The Vocal Apparatus

Robots in the Ekcolir Reality.

 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.

Figure 1. Rocketry research in the Ekcolir Reality.

 

Science in the Ekcolir Reality.

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.

Virginity in the Ekcolir Reality.

 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. 😔

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.

Fig 3. Dozens of questions and answers.

 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. 😞

inside the Moon in the Ekcolir Reality

 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, Thaddeus 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. 

Alien visitors reach Earth in 1875 (watch).

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 Thaddeus Juvenal have gone to the Moon in 1887?

Telepathic sisters from Venus in the wild west.

 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.

Georgia in the Ekcolir Reality.

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.

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. 💕

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. 

China Boy in the Ekcolir Reality

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.

Mr. If (image source)

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".

robots in the Ekcolir Reality

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. 

Sydney at the junk yard.

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.

Rewbarb Rides Again.

 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.

Pyramids in the Ekcolir Reality.

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.

Brought to the big screen in the Ekcolir Reality.

in an alternate Reality

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. 

Menace of the Thought Robot!

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.

Mary - damsel in distress

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?

Fish Men of Venus.

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.

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. 

tormented by the radio robot!

 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.

how do you keep a mouse from exploding?

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".   

fantastic biography

 "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.

Aurita, Druid Princess of Zonara.

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.💕

cover art by Harold W. McCauley

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.

Aurita's image in a crystal.

 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. 

featuring "Robots Return"

 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".

Figure 4

 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.

image source

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".

Reprogramming: the fate of androids in the Ekcolir Reality.

 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.

android worries

 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.

Ellen has a plan.

 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.

neofuturism

 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.

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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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