I came across
this website which discusses the science fiction stories of Clark Ashton Smith and I took a look at "The Plutonian Drug" which was published by Smith in the
September 1934 issue of
Amazing Stories. Published just a few years after the discovery of
Pluto, but before the discovery of the element
Plutonium, Smith imagined a mysterious chemical called "plutonium", which had been brought back from Pluto to Earth in 1996. Smith's plutonium is fossilized material, maybe a billion years old, from a time when Pluto was warm enough to support plant life.
Viewing the Future. When ingested, plutonium allows people to see into both the past and into the future. In the "The Plutonian Drug", Smith also mentioned additional drugs from other worlds such a selenine from the Moon, which is a cure for cancer.
An Infinite Lot. Smith quietly suggested that plutonium might stimulate part of the brain and amplify a weak innate human ability to look into the future. For his 1939 story "Cosmic Engineers", Clifford D. Simak also adopted the idea that there had once been life on Pluto in the distant past. I like the idea that it might be possible to look into the future, but Smith's story does nothing interesting with this plutonium-powered ability to view the future. 😖
Try, Try Again. In search of a more meaningful Sci Fi story by Smith, I went looking for "The Demon of the Flower" which was published in the
December 1933 issue of
Astounding Stories. During that search, I came across "The Machine That Knew Too Much" by
A. T. Locke. A reclusive inventor, Forsythe, has build a device that can capture sounds from the past... even thousands of years in the past.
 |
| text excerpt from "The Machine That Knew Too Much" |
 |
Figure 1. Instant replay via the sound machine.
|
The Past is Not Lost. I love the idea that somehow a record is being made and kept of everything that happens and it might become possible to access that "recorded" information. Sadly, Locke provides no explanation for how Forsythe's machine works. Readers are told that the sound machine has a large number of dials with "
their edges minutely graduated by fine lines". By adjusting the dials, Forsythe can "tune into" particular conversations from the past.
Fail, Fail Again. Forsythe tries to use the sound machine to find clues to lost treasure in old Spain, but the whole project ends tragically (see Figure 1). As for "The Plutonian Drug", in "The Machine That Knew Too Much" there is an amazing breakthrough and then it is used for nothing.
 |
| interior art for "The Demon of the Flower" |
What about "
The Demon of the Flower" by Smith? On the distant planet Lophai there are plants that resemble serpents and other Earthly animals. The people of Lophai are haunted by Voorqual, an ancient alien that has long resided on Lophai. I suppose Voorqual was Smith's imitation of
Cthulhu. Yawn. I could not make it through this fantasy story.
Made for Hollywood. The only other story listed in the ISFDB for A. T. Locke was "Vandals of the Stars" which appeared in the March 1930 issue of Astounding Stories of Super-Science. "Vandals of the Stars" is an alien invasion story. The most interesting part of this story is that it is set in the future Earth of 1975 when five men control the world's economy.
One of those
5 wealthy plutocrats, Dirk, has a cute girlfriend, Inga, who catches the eye of the invading alien prince. Dirk defeats the aliens in order to save Inga from being carted off to the alien planet and he tells Inga, "Saving you means more to me than saving the world."
While inside the December 1933 issue of Astounding, I could not resist looking at "Ancestral Voices" by Nat Schachner which is a time travel story. The the story is set in 1935 when the chemical element vibratium is used to build a time machine. The first trip back in time changes history and results in the non-birth of 50,000 people.
Human Invaders. Schachner had an interest in history and his science fiction attracted the attention of a young Isaac Asimov. For "Ancestral Voices", Schachner imagined a time travel trip from 1935 to the year 452 when the Roman city of Aquileia was destroyed.
 |
| interior art for "Ancestral Voices" |
Reality Change. Schachner invented an alternate timeline for an imaginary version of Earth that included a boxer named Hans Schilling instead of Max Schmeling. In Schachner's alternate Reality, Herr Hellwid was the racist leader of Mideurope, replacing Hitler.
Sadly, Schachner's story makes no sense. When the Reality Change takes place, other people still living in 1935 remember the 50,000 people who suddenly disappear.
A New 1935. Still, it is easy to imagine how "Ancestral Voices" influenced Asimov and his time travel novel,
The End of Eternity. Like "The Plutonian Drug" and "The Machine That Knew Too Much", "Ancestral Voices" features an amazing breakthrough (the development of time travel) but then the time travel machine is destroyed at the end of the story and the world has learned that time travel is too dangerous to ever be attempted again. Well, at least until the next mad scientist uses his time machine... in 1936.
Legal Humor. In addition to his interest in history, Schachner was trained as a lawyer. In the June 1941 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction was "Old Fireball", the first of Schachner's Kerry Dale/Space Lawyer stories. This is the issue of Astounding that had "Time Wants a Skeleton", another old time travel story that I previously discussed.
 |
interior art for "Old Fireball"
|
"Old Fireball" is set in the future when spaceships cruise the Solar System the way cargo ships now cross Earth's oceans. Kerry Dale, a space lawyer, tricks a shipping magnate out of $100,000.00, which I suppose was a lot of money in 1941.
Secret Admirer. The shipping magnate is known as "Old Fireball" because of his temper. Each encounter between Dale and Old Fireball causes the old man to start shouting and raving like a lunatic. This is supposed to be funny? The only reason for readers to put up with the rantings of Old Fireball is that he has a cute daughter, Sally, who likes the looks of Dale. In fact, she is planning to marry Dale. 💕 Maybe she'll even let him know about her plans some day.
 |
| interior art for "Jurisdiction" |
Thermatite. The Kerry Dale follow-up story "Jurisdiction" appeared in the
August 1941 issue of
Astounding Science-Fiction. An asteroid with a rich vein of thermatite has been found. Thermatite is a source of nuclear power without any nasty gamma rays, so this particular asteroid is worth millions. I suppose that was a lot of money in 1941.
Dale realizes that the big-bucks-asteroid is actually part of the Jupiter system so he resisters a claim on it in that jurisdiction. Old Fireball is convinced that he lost the thermatite asteroid to the space pirate, Foote.
 |
Sally, Kerry and Old Fireball.
|
Always Read the Contract. Dale is careful to make sure that Old Fireball gives up his claim to the asteroid in exchange for not having to make a big monetary payment to Dale.
Legally Boring. By this time, Sally and her father have traveled from Earth to the asteroid belt. Playing a bit-role in "Jurisdiction" is the dirty dealer Jericho Foote, who tries to jump the mining claim on the thermatite asteroid. Foote's mining claim is registered in the wrong jurisdiction, so Dale becomes the owner of the lucrative thermatite mine. At the end of the story, he even gets a date with Sally.
 |
Figure 2. a Martian (center)
|
Light and Easy. On
this webpage, Aaron praises both
1) Schachner's space lawyer stories and
2) Henry Kuttner's
series of stories about Gallegher, a drunken inventor. Back in 2017, I read "
Time Locker" and now seemed to be a good time to read "The Proud Robot" as published in the
October 1943 issue of
Astounding Science-Fiction.
Time Travel. But first, I looked at "The World Is Mine". The story begins after Gallegher has already used a time machine to bring three Martians back from the future. The Martians are cute and look like rabbits (see Figure 2). The Martians tell Gallegher that they are going to take control of Earth. In their time, 500 years in the future, they could not control Earth, but now that they are in the past they want to get to work conquering the primitive Earthlings. I guess this is supposed to be a humorous spoof of an alien invasion.
 |
Figure 3. Teaching machine.
|
Murder. That Martian invasion of Earth is pretty much a bust, but dead copies of Gallegher begin arriving from the future. Gallegher gets accused of murdering himself. (Ha Ha) Gallegher finally remembers that he programmed the time machine to bring his dead body into the past from the future when he dies.
Hellwig. The dead Gallegher gag goes nowhere, but Gallegher is supposed to be creating an invention for an investor, Mr. Hellwig. With help from the Martians, Gallegher quickly builds a device that can transfer memories and skills from one person's brain to another person (Figure 3). Hellwig is pleased when the teaching machine gives him the skills of a concert pianist.
In "
The Proud Robot", readers are told that Gallegher tried to build a can-opener and ended up with a self-admiring robot that has transparent skin and is full of endlessly turning gears. The robot likes to look at itself in a mirror. Readers learn that the robot was built using diamond dust and has some sort of telepathic ability. Furthermore, the robot can hypnotize people and pretend to be Gallegher without them noticing that they are talking to a robot with transparent skin.
A television magnate named Brock (he owns the VOX television network) has asked for Gallegher's help. Bootleggers are stealing VOX programming and selling it at cut-rates. VOX subscribers are terminating their VOX subscriptions. Brock has a cute daughter named Patsy and Gallegher promises that he will find a solution to her father's business troubles.
 |
Patsy takes a call from the robot
|
Gallegher figures out how to insert a hidden signal into the VOX programming that makes it impossible for bootleggers to profit from stolen VOX television programming.
I suspect that "The Proud Robot" was inspired by Asimov's 1941 stories "Reason" and "Liar!". There is a scene in "The Proud Robot" where Gallegher tries to get the robot to use its powers of hypnotism to help Gallegher out of a tight spot. The robot refuses. Only after Gallegher realizes that the robot was originally designed to function as a device for opening cans of beer does Gallegher gain control of the robot.
Asimov constructed his robot stories so as to illustrate the idea of robots that were carefully programmed to obey the commands of humans. Asimov imagined that a large robotics industry would be needed to build humanoid robots. I suppose we are supposed to be amused by Kuttner's drunken inventor (Gallegher) who single-handedly built a robot but then, when sober, can't remember how to control it.
 |
| Figure 4. Interior art for "Symbiotica". |
Back in 2019 I commented on the 1939 story "
Sinister Barrier" by Eric Frank Russell. The main premise of that fantasy story is that humans have long been selectively bread by vampire-like Vitons who feed of of human emotional energy. Human senses are unable to detect the Vitons, so no humans realized that they live as puppets of the Vitons.
While looking through the contents of the October 1943 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction, I was intrigued by the title "Symbiotica", a story by Eric Frank Russell.
As shown in
Figure 4, "Symbiotica" is yet another story about an exoplanet populated by plants with animal-like behaviors. "Symbiotica" is of interest to me because it prompts me to wonder if both
Gene Roddenberry and
Jack Vance read this story. "Symbiotica" has the same basic plot as
Star Trek: a spaceship exploring the galaxy and landing parties that explore strange new worlds.
Vance wrote many stories about exoplanets with strange plant-life. For example, his novel Star King features the dryads, plant-like creatures that can walk around. Vance created a complex imaginary ecosystem for an exoplanet that included the dryads as just one of several forms of life that could transform into one another, like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly.
 |
Figure 5. humanoid plant-people
|
Danger. "Symbiotica" begins with a quick introduced to some red-shirted crewmen of the spaceship Marathon who go by clever names such as "the other guy". On the surface of a planet near Rigel, one of these doomed crewmen is killed when a shrub fires a swarm of poisonous darts into his body. In Star Trek, you could always teleport an injured man back to the ship. On board Marathon is a robot named Jay who quickly carries the injured redshirt back to the ship, but he's dead, Jim.
 |
| interior art for "Symbiotica" |
Then some humanoid plant-people show up (See
Figure 5, above) and start throwing rocks at
Marathon and its crewmen. The war-of-the-worlds is underway. Jay the robot classifies these natives as being like "Congo pygmys", but each one has its own tree and some sort of symbiotic relationship exists between the native life-forms. A "pygmy" climbs up a tree and the tree attacks the crewmen of the
Marathon (see
Figure 4). The more advanced natives live in cities (see the image to the right). Eventually the
Marathon must depart, its crew unable to defeat the natives.
Tough Row to Hoe. Stories such as "Symbiotica" are a difficult slog for me. They read like a tale out of the 1700s when a European sailing ship goes to explore deepest darkest Africa and the crew must battle the unruly natives. Just add a spaceship, a robot and a ray gun and... presto... you have Sci Fi. I'll give Russell credit for trying to imagine an alien ecosystem, but the story seems more like fantasy than science fiction and includes trees that can generate electricity.
Moore Kuttner. Back in 2017, I could not wade through "The Time Trap", but after reading about Gallegher the drunken inventor (above), I decided to give "The Time Trap" another try, if for no other reason, then to find out what kind of phaser Alasa was packing (Figure 6).
 |
internal art for "The Time Trap"
|
Dr. Who? Before he meets "lovely Alasa", Kent Mason has a chat with Nirvor, a woman from the year 2150 who, like Mason, was caught in the titular "time trap" and sent into the far past of Earth. Kent gets to watch Nirvor strip herself naked in front of an alter and he likes what he sees. It is important that Kent meet Nirvor because she quickly drops a big dollop of exposition, explaining that Kent went through an atomic time warp 5,000 years into the past to an ancient city which is ruled by
the Time Lord, Dr. Who "the Master" who is from the year 7,000 (his name is Greddar Klon). Nirvor claims that a random lightening bolt triggered the "time projector", sending her into the past and now she waits for the Master to send her back to her time (2150).
It is lucky that it is Kent who has been sent back in time to old Al Bekr because he's an archeologist who speaks Sumerian. Alasa is the queen of the ancient city of Al Bekr and she's being punished by the Master for leading a revolt of the citizens of Al Bekr against the rule of the Master. In
Figure 7, that's Alasa floating above the crowd of Sumerians in her prison of glass. On the stage is a woman being executed by the Master.
Robots, too. The Master commands an army of robotic servants, but they are stupid automatons. The Master is also trapped in the past, but he is building a New and Improved™ time travel machine that will be able to send people into the future. The Master asks Kent to help complete the time machine, the only way they can hope to return to their points of origin in the future.
Anti-Robot Ray Gun. Another man from the far future, Murdoch, has been held prisoner in Al Bekr by the Master. Murdoch has a ray-gun that can inactivate the robots (see
Figure 6, above). Now completed, the
New and Improved™ time travel machine takes the Master and Nirvor back to the future. After the departure of the Master, Murdoch informs Kent that the Master intends to conquer 20th century Earth, turning it into his personal base of operations from which he will eventually take control of Earth's entire timeline. Kent, Alasa and Murdoch must travel through time and stop the
Evil™ Master from becoming ruler of Earth.
Alasa has qualms about leaving a horde of the Master's robots in Al Bekr. Will the robots torment the people of her city? However, Murdoch assures her that without continued attention from the Master, the robots will soon run out of power.
 |
The Land of the Plant People!
|
Time Odyssey. When Kent, Alasa and Murdoch head into the future they have trouble controlling their journey through time. Upon departing from ancient Al Bekr, they first meet a tribe of telepathic plant-people. That encounter is followed by zombies, giant ants and other figments of Henry Kuttner's imagination.
 |
AI-generated image (see).
|
Most of this Odyssey strikes me as magical fantasy, but at one point Kent and Alasa seem to be inside some sort of Virtual Reality simulator that displays mirage-like images of many strange environments. I began to imagine that this might be a device for viewing distant parts of Earth's historical timeline, but as soon as Kuttner was bored with having Kent and Alasa walk through holograms of various strange objects, Kent and Alasa were sent off on another random trip through time. Eventually, the Master is vanquished and then Kent and Alasa can travel to 1939 and live happily ever after.
She Turned Me Into A Newt! A major part of "The Time Trap" concerns a future technology that can turn animals into humans. When Nirvor appears in the story, Kent can sense that there is something alien about her, but only much later does he learn that she is a panther who was transformed into a human. Maybe in an alternate Reality such as the Ekcolir Reality, an analogue of Henry Kuttner might have written an version of "The Time Trap" featuring some science such as advanced cloning technology, turning the tale into actual science fiction. As it was, the science content of "The Time Trap" is minimal and we have a silly fantasy adventure that reads like a comic book. Even all the naked ladies that Kuttner included can't save "The Time Trap" from well-earned oblivion in the dim days of Sci Fi past.
 |
the Schwartz mystery
|
I've long been puzzled by the decision Isaac Asimov made when he decided to include a man named Schwartz in the novel "
Pebble in the Sky". Schwartz is magically sent through time as the result of some accident with atomic power. In "The Time Trap", both Kent and Nirvor are sent back in time when lightening bolts trigger activation of the time machine that the Master build in the ancient city of Al Bekr. I have to wonder if Asimov was emboldened by silly stories like "The Time Trap" when he decided to have Schwartz magically travel through time.
Next: mixed genres, mystery and science fiction
No comments:
Post a Comment