Vance 1951

In the cold depths of outer space,
hot women don't need space suits!
May 1951cover art by Norman Saunders

In May of last year I celebrated the fiction of Jack Vance by reading "Son of the Tree" and all of his Magnus Ridolph stories. Back in March of this year I mentioned Vance's 1951 short story "Dover Spargill's Ghastly Floater", and now I've decided to read and comment on other stories written by Vance and published 70 years ago in 1951.

1951. This past October I read "The Plagian Siphon", leaving "Golden Girl" as the next Vance story of 1951 that I wanted to read, mainly because in that same issue of Marvel Science Stories were three essays about Dianetics. And who was Betsy Curtis? (see) +

I soon realized that I'd actually read "Golden Girl" previously. 🤷 It is a simple short story about a space alien who crash-lands on Earth. The man who finds her in the burning spaceship is a reporter named Bill, but the alien is described as having "metallic skin" and says her name is Lurulu.

image source

In 2004 Vance published a novel Called Lurulu and I must wonder if Vance purposefully recycled that word from his earlier story. In the 1951 story, Miss Lurulu is not happy to be stranded on Earth. Although born on a distant world, Lurulu looks like a beautiful human woman and Bill is smitten. Bill asks Lurulu to marry him, but the answer is HELL NO. Lurulu is disgusted by some of Bill's behaviors such as eating dead animals.

Within a week of being found by Bill, Lurulu has recovered from the trauma of the crash landing on Earth and has learned to speak English which allows her to elegantly complain about everything, including the strange and uncomfortable Earthly clothing that she must wear. Vance assures readers that Lurulu never forgets a word of English after she has spoken it for the first time.

Lurulu

When I read about Lurulu's golden "metallic skin" and fabulous memory I am forced to start imagining that she might be some kind of artificial lifeform. However, in the final line of the story, Bill discovers that Lurulu has killed herself and her life's blood is flowing out of her chest. ☠ Ew.

As mentioned in this other blog post, Vance never seemed to have a problem killing his characters. Luluru tells Bill that she came to Earth as nothing more than a tourist. However, she admits that her people have had missionary efforts on other planets trying to help primitive cultures. Readers of "Golden Girl" must decide if 1) there is a secret alien presence on Earth trying to help humans develop a less primitive culture or 2) the aliens view Earth as beyond redemption and not worthy of being helped.

interior art by Carl Burgos

The interior art for "Golden Girl" presents a small mystery. At the Internet Speculative Fiction Data Base, the artist is listed as "Carol Burgos". However, in the May 1951 issue of Marvel Science Stories, there are two clear, distinct attributions of interior art to Carl Burgos. My guess is that this might be the Carl Burgos who had long been associated with Marvel Comics (Timely Publications in 1939).

It would not surprise me if by interacting with the people at Marvel Science Stories, Vance came in contact with some of the folks such as Burgos who were making comic books at Timely Comics. For the August 1951 issue of Marvel Science Stories, there is additional interior art attributed to "C. Burgos" (see the image, below)...

Table of Contents entries from the May and August 1951 issues of Marvel Science Stories

 

cover art for the August issue

 Summer 1951. That August issue of Marvel Science Stories is interesting for 2.111 reasons, besides the strange cover art by Wayne Woodard (see the image shown to the left on this page). First of all, the August issue has many pages of letters from readers responding to the May "Special Feature" on Dianetics. Secondly, there was another "Special Feature" that presented several opinions about the proper destination for Humanity's first space mission. Thirdly, it is mentioned that based on reader feedback, Vance's "Golden Girl" was the most popular story in the May issue (this tidbit earns the 0.1).

For details on the Dianetics fad within science fiction magazines of the 1950s, see this article. The first reader letter published in Marvel Science Stories about Dianetics is attributed to Lew Cunningham and it nicely illustrates how people with scientific training responded to Dianetics. 

DIANETICS

I particularly enjoyed reading the letter from Richard Lee Wolfson which anticipated Marvel receiving 1,796,582.001 letters about the Dianetics controversy, the 0.001 being Hubbard's expected contribution. For calling Hubbard names such as "Old Mother Hubbard" and "St. Ron", Wolfson earns the 0.001.

in the Ekcolir Reality

In responding to the question of where Earthlings should send their first rockets, Judith Merril voiced support for Mars because "...we are almost certain that there is native life [on Mars]". I doubt if any scientist would have said that in 1951, but many science fiction fans found it difficult to shake the romantic idea that some sort of plant life probably existed on Mars. Willy Ley correctly predicted that the Moon would be our first destination for space travel simply because of logistics. William Tenn was in favor of visiting Venus first because it would be warmer than either the Moon or Mars.

cover art by Norman Saunders

The cover art for the August issue of Marvel Science Stories became the subject for a contest. Readers were asked to create a title for the cover illustration. The winning entry was "It went thataway." (winners are listed in the November issue; this retroactively earns the 0.01). 70 years too late, I vote for "Ant people of Luna".

 Marvel. I'm intrigued by the inter-relationships between early "golden age" science fiction stories, comics and the science fiction stories that first began appearing on television and in films. According to this Wikipedia article, the Marvel "franchise" began with Marvel Science Stories in August 1938. Superman comics were also first published in 1938.

cover art by "Ames"

In the early 1950s, Vance had a job writing scripts for the Captain Video television program. In 2017, I imagined that both Vance and Isaac Asimov had been asked to help create a comic book. As mentioned here, I recently learned that around 1950 there was an aborted effort to make a comic strip called “Star Empire,” written by Asimov. Asimov's "Lucky Starr" books originated from plans for a television show.

Marvel Science Stories went through several name changes including Marvel Tales, Marvel Stories and Marvel Science Fiction. During its first run (1938 - 1941), the Marvel Sci Fi magazine was known for including more sexual themes than other magazines of that era. 

the original Sun Girl

During the second run of Marvel Science Stories (1950 - 1952) the folks at what would eventually become Marvel Comics had recently made a major effort to introduce female characters into comics such as The Human Torch.

Back in the late 1939 when Carl Burgos put the fire-wielding robot, Torch, into Marvel Comics #1, there was also another character created by Bill Everett who was called "Namor the Sub-Mariner". Jack Vance frequently included nautical themes in his stories. For his Cadwal Chronicles, Vance invented the evil character Namour. 

Other Marvel comics folks who produced art for Marvel Science Stories and Uncanny Stories included Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

The Human Torch

In 1948, an unknown writer had created the character Sun Girl. Later, the Sun Girl character appeared in several other comic books. The original Sun Girl strikes me as being very similar to Superman, simply substituting a woman for the crime-fighting hero. Superman was known as "Clark Kent" and Sun Girl was "Mary Mitchell". Some of the "episodes" of Human Torch that included Sun Girl (such as "The Flat of the Land") had a distinctly Sci Fi flavor.

Mary Mitchell

I wonder if Jack Vance ever looked at any of the late 1940s comic books such as Sun Girl.  With her "sunbeam ray gun", Mary Mitchell, A.K.A. the  Sun Girl, seemed like a character out of a science fiction story. Maybe the Sun Girl character could be revived, complete with a back story similar to that provided by Vance for his "Golden Girl". The "Sun Girl" and "Golden Girl" titles might have been appropriate in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but if the "Mary Mitchell" character were to be revived in 2021, maybe she could simply be given the "alien" name Lurulu and rather than commit suicide as Vance's character did, the new Lurulu could have a long, productive career on Earth sharing her advanced alien knowledge with we bumbling Earthlings.

Next: a look at more Vance stories from 1951

See also: Chapter 11 of "Meet the Phari"

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