At the end of my previous blog post, I commented on the 1952 story "
Robot---Unwanted". In search of other science fiction by Daniel Keyes, I ended up in the
May 1952 issue of
Marvel Science Fiction where "Precedent" was published. "Precedent" is another robot story by Keyes which I will discuss on this page, below.
The lead article in that May 1952 issue of Marvel Science Fiction was "She Knew the Face of Evil" by Robert Moore Williams, which is a story about telepathic humans. I'm a sucker for stories about telepathy, so I got distracted by Mr. Williams. I noticed that Williams had published "Robots Return" in the September 1938 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction. I'm a fan of science fiction stories about robots and I'm always looking for old Sci Fi stories that might have influenced Isaac Asimov and his stories about positronic robots.
I have not been able to learn very much about Robert Moore Williams. According to
Wikipedia, he had a degree in journalism and so it is not surprising that reporters sometimes appeared in his stories. For example, in the
June 1939 issue of
Amazing Stories was "Lundstret's Invention" which begins with a newspaper reporter who is trying to get the "scoop" on a secretive man who has built a rocket.
The Secret History of Rocket Science. The reporter calls upon a rocket experimenter named Langley to help confirm the suspicion that a functioning rocket exists. On the second page of "Lundstret's Invention", the reporter is dead and now Langley has to worry that sophisticated rocket technology will fall into the hands of Nazi Germany.
Rocket Science. As shown in
Figure 1, the European rocket scientist Lundstret, after being held in a concentration camp for a year, has come to America and built a rocket that flies by means of some
Hi Tek™ light beams. To prevent his rocket technology from falling into
Evil™ hands, Lundstret sends his test rocket into outer space. The End.
Robert Moore Williams took his readers to the Moon in a story called "The World of Reluctant Virgins": a rocket lands on the Moon in the year 1955. Elon Musk John Holden has financed the construction of a rocket which lands on the Moon. Almost immediately Holden sees an inscription on a nearby cliff face (see Figure 2).
I love the idea that people could have reached the Moon long ago, but how? As told by Williams, the Moon was colonized in the distant past, but sadly no details are given to we readers. 😔
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| Fig. 2. interior art for "The World of Reluctant Virgins" |
Capes on the Moon. "The World of Reluctant Virgins" by Robert Moore Williams was published in the
November 1950 issue of
Amazing Stories. Long, long ago, some mysterious Moon colonists dug out vast caverns underground where they built and lived in cites, apparently eating fungus. Yummy. Then those ancient colonists tried to develop a means to attain immortality. They did succeed in greatly prolonging their lives, but in the process they became sterile. Eventually, those residents of the Moon all died off. We never learn much about those long-lost colonists, and I imagine that maybe they were aliens from a distant exoplanet.
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Fig 3. Dozens of questions and answers.
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Green Stuff. Then in 1887, a small group of humans traveled to the Moon and discovered the underground caverns. If the first rocket to the Moon arrived in 1955, then you must be wondering...
How did people reach the Moon in 1887? The explanation provided for that mystery is shown in the image to the left (
Figure 3). Almost as soon as the rocket lands in 1955, a dude named Stinson shows up and provides a big info dump of exposition. The problem is, we can't trust anything that Stinson says. 😞
Telepathic Ovaries. One of the crew members who arrives onboard the rocket is a woman (Jane Tovara). Jane senses that something is wrong on the Moon. Apparently all women have telepathic ovaries that warn them when they are being sterilized. The sterilization process has something to do with the funky blue light sources inside the underground cities of the Moon. 🔵
Finally, Thadeus Juvenal, the inventor of the "green stuff" (Figure 3) shows up with the rest of the "men and their wives" who reached the Moon in 1887. They try to hijack the rocket (I guess they were tired of eating nothing but fungus for the past 68 years). The story ends with the idea that older Earthlings will flock to the Moon caverns so as to attain longevity. Sadly, there is no evidence for virgins on the Moon. 😕 "The World of Reluctant Virgins" is fairly jumbled and non-nonsensical, so I have to wonder if it was brutally edited before publication.
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Alien visitors reach Earth in 1875 (watch).
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On October 21, 1966 television's
The Wild Wild West delivered an episode called "
The Night of the Flying Pie Plate". Over on NBC that week, it was "
What Are Little Girls Made Of?". In neither show are things as they first appear. For the
Star Trek episode, exoplanet archeologist Dr. Roger Korby has been turned into an android. In "The Night of the Flying Pie Plate" viewers were shown a pink blob of light falling from the sky to Earth and the gold-prospecting residents of an Arizona town are made to believe that an alien spaceship has landed. If this is evidence of spaceships in 1875, then why shouldn't Thadeus Juvenal have gone to the Moon in 1887?
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Telepathic sisters from Venus in the wild west.
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Crab Apple Pie. As Scotty might have said, "They're green!" Three women with their faces painted green step out of the pink spaceship and explain that they have run out of fuel. In an amazing stroke of technological foresight, their spaceship is powered by gold and Jim West has just ridden into town with a million dollars worth of gold dust. The Bad Guys™ try to make off with all the gold in town, but Jim West foils the alien plan.
I've seen a broad assortment of westerns, fantasy and science fiction stories attributed to Robert Moore Williams. I suppose most writers who were trying to make a living by publishing pulp magazine stories in the 1940s felt a need to branch out into multiple genres.
How to Stop a Man from Drinking. I don't generally read fantasy stories, but as an example of a fantasy story by Williams I looked at "The Reformation of Joseph Reed" in the December 1941 issue of Fantastic Adventures. I was motivated to read "The Reformation of Joseph Reed" because I've long wondered about the origins of Isaac Asimov's demon-like character Azazel and I have to wonder if Asimov read "The Reformation of Joseph Reed" and was charmed by the demons.
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interior art for
"The Reformation
of Joseph Reed" |
"The Reformation of Joseph Reed" features a pint-sized demon named Georgia (Joe buys Georgia from a mysterious dwarf for $2.00) who turns around the life of down-on-his-luck reporter Joseph Reed, who drinks too much. With Georgia's help, Joseph captures the city's worst gangster, gets a raise and even gets Janie Rice (she's a redheaded girl with "
curves where a girl ought to have them") to marry him. 💕
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| excerpt from "The Reformation of Joseph Reed" |
It turns out that Janie also has her own demon, China Boy, and soon after Joe and Janie move in together, there is the pitter-patter of tiny baby demons around the house.
You might question the wisdom of bringing demons into your home, but relax.... Georgia purrs whenever Joe pats her head.
However, Georgia has a magical tail that can reduce a big tough gangster to tears. Similarly, China can whip Joe into shape. With China and Georgia around, Joe gives up drinking and becomes a model husband.
I have a problem with fantasy stories: I never know what the
rules are. In "The Reformation of Joseph Reed", some people can see the demons and some can't. Also unexplained is why it is that Joe and Janie are able to get demons from the mysterious dwarf who comes to town selling demons. I suppose the answer is: plot. "The Reformation of Joseph Reed" reminds me of a story by Asimov called "
What if".
I'm fine with
wish fulfillment stories, but often they are simply
too magical as the author allows the protagonist to effortlessly move ahead from success to success. Are fantasy stories more prone to this problem than science fiction stories simply because there are fewer
rules and constraints?
Before moving on from fantasy-land and Fantastic Adventures magazine, I read "Sidney, the Screwloose Robot" by William Peter McGivern which was published in the June 1941 issue. Apparently McGivern worked as a reporter in Philadelphia and judging from "Sidney, the Screwloose Robot", he had a very naive view of science and engineering. In any case, this seems to be a joke story about a lazy and drunken robot. 🛢+🤖
Yes, Sidney can get drunk by drinking oil. During the months that it took to build Sidney, bills mounted and if Sidney can't be a productive working robot, then all is lost for his cash-strapped builders.
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Sydney at the junk yard.
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For a brief time, Nancy, a cute redhead, is able to get Sidney to stop drinking and do some work, but then the robot reverts to his natural laziness. In the end, Sidney gets to sit in front of a junk yard, acting as a novelty display piece and never having to do any work. It is heaven for Sidney. "Sidney, the Screwloose Robot" robot reminds me of Asimov's story "Reason" which was published in April 1941.
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Rewbarb Rides Again.
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Sentient Radio. The editor of
Fantastic Adventures, Ray Palmer, must have enjoyed McGivern's goofy stories about fantasy technology gone bad. In the
December 1941 issue there were two stories by McGivern. In "Rewbarb's Remarkable Radio", Mr. Rewbarb's radio suddenly begins speaking and complaining about all of the awful things it has heard, both on the air and inside Rewbarb's house.
Pyramid Power. The second story was "People of the Pyramids" and appeared under the fake name P. F. Costello. This story could have been called Indiana Jones and the Lost Pyramid.
In "People of the Pyramids" there is no Indiana Jones, but Neal Kirby must pretend to be an archeologist and save the fetching Jane Manners (she's the daughter of the
real archeologist in the story).
Desert Adventure. There is a lost civilization out in the desert. To escape their war-like neighbors, they hide behind an invisibility screen. They live underground, below a pyramid.
Maybe in some alternate
Reality, such as the
Ekcolir Reality, there could have been an alternate version of this story in which Jane Manners was an archeologist and the star of a movie about discovering a lost civilization out in the Sahara desert. Since I prefer science fiction stories, why not imagine that space aliens provided the invisibility screen?
I've never seen Stargate Origins or any of the Stargate shows. I wonder if they could be viewed as developing the same kind of "lost civilization" plot that McGivern created for "People of the Pyramids".
In the March 1941 issue of Fantastic Adventures there was an autobiographical essay by McGivern. That essay was written comically and provides little factual information about McGivern.
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Menace of the Thought Robot!
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In that
March 1941 issue were three stories by David Wright O'Brien including "The Thought Robot". Roy and Mike have built a telepathic robot, but they can't figure out how to control it. The robot seems to be tuned into subconscious thoughts.
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Mary - damsel in distress
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The plot of "The Thought Robot" is very similar to that of
Forbidden Planet. Beware the horrid thoughts that lurk in the human subconscious! Along for the ride is Miss Mary, the third leg of a love triangle with Roy and Mike. 💕 Both inventors are hot for Mary. Can the evil-doing thought robot be controlled? Can Mary be saved? Who will end up with Mary, Roy or Mike?
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Fish Men of Venus.
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The cover story for that
March 1941 issue was "Slaves of the Fish Men" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. With Burroughs having "used up" all of the planets such as Mars and Venus for his planetary adventures, other writers such as Ray Cummings (see his "Onslaught of the Druid Girls", below) had to go the extra mile to find new locations for their adventures. For "Onslaught of the Druid Girls", Cummings invented a
second moon for Earth.
I could not bring myself to read "Slaves of the Fish Men", but I confess having some curiosity about how the fish men of Venus could have kept human slave girls under water. With stories such as "Slaves of the Fish Men" being published in 1941, I guess I can understand why a young Isaac Asimov wrote his own adventure story set on on Venus.
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| interior art for "The Floating Robot" |
In the
January 1941 issue of
Fantastic Adventures, was "The Dynamouse" by McGivern, but the cover story was "The Floating Robot" by David Wright O'Brien. I'm surprised by how many silly robot stories there were in this fantasy magazine.
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tormented by the radio robot!
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Terror of the Radio Robot. In "The Floating Robot", Sally has a magical voice that summons the titular floating robot (Yolan) from an alternate dimension, the world of radio waves. After much travail, with Yolan threatening to kill Sally, she screams and Yolan is sent back to his parallel universe.
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how do you keep a mouse from exploding?
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Judging from the letters column in
Fantastic Adventures, "The Dynamouse" was a popular story. It features a mouse, Nelie, inside Professor Waldo's laboratory. Nelie eats uranium. Now the city of Chicago is in danger of being destroyed by a nuclear mouse explosion.
Before moving on from Fantastic Adventures, I must note that the June 1941 issue of Fantastic Adventures had as its lead story "Onslaught of the Druid Girls" by Ray Cummings. There was also a biographical article about Cummings which says, "Mr. Cummings is reticent in talking about himself".
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fantastic biography
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"Onslaught of the Druid Girls" features an inhabited second moon for Earth, Zonara, perpetually hidden by it magical atmosphere that does strange things to light. If you read "Onslaught of the Druid Girls", also read
this.
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Aurita, Druid Princess of Zonara.
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Lee Blaine builds a spaceship using anti-gravity technology and goes off to visit Zonara.
Bad News. His spaceship crashes and he's stranded on Zonara.
Good News. He instantly meets Aurita, one of the Virgins of Dreen.
Worse News. Aurita and Lee must escape from an evil Nonite.
Better News. The Virgins of Dreen can fly by riding on Aerites, giant birds.
The city of Dreen is in the tops of trees in the forest of Zonara. The plot of "Onslaught of the Druid Girls" is very similar to that of "The Cloud Minders", an episode of Star Trek. The Nonites are in a similar social situation as the Troglytes.
Flying Virgins of Zonora. After an army of flying Virgins win a big battle against evil forces, Lee and Aurita can settle down together and rule the moon Zonara.💕
Hi Tek™
Vibrators. There are some technological wonders on Zonara that exist in some hybrid zone between magic and science. Aurita's brother, Raalt, has a laboratory at Castle-Cliff where he is perfecting a magic vibration-beam that is intended to "
greatly benefit the Virgins" because it can defend Dreen against the evil ground-dwelling Nonites who often kidnap Virgins.
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Aurita's image in a crystal.
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Hi Tek™
Crystals. Also, there are magic crystals that can capture a person's image like a photograph (see the image to the left).
Fantasy Mush. In the September 1938 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction was letter from Isaac Asimov in which he welcomed the inclusion of some fantasy stories inside Astounding. However, he also added his voice to those who had expressed opposition to the inclusion of romantic "mush" and virgins in the pages of Astounding.
Vocal Apparatus. In that September 1938 issue of Astounding was "Robots Return" by Robert Moore Williams, a story that was later re-published in several anthologies. A group of robots is searching for their mysterious origin. Arriving on Earth, with its ancient cities, all in ruins, the robots also puzzle over the mystery of why it is they can speak, but usually they simply communicate via radio signals. They are rather disgusted by the idea that living biological creatures might have once created the first robots 8,000 years previously. The animals of Earth were all killed off by a biological plague, but humans sent robots out into space. There is mention of an attempt to preserve some humans in suspended animation, but we reader see no evidence that any humans survived.
It is easy to imagine Lucas having read "Robots Return" at the age of 19 and then nearly 30 years later drawing on memories of that old story to craft the Star Trek episode that was called "The Changeling".
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Figure 4
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Flying Robots. I've always been puzzled by Nomad's ability to float. As depicted in the interior art for "Robots Return" by Charles Schneeman (Figure 4), the robots can fly. They are powered by atomic energy and they have the ability to control gravity. While exploring the ruins of Earth, they find elevators and conclude that the residents of Earth were primitive and lacked the ability to cancel gravity and fly through the air.
In "Robots Return", there is a scene featuring an ancient crumbling statue on Earth that is pointing towards the sky. That scene imagined by Williams may have inspired Asimov to include a similar scene in Foundation and Earth. See the Michael Whelan cover art that is shown to the left. I wonder if "Robots Return" helped to inspire Asimov's 1943 story "Death Sentence".
Androids. After being distracted by Williams, McGiven and O'Brien, I finally was able to read "Precedent" by Daniel Keyes in the May 1952 issue of Marvel Science Fiction.
At the end of my previous blog post I mentioned the Daniel Keyes story "Robot---Unwanted" from the June 1952 issue of Other Worlds Science Stories. In that story, readers see the travails of the first "free robot". In "Precedent", the story begins with lamentations from two "freed androids", one of them quite drunk.
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android worries
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Discrimination. The freed androids live in segregated android settlements and they have to wear an "
A" on their clothing. There are only a few saloons that are open to the androids who are "
second class citizens"
Earth-Venus War. Earth's androids are being re-programmed so that they can fight in the war against Venus. Some androids, originally programmed so as to be unable to kill others, are killing themselves to avoid being sent off to war.
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Ellen has a plan.
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Mush. You might wonder why "Precedent" ended up in a magazine like Marvel Science Fiction and not Astounding. I'll blame it on "mush" 💕. At the center of "Precedent" is the precedent-setting android, Laedo, who has a human girlfriend, Ellen. Laedo dreads being reprogrammed to have the ability to hate, but Ellen thinks Laedo will also gain the capacity to love her.
Is It Sci Fi? You'll have to read "Precedent" in order to see how Keyes ends the story. The androids in "Precedent" seem to be biological constructs, not computerized robots. These androids eat food and can get drunk and in order to give Laedo the capacity to experience hate, a doctor operates on Laedo while he is under the effects of an anesthetic. I suspect that Keyes was imagining his androids as artificial life-forms along the lines of the robots in
Karel Čapek's play "R.U.R.". As a science fiction fan, I find "Precedent" a source of frustration. There is no description of how or why these androids were constructed or how their emotions can be altered during a brief operation. I can't stop myself from thinking that in writing "Precedent" Keyes was working in the literary tradition of stories such as
Frankenstein and
Pinocchio.
Next: Compo the Amazing Computer
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