cover art by John Schoenherr |
In 1957 Isaac Asimov published a short story called "The Gentle Vultures" in Super-Science Fiction. I first read "The Gentle Vultures" about fifty years ago in Nine Tomorrows, but the story was included in many other collections of stories such as Contact (published in 1963). For fun summer-time reading, I decided to investigate all of the old alien contact stories that were featured in Contact.
In Asimov's "The Gentle Vultures", planet Hurria is home to mild-mannered three-foot-tall primate-like creatures who have spread out into the galaxy. The Hurrians now control an interstellar empire including worlds that are home to about 1,000 other species, mostly "large primates" who have had to go through devastating atomic wars before being pacified and incorporated into the Hurrian empire. Now the Hurrians are waiting for humans to suffer through a nuclear catastrophe before they make contact.
interior art by Ed Emshwiller |
I never accepted Asimov's suggestion that an alien humanoid with advanced technology (such as the Hurrians) would simply stand by and watch while a planet like Earth experienced a devastating nuclear war. Part of the downfall of Asimov's story is that the Hurrians are so similar to we humans in terms of their level of technological development.
In the Ekcolir Reality. Original cover art by Yasuda and Courtney. |
creature by Ken Barthelmey |
I Forgot. In Contact, Asimov's story "The Gentle Vultures" was collected in one volume along with several other stories such as "Lost Memory" by Peter Phillips. I gave a few comments on "Lost Memory" in my previous blog post. It is implied in Phillips' story that the robots who are contacted by space travelers from Earth actually originated on Earth themselves, so this really is not a first contact story.
Readers of "Lost Memory" are asked to believe that the robots have forgotten that they originated from a spaceship that was sent out long ago from Earth. This silly plot device was also used in the Star Trek episode "The Changeling".
cover art by Malcolm Smith |
The oldest interstellar space travel tale in Contact was "First Contact" published by Murray Leinster in 1945. Leinster's "First Contact" is annoying on two levels. First, the spaceships in "First Contact" are like World War II submarines and the crew is quite ready to use their blasters upon meeting the first aliens ever discovered by Humanity. That's right, we just made the most amazing discovery in the history of Humanity: so let's blast 'em!
interior art for "Knock" (Napoli) |
Of course, it is much more likely that when two different space-faring species meet, one will be much more technologically advanced than the other. I first read "First Contact" in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
image source |
No Spoilers. Also collected in Contact was a short story called "Knock" that was originally published by Fredric Brown in the December 1948 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. I'll point to "Knock" as an excellent example of an absurd kind of alien invasion story in which the technologically superior aliens end up being defeated by pitifully weak humans. In "Knock", the alien invaders wipe out all animal life on Earth during an afternoon by using their super-duper disintegrator ray. However, the downfall of the aliens is that they saved a couple hundred animals and put them in a zoo.
interior art for "Limiting Factor". |
Both "Knock" and "First Contact" were made into episodes of the Dimension X radio show and were later re-done for X Minus One. Another X Minus One story was a radio version of the story "Hostess" by Asimov. When I first read "Knock" I guessed it was going to lead to an Earthly virus driving away the evil aliens, but no.
a better alien archeology story |
cover art by Robert Clothier |
go green |
from the 2015 TV adaptation |
in the Ekcolir Reality Original cover art by Lawrence Stevens |
It is not hard to understand why Clarke's "Guardian Angel" was repeatedly rejected. Is there anything more mind-numbing than fictional politics? Clarke framed his story as an overly-long tease, hiding the alien visitors to Earth while two utterly futile political factions of Earth struggle against each-other. The United Nations had just been created in 1945 so Clarke made the main character of his story be Secretary-General Stormgren, he of the "famous uranium paperweight".
depiction of the devil from the 1400s (source) |
Stormgren is the only person on Earth who gets to visit one of the alien spacecraft for casual chats with the alien leader, Karellen, Supervisor of Earth. Nobody, including Stormgren can understand why the alien visitors to Earth never show themselves. Even while Stormgren is speaking directly to Karellen, the alien always hides his physical form. Eventually (it takes Clarke a very long time to make the reveal) readers learn that Karellen has a physical appearance that reminds people of a devilish creature out of Earth's religious mythology.
image source |
Eventually, Clarke expanded "Guardian Angel" to book length (Childhood's End). In the end, Clarke implies that human legends about a devil that looks like the aliens was a racial premonition of how the human species would be helped to transcend physical existence and merge with the "Overmind". I've read several of Clarke's novels (described here), but I've still never read Childhood's End. However, I do like the idea of advanced aliens who help more primitive creatures transcend their biological existence and I use that as a major plot element in my stories that are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe.
magic |
At one point in the story, Karellen gets Stormgren out of a tight spot by "paralyzing" his captors: "...the man opposite neither moved nor spoke. He sat with lips half open, his eyes now lifeless as well as blind. Around him the others were equally motionless, frozen in strained, unnatural attitudes." Karellen patiently explains this magical paralysis: "You can call it a paralysis, but it’s much subtler than that. They’re simply living a few thousand times more slowly than normal. When we’ve gone they’ll never know what happened."
Meet your Overlord. |
I've previously complained about this kind of plot device when science fiction stories portray characters as moving a thousand times faster than usual. This seems like a prime example of Clarke's 3rd Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." The "paralysis field" appears to come from Karellen's spherical flying drones. Readers are told that before being sent to Earth, Karellen was professor of astropolitics on the distant planet Skyrondel. Karellen speaks perfect English and is such a master of human psychology that by occasionally giving speeches to the people of Earth, only 7% of the human population is opposed to Karellen's gentle Overlordship.
cover art by Dean Ellis |
drawing by Malcolm Smith |
However, it is not too difficult for a reader like me to imagine shifting the setting of the story from Mars to some distant exoplanet. Ignoring the distraction of Bradbury's fantasy version of Mars, I do like the idea that it might become possible for a technologically advanced life-form to migrate from its original biological form to some type of artificial life. In Bradbury's imagination, this idea leads to mysterious blue lights on Mars, the Old Ones, who, because they now lack physical bodies, have also escaped from sin. "The Fire Balloons", published in 1951 as "In this Sign..." is similar to A Case of Conscience which was published by James Blish in 1953. In Blish's story, it is Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez on the distant exoplanet Lithia who must fret over the fact that Lithians don't sin.
In the Ekcolir Reality |
For my own stories, the immortal Huaoshy have long since transcended their biological existence, but guided by their ethical rules, they help primitive creatures like we humans. For stories set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe, I go a step further and assume that the Huaoshy and their helpers, the pek, actually guided the creation of the human species, but that is a detail. The Huaoshy feel obligated to help all intelligent species in the universe.
interior art by Seymour Augenbraun |
"Specialist" (originally published in the May 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction) does not make much sense, but it seems to be about an automated spaceship from galactic empire that comes upon Earth. Magically, a human being is just what the spaceship needs in order to activate its interstellar drive and return to base at Galactic Central.
interior art by Seymour Augenbraun |
Death to Aliens! Of course, in a conventional alien contact story, the primitive Earthlings must magically defeat the technologically advanced aliens. The reporter then puts the metal ring around the alien's force field-protected observation cube and the alien dies.
"Turn off that light!" drawing by Frank R. Paul |
I previously observed that had Isaac Asimov been aware of how easy it is to achieve in vitro fertilization, then his story The Naked Sun might have been written quite differently. I was surprised to discover Gernsback's old article about test tube fertilization of human eggs and the imaginary ectogenetic-electronic gestation apparatus. I wonder if Asimov ever saw "Electronic Baby". The drawing by Frank R. Paul reminds me of my own "embroids".
Jason and Carlos in bed; drawn by Tom O'Reilly |
Wallace imagined that humans could develop a form of subconscious telepathic communication that would cause two populations of people to never get along.
Miss Carlos disguised as a rosling (left). Right: Airsta |
Biological plausibility was seemingly the last thing on Wallace's mind when he wrote "Worlds in Balance".
In the Ekcolir Reality. Merhaven vs Kransi |
In the Uranium Age. For centuries, the people of Restap have profited from the antagonism between Merhaven and Kransi. I've previously complained about science fiction stories in which the economies of planets are built upon a single resource. Wallace tells his readers that the only available natural resource on Merhaven is worthless uranium. Throughout the galaxy, other, better energy sources have been found, seemingly making the uranium of Merhaven worthless.
Jason and the psychocomputer. |
The whole contrived economic system that keeps the three planets "in balance" makes no sense and only leads Wallace to a silly pun about Jason and the golden fleece of Carlos.
IBM 710 |
The psychocomputer can speak and chat with Jason and when it is provided with all existing data about the question of why the people of Merhaven and Kransi are continually at war, the device complains that it needs even more data. However, the chatbot is helpful and it suggests where Jason can go in order to collect more data. The speaking psychocomputer can use different voices including one intriguingly called "mistress'.
interior art by Bowman |
The image shown to the right depicts the high science fiction adventure found in this story as the professor and his family wait for the visiting Martian to come out of the bathroom. The Martian has a long trunk-like nose, so he can almost completely submerge in the bath tub while sleeping and continue breathing through the snout.
interior art by Virgil Finlay |
"The Large Ant" is possibly not a first contact story in the traditional sense. The story does not explain where the large ant-like creatures are from and it is suggested that they might actually be native to Earth. Eight different people have met one of the ant-like creatures and each person quickly killed it out of fear. However, close inspection reveals that the "ants" carry a set of enigmatic and finely crafted tools. At the end of the story, folks in the government are nervously waiting to find out if the "ants" are visiting aliens who will not take kindly to having their emissaries murdered.
Startling Story |
In Howard Fast's story, all the dead "ants" end up in bottles of formaldehyde in a museum. In 1953 the double helical structure of DNA was recognized and Earth entered its age of molecular genetics. In "The Large Ant", all we read about is the stinky mess made by a smashed "ant" brain and there is no attempt to do molecular analysis of the possibly alien "ants". "The Large Ant" contributes to the excessively large catalog of science fiction stories about aliens who have the form of an Earthly insect.
Also: be sure to sleep with a golf club by your bed because you just never know when you'll wake up and suddenly have to bash a giant alien ant who was watching you sleep.
And... the world of giant antsaunts...
source |
energy beings |
Related Reading: Vultures in 2021 & "What If?" & more Fredric Brown.
Next: Aliens watching over Earth.
Coming Soon: Chapter 12 of Meet the Phari.
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