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

Their Usual Stuff

In the Ekcolir Reality (original cover)

Growing up in New York City, Isaac Asimov apparently read every science fiction story that was published in pulp magazines during the 1930s. Asimov began publishing his own stories in the late 1930s and during the 1940s he started to become famous for his positronic robot and Foundation stories. 

Stuff. Here is how Asimov characterized many early writers of science fiction stories: "... general pulp writers who substituted spaceships for horses, or disintegration rays for revolvers, and then wrote their usual stuff." (source) 

When he wrote about story writers and "their usual stuff", Asimov may well have been thinking about writers such as Fredric Brown. Born in 1906, Brown became a published author in about 1936, at first writing humor and mystery stories, then eventually he wrote fantasy and some science fiction. Was Brown interested in Sci Fi or was he just trying to earn a living by selling stories in any magazine that would buy his "stuff"?

In the Ekcolir Reality.
our reality: The Far Cry

I love the idea that each new generation of writers has a chance to re-invent the stories that they grew up reading. I also like the idea that in a past Reality, writers such as Fredric Brown had analogues who wrote slightly different stories. In the Ekcolir Reality, women dominated the science fiction genre and there might have been a female analogue of Brown who would have written somewhat different stories than those that were actually written by Fredric in our Reality. Imagine an alternate Reality where Brown only wrote science fiction.

Here in this blog post I comment on three stories by Brown: his 1944 "Arena", "What Mad Universe" from 1948 and "Honeymoon in Hell" (1950). One month ago, I  commented on "The World She Wanted", a kind of fantasy story about parallel universes that was published in 1953 by Philip K. Dick. I would not be surprised if Dick was influenced by "What Mad Universe" when he wrote "The World She Wanted". Similarly, I wanted to read Brown's "Arena" so I could see to what extent it has similarities to the Star Trek episode "Arena".

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Anna, Ray and an alien on the Moon.
original cover art by Don Sibley

Go to Hell. 1948 was an interesting year in the life of Fredric Brown. His 20-year-long romance with his first wife (Helen) had collapsed and he married his second wife, Betty. Then, in 1950, Brown published a story called "Honeymoon in Hell". As they say, "write what you know". "Honeymoon in Hell" begins with the amusing heading: TOO MANY FEMALES. Starting in 1963, no more male humans are born on Earth. Is this the end of the human species? 

Space Age. In Brown's imagined future of 1963, rocket ships had already reached the Moon, but in order to establish a permanent base on the Moon, a big shiny orbital space station first needed to be constructed in Earth orbit. Thus, Brown's future of space travel is a lot like that imagined by Arthur C. Clarke. Brown introduces his readers to Ray Carmody, retired rocketeer, one of the few men to have ever landed on the Moon and safely returned to Earth. 

In the Ekcolir Reality.
original cover art by Ed Emshwiller

Ray is interested in cybernetics which Brown describes as "the science of electronic calculating machines". In 1945, Asimov wrote about "The Brain", a child-like artificial intelligence with a positronic brain. For "Honeymoon in Hell", Brown imagined "Junior" (an AE7 cybernetics machine), the biggest calculating machine of all, kept in a back room at the Pentagon. Ray's job is to ask "Junior" questions and report back to waiting scientists what Junior has to say about atomics, ballistics and rocketry... and sex. In 1963, the most important question on Earth is why only baby girls are now being born and what can be done about it?

Answer: Ray must go to Hell. Hell crater on the Moon, that is. All that is known bout the missing baby boys is that soon after human zygotes form, all the male zygotes are magically switched to become female.  A Big Mystery™!

in the Ekcolir Reality (full sized)

 The Girl-ray. The Pentagon Brass suspect lurking aliens who are trying to destroy Humanity and take over Earth. Ray must take a rocket to Hell, meet his new "wife" (a Russian girl named Anna who Ray has never met) and impregnate her in an attempt to produce a male child. The whole plan was dreamed up by "Junior" to test the possibility that the aliens have a hidden base on Earth where the "girl-ray" is generated... and maybe that magical ray will not reach zygotes on the Moon.

Were "Honeymoon in Hell" written today , the author might simply send a bunch of sperm and eggs to the moon and answer the question by in vitro fertilization, but what would be the fun in that? However, just when readers might be expecting Ray and Anna to start making a baby, we shift gears and are fed a story about an alien spaceship that appears in Hell. 

the wonders of space-age hypnosis

 Hypnotic. The aliens abduct Ray and Anna. But Wait! That entire alien abduction story was invented by "Junior" and magically implanted into Ray's mind by hypnosis. Now confronted by the prospect of alien invaders, the nations of Earth unite and agree to peacefully work together to explore space. Back on Earth, Ray and Anna continue their marriage. Readers are told that it was "Junior" who used a magic ray of his own design to convert male zygotes into female zygotes. Now that Earth is peacefully united, "Junior" turns off the magic sex-change ray gun and everyone lives happily ever after.

Since the story was written in 1950, readers only get a short G-rated snippet revealing what really happened to Ray and Anna during their "Honeymoon in Hell" in the two weeks before Junior's hypnotically-implanted memories took over.

Anna; interior art by Sibley

I have to wonder what Asimov thought when he read "Honeymoon in Hell" (his story, "Misbegotten Missionary" was in the same issue of Galaxy). Brown's story ends up very close to where Asimov's I, Robot ends, (with his 1950 story "The Evitable Conflict") depicting a few computers endowed with artificial intelligence as taking care of Humanity.

Fictional Biology. I also wonder if Asimov simply shook his head over Brown's silly idea of "Junior" inventing and using a special "carrier wave" for commercial radio transmissions that converted all male human zygotes to female zygotes. 

Also, I've previously blogged about the infiltration of hypnosis into pulp science fiction as an all-powerful plot device. As far as I can tell, Fredric Brown never concerned himself with the scientific plausibility of his science fiction stories.

Gorn

 Hotter Than Hell. For his story "Arena", Brown shifts we readers from the icy night-time cold of Hell crater on the Moon to the hot blue sands of his titular arena. For this story, there is an actual alien abduction. Earth is at war with mysterious "Outsiders", aliens from another galaxy "in the general direction of the Pleiades". Bob Carson, having been on patrol as part of the Earth Armada, has been abducted by a second variety of aliens: god-like, "eternal", something at the "end of evolution"; the Entity. When he awakens after his abduction, Bob must fight one of the Outsiders. That fight will determine which species, Humans or Outsiders will be obliterated, leaving the other species to continue evolving.

For the Star Trek episode, Captain Kirk had to battle a man in a rubber monster suit: the Gorn. In Brown's story, the Outsider is a red sphere-shaped creature that rolls across the sand. Bob defeats the red sphere and the Entity destroys the invading fleet of Outsiders.

the sphere creature mutilating a lizard

I would not be surprised if Gene Coon read Brown's "Arena" and later drew upon half-forgotten memories of it when writing the script for the Star Trek episode. I despise alien invasion stories featuring Evil Aliens™ who come to Earth from across vast interstellar distances just to exterminate humans. I wonder if Brown's "Arena" was meant to be a metaphorical rant against the evil reds of the Soviet Union. And what can be said about the Entity that saves Humanity from extinction? Did they just happen to be passing by Neptune when they decided to involve themselves in human affairs? 

In the Ekcolir Reality.

There Are No Spears In Science Fiction. Brown included a 4th species in his story: the lizards who are apparently natives of the planet with blue sand, the world that the Entity uses as an arena for Bob's fight to the death against the evil red sphere creature. The red sphere pulls off some of the legs of a lizard and then tosses the unconscious lizard through the force field that separates Bob from the sphere creature. Eventually, Bob realizes that if he knocks himself unconscious, he can fall through the force field and then, upon regaining consciousness, use his spear and knife to kill the sphere creature. In a sense, the lizards of Blue Planet are what saves Humanity from destruction.

The first alien invasion story that I was exposed to was War of the Worlds. I'm hard pressed to say which story annoys me more... War of the Worlds with Humanity being saved by God who wisely put the bacteria on Earth that kill the invading Martians or "Arena" in which Bob and Humanity are saved by the lizards and the god-like Entity.

Mekky and Betty. interior art by ???

 What Mad Pursuit. Francis Crick wrote an autobiographical book in which he mentioned his 1947 divorce from his first wife. By 1949 Crick was working on the x-ray crystallography of proteins and he gave a seminar presentation called "What Mad Pursuit", the name of which he attributed to "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by Keats. In Keats' poem, a man is in pursuit of his lover. 

In Crick's world of 1940s scientific research, the scientists that he worked with were in pursuit of the "secret of life" which existed at molecular scale in the structures of molecules inside living organisms; molecules such as proteins and DNA. In Brown's "What Mad Universe", protagonist Keith Winton is in pursuit of his beloved Betty.

The Transformation of Universes Through Time.

Figure 1. (on page 11)
interior art for "What Mad Universe"

In the 1889 story "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" it was a blow to the head that magically moves the story off to the land of Camelot. In "What Mad Universe", Brown used a Hi Tek™ device, the Burton Potentiometer, to send protagonist Keith Winton off into an alternate universe. Although Brown carefully "explained" to readers that there are an infinite number of parallel universes, Keith does not get "catapulted" into just any random universe. He finds himself in a universe that is the fantasy world of a teen-aged pulp science fiction fan, Joe Doppelberg.

Keith Winton is the editor of Surprising Stories, a pulp science fiction magazine. Part of his duties involve tending to the Rocketalk letters column. As revealed in his fan letter to Rocketalk, Joe lives in a world where when arriving in New York City for a visit he can joke about arriving at "Spaceport N'Yawk" (see below).

Figure 2. Joe Doppelberg's fan letter

In this universe, in 1952, rockets are being launched from New York in an attempt to reach the Moon. Keith Winton is sent into an alternate universe when one such rocket goes out of control, lands right on top of Keith and triggers its Burton Potentiometer to release a vast amount of stored energy.

Apparently, in Joe's fantasy Solar System there is an atmosphere on the Moon and air-breathing Lunans who live there. So as soon as Keith arrives in that alternate universe, he has to deal with Lunans and -even worse- invading aliens from Arcturus. 

And even worse than the interstellar war, Joe recently visited the offices of Bordon Publications, Inc. and got a glimpse of Betty (she is the editor of Perfect Love Stories, another pulp magazine). So in Joe's fantasy world, he is the Super Genius™ Dopelle and engaged to marry Betty. And since Joe never got to meet Keith, this universe has another version of Keith Winton who is the editor of Surprising Stories.

At the moment when the rocket crashes and the Burton Potentiometer blasts energy into Keith, he is thinking about Joe Doppelberg and the kind of magazine covers he has requested. So Keith ends up in an alternate universe of Joe's imagination where Lunans walk the streets of New York and the cover art of Surprising Stories is much better.

Lunan

That's a Lunan in the image to the left. I'm not sure what is being depicted in Figure 1, above. Figure 1 is the internal art that was placed right at the start of "What Mad Universe". Maybe Figure 1 was meant to be a Joe Doppelberg fantasy or dream about Betty (dressed appropriately for a pulp magazine cover in a metal bra) while Joe (in the role of the heroic Dopelle) fights off a spooky alien.

Keith flies to Saturn.

Since Brown was being paid by the word, there are many many many pages of "What Mad Universe" in which Keith must learn about the new parallel universe he is in... particularly the fact that since this is Joe's fantasy universe, Betty is very much in love with Dopelle. Keith eventually turns his attention to returning to his own universe. To make that possible, he ends up going to Saturn. Strangely, while Joe's fantasy universe has sophisticated space ships that allow Keith to drive fly to Saturn, there is no such thing as a Burton Potentiometer in this alternate universe. But don't worry, Keith once looked at the circuitry for a Burton Potentiometer, so the information for how to build one lies in his unconscious mind!

The technological sophistication of Fredric's Brown Sci Fi stories is not very notable. Brown basically states that the secret of space drive technology was discovered by a dude playing around with a sewing machine. 

In the Joe Reality.

It seems clear that Brown either did not know what a "potentiometer" is or possibly he simply did not care. Brown seems to have been making fun of science fiction stories while getting paid to write science fiction stories.

Telepathy is a pretty big deal in "What Mad Universe". The Arcturian invaders can use their telepathic powers to take control of humans, so everyone on Earth is constantly on guard against Arcturian infiltrators. More importantly, the Super Genius™ Dopelle has built a telepathic assistant, Mekky, a flying metallic sphere that can telepathically "read" the plans for a Burton Potentiometer from Keith's mind and then quickly build one that is used to send Keith back to...

But wait! Keith realizes that he does not have to return to his old universe. So just before he is blasted off to a new universe, he thinks sweet thoughts about Betty. 

cover art by Earle Bergey

Upon arriving in his new universe, Keith finds that he is no longer a busy magazine editor; in this universe he is the owner of the publishing company that turns out the pulp magazines Surprising and Perfect Love Stories and in this universe he already has a well-developed romantic relationship with Betty.

The best thing about "What Mad Universe" is the way it makes reference to the pulp magazine industry and Joe's letter to the editor of Surprising (Figure 2, above) complains about cover art that depicts women running away from silly, unconvincing space monsters. Earle Bergey obligingly provided just such a cover illustration for that issue of Startling Stories.

Related Reading: also in the September 1948 Startling Stories, "Sanatoris Short-Cut" by Jack Vance.

Next: reader comments on "What Mad Universe" from 1948

Next: reader comments from the January 1949 issue of Startling Stories about "What Mad Universe".

 

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