Magic Microbes

Figure 1. SIHȺM: SIH Microbes.
Search for Interesting Hollywood Microbes.

Unless I have forgotten something, the first magic 'microbe' I ever saw was the single-celled space organism in "The Immunity Syndrome". Of course, the alien space cell in Star Trek was hugely pregnant and big enough for Spock to spend an entire afternoon filled with scientific investigations inside of it. In the end, and in the spirit of scientific discovery, Spock deploys his calm and cool intellect to reach the logical conclusion that this amazing alien life-form must be disintegrated with an antimatter bomb. 💣 💥

 Impossible Fiction. Back in March,  I began my 2026 Search for Interesting Hollywood Aliens by mentioning the film "Project Hail Mary" which was being advertised as depicting an "impossible scientific mystery". My first question is: does this movie provides us with a couple of hours of entertainment featuring an interesting alien? Bonus: is there an interesting microbe?

 Sun Fiction. Back in 2022 I commented on the 1942 story "Proof" by Hal Clement. That story featured life-forms with a "matrix of electrons" that could convert stellar radiation into neutrons. Not only does the "skin" of these Sun creatures (the hero of the story is named "Kron") surround a core of neutronium (held in the creature's "nucleus"), but the "skin" can convert energy from the environment into new "particles of neutronium" that are then guided by magnetic fields towards the body core. I'm a huge skeptic when it comes to imaginary life-forms that live in or on a star, particularly if they are biological life-forms composed of cells.

 Alien Invasion. In "Project Hail Mary", we are apparently being asked to believe that some alien cells are able to fly through outer space and gather around stars and store lots of energy as neutrinos. Maybe all of this fantasy biology is explained in the book, but in the film, people just talk fast when "explaining" this alien biology and hope that we will be distracted by the one other alien life-form that is in the movie: Rocky, an Eridian.  

 Alternate Technologies. We are told that the technologically-advanced Eridians are "unaware of relativity". A memorable example of this kind of "technology blind spot" is in Clifford D. Simak's story "The Big Front Yard" where there are aliens who never thought to invent paint. I find it hard to believe that any alien with technology advanced enough to be traveling around the galaxy would either never have invented paint or never noticed relativity.

 Thanks for the memories. I don't mind when futuristic technologies come bundled with with constraints and costs. In "Project Hail Mary", we are told that an incredibly great source of energy is available (the conveniently wrapped neutrinos in the space microbes), but we can't store ten years worth of food in our interstellar spaceship. Would sleeping for three years cause selective and temporary loss of some memories? I don't know, but I do know that this overly long movie could have been improved by not including this issue in the film.

 Rocky and hoodwinkle show. The Eridians might have skipped class on the day when relativity was discussed, but they do have some cool technology. I can't stop myself from imagining that they might have advanced nanotechnology and access to hierions. Imagine a type of hierion that could be made into a composite with xenon, forming a metallic substance that is both easy to form into useful shapes, yet is also very strong.

The Rocky character in "Project Hail Mary" is amusing for about 30 minutes. Not sure I'd want to spend the rest of my life teaching young Eridians. Shouldn't someone be out trying to prevent more habitable planets from having their solar energy supply blocked? Maybe that is for the sequel.

 Disclosure Day. Apparently there actually is an alien on screen at the end of "Disclosure Day", but the movie seems to actually be about some absurd corporate/government conspiracy like in The X-Files. While searching for "Disclosure Day." I saw a marketing trick for the film, a red cardinal flying across the search results page. Good to see Google has endless ways of making $$$ from corporations even while providing search engine results for a movie that claims to be about aliens helping to take down a SuperSecret™ conspiracy by some mysterious corporate entity.

Figure 2. Image source.

 Microbe Search. I decided to search for old science fiction stories about weird microbes. Before taking a deep dive into the ISFDB, I'll mention two of the earliest science fiction stories featuring microbes that I read or saw on television: "Surface Tension" and "Fantastic Voyage". In James Blish's "Surface Tension", Blish had the audacious idea of a character who was an intelligent paramecium which deeply offended my 12-year-old self's view of the universe. "Fantastic Voyage" was only memorable for a scene in which Raquel Welch gets encased in white blood cells which then have to be pealed off of her curvaceous body by three groping men. Related Reading: see the stories by Arthur Porges, see also "Un homme chez les microbes" by Maurice Renard which features a man who is shrunk. 

 The first candidate microbe story I came across at the ISFDB was "A Major Microbe" by W. L. Alden, but that story is not science fiction and is not actually about a microbe. The same can be said for "The Princess and the Microbe" by Margaret Sherwood.

 Weird title. I discovered that the French translation of "Needle" was titled "Le microbe détective". My best guess is that misleading title was used because there was an existing sub-genre of crime fiction about using microbes as murder weapons. 

At "First fictional lab-created plague" it says that "Professor Bakermann's Microbe" (published in 1890) is set in 1935, where the microbes causing all known diseases have been studied. The wacky Professor Bakermann cooks up a new disease microbe that can't be stopped; it is resistant to all known drugs and treatments. I've never read the story, but Google's AI Mode agent likens it to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The story was first published as a serial in La Science Illustrée (see Figure 2).

image source

I've skimmed through "The Master of the Microbe" (1926) which seems incredibly long and muddled, something like a James Bond movie with an evil character threatening the world. In the story there is a "crimson carnet", the "silver cylindar", assorted uncles, detectives and doctors along with several women to chase around after while a man-made plague spreads. The microbiology in "The Master of the Microbe" seems diseased and confused, although Google's AI Mode agent assured me that Robert Service had written into the story the idea that a pathogenic bacterium could be countered by a bacteriophage. However, the word "virus" appears only once in the story, in a sentence that makes no sense and we are told that Professor Hermann Krug (the discoverer of the plague bacterium) is a "well-known savant of Swiss origin, and considered in University circles to be a supreme authority on Micrology." It seems clear that Service knew nothing about microbes or microbiology. I could not sort out what is going on in the story with the dude named "Sinistra" who was apparently an "alias of Maximus Quin", not to be confused with "Cyrus Quin". However, I am still confused, but not interested enough to actually read the story.

image source

 Murder by Microbe. In "The Microbe of Death" by Rudolph De Cordova, a doctor kills a fellow doctor using anthrax (1897). "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not" -George Bernard Shaw. In the case of De Cordova: "Some men go to medical school and save lives, I learned in medical school how to take lives." In the same spirit was "The Microbe Murders" by Frederik G. Eberhard (1935), featuring a killer who commits murders using deadly germs and microbes.

 A Strange Case. Not much is known about John Geo. E. Leech, author of "The Microbe of Love" published in Pearson's Magazine, October 1902. This is a joke story in which a "bacillus" is found that causes people to experience the pangs of "love sickness". The discoverer hopes to make big $$$ by selling an antidote, but he falls in love before he can devise the antidote. Related Reading: "Mate in Two Moves", published in the May 1954 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. 

full sized image here

 In "The Secret of the Extinct Microbe" by Clement Fezandié (1924, part of the Dr. Hackensaw's Secrets series) the bumbling Dr. Hackensaw unleashes a virulent microbe from an ancient Egyptian archeological site. Readers are told that the only way to defeat the virulent "extinct microbe" is to find another ancient microbe that is able to destroy the first one.

 I skimmed "The Bacillus of Beauty" by Harriet Stark (1900). It is impossible for me to say that "The Bacillus of Beauty" is about a microbe. Readers are told that a woman's appearance is transformed by a bacillus, but there is no reason to believe it. The story seems like a fantasy where a magic spell does the transformation. 

 "The Bacillus of Conscience" (1905) by Wilbur Dick Nesbit (Wikipedia) is pretty funny. It inspired a song titled "B. Conscience". In  "The Bacillus of Conscience", Nesbit followed a standard Sci Fi formula with a scientist, his daughter (Constance) and a man who is love with the daughter. Song lyrics:

[Verse 1]
I must offer some comments
on the bacillus of conscience 
but refer to it as B. conscience
“B is for Busy,” giggled Constance
Busy B stands before our conscience
shall I confess to giant nonsense? 
Small it is, in the strong sense

"B. Conscience"

[Chorus]
It’s a tiny little bug with a heavy load
Screaming down a dusty, lonesome road
If you got a secret, it’s gonna find a way
To make you spit it out by the end of the day
(B. Conscience, honey)
(It’s a heavy price you pay)

[Verse 2]
In the bacterial inventory
was it new or a priori?
Obtained from a criminal gory
it made just a little history
For Professor Bindham's glory
and to be a science fiction story
B. conscience left the laboratory

[Bridge]
Is a man still a man if the truth is forced
Like a dry creek bed or a dying horse?
It ain't a choice when it’s under your skin
Just a fever burning out the original sin
(Burning it out)
(Let the truth walk in)

[Verse 3]
A microbe from 1905, I confess it
discovered by Wilbur D. Nesbit
It began with a crime committed  
Bacillus conscience with no respite
made the criminal confessed to it
We need it in 2026 just a bit
to use it on our president

[Final Chorus]
Oh, it’s a tiny little bug with a heavy load
It don't care about the laws or the code
If you got a secret, it’s gonna find a way
To make you scream it out by the end of the day
(B. Conscience, honey)
(It’s the only way)

[Outro]
Just a little drop for the man at the top
Once the valve is open it’s never gonna stop
(B. Conscience)
(Sinking in)
Yeah, it’s catching
Watch your mouth now
(B. Conscience)
It’s catching
(Catching) 

Figure 3. Interior art by Leo Morey

 Most Tedious. As fun as "The Bacillus of Conscience" (see above) is,  "The Bacillus of Death" by Arthur B. Reeve (1912) is contrived, tedious and pointlessly formulaic. In the competition for "most tedious" was "The Beautiful Bacillus" by Patrick Dutton (1931). This meandering story is science fantasy, very light on the science. First we are witness to a bacterium that grows quite large (see Figure 3) and becomes conscious then one of the two microbiologists responsible for this "advancement" shrinks and becomes a microbe that infects his buddy.

 Wells, Wells. In "The Stolen Bacillus" (1894) by H. G. Wells, an anarchist threatens the London water supply with cholera stolen from the laboratory of a bacteriologist. Disaster is averted when we learn that the stolen bacterial strain is not cholera, but rather a microbe that turns the skin blue... and only the anarchist is infected.

Figure 4. Interior art by George T. Tobin.

In 1895, the antics of anarchists was taken up in "The Purple Death" by W. L. Alden. After having published "A Major Microbe"  (see above on this page) someone must have explained to Alden what a microbe is (or maybe he read "The Stolen Bacillus"). In "The Purple Death", readers are told that the "purple death" is a a disease caused by a microbe found in snake venom. A nutty microbiologist hopes to use the "purple death" to cure poverty... by killing the poor.

 In "Dr. Cox's Discovery" by Herbert D. Ward (1903), the second paragraph includes this sentence: "What will not the bacillus be responsible for next?" Dr. Cox wants to isolate a "microbiote" that can cause death from old age. Here is another line from the story: "Nothing pleases an Englishman more than a spice of adventure in which the superstitions of an inferior race are trampled upon." 

Figure 5. Imaginary cover
art by Flow. (original cover)

Eventually, Dr. Cox finds something that that acts like a fountain of youth. In this fantasy story, Ward could not be bothered to provide a coherent explanation, just the hint that it involved test tubes. Then there is a contrived "explanation" for why Dr. Cox throws away the "fountain of youth". The End. As hinted at in Figure 4, much of the story revolves around a weird love triangle. The only two test creatures for the "fountain of youth" are a dog and the mother (the brunette in Figure 4) of Dr. Cox's girl friend (the blond in Figure 4). After dear mom dies, Dr. Cox apparently gets to live happily ever after with the daughter.

 Another "fountain of youth" story was "The Blue Germ" (1918) which is available via Google Books. I tried to read "The Blue Germ" but I soon began skimming and then at page 38 is: "The bacillus was ultra-microscopical. It could not be seen even with the highest power, under the microscope". Other people have interpreted this as indicating that the "fountain of youth" was a virus, but the term 'virus' does not appear in the story. I suspect there is nothing resembling science fiction in this novel.

 "Max Hensig: Bacteriologist and Murderer" (1907) by Algernon Blackwood is long, tedious and contrived. The story seemingly includes an attempt to depict a man getting so drunk that all the alcohol in his body will serve as protection against bacterial infection. The imaginary cover art for "Max Hensig: Bacteriologist and Murderer" (see Figure 5) was made using this text prompt: "A full color movie still showing two men in a prison cell, the accused criminal is a light-haired stripling with blue eyes and drooping mustache, that rare type of deliberate murderer, cold-blooded and calculating, who kills for a song, delights in killing, and gives its whole intellect to the consideration of each detail, glorying in evading detection and reveling in the notoriety of the trial, if caught. At first he had answered reluctantly, but then the young murderer warmed up and became enthusiastic with a sort of cold intellectual enthusiasm, till at last he held forth like a lecturer, pacing his cell, gesticulating, explaining with admirable exposition how easy murder could be to a man who knew his business. And he did know his business! The reporter watched in dismay and horror."

 Heart of Gold. "The Golden Rat" by Alexander Harvey (1913) is one of the most unique stories that I have found while investigating old stories that involve microbes. It is a fantasy story with only very minor science fictional microbiology elements. The narrator (a psychoanalyst) imagines that he was infected by golden bacterium from a golden pet rat (named 'Philander') that turns his blood into gold. "The Golden Rat" is also a strange "love story", in that the golden rat eventually leads the narrator to realize that one of his patients, Miss Lancaster, is in love with him.

 "Strangers on Paper" is an episode of "Murdoch Mysteries" that was first shown about six months ago (January 2026), but I only just watched it. In one of the silliest "mad scientist" stories ever, the plot of "Strangers on Paper" includes an angry scientist who tries to put Staphylococcus aureus into the water supply in revenge for loss of funding for research on Staphylococcus aureus. Related Reading: Amerithrax.

Figure 6. Interior artwork by Leo Morey

 Great Northern Protist. "Nœkken of Norway" by Bob Olsen (1934) provides an account of a close encounter with a giant amoeba that lives in a lake in Norway. Readers are told that if an endocrine problem in the pituitary gland can make for a giant human then why not an amoeba that just keeps growing? As shown in Figure 6, the giant amoeba is usually found in water, but when it gets hungry it will go onto shore and grab yummy people for a snack. It turns out that mistletoe is the giant amoeba's kryptonite. By the way, Wikipedia's article on kryptonite has more references than the article about mistletoe.

 Figure 7. Interior artwork by Malcolm Smith

 "Amoeba 'Roid" by Henry Bott (1948) takes us into the age of radar and rocketry when life has already been found on Venus. So why not also on an asteroid that is two miles long? That's John and Grace (see Figure 7) having a close encounter with an asteroid amoeba. As the story "Amoeba 'Roid"  is told, this amazing life-form does nothing more exciting than extend a tentacle out from its pit that curls around the curvaceous Grace, but John insists on incinerating the creature with burning rocket fuel.

image source

 Leaping ahead to the 22nd century, "Amoeba-Hunt" by Morton Klass sends us hunting for a giant amoeba on Procyon IV. Humanity has evolved since the old days of "Amoeba 'Roid" and the alien amoeba must be captured alive. Why? I have no idea. I suppose because it is there.

 The first mention of microbes in this blog was in 2012 when I was speculating about the everyday microbial horrors that might have motivated some of the horror elements in Frankenstein. I wrote, "Our species is in the middle of figuring out the world we live in. In the past, millions were mysteriously struck down by infectious diseases and it was all too easy to adopt an attitude of desperation and helplessness when we had no tools for observing microbes. Now the science of microbiology routinely makes it possible for us to understand, treat and prevent microbial diseases." Even a story as goofy as "Amoeba 'Roid" can be viewed as a human reaction to the never ending conflict between humans and microbes.

Foundations of Eternity

 In 2013 I wrote, "Imagine that the Huaoshy have a monitoring system that is analogous to the way that humans might monitor microbes for pathogenicity and potential to harm people." It is fun to compare the relationship between the technologically-advanced Huaoshy and we humans to the relationship that we humans have with microbes.

 My story Foundations of Eternity included the idea that Neanderthals were driven to extinction because they were susceptible to microbial diseases that were spread by modern humans. When Manny the bumpha takes an interest in the unusual behavior of the Neanderthals, she Intervenes by secretly providing Neanderthals with key resistance genes.

Back in 2015, I introduced the idea that in a past Reality, Earth might have been intentionally pushed towards having high green house gas levels. Such a Reality could be used as a laboratory for "developing microbes that could efficiently metabolize methane and trap atmospheric carbon dioxide in marine sediments". The climate change mitigation methods developed by humans in such a Reality might then be re-used in another Reality to prevent global warming. In "The Hierozyme Intervention", I explore this strategy. How can a microbial solution to global warming be brought into a Reality without alerting the pek Overseer of Earth to such an alien Intervention? I'm currently writing Chapter 10 of "The Hierozyme Intervention" in which Marda is trying to gain access to Eddy's Reality Viewer. Anthony has been moved out of Casanay and his replacement, Ada B. Catalana, has just been hired. Systolina suspects that Ada is a secret agent for Manny the bumpha, but how can Ada be used to give Marda access to the Reality Viewer that is hidden inside Eddy's computer?

image source

 In 2018, I wrote a story that depicted the Phari as having arrived on Earth before the arrival of the pek. The idea that a Phari facility for evolving new microbes and positioned deep inside Earth survived intact for two billion years seemed a stretch, but more recently I've written stories depicting the pek as having reached Earth about four billion years ago. For "The Hierozyme Intervention", the Phari and the bumpha seem to be collaborating to solve Earth's global warming problem without alerting the pek to the fact that alien technology has been used.

 For "The Hierozyme Intervention", I'm still deciding on exactly what Marda will be able to learn from past Realities by using Eddy's Reality Viewer. Possibly in the Ekcolir Reality, humans eventually engineered microbes by artificial evolution that can be "re-animated" by Marda in the Final Reality and combined with hidden hierozymes. However, it is not clear why the pek would fail to notice the deployment of hierozymes. Maybe after first allowing Tyhry to be punished for using hierozymes, the final solution deployed by Marda will involve zeptites that are not detected by the pek.

This image was made
using Mystique VI
by emden09 available
under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
image source

In "The Hierozyme Intervention", I depict Manny as making an effort to prevent Systolina and replicoid copies of Tyhry at Observer Base from obtaining information about the future of the current Reality. Maybe the end of the story will involve Systolina and the replicoid copies of Tyhry finally Viewing the actions of Marda on Earth, but still being unable to notice her use of programmable zeptites. I'm imagining that Systolina and the replicoid copies of Tyhry can waste decades trying to re-invent positronics. In the end, will they believe that their positronic tools broke Manny's embargo on information about Marda's future or will they recognize that all of their efforts were a waste of time and only a distraction engineered by Manny?

Back in 2022, I read a large number of old science fiction stories featuring doctors and some of those stories involved microbes. One of those stories by Murray Leinster featured a microbe called the "chlorophage" that not only ate chlorophyll and killed plants, but which also had an appetite for hemoglobin. I don't know if Leinster's story was inspiration for the Star Trek episode "Obsession", but maybe the "gaseous Di-Kironium creature" was actually some form of advanced nanotechnology, a kind of femtozoan.

Related Reading: Ooze & Liquid Life. Magic microbes at the end of the world.

Related Music: Weird Swamp Protist.

Next: plans for Chapter 11 of "The Hierozyme Intervention".

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Submicroscopic

interior art for "Proof" by Paul Orban

 Ten years ago I came close to reading a science fiction novel by Hal Clement, but it was only recently that I finally read Needle. This is "hard" Sci Fi and the story begins with two alien spaceships crash-landing on Earth. The image shown to the right is from 7 years before the 1949 publication of Needle; this is an illustration from "Proof", a story by Clement that I discussed in my previous blog post. Both Needle and "Proof" are about strange alien life-forms that were imagined by Clement.

Not an Alien Invasion. I love science fiction stories about alien visitors who arrive on Earth and do something more interesting than run around like a crazed Dalek shouting "Exterminate!"

splash-down; interior art for
Needle by Paul Orban

Oops. I read the original version of Needle as published in the May and June 1949 issues of Astounding. Clement got off to a rather shaky start by depicting two super-technologically advanced space-faring aliens both being clumsy enough to crash on Earth and destroy their spacecraft. However, these aliens are shape-shifters, so I suppose forces powerful enough to damage your standard Acme X72 interstellar spaceship might only give these aliens a mild case of whiplash. Clement's 1942 story "Proof" featured aliens from inside the Sun who built their spaceships out of super-strong neutronium, but neutronium did not find its way into Needle.

cover by Paul Orban

Submicroscopic. What is special and memorable about the alien creatures in Clement's story Needle? The aliens in Needle only weigh a few pounds each and are small enough to fit completely inside a human. All of Part 1 concerns "Hunter", the alien that arrives on Earth and takes up residence inside the body of Robert, who is 15 years old. "Hunter" was hot on the trail of a criminal when their two spaceships both crash-landed on Earth. The story is called "Needle" because "Hunter" has no idea where the criminal is; he could now be living inside any large haystack animal.

Fictional Cell Biology. Although "Hunter" is small compared to a human, "he" has thousands of times more cells than are found in a human body. Each of the alien's cells is very small. Since this is 1949, we don't hear about molecules like DNA. 😒

interior alien art for Needle

What dominates the beginning of Needle is the fact that these aliens are shape-shifters. "Hunter" can magically form "his" cells into new assemblages that take on any needed form. Clement never describes how this is possible.

Junior detective Robert. "Hunter" quickly learns English and is soon communicating with Robert. "Hunter" can briefly inactivate cells in Robert's retina, creating dark zones in the shapes of letters (see the image shown to the left). "Hunter" can hear spoken words and when needed can construct its own eyes, but while inside Robert, "Hunter" makes use of sensory signals from Robert's retina. Soon enough, Robert knows the mission that "Hunter" is on and starts helping in the hunt for the alien criminal.

T4 virus -assembly of proteins

Viruslike Cells. At the start of part 2, readers learn that Robert's family lives on a "power island" where assorted carbon compounds are fed to bacteria that then produce "useful hydrocarbons". What other futuristic science was included in Needle? Clement advanced the theory that a virus is a large protein molecule and maybe you could make a complex organism by combining large numbers of viruses instead of large numbers of cells. When Needle was published, there was already evidence that DNA was a genetic molecule and some bacterial viruses were known to contain both protein and DNA. I like Clement's idea of imagining a fundamental building block of life that is smaller than an Earthly eukaryotic cell. However, the largest viruses are similar in size to the smallest cells, so the whole alien-with-virus-like-cells idea crumbled in Clement's hands. Now it is well-known that viruses need to use a host cell in order to replicate the viral nucleic acid, but Clement was not concerned with such details of virology in 1949.

in the Asimov Reality

 Why Should We Care? At the end of this blog post are some quotes from folks who reviewed Needle back in 1950, but one of the most detailed reviews of Needle is from 2020 by Mark R. Kelly. Kelly asked, "Why should we care?" and he seemed bothered by the fact that it does not really seem to matter if "Hunter" ever finds and punishes the alien fugitive that he is chasing. I think Kelly missed the whole point of Needle and he should read about MacGuffins.

Hard science fiction is a literature of ideas and a central idea of Needle is the issue of what I've called Hunter's ability to magically morph into new shapes or quickly grow a new organ like an eye upon demand. I'll admit, most readers don't care about the mechanism of Hunter's morphing; shape-shifters have long been featured in many fantasy stories where readers are expected to just accept the magic of morphing. However, as a hard science fiction story teller, Clement did not want magic in his story and he obviously gave a lot of thought to explaining the weird biology of his alien shape-shifters. 

from "Tachyon Rag" by Tim Sullivan

 Nanotechnology. In 1949, Clement was struggling to come to grips with the nano-scale components of living organisms. He seemingly had the concept of self-assembling proteins and so he ran with the idea of his aliens being composed of submicroscopic virus-like components that could magically assemble into any needed form. Sadly, Clement could not run very far with this glimmer of an idea. Later, in the 1977 issue of Unearth where Clement's story "Proof" was reprinted, Tim Sullivan "explained" his shape-shifting aliens with the concept of "cellular elasticity" (see the text excerpt, above, right), also known as "handwavium".

Figure 1. image source

During embryonic development, cells can transition from being part of a well-formed epithelial layer into migratory mesenchymal cells which upon reaching a particular destination can form a new tissue or organ. Tentacle-like axons can also grow through the tissues of a body to distant locations, but these kinds of cellular movement processes take a long time.  Clement's imagined morphing aliens could very rapidly reshape big collections of cells in their bodies. 

Odo

This kind of rapid body shape change might be possible with some sort of super high-speed molecular motors, perhaps similar to what are used to move pigment granules around in chromatophores (see Figure 1, above).

40 Years of Morphing Magic. We should never count on Hollywood to reveal any interesting fictional science. In the 1990s, Star Trek deployed the morphing Changelings who used magical "morphogenic enzymes" (another form of handwavium) to quickly change shape.

In the case of the fictional science in Needle, the major problem that I have trouble wrapping my mind around is the idea of quick conscious re-programming of cell behavior by a shape-shifter. Sadly, Clement tells readers very little about the nervous system of his aliens (see Figure 2, below).

Figure 2. alien communication

Speaking of viruses, "Hunter" admits that it is theoretically possible for a virus to harm "his" health. However, "Hunter" is depicted as a chemistry wizard who can almost instantly defeat adversaries such as the cells in Robert's immune system, so don't worry that "Hunter" will be driven out of Robert's body like a rejected tissue transplant.  

SPOILERS. Needle was crafted as a detective story, so if you want to read it without knowing the "thrilling conclusion" then stop reading here. 

In Part 2 of Needle, readers learn that back on their home planet (Allane), the "criminal" being tracked by "Hunter" previously killed several host organisms "for purely selfish reasons". 

in the Ekcolir Reality

 The Game is Afoot! Then, just when it seems like the "Hunter" is going to be forced to carry-out a laborious search through the bodies of every human on Earth (the titular "needle in a haystack"), the great detective "Hunter" deduces that it is none other than Robert's father who is now acting as host to the alien criminal. 

Keep your enemies close and your friends on Allane. Having located his crafty adversary, the "Hunter" extracts himself from Robert's body and pays a visit to dad's bedroom. Since this is 1949 and Clement was writing for kids, "Hunter" patiently waits outside mom & dad's room for a long time, until dad is finally asleep. "Hunter" quietly slips a probe tendril into dad and makes physical contact with some of the criminal's cells. This tentacular physical contact instantly allows the two aliens to have a conversation in which it is revealed that the "Hunter" is the "friend of Jenver" and the criminal is the "friend of Trang the Mathematician". Got that? There will be a test later. 😜

toasted alien

 Elementary, My Dear Friend of Trang. It was possible to determine that the criminal was inside dad because -WARNING, Major Spoiler- he had begun acting similar to Robert: unconcerned with activities that caused personal injury. The aliens reflexively repair small wounds in their hosts and the hosts start to feel invincible and display increasingly reckless behavior. 

Allane. Readers learn that the criminal nearly killed poor Trang during "experiments in personal control". The detective "Hunter" chastises the criminal for being foolish enough to try to escape: "You were foolish to flee Allane." After the detective "Hunter" is done bragging about about his own cleverness in finding the criminal, he slinks away, having to admit that he has no good way of extracting the criminal from the body of dear old dad.

Robert prepares to be punished

Robert tricks his father into thinking he is trapped in a burning building. Then when the flames threaten the criminal, it crawls out of dad's body. Robert then dumps oil on the alien and burns it up. 🔥

Casual Child Abuse. You might imagine that this is the time for Robert to reveal the existence of the aliens to everyone on Earth, but NO. The "Hunter" will secretly remain inside Robert. All ends well, Robert is cool with housing an alien inside his body, but Robert has one request: he wants the alien's help in protecting his tender skin from the whipping he will receive from dear old dad for his having started the fire.

cover art by Clyde Caldwell

 Bottom line. Can I recommend Needle for reading by science fiction fans in 2022? I feel obligated to issue one warning and mention one regret.

Warning. Needle was intentionally written for young readers by a school teacher. I always want to congratulate any writer who takes on the task of creating stories that will attract and please young readers. However, anyone over the age of 12 is probably going to feel a bit cramped by the constraints that Clement put on his own writing when he crafted Needle.

Regret. I believe that the science fiction genre needs a systematic way to preserve and update old stories. I'd hesitate to hand a copy of Needle to my own child because what Clement wrote about viruses back in the 1940s would only confuse a young person who is worried about Covid-19. Someone should publish a new edition of Needle with an introduction written by a cell biologist or possibly a microbiologist.

the view from 1950

Mystery. I absolutely adore the Sci Fi idea of submicroscopic probes, devices and endosymbionts hidden inside unsuspecting people, so I'm a complete sucker for a story like Needle. I'm also intrigued by how writers like Asimov and Clement sometimes intentionally mixed together elements of the detective/mystery story genre in a science fiction setting.

 Other views. Fred Pohl reviewed Needle in the May 1950 issue of Super Science Stories along with Isaac Asimov's Pebble in the Sky. Pohl labeled Needle as "... a first-rate detective story and fine fantasy reading". Pohl added, it "will keep you guessing all the way through, and won't let you down at the end."

A review in the July 1950 issue of Startling Stories had this to say about Needle: "the story becomes almost pure mystery and suspense, winding up in about as taut a few fatal minutes as any more orthodox story of crime, pursuit and punishment".

In the Ekcolir Reality. Original art
by Kelly Freas and Chesley Bonestell

In the November 1950 issue of Astounding, L. Sprague de Camp called Needle, "a good sound entertaining yarn".

In the August 1967 issue of Analog, P. Schuyler Miller described Needle as Clement's most popular novel. I wonder if that was based on actual book sales.

I like to imagine how science fiction stories could have turned out differently in alternate Realities like the Ekcolir Reality. I always suspect that there must be an interesting reason for the delay when a sequel comes after a long delay. Clement did not get around to publishing a sequel to Needle until 1978. After reading this commentary, I lost my interest in reading "Through the Eye of a Needle". If anyone knows what finally motivated Clement to write the sequel story, please let me know.

Part 3

 Related Reading: The comments on Needle, above, are part of a series of blog posts. Part 1 of this series: Clement's story "Proof".                 See Also: The Brains of Earth and award winning fantasy aliens

Next: Part 3 of this series, Needle in a haystack context

Ver'la from Mars. Visit the Gallery of Posters and the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers
Ver'la image made with The Other Side Of Nowhere
by Rocket787 and see this NASA image - available under CC BY-NC 3.0.

The Sun People

1957 Avon cover

 This is the first of three blog posts here at the start of 2022 about the science fiction stories of Hal Clement [born 30 May 1922]. I waited until the hundredth year after his birth to finally read a Clement novel: Needle. As shown in the image to the right, Needle was also published in book format under the title "From Outer Space". I'll discuss Needle in my next blog post, but first..... 

Warm up. Let's warm things up by taking a look at the Sun People who achieved a strange kind of First Contact with Earthlings in "Proof", which was the first story ever published by "Clement".

"Clement" is in quotes as a reminder that his real name was Harry Clement Stubbs. In 1942, Stubbs was studying astronomy at Harvard. Like Isaac Asimov, Hal Clement took his educational background in science and moved in the direction of being an educator, more specifically in Clement's case, he became a high school science teacher.

cover by Steven Gildea

I have no idea how many folks with an astronomy degree tried their hand at writing science fiction during the 1900s. In the previous generation before Stubbs, there was William Christie who used a pen-name (Cecil B. White) when publishing science fiction. Others include Fred Hoyle, Joe Haldeman, Alastair Reynolds and David Brin. Also, see R. S. Richardson, here.

Hal Clement ends up on lists of "hard science fiction" story tellers. As a fan of hard science fiction, I'm tempted to conclude that only those writers who studied science in college are likely to write hard science fiction. Working astronomers like Christie and Carl Sagan did not have the time to write very many science fiction stories. As far as I know, Hal Clement never worked as a professional astronomer, so he had spare time and was able to publish many science fiction stories. 

a painting by Clement (image source)

Clement also found time to paint and for a short time he was the "science editor" for the short-lived magazine, Unearth. As the science editor, Clement wrote a column called "Science for Fiction". In the spring 1977 issue of Unearth, "Proof" was republished and accompanied by an essay describing how Clement came to be a published author. In that essay, Clement denied being a professional science fiction writer and declared his only true profession to be "high school science teacher". He admitted to having discovered science fiction when he was in his own personal golden age (12) for science fiction.

another paining by Clement

 Hot Times. Clement traced his story "Proof" back to his having read the 1935 story "Islands of the Sun" by Jack Williamson. Isaac Asimov also admitted to having been influenced by the stories that Williamson wrote. For "Islands of the Sun", Williamson imagined that the planet Earth originated inside the sun. In Williamson's story, there is an imaginary form of matter, okal, which is a magical crystalline form of carbon and the secret to atomic power. Using the power of a giant okal crystal, the planets are released from their "etheric spheres", lifted out of the sun's photosphere and placed into their proper orbits around the Sun, exactly where we now know them to reside.

Clement's thoughts were provoked!

the eccentricities of Mesklin

 The Science Fiction Game. In an essay called "Whirligig World", Hal Clement suggested that science fiction should be approached as a game being played by a writer and the readers. What are the game rules? "...for the reader of a science-fiction story, they consist of finding as many as possible of the author's statements or implications which conflict with the facts as science currently understands them." I'm not going to be able to resist dabbling in this game while I read Clement's stories.

cover by Herpai Zoltán

That's Cool Cold. Clement is probably most famous for his novel Mission of Gravity. That story features intelligent alien creatures who can survive on a planet (Mesklin) with high gravity, hundreds of times higher than the gravity on Earth's surface. In addition to getting a degree in astronomy, Clement later got a chemistry degree. Some chemists have a real blind spot when it comes to anything as complex as a living organism and I find it hard to accept Clement's imaginary life forms. Don't get me started on my objections to the silly idea of intelligent life in liquid methane. But who knows, maybe the exoskeleton of a Mesklinite is made of neutronium.

"The Doomsday Machine"

 Neutronium. In "Proof", Clement imagined life arising inside stars. I recently mocked science fiction story tellers who imagined that life could exist on every planet, moon and asteroid. Many writers who enthusiastically imagined life arising on planets even with environmental conditions as harsh as those on Mercury, drew a line at the Sun. If you restrict your imagination to life forms composed of water-containing cells, then it is hard to imagine life on (or inside) the Sun. 

unimaginable neutronium-based life from "Proof"

But wait! What about life based on another physical substrate? How about neutronium? I was first exposed to the science fictional substance neutronium in a Star Trek episode. The neutronium hull of the "Planet Killer" in "The Doomsday Machine" was very stable, having traveled to our galaxy across a vast inter-galactic distance. What are the fictionalized properties of neutronium in Clement's story?

Unimaginable Life. I get nervous when Sci Fi story tellers try to describe unimaginable things. As shown in the excerpt (image above and to the right), Clement imagined intrastellar life-forms with a core of neutrons surrounded by an electrostatic field being sustained by a "matrix of electrons". 

neutron star

 The Matrix, 1942. I suppose Clement learned about neutron stars and degenerate matter in an astronomy course at Harvard, but what was he thinking when he imagined a "matrix of electrons" that could convert radiation into neutrons? Not only does the "skin" of these Sun creatures (the hero of the story is named "Kron") surround a core of neutronium (held in the creature's "nucleus"), but the "skin" can convert energy from the environment into new "particles of neutronium" that are then guided by magnetic fields towards the body core. Yummy! Apparently, this process for creation of new neutronium is how a creature like Kron "feeds".

photosphere

Force Fields. Spacecraft can carry Kron from city to city in the Sun's photosphere and even to distant stars, but there must be a "mini-sun" inside these sorts of craft to provide the passengers with the "fierce energy" they need to survive. Kron can use the stored neutrons in his body's core as an energy source, much like humans using glycogen. To interact with and control objects in his environment, Kron taps some neutrons from his core and converts the stored energy into "projected beams and fields of force".

interior art for "Proof" by Paul Orban

 Alien Thought. Mr. Kron has senses that can detect electromagnetic fields, but Clement also told his readers about a whole bunch of additional senses of the Sun People that were used for detecting other "energies still undreamed of by human scientists" that exist inside the Sun. Mr. Kron and his people now live in the Sun's photosphere because deeper inside the Sun are dangerous sand Sun worms creatures that like to eat the Sun People. However, Kron's species originally evolved deep inside the Sun where, according to Clement, there is a good supply of neutronium. Much of the backstory for "Proof" is provided during a conversation between Kron and an alien visitor from Sirius. 

in the Ekcolir Reality

Clement told his readers that this conversation between Kron and the scientist was made possible by beams of energy that could carry "clear thought" from person to person. Maybe this was a form of technology-assisted telepathy.

B Sirius! The visitor from Sirius is a scientist who has conceived a startling theory. The Sirian scientist tells Kron about a strange hypothesis: that at low temperatures (lower than the temperatures found inside stars), collections of atoms might form solids, much like neutronium. Kron then tells the tale of how a spaceship was once destroyed under inexplicable circumstances. 

Neutronium: it even brightens teeth! The flying craft of the Sun People and the buildings of their photosphere cities are composed of neutronium. During interstellar voyages, neutronium is also used as a fuel to power the spaceships of the Sun People. 

the speed of thought

Near the end of one interstellar voyage, the returning spaceship crashed into an object with mass, but it was a mysterious object that did not emit any radiation that could be detected by the senses of the Sun People.

an alternate universe

The narration of "Proof" shifts at this point from Kron to the perspective of a man on Earth who is witness to the neutronium spaceship from the Sun as it crashes into Earth. Then, for the end of the story, we return to Kron's account of the lost spaceship, which is actually proof of the strange hypothesis of the scientist from Sirius.

 Game Score. Part of the rules for Clement's science fiction game is that (in the interest of creating a fun story) science fiction story tellers are allowed to include imaginary future science in their stories. For example, even if most physicists believe that faster-than-light travel or time travel are physically impossible, a science fiction story can be set in a future time when Dr. Miracle from Cal Tech has invented the hyperdrive... so off we go lickity-split to the far stars.

cover art by Don Dixon

What about changing the physical properties of the universe (the "laws of physics"), is that also "fair game" for science fiction story tellers? In the first science fiction novel I ever read (The Gods Themselves) Asimov imagined an alternate universe which had its own laws of physics. However, Clement did not mention any alternate laws of physics for his story "Proof". The danger of using know particles such as neutrons, electrons and positrons in your science fiction story is that you take on the baggage of everything that scientists know about such things.  

in the Asimov Reality

The Cure-all: Neutronium. In the case of neutronium, there is no evidence that neutrons can exist all packed together as a solid mass except possibly inside big stars where a powerful gravitational force contains the neutrons. Should I view Clement's use of neutronium to make possible his imaginary Star People as a variation of Williamson's trick, with "okal" simply renamed to "neutronium"? Maybe Clement should have explicitly paid tribute to Williamson by calling his imaginary stellar solid "okalonium".

probability 0 in the Asimov Reality

I often imagine alternative science fiction stories that might have been written in an alternate Reality such as the Asimov Reality. Here in our Reality, late in 1942, Clement published a "Probability Zero" very short story called "Avenue of Escape". In that story, Clement used "alternate reality math" to prove that it is safe for soldiers to walk through machine gun fire. Alternatively, he could have simply equipped his soldiers with neutronium uniforms.

First Contact from "The Green Sphere"

 In Case You Missed It. In that same issue of Astounding was "The Green Sphere" by Dennis Tucker, a story set in the year 2021. Dennis only went as far as to say that the mysterious green sphere was composed of "very dense matter"; clearly this was another story "crying out" for neutronium.

in the Asimov Reality

Selecting a specific date in the future for the setting of your science fiction story is another way of tempting fate, just like using a known particle like the neutron for your magical stellar solid. Eventually the real world and real science can make your story obsolete.

Is "Proof" obsolete or can a Sci Fi fan of 2022 still enjoy the story? I'm glad that I read "Proof" simply for Clement's sheer audacity of trying to imagine an ecosystem inside a star. My next destination: investigating the strange morphing aliens in Clement's novel Needle.

Tetrahedra of Space

 Related Reading: Fred Hoyle's 1957 novel The Black Cloud has more impossible space aliens who can't imagine life on planets And an Asimov story set in 2021.

Related Social Media: #VintageSciFiMonth  

Also: a red sphere-shaped creature in Fredric Brown's "Arena"

Next: Clement's novel Needle.

cover art by Richard Hescox