Their Usual Stuff

In the Ekcolir Reality (original cover)

Growing up in New York City, Isaac Asimov apparently read every science fiction story that was published in pulp magazines during the 1930s. Asimov began publishing his own stories in the late 1930s and during the 1940s he started to become famous for his positronic robot and Foundation stories. 

Stuff. Here is how Asimov characterized many early writers of science fiction stories: "... general pulp writers who substituted spaceships for horses, or disintegration rays for revolvers, and then wrote their usual stuff." (source) 

When he wrote about story writers and "their usual stuff", Asimov may well have been thinking about writers such as Fredric Brown. Born in 1906, Brown became a published author in about 1936, at first writing humor and mystery stories, then eventually he wrote fantasy and some science fiction. Was Brown interested in Sci Fi or was he just trying to earn a living by selling stories in any magazine that would buy his "stuff"?

In the Ekcolir Reality.
our reality: The Far Cry

I love the idea that each new generation of writers has a chance to re-invent the stories that they grew up reading. I also like the idea that in a past Reality, writers such as Fredric Brown had analogues who wrote slightly different stories. In the Ekcolir Reality, women dominated the science fiction genre and there might have been a female analogue of Brown who would have written somewhat different stories than those that were actually written by Fredric in our Reality. Imagine an alternate Reality where Brown only wrote science fiction.

Here in this blog post I comment on three stories by Brown: his 1944 "Arena", "What Mad Universe" from 1948 and "Honeymoon in Hell" (1950). One month ago, I  commented on "The World She Wanted", a kind of fantasy story about parallel universes that was published in 1953 by Philip K. Dick. I would not be surprised if Dick was influenced by "What Mad Universe" when he wrote "The World She Wanted". Similarly, I wanted to read Brown's "Arena" so I could see to what extent it has similarities to the Star Trek episode "Arena".

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Anna, Ray and an alien on the Moon.
original cover art by Don Sibley

Go to Hell. 1948 was an interesting year in the life of Fredric Brown. His 20-year-long romance with his first wife (Helen) had collapsed and he married his second wife, Betty. Then, in 1950, Brown published a story called "Honeymoon in Hell". As they say, "write what you know". "Honeymoon in Hell" begins with the amusing heading: TOO MANY FEMALES. Starting in 1963, no more male humans are born on Earth. Is this the end of the human species? 

Space Age. In Brown's imagined future of 1963, rocket ships had already reached the Moon, but in order to establish a permanent base on the Moon, a big shiny orbital space station first needed to be constructed in Earth orbit. Thus, Brown's future of space travel is a lot like that imagined by Arthur C. Clarke. Brown introduces his readers to Ray Carmody, retired rocketeer, one of the few men to have ever landed on the Moon and safely returned to Earth. 

In the Ekcolir Reality.
original cover art by Ed Emshwiller

Ray is interested in cybernetics which Brown describes as "the science of electronic calculating machines". In 1945, Asimov wrote about "The Brain", a child-like artificial intelligence with a positronic brain. For "Honeymoon in Hell", Brown imagined "Junior" (an AE7 cybernetics machine), the biggest calculating machine of all, kept in a back room at the Pentagon. Ray's job is to ask "Junior" questions and report back to waiting scientists what Junior has to say about atomics, ballistics and rocketry... and sex. In 1963, the most important question on Earth is why only baby girls are now being born and what can be done about it?

Answer: Ray must go to Hell. Hell crater on the Moon, that is. All that is known bout the missing baby boys is that soon after human zygotes form, all the male zygotes are magically switched to become female.  A Big Mystery™!

in the Ekcolir Reality (full sized)

 The Girl-ray. The Pentagon Brass suspect lurking aliens who are trying to destroy Humanity and take over Earth. Ray must take a rocket to Hell, meet his new "wife" (a Russian girl named Anna who Ray has never met) and impregnate her in an attempt to produce a male child. The whole plan was dreamed up by "Junior" to test the possibility that the aliens have a hidden base on Earth where the "girl-ray" is generated... and maybe that magical ray will not reach zygotes on the Moon.

Were "Honeymoon in Hell" written today , the author might simply send a bunch of sperm and eggs to the moon and answer the question by in vitro fertilization, but what would be the fun in that? However, just when readers might be expecting Ray and Anna to start making a baby, we shift gears and are fed a story about an alien spaceship that appears in Hell. 

the wonders of space-age hypnosis

 Hypnotic. The aliens abduct Ray and Anna. But Wait! That entire alien abduction story was invented by "Junior" and magically implanted into Ray's mind by hypnosis. Now confronted by the prospect of alien invaders, the nations of Earth unite and agree to peacefully work together to explore space. Back on Earth, Ray and Anna continue their marriage. Readers are told that it was "Junior" who used a magic ray of his own design to convert male zygotes into female zygotes. Now that Earth is peacefully united, "Junior" turns off the magic sex-change ray gun and everyone lives happily ever after.

Since the story was written in 1950, readers only get a short G-rated snippet revealing what really happened to Ray and Anna during their "Honeymoon in Hell" in the two weeks before Junior's hypnotically-implanted memories took over.

Anna; interior art by Sibley

I have to wonder what Asimov thought when he read "Honeymoon in Hell" (his story, "Misbegotten Missionary" was in the same issue of Galaxy). Brown's story ends up very close to where Asimov's I, Robot ends, (with his 1950 story "The Evitable Conflict") depicting a few computers endowed with artificial intelligence as taking care of Humanity.

Fictional Biology. I also wonder if Asimov simply shook his head over Brown's silly idea of "Junior" inventing and using a special "carrier wave" for commercial radio transmissions that converted all male human zygotes to female zygotes. 

Also, I've previously blogged about the infiltration of hypnosis into pulp science fiction as an all-powerful plot device. As far as I can tell, Fredric Brown never concerned himself with the scientific plausibility of his science fiction stories.

Gorn

 Hotter Than Hell. For his story "Arena", Brown shifts we readers from the icy night-time cold of Hell crater on the Moon to the hot blue sands of his titular arena. For this story, there is an actual alien abduction. Earth is at war with mysterious "Outsiders", aliens from another galaxy "in the general direction of the Pleiades". Bob Carson, having been on patrol as part of the Earth Armada, has been abducted by a second variety of aliens: god-like, "eternal", something at the "end of evolution"; the Entity. When he awakens after his abduction, Bob must fight one of the Outsiders. That fight will determine which species, Humans or Outsiders will be obliterated, leaving the other species to continue evolving.

For the Star Trek episode, Captain Kirk had to battle a man in a rubber monster suit: the Gorn. In Brown's story, the Outsider is a red sphere-shaped creature that rolls across the sand. Bob defeats the red sphere and the Entity destroys the invading fleet of Outsiders.

the sphere creature mutilating a lizard

I would not be surprised if Gene Coon read Brown's "Arena" and later drew upon half-forgotten memories of it when writing the script for the Star Trek episode. I despise alien invasion stories featuring Evil Aliens™ who come to Earth from across vast interstellar distances just to exterminate humans. I wonder if Brown's "Arena" was meant to be a metaphorical rant against the evil reds of the Soviet Union. And what can be said about the Entity that saves Humanity from extinction? Did they just happen to be passing by Neptune when they decided to involve themselves in human affairs? 

In the Ekcolir Reality.

There Are No Spears In Science Fiction. Brown included a 4th species in his story: the lizards who are apparently natives of the planet with blue sand, the world that the Entity uses as an arena for Bob's fight to the death against the evil red sphere creature. The red sphere pulls off some of the legs of a lizard and then tosses the unconscious lizard through the force field that separates Bob from the sphere creature. Eventually, Bob realizes that if he knocks himself unconscious, he can fall through the force field and then, upon regaining consciousness, use his spear and knife to kill the sphere creature. In a sense, the lizards of Blue Planet are what saves Humanity from destruction.

The first alien invasion story that I was exposed to was War of the Worlds. I'm hard pressed to say which story annoys me more... War of the Worlds with Humanity being saved by God who wisely put the bacteria on Earth that kill the invading Martians or "Arena" in which Bob and Humanity are saved by the lizards and the god-like Entity.

Mekky and Betty. interior art by ???

 What Mad Pursuit. Francis Crick wrote an autobiographical book in which he mentioned his 1947 divorce from his first wife. By 1949 Crick was working on the x-ray crystallography of proteins and he gave a seminar presentation called "What Mad Pursuit", the name of which he attributed to "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by Keats. In Keats' poem, a man is in pursuit of his lover. 

In Crick's world of 1940s scientific research, the scientists that he worked with were in pursuit of the "secret of life" which existed at molecular scale in the structures of molecules inside living organisms; molecules such as proteins and DNA. In Brown's "What Mad Universe", protagonist Keith Winton is in pursuit of his beloved Betty.

The Transformation of Universes Through Time.

Figure 1. (on page 11)
interior art for "What Mad Universe"

In the 1889 story "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" it was a blow to the head that magically moves the story off to the land of Camelot. In "What Mad Universe", Brown used a Hi Tek™ device, the Burton Potentiometer, to send protagonist Keith Winton off into an alternate universe. Although Brown carefully "explained" to readers that there are an infinite number of parallel universes, Keith does not get "catapulted" into just any random universe. He finds himself in a universe that is the fantasy world of a teen-aged pulp science fiction fan, Joe Doppelberg.

Keith Winton is the editor of Surprising Stories, a pulp science fiction magazine. Part of his duties involve tending to the Rocketalk letters column. As revealed in his fan letter to Rocketalk, Joe lives in a world where when arriving in New York City for a visit he can joke about arriving at "Spaceport N'Yawk" (see below).

Figure 2. Joe Doppelberg's fan letter

In this universe, in 1952, rockets are being launched from New York in an attempt to reach the Moon. Keith Winton is sent into an alternate universe when one such rocket goes out of control, lands right on top of Keith and triggers its Burton Potentiometer to release a vast amount of stored energy.

Apparently, in Joe's fantasy Solar System there is an atmosphere on the Moon and air-breathing Lunans who live there. So as soon as Keith arrives in that alternate universe, he has to deal with Lunans and -even worse- invading aliens from Arcturus. 

And even worse than the interstellar war, Joe recently visited the offices of Bordon Publications, Inc. and got a glimpse of Betty (she is the editor of Perfect Love Stories, another pulp magazine). So in Joe's fantasy world, he is the Super Genius™ Dopelle and engaged to marry Betty. And since Joe never got to meet Keith, this universe has another version of Keith Winton who is the editor of Surprising Stories.

At the moment when the rocket crashes and the Burton Potentiometer blasts energy into Keith, he is thinking about Joe Doppelberg and the kind of magazine covers he has requested. So Keith ends up in an alternate universe of Joe's imagination where Lunans walk the streets of New York and the cover art of Surprising Stories is much better.

Lunan

That's a Lunan in the image to the left. I'm not sure what is being depicted in Figure 1, above. Figure 1 is the internal art that was placed right at the start of "What Mad Universe". Maybe Figure 1 was meant to be a Joe Doppelberg fantasy or dream about Betty (dressed appropriately for a pulp magazine cover in a metal bra) while Joe (in the role of the heroic Dopelle) fights off a spooky alien.

Keith flies to Saturn.

Since Brown was being paid by the word, there are many many many pages of "What Mad Universe" in which Keith must learn about the new parallel universe he is in... particularly the fact that since this is Joe's fantasy universe, Betty is very much in love with Dopelle. Keith eventually turns his attention to returning to his own universe. To make that possible, he ends up going to Saturn. Strangely, while Joe's fantasy universe has sophisticated space ships that allow Keith to drive fly to Saturn, there is no such thing as a Burton Potentiometer in this alternate universe. But don't worry, Keith once looked at the circuitry for a Burton Potentiometer, so the information for how to build one lies in his unconscious mind!

The technological sophistication of Fredric's Brown Sci Fi stories is not very notable. Brown basically states that the secret of space drive technology was discovered by a dude playing around with a sewing machine. 

In the Joe Reality.

It seems clear that Brown either did not know what a "potentiometer" is or possibly he simply did not care. Brown seems to have been making fun of science fiction stories while getting paid to write science fiction stories.

Telepathy is a pretty big deal in "What Mad Universe". The Arcturian invaders can use their telepathic powers to take control of humans, so everyone on Earth is constantly on guard against Arcturian infiltrators. More importantly, the Super Genius™ Dopelle has built a telepathic assistant, Mekky, a flying metallic sphere that can telepathically "read" the plans for a Burton Potentiometer from Keith's mind and then quickly build one that is used to send Keith back to...

But wait! Keith realizes that he does not have to return to his old universe. So just before he is blasted off to a new universe, he thinks sweet thoughts about Betty. 

cover art by Earle Bergey

Upon arriving in his new universe, Keith finds that he is no longer a busy magazine editor; in this universe he is the owner of the publishing company that turns out the pulp magazines Surprising and Perfect Love Stories and in this universe he already has a well-developed romantic relationship with Betty.

The best thing about "What Mad Universe" is the way it makes reference to the pulp magazine industry and Joe's letter to the editor of Surprising (Figure 2, above) complains about cover art that depicts women running away from silly, unconvincing space monsters. Earle Bergey obligingly provided just such a cover illustration for that issue of Startling Stories.

Related Reading: also in the September 1948 Startling Stories, "Sanatoris Short-Cut" by Jack Vance.

Next: reader comments on "What Mad Universe" from 1948

Next: reader comments from the January 1949 issue of Startling Stories about "What Mad Universe".

 

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