Sci Fi Readers in 1948

January 1949

In my previous blog post, I commented on "What Mad Universe" by Fredric Brown. "What Mad Universe" was first published in the September 1948 issue of Startling Stories. There was a lively letters column in Startling Stories and Brown's story included a fan letter written to Surprising Stories, so I could not resist getting in my time machine and going to the January 1949 issue of Startling Stories so I could read fan reactions to "What Mad Universe". I've previously commented on "The Time Axis" and "The Sub-Standard Sardines" which were published in that issue of Startling Stories.

One topic from the September 1948 issue of Startling Stories that was raised by several fans in their letters to the editor was the identity of the artist who had made black-and-white illustrations for "What Mad Universe".....

Vern Stevens?                Related Reading: Wine of the Dreamers

who dunnit?

The Stevens Family. The ISFDB does not list an artist named Vern Stevens and the ISFDB lists the artist for "What Mad Universe" as "interior artwork by uncredited". It seems likely that the artist was Lawrence Sterne Stevens. According to Wikipedia, the father of Stevens had the same name and was "Rector of the Zion Protestant Episcopal Church". Also according to Wikipedia there was a son named Peter Stevens who sometimes did illustrations for the pulps. So who was "Vern"? That is a mystery, but I suspect this was an error and that "Vern" should have been "Sterne".

One fan letter from Tom Jewett called out for praise several of the illustrations for "What Mad Universe" including the one shown below...

In the July 1948 issue of Startling Stories: "The Valley of Creation" by Edmond Hamilton

As was the case for me, Tom was relieved that the entire story was not just Keith having a dream. The "page 11" illustration is shown as Figure 1 in my previous blog post and the cover art is near the bottom of that blog post. Bergey and "Vern" must have cooperated to make sure that two copies of the "femme's" sexy costume ended up in that issue. Brown wrote into "What Mad Universe" a fan letter from "Joe Doppelberg" and fan Joe Schaumburger took note of the similarity of the character's name to his own (see the image to the right).

I recently blogged about "Quest of the Starhope" by Leigh Brackett which was set on Mars. The 1944 story "Shadow over Mars" was apparently a favorite of Joe Schaumburger.

the "if" deal

Another fan (Chad Oliver) played along with "What Mad Universe" and signed his letter to the editor as "Joe Doppelberg" (see the image, above). Robert Rivenes identified Brown as a writer of detective stories, but wished Brown luck as a science fiction story teller.

"What Mad Universe" provided big laughs.

Like other fan commentators who got published in the January issue, Roberta Hesse was able to laugh at "What Mad Universe" and its depiction of science fiction fans. Roberta and some other fans also seemed to enjoy the re-printed 1931 story "Tetrahedra of Space". In that old story, creatures from the planet Mercury visit Earth. They are shaped like tetrahedra and don't like water. The hero of the story finally figures out how to communicate with the tetrahedra and convinces them to move on to Mars where the climate is dryer. 

numerical ratings (three significant digits!) provided by Rapp

Roberta also noted that Jack Vance's Magnus Ridolph character was just a little too perfect (see the image above).

Unlike Roberta, Arthur Rapp was not impressed by "Tetrahedra of Space". He rated both "What Mad Universe" and Vance's "Sanatoris Short-Cut" quite highly (see the ratings to the right).

Arthur wanted to quibble over the most likely fantasy universe of a science fiction fan. In Brown's "What Mad Universe", science fiction was almost non-existent because space aliens and space travel were mundane facts of daily life for the people of Earth.

a good fantasy

Peter Ridley also ranked "Tetrahedra of Space" above  "What Mad Universe". 

I have to wonder if Brown's red spherical creatures in "Arena" were inspired by the tetrahedra from Mercury. Here in this millennium, most biologists suspect that bags of water (cells) are the best way to make life on a planet. It is hard to imagine how life got a start on Mercury, a world with no water.

the joy of recursive science fiction

Fan Service. Al Gillboord was favorably impressed by the fact that "What Mad Universe" was a science fiction story that featured a protagonist who wrote science fiction stories. Fredric Brown was praised for his easy-to-read style of writing.

A Parody, by any other name, would smell as sweet.

satire and humor

Wilkie Conor labeled "What Mad Universe" as being "rich in satire". Brown found a way to poke fun at some aspects of science fiction and Sci Fi fandom, while not offending the readers of Startling Stories. Brown had been writing science fiction stories for several years (for example, see "Star Mouse", 1942).

too many "plurality of worlds" stories

R. L. Farnsworth was reaching his tolerance limit for stories about what he called "plurality of worlds". I'm not sure if that comment was targeted at "What Mad Universe" and Brown's insistence that there are an infinite number of parallel universes.

I suspect that "Bonestell" was Chesley Bonestell. He had been painting scenes set in space since about 1944 and doing covers for Astounding since 1947. 

The letter from Rusty Doss (below) was possibly just what the editors wanted to hear from new fans. Maybe only the "long-time fans" of Startling Stories could appreciate the inside jokes of the letters column.

Next: more Fredric Brown stories including the adventures of Mitkey mouse.

Back to the future of plastic: an advertisement in the January 1949 issue of Startling Stories.

You Must be Joking

In the Ekcolir Reality.    Original
cover art by Frank Paul and see this.

I'm currently writing a new science fiction story called "The Alastor Network" which is part of my on-going effort to explore the origins of human telepathy. Why do I expend so much effort in this task? I blame Isaac Asimov. In the previous millennium, when Asimov wrote about his telepathic robots, he asked readers to accept the idea that robot telepathy arose by chance, as a kind of mutation in the positronic circuits. Actually, he loved that idea so much that he wrote at least two stories depicting two different chance events that resulted in robot telepathy. 

 

Mutation

Asimov's mind was shaped in the 1920s and 1930s. It can be argued that the origin of science fiction as a distinct literary genre began in the late 1920s. Also at that time, Hermann Joseph Muller became famous for his discovery that x-rays can cause genetic mutations and ever since, there has been no shortage of science fiction stories about mutants.

Intuition. A horse that Asimov could never stop whipping was the idea that some people have vast quantities of "intuition", a cognitive ability to simply know what should be done without even knowing why. The first time I encountered Asimov's infatuation with intuition may have been when I read Earth Is Room Enough, back in the 1970s. In that collection of stories was "Jokester", a fun little 12 page tale that is part of Asimov's Multivac series.

Originally published in 1956, "Jokester" is a story that I retained fresh and alive in my memory for almost fifty years. I recently read the story as it was first printed in the December issue of Infinity Science Fiction. I was saddened to see how poorly typeset that version of the story was and I can't recommend reading that version (PDF). Luckily the story has been widely anthologized.

click image to enlarge

The original version of "Jokester" was published with some internal magazine art provided by Robert Engle, which is shown to the right on this page. All but one of the characters in the story is shown in this illustration. The three men are: 1) the titular 'Jokester' himself, the Grandmaster Meyerhof, 2) the computer analyst Whistler and 3) an administrator named Trask. Also shown is Multivac, the ginormous computer that Asimov imagined for future times in a Reality where the transistor was never put onto lithographically-generated microscale computer chips.

Yes, Grandmaster Meyerhof has magical intuition and is one of only a dozen such Grandmasters of computing. Nobody on the Multivac project staff is allowed to question the Grandmasters' choices when they ask questions of the oracle-like Multivac. 

 

Feminine Intuition

Asimov wanted his readers to imagine a future time in which all of the obvious questions for scientific investigation had already been asked and answered. Now it is up to Meyerhof and his fellow Grandmasters to use their intuition to push forward scientific advancement. 

One of the best things about "Jokester" is that it is short. By making use of the "magical intuition" plot device, Asimov does not need to come up with a logical reason for anything that happens in the story. In fact, you could argue that "Jokester" is flat-out fantasy, not science fiction. In any case, the story is short and funny, so it is easy to forgive Asimov for how he constructed the story.

Nobody in the whole world is allowed to question the choices of the Grandmasters, so of course the story begins with Whistler questioning the decision of Meyerhof to question Multivac about the origins of jokes. Whistler advances the idea that Meyerhof wants to turn Multivac into a source of new jokes that he can tell to his buddies.

First Contact

Original cover art by Ed Emshwiller

I love science fiction stories about first contact with space aliens, particularly stories that avoid the usual Hollywood approach of depicting silly alien invasions. What I like most about "Jokester" is that it is a first contact story in which humans discover that they have long been under observation by aliens. That is the same premise used in my Exode Saga, and I certainly owe a lot to Asimov for the unusual ways that he found to include space aliens in his stories.

I don't really want to reveal anything more about "Jokester". Read it for yourself and I suspect you will still remember it 50 years from now.

Related Music: “The Making of Pelham 1933”.

                                (song lyrics by Claude)

Related Reading: Telepathy and Humor

   See also: fictional mutation by cosmic rays

    and: on old Asimov telepathy story from 1941

Next: part 5 of "The Alastor Network"

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Darin Freaking Morgan

Season 11: Waiting for Godot William

Previously on The X-Files...  I was daunted by the prospect of slogging through six more low-Sci-Fi-content episodes of Waiting for William (also known as Season 11 of The X-Files). However, Darin Morgan provided another episode mocking agent Mulder's mid-life crisis and in so doing he managed to top his own funny Season 10 episode, "Mulder and Scully Meet The Were-Monster".

Recursive Sci Fi

Twilight Zone-like teaser
Lost episode from the 60's:
"How to Serve a Paranoid Schizophrenic"

For me, as a Sci Fi fan, the best part of episode 4, "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat", is that it is an amusing type of recursive science fiction story. Morgan's meandering tale begins with a page out of the Twilight Zone; a short teaser scene about evil invading Martians who are altering people's memories.

Mulder can't handle the truth.

The Trump Effect
Episode 4 ends (well, almost) with a Morgan-twisted alternate version of "To Serve Man". A space alien (who would be disgusted by the prospect of having to be near humans, let alone eat them) explains that because Earthlings are such big liars, a solar wall has been built around Earth's star system. Humans are free to explore as far as Uranus, but no further. Even the Voyager spacecraft is returned deported back to Earth in order to prevent anything human from contaminating the rest of the galaxy.

Mulder receives a book from the space alien that contains the TRUTH about everything. Mulder opens the book and starts to read the TRUTH, but he soon cries out in dismay and collapses... HE CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH.

Reggie Who?

Mulder, Reggie and Sugarboobs

This scene in episode 4 where the TRUTH and all alien secrets are revealed to Mulder is played for laughs and viewers have to wonder if the depicted encounter with a space alien is only happening within the insane thoughts of agent Reggie Somebody. The entire episode is presented by Darin Morgan as a Post-Conspiracy Era nightmare in which Donald Trump's penchant for lying becomes the inspiration for a Sci Fi story about Dr. They, a mad scientist who can alter people's memories.

Dr. They develops
mind control technology

Agent Reggie desperately tries to get help from Mulder and claims that he is fighting to not be erased from history by Dr. They.

Could Reggie have actually been Mulder's original partner in the X-Files office? Episode 4 includes several altered scenes from the 1990s The X-Files with Reggie inserted into the cases. In one of these, Reggie shoots Darin Morgan (playing the role of the shape-shifter Eddie).

Parallel Universe

"What if Reggie is from a parallel universe?"

Wrapped in paranoia and oozing with incoherence, Reggie baffles Mulder with tales of how "They" is out to get him. Mulder is unwilling to believe that Reggie's existence could have been completely edited out of the memories of Fox and Dana. Mulder considers an alternative hypothesis: that Reggie is from a parallel universe. In another scene showing an alternative X-Files history as told by Reggie, it is Reggie who greets Dana upon her first arrival in the X-Files basement office. Reggie calls Dana "sugarboobs" and assures her the the X-Files is a guys-only operation.

searching for a lost (or false) memory

Scully, playing the level-headed agent, investigates Reggie's background and discovers that he is an ex-NSA employee who apparently learned about the X-files through wire-taps before snapping and becoming psychotic.

dressed for a night of fun

Then, after viewers are ready to conclude that Reggie's stories of having been on the X-Files investigative team are all lies, Skinner walks by and sees Reggie being hauled off (wearing a straightjacket) to the Spotnitz Sanitarium (he's carted off in a Ghost Bustersesque ambulance).

Mulder's memory of watching
The Twilight Zone and eating
Jiffy Pop popcorn when he
was 10 years old

Through the entire episode, Reggie has had beads of sweat on his giant forehead, and both Fox and Dana have mocked him for his seemingly almost nonexistent grasp on reality (at one point, Reggie claims to have been the 100,000,000th person at Trump's inauguration). But Skinner asks, "Why are they taking Reggie away?" Also, apparently in episode 2 there was an image of Reggie flashed briefly on the screen as part of the mass of digitized X-Files documents. Through all of episode 4, Morgan plays with the idea that none of us can trust our memories... anything might be true. And in the Trump era, it no longer matters if conspiracies are made public because nobody will believe them anyhow.

The Darin Morgan Effect

Do you remember me being smaller?

I'm thankful that for this episode there was no fist fight for Mulder and no lamentations from sugarboobs Scully about her imminent spinsterhood. In fact, at the start of the episode, Dana and Fox have a dinner date planned. However, they end up having to deal with the mystery of Reggie and the Men In Black-like guys who keep popping up and trying to grab Reggie. Anyhow, Dana should know better than to try to distract Fox from important matters such as hunting for Sasquatch.

Don't you remember GOOP-O?

Finally, one of the dudes chasing Reggie chastises Mulder for having become completely irrelevant and useless. Mulder shouts, "Do you know who I am? I'm Fox Freaking Mulder!".

Two big reveals
I remember you being smaller

While Mulder gets to fondly remember Jiffy Pop and a non-existant episode of The Twilight Zone, Scully is enthralled by an old childhood memory of making Goop-O A-B-C, an alternate universe brand similar to Jello 1-2-3.

the danger of disappointing
X-Files shippers (see)

2 Big Reveals
Thank you Darin for yet another reminder that we should not take science fiction too seriously. Fun is number one. And as for snarky meta-narrative, the idea that we (and the almost-over X-Files) are in a post-conspiracy era (where the Truth no longer matters) feels like a fitting bookend for the entire X-Files saga.

Next: episode 5 and the power of telepathy

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Boldly Return

Lieutenant Commander Scott and
anthropologist Lieutenant Palamas

This blog post (below) is the continuation of a series (start here) celebrating 50 years of Star Trek.

Trek 22. When I was young I read Chariots of the Gods? and began imagining "ancient aliens" who might have long ago visited Earth. I was amused by 'Who Mourns for Adonais?', but I could not accept that technologically advanced god-like visitors to Earth would be dicks like Michael Forest. Nor that Leslie Parrish would ignore a poor lovable nerd like Scotty and swoon for Apollo.

Gilbert Ralston died in 1999.

Golden Anniversary Ale: The Trouble With Tribbles

our reaction, exactly

Trek 23. You got Tan Ru in my Nomad! If there is an award for the most improbable science fiction plot, 'The Changeling' is a contender. The Nomad space probe goes out from Earth, crashes into the alien probe Tan Ru. Somehow the two damaged spacecraft repair themselves and through some magical mutation they are turned into a planet-sterilizing monstrosity with superpowers that meanders through the galaxy killing billions of people. Oh, one more detail: Kirk can defeat this superprobe in a one hour episode. Worse still, someone actually thought this plot should be re-hashed as a full-length film. Ew.

Trek 23.5 Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Persis Khambatta died in 1998, she was only 49.

Captain's woman: Marlena Moreau

Trek 24. The episode 'Mirror, Mirror' introduced an innovation that had appeal for millions of nerdy science fiction fans: the Captain's Woman. I've previously complained about the whole mirror universe concept where the Federation is evil.

I'm a fan of alternate history fiction, but I wish someone would have written an alternate Star Trek universe that was more creative than 'Mirror, Mirror'. Jerome Bixby got lazy when he fell back on a tired good vs. evil plot.

Maybe in this millennium there could be an episode of Star Trek where a coherent theory of alternate universes and travel between them could be presented. Otherwise, the mirror universe is just some kind of fantasy where the crew gets to play new roles.

Mudd's fate

Trek 25. Harcourt Fenton Mudd was one of the most memorable characters of Star Trek, crafted by script writer Stephen Kandel and brought to life by actor Roger Carmel. 'I, Mudd' was silly fun, dishing out the "worst" punishment in the galaxy since Scotty filled a Klingon spaceship with tribbles.

Roger Carmel died in 1986 before he could appear in a Next Generation episode.

Andoran

In 'I, Mudd' we got to meet the robotic remnants of a distant civilization. However, in Season Two the flavor of Star Trek began to shift away from adventures at the fringe of known space where the Enterprise could seek out new life and new civilizations. 😢

Trek 26. 'Journey to Babel' allowed viewers the opportunity to meet some new aliens such as the Andorans, but suddenly the crew of the Enterprise was not out exploring the galaxy, but rather it was caught up in some stupid political squabbling.

Andorian-Aenar hybrid

Star Trek never developed a coherent account of telepathy and why some aliens had it. Eventually we were introduced to the Aenar, but I have no idea why they had greater telepathic abilities than the run-of-the-mill Andorans.

"Star Trek science consultant and writer André Bormanis has revealed that telepathy within the Star Trek universe works via the "psionic field." According to Bormanis, a psionic field is the "medium" through which unspoken thoughts and feelings are communicated through space. Some humanoids can tap into this field through a kind of sense organ located in the brain (e.g. the paracortex)." (source)

McCoy telepathically greets the future Leonard James Akaar

Trek 27. Dorothy Fontana continued dragging Star Trek into the dark domain of dismal politics in "Friday's Child". In this episode, the amazingly human-like Capellans become pawns in a cold-war like conflict between Klingons and Earthlings, portending many coming hours of dreary political conflict within the Star Trek fictional universe.

27.5 Later in Season Two, the cold war with Klingons continued in 'A Private Little War'.
Don Ingalls died in 2014.

Nazis in space

27.9 In 'Patterns of Force' we were subjected to another "new world" where the alien inhabitants look like humans, speak English and allow Hollywood script writers to rehash human history in a Sci Fi setting. John Lucas  died in 2002.

Trek 28. In 'The Immunity Syndrome', we were told that Spock experienced telepathic contact with a spaceship full of dying Vulcans. This telepathic connection existed over vast interstellar distances, so the "psionic field" must allow telepaths to communicate at faster-than-light speeds.

11,000 mile long, energy eating cell in space

This was one of the least coherent episodes of Star Trek. Written by Robert Sabaroff, this story boldly paraded all sorts of nonsense across the screen. If only Star Trek had been immune to Hollywood writers who could not write a coherent science fiction story.

The "negative energy field" was one of the many idiotic plot devices of the Star Trek fictional universe. In 'The Immunity Syndrome', a giant space-faring cell surrounded itself with an energy field where the normal laws of physics were reversed!

Kirk fingers an alien invader

Robert Sabaroff died in 2007.

Trek 29. 'By Any Other Name' took the tired old Sci Fi alien invasion plot to intergalactic lengths. 'Cats Paw' provided another approach to intergalactic visitors.

Sadly, the Kelvan Empire was just a platform for yet another lame alien invasion story. Lucky for the Enterprise, no matter how advanced the technology of evil aliens, Kirk always had the magic touch that was required to defeat them.

Drusilla

Green. Scotty's inspired effort to drink an alien invader under the table almost salvaged this episode.

Trek 30. It's a small galaxy, after-all. In 'Bread and Circuses', Kirk finds an old school chum living on a planet where the aliens look like humans, speak English and have a culture amazingly like that of ancient Rome. Yes, if you need another hour-long episode for your Sci Fi show, just trot out some old chapter in Earth's history for a rehash on a distant planet. Oh, and don't forget to provide Kirk with a slave girl.

fan fiction

Lois Jewell died in 2014.
_______________________

This blog post (above) is the third in a series of posts that look back at Star Trek.

Also in this series:
1) Ten of my favorite episodes
2) comments on other mostly Season One episodes.

Next: comments on some Season Three episodes

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