Perception of the Future

cover art for "The World Is Mine"

 In my previous blog post, I commented on "The World Is Mine", a goofy time travel story featuring invaders from Mars... of the future. In that story, each time that important information arrives in the past from the future, a new historical timeline for Earth is created (timelines A, B and C in the image shown to the right).

The Wonders of Time Travel. Here in this blog post, I'll describe "The Barrier", a time travel story by Anthony Boucher which provides its own answer to the question: if time travel becomes common in the future, then why don't we have swarms of visitors from the future?

 Boucher Festival. However, before traveling to the year 2473 in order to witness Boucher's imagined time barrier, I want to call-out one more story from the June 1943 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction, "Pelagic Spark" also by Boucher. Yes, this blog post is going to relentlessly turn into an Anthony Boucher festival.

in the Ekcolir Reality

 Digress. Boucher's real name was William Anthony Parker White and he published stories under various fake names including H. H. Holmes and Herman W. Mudgett. I suppose authors who had established a reputation in one field (such as mystery writing) did not want their good name ruined by occasionally publishing a silly science fiction story. Maybe in some alternate Reality, such as the Ekcolir Reality, there was a female analogue of White named Alice White who published the real story of time travel. Maybe Alice was a tryp'At agent on Earth with access to information about the future.

 Gullibility. On October 30, 1938 the CBS Radio Network broadcast "The War of the Worlds", a dramatized alien invasion. Some people believed that an actual alien invasion had taken place. Going into the 1940s, people were nervous about the war in Europe and some revived discussion of Nostradamus as a source of prophetic insight into future events.

interior art for "On a Limb"

 World At War. Into this bubbling cauldron came Nostradamus: The Man Who Saw Through Time, first published in 1941, and "On a Limb" by Anthony Boucher in the October 1941 issue of Unknown Worlds, the later making reference to The Story of Prophecy by H. J. Forman and claiming that Nostradamus had successfully predicted historical events that came to pass hundreds of years after his death, including World War II. 

in the Ekcolir Reality

Even if Unknown Worlds was devoted to fantasy, you might imagine that claims made about predicting the future would provoke some skeptical discussion. In the June 1942 issue of Unknown Worlds was 1) "Concerning Nostradamus and Co." by the magazine's editor, John Campbell, 2) "Broken Limbs: A Survey of the Nostradamus Crop" by Anthony Boucher and 3) a review by L. Sprague de Camp of McCann's book, Nostradamus: The Man Who Saw Through Time.

In his introductory essay, Campbell presented the clever suggestion that 1) Nostradamus knew details about the future, but was "forced" to encode what he knew in confusing language for publication during his own lifetime. Of course, the other alternative, is that 2) Nostradamus knew nothing about the future, but his confused writings can be creatively interpreted as predictions of a few future events, after they have already occurred. 

Predicting the future in 1941.

 Batting 0.000. As a magazine editor, Campbell was in the entertainment business, and option #1 (above) is much more provocative. Between Boucher's October 1941 "On a Limb" and his June 1942 "Broken Limbs" was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into the raging world war. Boucher "explains away" the failure of Nostradamus and his followers to predict such major events as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as being due to the fact that Nostradamus was mostly interested in France and so "little things" like the Pearl Harbor attack were not his concern. Boucher reviewed a half dozen attempts by various contemporary authors to use the writings of Nostradamus to predict the course of world war II, and none of them predicted the Pearl Harbor attack, even though it got the U.S into the war and eventually led to the liberation of France.

2 syllogisms of a circular fantasy

 L. Sprague de Camp had training in science and engineering and he was not buying any of the Nostradamus prophecy nonsense that Boucher was pedaling. De Camp calmly observed that in times of stress, hucksters routinely conjure up Nostradamus out of his grave by using a magic circle. De Camp condemned those who promoted Nostradamus as a source of information about the future as being caught in a web of circular fantasy (I can't call it "logic", but see the image to the left).

Figure 1

In L. Sprague de Camp's book review, he began right where Boucher's survey of prophesy left off and de Camp noted the skill with which Nostradamus "scholars" on both sides of the world war conflict were able to read the murky mumbo-jumbo of Nostradamus as providing support and prophecy for the ultimate victory of their side in the war. De Camp sarcastically commented, "A wonderful man, Nostradamus." Next, de Camp provided side-by-side comparisons of how Boucher and other Nostradamus "scholars" translated some of the writings of Nostradamus. It was clear to see that the various translations were totally different, fitting the personal biases of each translator as they tried to invent ways of turning the words of Nostradamus into prophecy. Figure 1 shows how de Camp ended his book review. 

more internal art for "On a limb"

It is interesting that de Camp did not use his real name to publish his rational viewpoint on "prophecy" in Unknown Worlds. Alec Nevala-Lee has documented John Campbell's perspective on Nostradamus, which we can place in the same category as Campbell's boosterism for other wacky pseudoscience like the "Dean space drive", "Dianetics", Rhine's telepathy experiments, and the "Hieronymous Machine" that was claimed to detect a new form of energy.

Figure 2. L. Sprague de Camp's limerick

 Creating the Future. In "Pelagic Spark" we learn how Anthony Boucher imagines that it is possible to successfully predict the future, without having access to time travel. "Pelagic Spark" begins with L. Sprague de Camp as a character, making comments about Nostradamus and "prophecy fakers" such as Boucher.

the ending of "Pelagic Spark"

 De Camp vs Boucher. In "Pelagic Spark", de Camp publishes the silly limerick shown in Figure 2. Then a strange chain of events is set in motion and future events come to align with that example of nonsense poetry. Boucher's imaginary chain of events includes the actions of Hitler in 1951 and the Aryan World State that is established at the end of world war II. Eventually, mere existence of the "pelagic spark" limerick leads to the collapse of the Aryan World State. 

****************THE BARRIER**************************************

Figure 3. Boucher's 25th century.

 Figure 3 shows how Boucher depicted the future for his story "The Barrier", describing Earth about 500 years ahead of the year 1942. I wonder what Boucher's readers in 1942 thought about a future society which would dogmatically proclaim that interplanetary space travel is impossible.

interior art for "The Barrier"

In the 25th century, a barrier against time travel from future to the past was deployed by a society that thought it was perfect and feared time travelers who might bring imperfections from the future. 

I'm rather amazed that Boucher had the audacity to write an anti-time travel story set within a totally anti-progress society where "there was nothing more to achieve". Actually, there are two temporal barriers in the future. One barrier blocks travel into the future and the other blocks travel into the past.

 We All Have Capes. John Brent uses a time machine to depart from the year 1942 and he crashes into the time barrier at the year 2473. Then he tries to return to the 20th century and he crashes into the other time barrier in 2423. Now his time machine is trapped between 2423 and 2473. 

the man from Venus

Eventually, with the help of a man from Venus, John is able to blast through the time barrier in 2473, but there are other temporal barriers further upwhen.

I suppose Boucher should be praised (as was done in this fanzine) for 1) having the needed will power to invent a future version of English that is spoken in the 25th century and 2) forcing the characters in "The Barrier" to use that ugly language through almost the entire story. I found it annoying. 😡

 Related Reading. Boucher's "Elsewhen" is another time travel story (light on the science and really a mystery tale) which I previously mentioned in Feb. 2022. Back in 2019 I imagined that William White played a role in the inspiration for Isaac Asimov's time travel novel The End of Eternity. Anthony Boucher's "Transfer point" (1950) shows how a time loop can be changed, an idea that Asimov incorporated into The End of Eternity. 

cover by Robert Stanley

 Asimov's Barrier. Asimov's The End of Eternity also features a time travel barrier, and I have to wonder if that was inspired by Boucher's "The Barrier". There is also the more general issue of cross-fertilization between genres. By dabbling in Sci Fi, Boucher probably motivated many science fiction story writers to incorporate mystery story plot lines in their Sci Fi.

Apparently Boucher was a member of the Mañana Literary Society (at Wikipedia). It was rather shocking to see Boucher include L. Sprague de Camp and his wife as characters in "Pelagic Spark". However, I suppose that was simply a warm-up exercise for his novel Rocket to the Morgue which includes many characters based on members of the Mañana Literary Society and other folks in the Sci Fi publishing business. There was a review of Rocket to the Morgue by Campbell in the January 1943 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction. You can download the book from this website. 

Figure 4. Cover by "Shayn".

 Rocket to Mañana. At just 24 pages, I could not slog through all of "The Barrier" without skimming, so I had no expectation of reading all of Rocket to the Morgue (over 200 pages). That cover art in Figure 4 is mighty freaky... was it calculated and designed to entice Sci Fi fans to read a mystery novel?

Warning. Sci Fi fans, beware: In the first chapter of Rocket to the Morgue Boucher takes readers through 1) a recap of his previous mystery novel, 2) a diaper change and 3) a recipe for cooking rabbit . Yawn.

 That Sonofabitch Hilary. That's Hilary Foulkes, the money-grubbing son of a famous writer. Nobody likes Hilary and his endless efforts to maximize profits from his father's literary legacy. Spoiler: the story distracts readers by asking who would want to kill Hilary [answer = everyone] when you should be asking who Hilary wants to murder.

in the Ekcolir Reality

Science fiction arrives in Chapter 2 with the appearance of Captain Comet and his robot, Adam Fink, characters in some kind of comic book being written by a Sci Fi writer named Joe Henderson.

 5D Breasts. Chapter 3 continues the methodical process of introducing another writer who has reason to dislike Hilary. Readers also get to hear about a game that Boucher and other writers played, trying to sneak bits of sexual content past science fiction editors who did not want sex in their pulp magazines.

I'm not a reader of mystery stories, but I get the feeling that in writing Rocket to the Morgue, Boucher was trying to move beyond the usual conventions of mystery genre stories by tossing in some science fiction. If you are a science fiction fan, I suggest that you read this, which decodes the characters in Rocket to the Morgue who were based on real people working in the science fiction genre.

cover by Steele Savage

It is not a good sign when I wander off to read "reviews" of a novel such as Rocket to the Morgue rather than read the novel. Judging by comments that readers have posted online, some readers have enjoyed the story, but others have not. For example, Daniel Marvello at Goodreads wrote: "...the over-the-top banter between the characters quickly became annoying. I had to give up on the book after a few chapters." I feel Daniel's pain.

 Took the Words Out of My Mouth.  Martin explained: "I chose this book because Boucher based several characters on SF luminaries of the early Astounding era. While the characters are in there, they are flat. Like many characters in puzzle mysteries, they are cutouts. All that's important is where they are when, and their motives as described by observers. They aren't written as people, but as pieces in a game."

image source

 Literary Gamesmanship. Long ago, I read The Squares of the City by John Brunner (reviewed here by "2theD"). In that novel, Brunner set himself the task of constructing a plot around the moves of a chess game. The plot of The Squares of the City was highly contrived and generated no interest for me. I feel the same way after reading the first several chapters of Rocket to the Morgue. However, reviewers of the novel frequently mention  the character "Sister Ursula" and Rocket to the Morgue is part of the "Sister Ursula Series", so I felt obligated to keep reading just so that I could be introduced to Sister Ursula.

 Early Ending. I made it to page 55 of Rocket to the Morgue, but by then I'd had enough. I could not get something that Isaac Asimov once wrote out of my head... "...they insisted that I at least read it and give it a chance. So I did. I tried to read it and the gears locked up long before I finished. It seemed to me so unsuccessful a book..."

cover by Len Goldberg

 Skim and Reverse. Starting from the end of the novel, I skimmed and found Boucher's "solution" to the murder mystery. How some people can maintain interest in such contrived mystery stories is beyond my comprehension.

What about the idea that Rocket to the Morgue might have enticed murder mystery fans to "cross over" and start reading science fiction? I can't imagine that Boucher's twisted depiction of science fiction and science fiction writers would have attracted anyone to the Sci Fi genre.

 And the Reverse? But then, what about the other way around? Might some Sci Fi fans be goaded into reading Rocket to the Morgue and then decide to read additional murder mysteries? I can't imagine that happening either. My advice to Sci Fi fans, don't be suckered into reading this novel for "insights" into the golden age of science fiction. There are no such "insights" in the story.

in the Ekcolir Reality

 Shorter. Working on the assumption that shorter Boucher stories are better for me, I decided to travel upwhen from 1943 in search of a better Anthony Boucher science fiction story. Maybe Boucher's science fiction got better with time? Boucher's "Elsewhen" is part of the Fergus O'Breen Series of stories. I took a look at "The Chronokinesis of Jonathan Hull" as published in the June 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.

 Change Your Life. In 1971, time travel (chronokinesis) becomes possible and two men begin living backwards when they are ripped out of the normal flow of time. "The Chronokinesis of Jonathan Hull" becomes a murder mystery for detective Fergus O'Breen when he awakens to find one of those reverse-living men (Mr. Hull) dead in his bedroom.

interior art for Chronokinesis

 Murder Suicide. Then another dead body is found across town; that of the other time-traveler who was murdered by Mr. Hull. Lucky for O'Breen, Hull wrote an account of the invention of time travel in 1971 and how after living in reverse for 30 years, he killed his fellow time traveler.

According to Boucher, what does it mean to "live backwards"? Does Mr. Hull grow younger as he moves back through time towards the 1940s? No, he grows old and ends up with long gray hair. Hull does speak backwards and so as not to attract attention, he must walk around town backwards (which looks like walking forwards to everyone else).

Readers are told that objects held by Hull magically join his backwards movement through time (this allows him to eat food), so what happens when Hull fires a gun and the bullet is no longer in contact with his body? 

see these two covers: 1, 2

When fired from the gun, does Hull's bullet move towards or away from the intended victim? Hull kills himself with cyanide. If we were watching, would we see the cyanide molecules all rush out of his mitochondria and assemble into a capsule that pops out of Hull's mouth? What happens to his body when he dies? Why doesn't it keep moving into the past? What happens to the food that Hull eats? If we watched Hull walking backwards, would we see carbon dioxide molecules enter his body, come together to form sugar molecules and then get spit out of his mouth as starch in a potato chip? 

"The Chronokinesis of Jonathan Hull" makes no sense from a scientific perspective and isn't much of a detective story. I place it in the same category of science fiction as stories in which the author imagines a technological breakthrough that allows a person to shrink to microscopic size or accelerate their movements.

in the Ekcolir Reality

 5th of 5. The last of the Fergus O'Breen Series of stories was "Gandolphus", published in the June 1952 issue of Other Worlds Science Stories. Sadly, there is no science in this alien invasion story. "Gandolphus" reminds me of Hal Clement's 1949 story "Needle". Both stories involve aliens who arrive on Earth and the aliens take up residence inside human hosts.

Clement made an effort to provide a science-based explanation for how an alien organism might reside inside a human body and interact with the host nervous system. For "Gandolphus", Boucher made no such effort and the story reads more like magical fantasy than science fiction. Detective Fergus O'Breen is in New York and meets Charles Harrington who soon drops dead, but he left behind a written account of his alien contact. The story reads rather like a mystery as Harrington comes to slowly realize that the alien being, Gandolphus, is inside his body and sometimes takes control.

cover art by Melanie Korte

Gandolphus himself adds in one last page at the end of Harrington's typed report, then Gandolphus moves on to a new host body to collect more information. Gandolphus is the advanced scout for a fleet of alien spacecraft soon to arrive and send a horde of aliens into many human bodies.

The lead story in the June 1952 issue of Other Worlds Science Stories was "Robot---Unwanted" by Daniel Keyes. Back in the 1970, I read his story "Flowers for Algernon" as published in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. "Robot---Unwanted" reminds me of the movie Bicentennial Man. Both stories concern a robot who becomes the first robot to ever become free... not the property of some human. In writing "Robot---Unwanted" it seems that Keyes was influenced by Asimov's positronic robot stories and I have to wonder if Asimov was also influenced by "Robot---Unwanted". The novelette "The Bicentennial Man" was published in 1976. 

interior art for "Robot---Unwanted" by Robert Fuqua

the ending of "Robot---Unwanted"

In "Robot---Unwanted" the free robot is cleverly called Robert F-R (Free-Robot). After becoming the world's first free robot he struggles to find a job. Robert needs a job so that he can afford lubricant, energy and repairs. This is another story in which the Space Age came to an early end and now humans are stuck on Earth and unemployment is a problem. Humans resent robots for taking away jobs. After Robert starts his own business and has learned how to make money, he dreams of going off into outer space to found a colony where free robots can exist beyond the reach of humans.

Next: some old stories about robots.

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