.
My Path to Casey: Rockets, Receptors and Robots
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Selling science fantasy stories.
1961
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One of the short stories that I read in
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame while standing in a book store was the 1938 story "
Helen O'Loy" by Lester del Rey. This story has been widely anthologized, so I assume that someone once liked it and maybe some people still do. I did not like "Helen O'Loy" for several reasons. My first
problem with the story is that I don't like the robot character named Helen O'Loy. I don't accept the entire fictional science premise behind how Helen was programmed and became a simulated woman. Readers are asked to believe that any human male would impulsively want to marry the robotic Helen O'Loy.
Problem #2. I also dislike "Helen O'Loy" for reasons that are not specific to this one story but rather, are problems inherent in the short story format. To be published in pulp science fiction magazines there were a few standard formulas for success.....
Thus, even good story ideas had to be adapted to formulaic story telling patterns in order to sell to magazine editors and be published. Short stories were expected to have some cute twist the end that would put a nice satisfying bow on the whole package. At the end of "Helen O'Loy", we are told that Phil (who narrates the story) never got married because after having know Helen ("she" is the robot who married Phil's pal, Dave) he was never interested in any other woman. Also, when Dave dies of heart disease, Helen kills herself because she is so emotionally attached and devoted to Dave. That ending is just too sappy for my tastes.
Problem #3. I've never enjoyed the whole "I'll build it in my basement" type of science fiction story. From the "I built an artificial man" in
Frankenstein to "I built a spaceship" in
Skylark to "I built a time machine" in
The Time Machine. I despise the science fiction story that pretends some genius can accomplish in a few days what nobody else can do. That's magic, not science and it is the basis of "Helen O'Loy".
Problem #4. I also despise the amazing breakthrough that becomes a one-off event, never replicated, and which does not involve itself with the social change that would come from a major scientific advance or technological break-through. Fine, if all you want is to sell a bit of fluff to a magazine, go for it. Don't expect me to view it as satisfying science fiction.
The future society depicted in "Helen O'Loy" is mostly unchanged from the 1930s with nothing added except a few technologies; 1) household robots, 2) some advances in molecular medicine, and 3) a very noisy rocketport in each town rather than an airport.
Fictional Chemistry. What is the secret of making a robotic female with emotions? According to Lester del Rey, you just put in an "adrenal pack"! This reminds me of a 1934 story called "
The Hormone" by Milton Kaletsky. In "The Hormone", people can be magically "accelerated" by injecting the hormone "cortin". In addition to rockets and robots, Lester del Rey's imagined future also includes medical doctors such as Phil who specialize in endocrinology. Phil knows all the hormone receptors, so if your good-for-nothing son falls in love with the maid, Phil can provide a two-week-long course of "counter-hormones" that will reverse the boy's infatuation with the cute maid.
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Fictional chemistry.
image source
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Unlikable characters. Phil has no scruples; for a big paycheck he even chemically erases the love being experienced by the poor maid (against her will).
Dave is a robot repairman of the future, so in order to make an emotional robot girl, all he has to do is learn endocrinology from his buddy Phil and then spend a few hours magically adding the electrical circuit equivalent of emotions to an unemotional robot that you can buy off the store rack.
All things are possible in the future era depicted in "Helen O'Loy". This is the future where you have household atomic power packs, so it is a snap for Dave to give Helen emotions. Strangely, nobody else in the whole world ever had the same idea. And when Dave marries Helen the robot, nobody in the whole world suspects that such a thing is even possible.
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the role of women in Sci Fi (source)
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I first read "Helen O'Loy" after having already read Asimov's
I, Robot and there was not much of a chance for me, as a budding scientist, to enjoy "Helen O'Loy". I can understand why "Helen O'Loy" was eventually marketed as science fantasy.
I suspect that some other writers such as Isaac Asimov learned a lesson from stories like "Helen O'Loy". For example: that they should include at least one competent professional woman in their robot stories (see
Dr. Susan Calvin).
I can't stop myself from wondering if Lester del Rey wanted readers to imagine a homosexual relationship between Phil and Dave (early in the story, they stop dating women and live together). Was the robotic Helen such a sexy "woman" that she could induce Dave and Phil to abandon their
homoerotic relationship?
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I suppose Helen O'Loy did have a vagina.
Handy rule for writers in the 1930s: substitute
"she was a great cook" for "she was great in bed".
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It is tempting to imagine how "Helen O'Loy" might have been written had the author been a woman in an alternate
Reality where women were not expected to be house wives. I like to imagine that in the
Ekcolir Reality, the science fiction genre was developed by liberated women. Lester del Rey told his readers that men expect their wife to cook dinner and give birth to his sons. Helen O'Loy was a
really great cook, so good old Dave was willing to marry her even though they could not have children.
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| Letter from Kent Casey in Amazing Stories |
I recently took the time to dig the original version of "Helen O'Loy" out of the
December 1938 issue of
Astounding Science-Fiction. In that issue was a story called "They Had Rhythm" by Kent Casey. According to
ISFDB, "Casey" wrote two sets of science fiction stories. One set of stories (including "They Had Rhythm") featured the recurring character Private Kelton, while the other set involved a Dr. von Theil and Sargent John West.
According to
this webpage, "Casey" was Captain Kenneth Casey McIntosh, retired from the Navy. I dislike early science fiction stories that warped a
Western plot into a science fiction story by converting six shooters into ray guns. Similarly, the Private Kelton stories are silly bits of fluff about the future Space Navy. They remind me of
Forbidden Planet where the crewmen of the futuristic interstellar spaceship act like they just stepped off an old Navy ship from 1940. Everyone writes what they know, but people with no interest in science often fail to write interesting science fiction.
I've
previously commented on editor Campbell's skill at using
pseudoscience to excite his readers. Over at
Amazing Stories,
editor
Raymond A. Palmer was exploring fringe science topics that were
even more far out than those offered by Campbell. In the
July 1940 issue of
Amazing Stories, Palmer published a long letter from "Casey" concerning the lost continent of
Lemuria. See the image to the right on this page where you can read that Kent Casey letter.
Why did Campbell so quickly fall in love with the short stories that had been written by "Casey"? I blame Dr. von Theil, a fictional scientist. The first Dr. von Theil story was published in the
March 1938 issue of
Astounding Science-Fiction, the issue that is famous for
John W. Campbell's decision to put "science-fiction" in the title of the magazine.
Dr. von Theil
In "Flareback", Dr. von Theil has invented a new secret weapon for the Space Patrol. He cleverly allows some Evil Uranians™ to steal the new technology, which promptly destroys their spaceship. Sargent West flies the good doctor around the Solar System during their missions.
"Flareback" is interesting only in that Dr. von Theil's new weapon involves positrons and I must wonder to what extent "Flareback" influenced the young
Isaac Asimov when deciding that his robots would have "positronic brains".
"Static" was published in the
May 1938 issue of
Astounding Science-Fiction. The war against the
Evil Uranians™ takes a bad turn for Earth when the
Evil Uranians™ start using a new "impenetrable screen" to protect their spaceships.
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the new Astounding
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In "Static", the glorious Fleet Commander calls on all his "absent-minded professors" of the Space Patrol scientific staff to solve the mystery of the "impenetrable screen". Dr. von Theil surmises that the
Evil Uranians™ are capturing cosmic rays and using them in their "impenetrable screen".
To confirm the hypothesis, Theil and West must capture an enemy spaceship. West is positioned in an abandoned supply depot on Mars from which he sends a radio message that attracts an enemy spaceship. After West allows himself to be taken prisoner on the enemy ship, Theil incapacitates the Evil Uranians™ using a "mind static" device.
I wonder if Isaac Asimov was influenced by the idea of a "mind static" device that "Casey" included in the story "Static". Asimov later included such a device in some of his own stories.
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Interior art for "The Ceres Affair"
by Hans Wessolowski
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In case you were wondering, now with an enemy ship in hand, Dr. von Theil quickly deduces that the "impenetrable screen" of the
Evil Uranians™ can be penetrated by exposing it to radium or uranium.
The
October 1938 issue of
Astounding Science-Fiction included both another Dr. von Theil story ("The Ceres Affair") and a fanish letter to the editor from Kent Casey. "The Ceres Affair" continues the silly science parade that distinguished the first two Dr. von Theil stories. When Theil and West visited Mars in "Static", it was a planet Mars with abundant plant life. In "The Ceres Affair" we are told that Ceres has coal deposits and at least one flowing stream feeding a lake full of water!
Sadly, here in 2020, we now know that high temperatures on
Ceres are about -180 Fahrenheit. However, that does not deter the
Evil Uranians™ from making a base of operations on Ceres, well protected by powerful force-beams.
Luke Skywalker Dr. von Theil penetrates the Death Star Uranian Base on Ceres and saves the day. Theil uses the Force another quickly devised magic ray gun that chills the enemy power cable so much that it becomes a superconductor. The resulting power surge destroys the enemy defenses. Dr. von Theil refuses to reveal how he made his magic chill ray because this fantastic technology would be abused by other people. 😢
One more Dr. von Theil story was published in the
December 1939 issue of
Astounding Science Fiction. The best thing about the Kent Casey stories is that they are relatively short. In "Thundering Peace" we learn that the planet Uranus was colonized by settlers from Earth who had been attracted by the "
huge lakes of petroleum". The atmosphere of
Uranus can be as cold as -370 Fahrenheit, the planet's small rocky core is very hot and sandwiched in between is a water-ammonia ocean with pressures so high that there might be hail-like diamonds falling from above.
When ships of the Terran Space Patrol follow Uranian space pirates to Uranus, the enemy ships quickly drop from the stratosphere to the "ground" but the navigational instruments on the ships from Earth all go "
haywire". What is hidden under the clouds of Uranus? A chilling mystery.
According to Casey, rapid evolution over "
several generations" has taken place on Uranus and now the Uranians are super-strong, allowing them to survive under high gravity conditions. Also, they have
HiTek™ "atmosphere plants" that provide the oxygen gas that they need to survive.
Human survival on Uranus was made possible by the evil genius professor Ritzbaden who pioneered transmutation of elements. Theil surmises that the Uranian settlers converted the carbon atoms in methane into nitrogen and oxygen in order to make Uranus habitable by humans.
Dr. von Theil is itching to have a look at Uranus and asks to have a spaceship equipped with an "
infrared cloud-breaker ray". Peering through the thick clouds of the upper atmosphere of Uranus, West and Theil can see giant towers of the oxygen plants where the transmutation of elements takes place.
All the hydrogen gas that came from the methane originally present in
the atmosphere of Uranus was free to rise into the upper atmosphere.
In order to end the war and break the will of the Uranians, Theil uses another quickly-constructed super-special magic raygun to ignite the hydrogen layer of the upper atmosphere. The resulting explosion of the atmosphere so terrifies the Uranian military forces that they flee the planet in their spaceships, leaving the planet to the remaining peaceful Uranians who surrender to the fleet from Earth.
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fantasy lifeforms; this week 4-armed
centipedes and gas creatures,
next week, unicorns and liquid life
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I have no idea why "Kent Casey" decided to have Earth fight a war against imaginary Uranians, but in the
March 1937 issue of
Astounding Stories was "Clouds over Uranus" by Russell Winterbotham.
"Clouds over Uranus" is a "chilling" story that featured native lifeforms from the icy atmosphere of Uranus who transformed themselves from their normal gaseous state into solid human form, after which they live happily inside an Earthly outpost on the surface of Uranus where the temperature is kept at 68 Fahrenheit.
I wonder if
Stanisław Lem read "Clouds over Uranus" and took it as part of his motivation for writing
Solaris. Maybe in an alternate Reality, the gaseous creatures of Uranus were accounted for by
nanites or some other fictional technology. Russell Winterbotham made no attempt to explain how life could magically exist in a gaseous state.
I'm glad I discovered printed science fiction in the era when many science fiction novels were available to me. I can appreciate the importance of short stories in the history of the science fiction genre, but I'm glad I was not forced to feed my youthful addiction to science fiction by reading the pulp science fiction magazines.
World building. When science fiction was being created as a new literary genre, short stories were quickly crafted without the authors having time to think about the social implications of new technologies. Many of the short stories from the 1930s that were published in Astounding are like cotton candy. They gave the required sugar rush to magazine readers of those times, but they really were not substantial and satisfying food for hard-core science fiction fans.
Here in 2020, it is fun and interesting to prospect through the old magazines in search of the earliest versions of stories about telepathy, robots, aliens, teleportation and even chemistry. Those early stories were mostly
science fantasy, with magical fantasy elements such as
wizard Dr. Theil's
magic wands rayguns, but they laid a foundation for the true science fiction stories that were yet to come when scientifically knowledgeable writers could start imagining how human society might be altered by technological advances and our entry into the age in which science and technology are central to human existence.
