the first issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories |
Previously, I became intrigued by Binder's interest in hormones and the possibility that Binder's stories about hormones might have influenced the writing of Robert Heinlein's story, "Methuselah's Children".
In the case of Kline, I suspect that his stories about robots had an influence on Isaac Asimov.
interior art by Marco Marchioni |
Kline imagined that by 1999 it would be possible for passengers to be flown by "stratospheric rocket plane" from Europe to the U.S.A. in less than an hour and that a tunnel under the Atlantic ocean would allow people to zip from London to New York City in just half an hour.
robot contest requirements |
humanoid robots |
Much of the plot in "Revenge of the Robot" reminds me of Isaac Asimov's fictional universe of positronic robots in which only one man, Dr. Han Fastolfe can make robot bodies that seem realistically human. Also, Asimov depicted the humaniform robot, Daneel, as having telepathic abilities.
Daneel |
Just before Grimes wins the contest, a third robot that had been created by Albert Bradshaw appears and reveals the fraud (hidden remote controls) being perpetrated by Grimes. This third robot looks exactly like the dead Albert Bradshaw and is intent on making sure that Grimes will not win the contest.
mind-body dualism |
The robot that was constructed to have the physical appearance of Bradshaw reveals that inside its mechanical head is Bradshaw's biological brain, connected to the robot body by fine wires. Bradshaw explains that his brain is floating in a special liquid and it should last for 1000 years. Kline's 1937 story, "The Iron World", continues the tale 1000 years in the future, when robots are threatening to take over Earth and exterminate the human species.
interior art by Marchioni |
Giants. Inside the base, James discovers 8-foot-tall men, brutish and "driven like oxen" by armed guards. For the past 10 years, Director Bergmann (a biologist) has been preparing for war between Europe and North America. Successes of his military research and development plan include the Radio-wave Absorption Screen™ and the Super-Sonic Gun™.
By experimenting on human subjects, Bergmann discovered how to use hormones not only to create the "giants" but also multiple types of hormone-treated people some of whom never forget what they read (eidetists) and others with telepathic abilities, who when looking into the minds of the eidetists, can instantly solve math problems.
"thrilling" adventure |
from "The Hormone Menace" |
Most important for Bergmann's weapons development program are his thyroid hormone-treated men who have super-human imagination and who write science fiction stories have developed devices such as the Super-Sonic Gun, which will soon allow Europe to defeat North America and rule the world.
interior art for "The Hormone Menace" |
The Trilling Conclusion. Agent S-23 is captured and will be executed at dawn, but he is rescued by Y-44 and they escape just as the research facility is destroyed in an atomic explosion. All the talk of hormones must have gotten Otto's hormones flowing... at the end of the story it is revealed that Y-44 is a girl and S-23 plans his next mission to be a careful exploration of Y-44's physical features.
image source |
Asimov wrote: "...even the silliest notions can undergo a sea change into something rich and strange in the hands of a skilled science fiction writer". I'm glad I searched back through Binder's stories about hormones to reach "The Hormone Menace". The destination is plenty strange, but for me it is inspiring in the context of a story that I am currently writing about an Interventionist attempt to speed technological advances on Earth by feeding advanced scientific ideas to ancient Greeks.
In my story, Empedocles ends up creating a legacy of strange philosophical ideas that almost seem to have been founded upon misunderstanding of scientific truths. Otto Binder achieved a similar effect in stories such as "The Hormone Menace" by twisting actual endocrinology into a perverted fictional form.
The Rossi Intervention |
Clearly, Binder was not interested in scientific plausibility. His audience was not well informed about biology and the goal was to create some kind of "thrilling" military/spy adventure story; a bit of disposable fluff that could entertain readers of Thrilling Wonder Stories. It is interesting to contemplate how pulp magazine stories full of fictional biological nonsense must have impacted the young Asimov when he was going to college and learning biology. He must have been simultaneously motivated to avoid making his own science fiction stories not quite as glaringly silly but also lulled into a sense of complacency with respect to what story writers could get away with in the pulp magazines.
cover art by Howard V. Brown |
More Robots. Returning to the topic of old science fiction stories about robots, I read "Robot A-1" by Oscar J. Friend, published in the July 1939 issue of Startling Stories. The story begins in the far-off year of 1940 when a mechanical man, robot A-1 is on trial and ready to defend itself.
Mechanical Man on Trial in 1950 |
The Tri-octopus made the cover of Startling Stories. Having seen the cover art, the readers must have been puzzled to read the criminal charges against poor old A-1 which involves murder down in the subway tunnels below Times Square.
Hold on to your hat! interior art by Alex Schomberg |
Robot A-1 saves the day by using a raygun to disintegrate the huge Tri-octopus. However, when the giant mechanical monster is destroyed, poor A-1 is crushed under the weight of one of the 5-ton Tri-octopus feet.
interior art by Alex Schomburg |
In the September 1940 issue of Super Science Stories, Isaac Asimov's first robot story "Robbie" appeared under the title "Strange Playfellow". It is easy to imagine that "Robot A-1" as one of the stories that annoyed Asimov with their destructive clanking robots, however Asimov claimed that "Robbie" was written in May of 1939, two months before "Robot A-1" was published.
Asimov also turned away from depictions of genius inventors who created the first man-like robot by working alone in their garage. In "Robbie", Asimov began to develop his thinking about a robotics industry and robots engineered to include protections against them doing harm to humans.
Related Reading: "The Trial of Robot A-1" by G. W. Thomas
Next: two old time travel stories from the 1940s
Thrilling Wonder Stories was only one of many Thrilling pulp magazines |
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