Thought Waves

Thought waves in the Ekcolir Reality

 In my previous blog post, I commented on a story called "The Element of Logic" by R. R. Winterbotham and I tried to imagine how such stories as that one might have influenced Isaac Asimov to invent his own imaginary chemical, thiotimoline. The titular "element" in Winterbotham's story is a newly discovered chemical element.

Figure 1. Timeline of discovery; new elements (source)

 Figure 1 illustrates the rate of discovery of the chemical elements. 

a Crookes tube

It would be fun to have a similar graph showing the years when a new imaginary chemical was included in a published science fiction story.

After the discovery of rhenium (the last of the stable elements to be found) in 1925, there was a pause of a dozen years before another chemical element was discovered (technecium). I wonder if some real-world element such as rhenium or protoactinium (originally called uranium-X) was the inspiration for E. E. Smith's imaginary substance "metal X" which made interstellar travel possible in his Skylark stories. Apparently, protactinium was isolated in 1900 by William Crookes, but he guessed it was an isotope of uranium. 

Winterbotham imagined a chemical element that could transform other substances, causing them to shrink. E. E. Smith imagined that "metal X" could trigger the release of energy from common substances like copper while simultaneously generating thrust that could push a spaceship through outer space.

interior art for "The Thought-Woman"

Crookes was trained as a chemist, but he was among early investigators of electrons in the form of cathode rays. The Crookes tube could produce a "beam" of electrons, but Crookes did not make the conceptual leap that was required to recognize electrons as a sub-atomic particle.

"The Thought-Woman", published in the July 1940 issue of Super Science Stories was a short story by Ray Cummings that mentions Crookes (see the image below 👇). The interior art on page 1 of "The Thought-Woman" (see the image to the right on this page) seems to show gigantic glass tubes. In the story, Stanley Durrant is a young inventor who is trying to invent... something. Ray Cummings never bothered to tell readers exactly what it is that Stanley is working on. The artist for Super Science Stories was free to draw whatever he wanted to illustrate the contents of the Realm of Unthought Things.

excerpt from "The Thought-Woman"

Stanley's friend, Dorothy, really likes Stanley 💕, but he is only concerned with his work. Then one day she tells Stanley about the Realm of Unthought Things. Stanley is amused by the concept of a "place" where all future inventions already exist, waiting for someone to think of them and bring them into the real world.

Thought Waves. But then Stanley "hears" a voice and soon he is off on an other-worldly adventure to visit the Realm of Unthought Things. Eventually, Stanley realizes that he should pay more attention to the cute Dorothy. One way of interpreting the story is that Dorothy has some telepathic powers and was able to put ideas into Stanley's head.

Crookes, 1898 (source)

In 1998 William Crookes was president of both the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society for Psychical Research. In a speech given at a meeting of the former, Crookes suggested the possibility that telepathy might be a real phenomenon (see the image to the right). Crookes also admitted that evidence to support the existence of telepathy was lacking, but he suggested the possibility that scientific research might discover a mechanism for telepathic communication.

Crookes, 1898 (source)

Crookes suggested that within the brain there might be molecular processes that create "thought waves". He argued in analogy to the way that radioactive elements can emit "rays" which were still quite mysterious in 1898. Crookes proposed that a science of Experimental Psychology would reveal the unconscious workings of the human mind and I think he was suggesting that human telepathy might operate outside of our normal conscious awareness.

Dr. Lego, the great inventor, meets
a cute Star Trek Barbie in
the Realm of Unthought Things
the Ekcolir Reality

Previously, I've imagined that in the Ekcolir Reality, the analogue of Ray Cummings was a woman named Reynette. In one of my stories featuring the Rey analogue, I included the idea that:

The Reynette at the Writers Block even wrote an autobiographical book: An Unthought Thing: My Life in Science Fiction. 

Enchantment. "The Thought-Woman" is a kind of magical fantasy story about the magic that Dorothy works on Stanley.

I've previously mentioned some stories with "enchanted" in the title. Maybe in the Ekcolir Reality there was a science fiction story written by Reynette Cummings about an "Enchanted Inventor" and a device that allows humans to access the Sedron Time Stream.

Jocelyn, Clair and Gaynor

 On to Europa.  In the July 1940 issue of Super Science Stories was a very short story called "Europa Enchantment" by Henry Andrew Ackermann.

However, before getting to read "Europa Enchantment", I ran into "Before the Universe", apparently some sort of collaborative work by C. M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl. Jocelyn Earle, a reporter for Helio, must investigate the latest work-in-progress of two super-geniuses, Clair and Gaynor. She soon learns that they are working on a little spaceship (called Prototype) to be powered by the mysterious element 99. 

Figure 2. Interior art for "Nova Midplane".

 Element 99. Jocelyn goes along on the first element 99-powered journey and the three adventurers find themselves at the beginning of the universe. In the story, element 99 is greatly effected by a mysterious force: protomagnetism. Readers are told that Prototype is pulled by protomagnetism to the beginning of time where its mere presence triggers the formation of our universe. The story ends with Jocelyn, Clair and Gaynor struggling to return home. They reach a mysterious planet just as their supply of food is running out. According to the ISFDB, this was just the first of three "Clair and Gaynor" stories.

 LGBPDQT? Since these stories were written in the 1940s the clues are subtle and I can't tell if Kornbluth and Pohl tried, at the start of the saga, to depict Clair and Gaynor as bisexuals living together happily as a couple.  

Jocelyn in the Ekcolir Reality

 The not too alien Gaylen. The second story in the series, "Nova Midplane", begins on the planet that was discovered at the end of "Before the Universe". This exoplanet is populated by the alien Gaylen, who use "mechanical educators" to quickly teach the Earthlings their language. The Gaylen explain that their sun is soon to explode as a nova, so Jocelyn, Clair and Gaynor have to quickly move on. They take along one of the Gaylen, a woman named Ionic Intersection. Clair announces that in order to get back to Earth, all they have to do is think carefully about Earth and they will be transported back home. As the Prototype enters the Solar System, Captain Clair performs two quick marriage ceremonies, one for he and Ionic Intersection and then one for Jocelyn and Gaynor. Don't ask me to explain the interior art (Figure 2) for "Nova Midplane" or the title of the story. Maybe the editor cut out the racy part of the story depicting how Clair met and fell in love with the sexy alien, Ionic Intersection.

Figure 3. Zirconium Transformer.

 End of the World? Don't worry about the rest of the Gaylen. Knowing that their planet would be super-heated when their star went nova, they genetically engineered an artificial lifeform that would be able to survive on their world after it was toasted by the nova. They were all prepared to transfer their minds into these lizard-like creatures when their star went nova.

Also in the November 1940 issue of Super Science Stories was "Cepheid Planet" by Winterbotham. This story makes little sense, but by the end of the story, a plan is hatched to take oxygen from a distant oxygen-rich star system and use it to terraform Saturn. In case you are wondering, the secret of interstellar travel is to use a HiTek™  Zirconium Transformer (see Figure 3). Sadly, the interior artwork for the story makes the HiTek™ zirconium-powered spaceship look like a 20th century ocean liner with a steam boiler room.

Oxygen storm.

 Oxygen Storm. I've long been amazed by the various types of "space storms" imagined by pulp science fiction story tellers. In "Cepheid Planet", a spaceship from Earth travels to Alpha Seymo, a star which is rich in zirconium. However, Alpha Seymo is a Cepheid variable and it periodically creates a dangerous "oxygen storm" that sweeps through space and hits a nearby Earth-like planet. Each time that the oxygen level on the planet suddenly rises, that causes dry plant material to burst into flames. 

mercury-secreting animals

Cepheid Crisis. Being subjected to periodic oxygen storms, the animals of the planet have evolved in such a way that they all secrete a protective layer of mercury that shields them from dangerously high oxygen levels.

"Cepheid Planet" is set in a future time when their are human colonies on planets of the Solar System including Mercury, Mars and Saturn. Interstellar travel has only recently become possible, but zirconium is so rare in our Solar System that only one zirconium-powered spaceship can be built. The obvious priority is to visit an exoplanet where more zirconium can be obtained, so it is off to the Alpha Seymo star system, 500 light-years away.  🚀 Due to the wonders of zirconium, the trip only takes a month.

The green oxygen clouds of Alpha Seymo? (image source)

text from "Cepheid Planet"

 "Cepheid Planet" is a strangely contorted story which deals with the man who built the first Zirconium Transformer on Mercury (his name is Seymo). Mr. Seymo's invention was stolen from him and he was sent to prison on Saturn. 

After doing hard time on Saturn, Seymo has a chance to redeem himself. He is taken along on the trip to Alpha Seymo, a variable star that has been named after him. It is hard to tell if this story was originally longer and more coherent before being brutally edited by Pohl.

cover by Gabriel Mayorga

Apparently Super Science Stories had a tiny budget and many of the stories were either written by the editor (Pohl) or were stories previously rejected by other magazines. Asimov's first robot story was rejected by Astounding and published under the title "Strange Playfellow" in the September 1940 issue of Super Science Stories. That title, "Strange Playfellow", was provided by Pohl. Later, when the story was re-published as part of the collection I, Robot, Asimov returned to the original title, "Robbie".

Return to Europa. After being diverted to the November 1940 issue of Super Science Stories (see above) I was finally able to return to the July 1940 issue to read "Europa Enchantment". Henry Andrew Ackermann imagined that there are forests on Europa and also humanoids with feathers, beaks and four arms (see the image below). 

Athora the birdwoman 🐥 of Europa.

The story opens on Europa with Athora the birdwoman 🐥 planning to attack the dwelling of two settlers from Earth. Athora gathers her tribeswomen 🐥🐥 for the attack, but they chicken out when they hear many human voices coming from inside the dwelling. They don't realize that the multitude of voices are coming from a radio set. The birdwomen call off their attack and run away. 🐥

fanatics in the Ekcolir Reality

According to this page, Henry was the cousin of Forrest J Ackerman. I'm a sucker for self-referential fiction so I read Henry Ackermann's "Fanatics of Mercury" in the December 1942 issue of Future Fantasy and Science Fiction (you can get a copy here). In Henry's short story, Fanatics of Mercury is a novel written by Commander Monte Maurice Montross and it is the latest in his exciting Interplanetary Series which includes other novels such as Lunatics of Luna, Hellions of Ganymede and Horrors of Kobar Cunn.

Commander Montross has a problem. Readers are bored with his repetitive plots and he cooks up a publicity stunt to boost sales of his next novel 💰. The stunt relies on the help of a dedicated fan who calls himself Jack Teagarden. However, Jack's real name is actually Oliver Tolliver. The fact that Jack uses a fake name ends up foiling the Commander's publicity stunt 💸.

Mars in the Ekcolir Reality.

 Propontis. Henry Ackermann seems to have been a fan of the old planetary adventures. Henry's story "South to Propontis" was published in the Fall 1941 issue of Planet Stories. Readers of this tale are expected to accept the idea that the surface of Mars is a burning hot desert with plenty of air available for visiting Earthlings to breath. 

interior art for "South to Propontis"

"South to Propontis" features diamond mining on Mars. This is a Mars where the Martians have degenerated into savages, but there are still some ancient ruins of a former Martian civilization. Henry Ackermann also imagined native birds on Mars (see the image to the right).

In "South to Propontis", Don Moffat hopes to escape from Mars with his diamonds and go to Earth. He has to contend with a band of Martians who are trying to repair an ancient Martian machine. If he fails to get the machine working, Don will be fed to the birds.

Figure 4. Interior art for "Return from M-15"

 Donald A. Wollheim, editor. Another pulp science magazine that featured plenty of stories published under fake names was the short-lived Cosmic Stories magazine. Another story published under the name of "S. D. Gottesman" was "Return from M-15" (1941). M-15 is planetoid near Mercury with a secret prison that is used by corrupt officials at the Evil™ World Research Syndicate as a way to get rid of trouble-makers like inventor Dr. Barney Train.

Hypnotism. Dr. Train tries to sell an amazing new invention to the Syndicate, but his price is high. He is hustled off to the M-15 prison.  Arriving at M-15, Dr. Train is ordered to work. The M-15 base manufactures Thalenium, a narcotic drug. Dr. Train hypnotizes a guard and soon he escapes from M-15 and goes back to Earth. Dr. Train's invention is the device shown in Figure 4. 

Figure 5. The
portwem experience.

It might look like a blaster, but Dr. Train's device is a magic ray gun that can trigger the instant transmutation of elements. The Evil™ Director of the World Research Syndicate is turned into a golden statue. Dr. Train takes control of the World Research Syndicate, intent on ending its Evil™ practices.

Mind Sense. In that same March 1941 issue of Cosmic Stories was "The Secret Sense" by Isaac Asimov. In a 2019 blog post I briefly mentioned "The Secret Sense" and the fact that it was rejected by Astounding editor John Campbell. In 2019 I gave this one sentence summary of "The Secret Sense": "Asimov imagined that the human brain has a latent capacity to sense electric fields." Eventually, Asimov began writing stories about people and robots who could detect tiny (electrical?) signals emanating from brains, allowing them to have mind-reading abilities. Asimov's 1941 story features Martians who have a "secret sense". A nosy human learns about the Martian secret and insists on having the opportunity to experience the secret Martian sense for himself.

Figure 6. Excerpt from "The Secret Sense".

The Martians do not have very good sensory organs, but they have a sense modality that acts directly on brain cells. Asimov imagined Martians who lived in underground cities and their sense of vision did not include the ability to detect colors. However, Martians have the ability to sense electric currents flowing through wires. The martians make use of a device, the portwem, to create enjoyable electrical signals that stimulate their brains (see Figure 6).

the challenge of visually depicting telepathy

 The Wonders of Chemistry. Don't imagine that the portwem is irrelevant to humans. Asimov depicted humans as have a small number of brain cells that are sensitive to electric fields. When boosted by a special chemical substance, those human brain cells can allow a person to experience the wonders of the portwem. However, as depicted in Asimov's story, after five minutes, such stimulation destroys those electric field-detecting cells in the human brain. 

Nyrturians

 Telepathy? Asimov imagined that the Martians would keep their special sense secret from humans because they know that some humans will not be able to resist "listening" to portwem "music", but then, after an amazing 5 minute super-sensory experience, they will regret for the rest of their life never being able to "hear" the Martian music again. The artist for "The Secret Sense" faced the problem of illustrating this imaginary sensory experience (see Figure 5). Might an ability to sense electromagnetic fields allow for a form of telepathy?

The End of Eternity. I've long imagined that Asimov depicted Noÿs Lambent as having telepathic abilities. Maybe she put ideas into Harlan's mind by using some kind of technology-assisted telepathy that was developed millions of years in the future by Asterothropes.

image source

After many years of curiosity about the tale, I finally read Asimov's first-draft version of The End of Eternity. Did Asimov include telepathy in that first draft of the story?

Previously, I complained about Jack Vance's novels Big Planet and The Gray Prince which read like inferior first drafts of some of his later novels. Similarly, I did not expect too much from "The End of Eternity" as presented in The Alternate Asimovs.

Time Loop. The early version of "The End of Eternity" begins with Cooper, and it is through Cooper's eyes that we are introduced to the cigarette-smoking man: Computer Twissell. Twissell is part of a loop in time by which time travel must be used to allow the invention of time travel.

changing the shape of time

 When is Harlan? In the story, there is also a character called "Anders Horemm" who comes from the 95th century, but first we are introduced to Attrell, a Life Plotter, before Horemm walks on stage. Attrell is tasked with trying to find people in Time who can be given a life-saving anti-cancer medicine (that is obtained from their future) under conditions that will not disrupt Earth's timeline. In the final published version of The End of Eternity, the "Anders Horemm" character became Andrew Harlan.

Temporal Momentum. In the early draft version of "The End of Eternity", Asimov introduced the idea that the historical timeline of Earth is resistant to change. The course of historical events tends to remain fairly constant unless a way is found to trigger a "quantum change" and push the shape of time into a dramatically new form. A momentum of time can usually cancel-out the "butterfly effect", preventing "random" Reality Changes.

1971 - Cover art by Paul Lehr.
This was the edition of The End of Eternity
that I first owned during my SF golden age.

Horemm is depicted as investigating the "Mallom Mystery" and having located Cooper in Time. In this version of the story, Twissell takes Cooper on a trip to the far future in a time kettle so he can witness a Reality Change (Asimov originally used the term "quantum change").

A "retired" Computer, Manfield, is the expert in primitive history who prepares Cooper to travel into the far downwhen as part of the Eternity time loop. After Horemm loses Noÿs 💕 to a Reality Change, he cracks (he is literally depicted as going insane) and sends Cooper to the 20th century. In this version of the story, there is no hint of Noÿs being from the far future and having telepathic powers. 

Lost in Time. It is then up to Manfield to find Cooper. Manfield is successful and Eternity does NOT end. The only apparent change caused by Horemm is that in the new Reality, it is Manfield who smokes cigarettes, not Twissell.

Alternate Asimov

I'm glad I finally read the early version of "The End of Eternity". The world is very lucky that when Asimov tried to publish the first version, it was rejected. The full-length novel is a much more interesting story, although many core features are there to be seen in the "first draft". 

Apparently, Asimov tried to get The End of Eternity published in Astounding, but Campbell rejected the story. I can't say that I'm surprised. Asimov was very blunt in depicting cigarette smoking as a disgusting habit. I'm sure that Campbell was not amused to have his nicotine addiction mocked.

Related Reading: more commentary on The End of Eternity.

Next: Golden Age Collaboration

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The Humanoid Institute

cover art by Tony Fiyalko

Two years ago when I was commenting on The Last Starship from Earth by John Boyd, I mentioned the 1966 novel Colossus, the basis for a 1970 movie "Colossus: The Forbin Project". I'm thinking about The Forbin Project at this time because I've been following online commentary about the television adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation saga. The one thing I've heard about Apple TV's Foundation show (TVF) that I originally liked the sound of was including Eto Demerzel in the story, with the character appearing in the very first episode.

But... As far as I can tell, when creating the first 10 hours of TVF there was no attempt to faithfully bring the details of Asimov's story to the screen. In Asimov's story, positronic robots (particularly Daneel) were able to hide their identity as robots from the people of the Galactic Empire. The TVF Eto Demerzel is depicted as serving for many centuries as an aide to a clone dynasty of Emperors. Asimov included no clones in his Foundation saga.

Weird Tales, December 1924

Although every detail of the Foundation saga has seemingly been changed and morphed for this new television show, I still wonder if the TVF will hold to the overall story arc that Asimov created.

Warning. Here in this blog post, I'm going to travel back to the late 1920s in search of the origins of Asimov's ideas about robots and transmutation of elements. Asimov's family came to the United States from Russia just before the 1924 Immigration Act. If you follow me into the jungle of 1920s science fiction, be prepared to see blatant racism and sexism in some of the stories. Nobody can truly escape from the clutches of their cultural environment and it is not my business here to condemn any writers of the past for their words... no matter how bad they sound from the perspective of 2021.

in the Ekcolir Reality

Slow down. Taking decades or centuries to travel around the galaxy is not something that existed in Asimov's Foundation saga. Did the folks making TVF decided to make such radical changes to the story (vastly increasing travel times) just so that they could put characters in cryosleep and have them appear again hundreds of years later? Very lame. An old fan of Asimov's Foundation saga (like me) might shrug off clones and hibernation, but how can a positronic robot be depicted as killing a human being when ordered to do so? Will we eventually get some explanation in season 7 that involves the Zeroth Law?

In TVland, at some point you risk a transition from being "inspired" by Asimov's Foundation saga to simply not respecting fundamental core principles that are part of Asimov's legacy as a science fiction story teller. Daneel as a religious robot? Is this TVF or WTF? Asimov must be spinning in his grave.

Daneel: the metal (wo)man.

 Travel at the speed of thought. I previously suggested that a Foundation television program should speed things up and get to the Mule by episode 3. Sadly, TVF went in the other direction and after 10 episodes there is still no Mule. While thinking about story telling pace and interstellar travel speeds, I must mention in passing that I've long attributed the idea of a spaceship moving at the speed of thought to E. E. Smith (also used by Simak). 

First in Fantasy. However, in the December 1924 issue of Weird Tales, Carroll Michener's story "The Earth Girl" featured the magical teleportation of Hattie from Chicago to a distant planet by means of the "ninth ray" which "has the speed of thought". Here (below) is a passage from Michener's story, spoken by an alien named Halvad to the titular "Earth Girl" Hattie La Salle:

Halvad's warning about women from "The Earth Girl".

 I like to imagine that in an alternate Reality (the Ekcolir Reality) female authors dominated the science fiction genre when it became established in the early 20th century. Maybe in such an alternate Reality, the female characters would be heroic, not harbingers of doom. Do the female characters in TVF improve upon Asimov's characters such as Bayta and Arkady?

Daneel

Telepathy. In Asimov's version of Foundation, Daneel had telepathic abilities and could deploy other robots, all disguised as humans, for the purpose of guiding Humanity into the future. Daneel's actions were controlled by the Laws of Robotics, including the Zeroth Law which says: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." 

Gaia and Galaxia. Daneel had a big problem with humanity: how could he know what was best for humanity and what might cause it harm? Daneel carried out two big projects, each lasting for thousands of years. First, his Gaia project developed telepathic humans with the goal of creating the group mind, Galaxia. Also, from a time long before the formation of a Galactic Empire, Daneel worked to create a science of Psychohistory that could predict the future of human civilization.

Psychohistory

I have to believe that by the time of Hari Seldon, Daneel had long been using Psychohistory to help understand the unwinding course of Humanity. With Daneel's secret Gaia project nearing completion, Daneel needed to start preparing the people of the galaxy for a future in which the vast telepathic group mind of Galaxia would dominate the galaxy. I believe that it was Daneel who worked to engineer the fall of the first Galactic Empire. Hari Seldon was both the catalyst for that fall (predicting the disintegration of the Empire by means of Psychohistory) and the public architect of the Foundation, a foundation for creation of the new Empire to come that would welcome human telepaths and lead to the creation of Galaxia.

Sadly, so far, I've seen no mention of either the Laws of Robotics or telepathy in TVF. Maybe these plot elements are yet to come if the makers of the show are able to reach their goal of 80 episodes.

cover art by William Timmins

 Horror. Television shows such as The Forbin Project are the opposite of Asimov's Foundation saga. Shows like The Forbin Project are horror stories, like Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. If you want to know how little Asimov's ideas about robots are appreciated in Hollywood, just look at the 2004 film I, Robot. For a wider perspective on what happens if you try to depict robots as peaceful and helpful, consider the 1974 television show "The Questor Tapes". That show could have led to a successful television series about robots, but with no killer robots in the show, it was a Hollywood dead-end.

I'm now fearful that TVF will end up depicting Asimov's robots as sources of horror. If so, then I can't think of a better way for Apple TV to disrespect Asimov's life-time effort to depict robots as useful and carefully engineered technology that can help Humanity. This dismal possibility is what has me thinking about The Forbin Project.

cover by Ralph McQuarrie

And having been put in mind of The Forbin Project, I went back and re-read "With Folded Hands", a Jack Williamson story from 1947 that reads like a reaction to Asimov's 1946 story "Evidence". In all fairness to the TVF project, I suppose I must consider this question: if Williamson could turn Asimov's view of robots on its head, then why shouldn't the folks making TVF? I own a copy of Williamson's story as it appeared in Great Tales of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. I also went back to look at the internal art that was in the 1947 magazine where "With Folded Hands" was first published.

cover art by Frank Paul

Transmutation. Asimov depicted a trip across the galaxy as taking perhaps a month or two, at most, due to the wonders of hyperdrive. Do the folks at TVF have any interest in following Asimov's lead in the depiction of imaginary future technology? One of the plot elements in Asimov's original Foundation saga was the idea of transmutation of elements. Yes, one of the strangest parts of Asimov's Galactic Empire was the "futuristic" economics. Try to picture a galaxy-spanning civilization where the capital world is powered by geothermal energy obtained through the hard work of a poverty stricken population of "heat sinkers". 

Hollywood is disgusting.

Economics 101. In Asimov's future Galactic Empire (many thousands of years in our future) you can bribe high officials with precious iridium... that is, unless the high officials believe that you have the secret of transmutation of elements. If they do, then they will try to obtain that secret so that they can convert iron into iridium for themselves.

In Search of Asimov's Inspiration. Since Jack Williamson's first published story "The Metal Man" was about transmutation, I could not resist getting in my time machine and going back to 1928 to read that story. 

detail from the cover of the July 1947 issue of Astounding Science Fiction

 

interior art by Hugh Rankin

Building Robots. When Isaac Asimov began writing stories about robots, he was reacting against previously published stories that depicted "mechanical men" as clanking murderous villains. Asimov's robots were carefully engineered and crafted as useful helpers for humans. Legend has it that Asimov began reading pulp magazines in 1929.

As an example of a murderous robot, look at the illustration to the right on this page. There is the "mechanical man" from the 1929 story, "The Chemical Brain". The "mechanical man" has just murdered chemist Walter Parsons. 

Pasadena

"The Chemical Brain" is told from the perspective of John Lester, a skilled machinist who helped Parsons and Captain Rowan build the "mechanical man" in a laboratory located on the grounds of the Captain's luxurious estate in Pasadena. 

Having seen "the hideous Robot, driving its short, arm-like pistons into Parson's quivering flesh", John smashes the robot's head.

from the January 1929 issue of Weird Tales

 

the machine man; art by Frank Paul

 False Flagg. I'm always pleased to come across new (to me) stories about "mechanical men" that might have influenced Isaac Asimov and contributed to his thinking about robots. As examples, I'll discuss "The Chemical Brain" and "The Machine Man of Ardathia" which were both published in the late 1920s under the pen-name "Francis Flagg". Some sources give Flagg's real name as George Henry Weiss and others say Henry George Weiss. 

In "The Chemical Brain", readers were "treated" to a "mechanical man" who murders one of the men who created it. For his robot stories, Asimov used "positronic brains" that were made of platinum and iridium. While a computer uses electrical circuits, a positronic brain has "positronic pathways". In Asimov's imagination, a sprawling robotics industry would be needed on Earth in order to construct humanoid robots, but in Weiss' story, a robot is quickly built by three men working in a home laboratory.

Figure 1. the chemical brain is poured in

 The Wonders of Chemistry. As the title of the story implies, Weiss' robot had a "chemical brain". One key component of the robot was crystals of piezoelectric Rochelle salt. According to Weiss, each crystal could receive and send messages along 200 circuits in the robot's complex electrical system. However, at the last step of the robot's construction, Parsons simply pours a gloppy liquid into the machine's head which then magically congeals and forms a functioning brain.

in the Ekcolir Reality

In the passage shown above (Figure 1), the Captain is red in the face because at the exciting moment of completing the robot, he is having a heart attack.

During the construction of the robot, Lester, Parsons and Captain Rowan engage in discussions of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, Lucian Larkin's idea of a cosmic mind, "automatic writing" and the play R.U.R.; the later is described by Weiss as being about "mechanical men", but in Karel Čapek's 1920 play, the robots are artificial biological organisms. The Captain (an electrical engineer) likes the idea that upon death of your body, your mind can live on.

Lester, upon realizing that he is helping build a thinking robot, is not pleased and he says: "...such inventions fly in the face of nature. They can bring humanity no good." However, because of... [plot]..... he continues to work on the robot, only slowly coming to understand the nature of the "experiment" in artificial life that Rowan and Parsons intend to perform.

Figure 2. Interior art
  depicting an Ardathian

Stay in the Kitchen, Woman! Everything might have turned out fine for the robot that was built by Lester, Parsons and Captain Rowan, but sadly, Weiss did not heed Halvad's warning and a woman was able to sneak into the story. She is Genevieve, the sister of Captain Rowan, who quietly serves as housekeeper and cook for the three men. Parsons is a materialist (he likes the work of John B. Watson) and he has no patience for mystical ideas; he is only concerned with material things such as chemicals and Genevieve. Parsons and Genevieve fall in love, but when Genevieve tells the Captain about her romantic yearnings for the cute chemist, Captain Rowan flies into a rage. With simmering sexual tension now hanging over the robot construction project, their work is completed, but just at the moment of success, Captain Rowan drops dead. ☠

We are told that upon his death, Captain Rowan's mind magically transferred into the "chemical brain" of the robot and the mind of Rowan then used the powerful robot body to murder Parsons. Having spent months helping construct the robot, John does not hesitate to smash its brain and as the robot "dies" we get to wonder what might be the next destination for Captain Rowan's magically migrating mind.

blurb for "The Machine Man of Ardathia"

"The Machine Man of Ardathia" is a time travel story. 30,000 years in the future, humans have become cyborgs (see Figure 2, above) and they are learning how to travel through Time. Like much science fiction from the "rockets and rayguns" era, whenever the Ardathians need to do anything, they make use of a magic ray.

in the Ekcolir Reality

"The Machine Man of Ardathia" goes into amazing detail about how human society evolved in the 30,000 years that separate us from the "machine men" of Ardathia. Sadly, the story ends after the first ever visit by an Ardathian time traveler to the 20th century. We are left wondering if maybe a temporal paradox has been triggered in which a new future is created, one where further time travel is impossible. Alternatively, the people of the future might have realized that it is not safe for them to visit the past and so we will never have any more Ardathians visiting us.

I like to imagine that in an alternate Reality there may have been female analogues of famous science fiction story tellers like Weiss and Williamson. I can't stop myself from imagining an alternative version of "The Machine Man" that might have been called "The Machine Woman".

making an android copy of Kirk

 Mind Transfer. Both of Weiss' stories avoid the challenging task of creating and programming an artificial robotic brain. For his story in Weird Tales, a human mind is depicted as magically jumping into a waiting robotic receptacle. "The Chemical Brain" reminds me of the Star Trek episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Asimov eventually imagined the robot Daneel transferring his memories into a biological brain. For the Exode Saga, I imagine mind transfer in the opposite direction: the first positronic robot was "programmed" by imprinting the structure of a human mind upon positronic circuits. 

In "The Machine Man of Ardathia", there is no manufactured artificial brain, only a human brain functioning as part of a cyborg system.

Detail from the cover art for "With Folded Hands"; humanoid robots at work.

internal art by William Timmins

 With Folded Hands. I read this story back in the 1970s and tried to forget it as quickly as possible. It includes some of my least favorite Sci Fi plot elements such as a Super Genius™ scientist: Mr. Sledge, from the distant planet Wing IV, who invents fantastic technology in his basement and in so doing causes the collapse of civilization.

Mr. Sledge is an expert in the field of rhodomagnetics. In Williamson's fictional science, elements such as rhodium are subject to the "universal force" known as the rhodomagnetic force. Rhodomagnetic signals are like electromagnetic signals on steroids: rhodomagnetic signals travel at infinite velocity. One of the uses of rhodomagnetic signals is to destabilize atomic nuclei; a type of "artificial fission" can be triggered by rhodomagnetic signals. Yes, almost anything becomes possible with rhodomagnetics, including rapid interstellar travel (sadly, not at infinite speed, but "many times the speed of light").

Central; internal art by William Timmins

So you ask, in Mr. Sledge's wonderful world of rhodomagnetics, what could go wrong? Sledge created robots known as "humanoids" and equipped them with rhodomagnetics and the Prime Directive. The Prime Directive forces the humanoids to serve humans and protect them from harm. Now, humans under the care of the humanoids are not allowed to do anything that involves the least bit of danger. 

Mind-Altering. As told in "With Folded Hands" the humanoids are rapidly spreading from planet to planet, trapping every human of the galaxy in their protective and stifling grasp. Any human who does not like the new robot regime is mentally adjusted so as to make them be perfectly happy doing absolutely nothing all day long. The humanoid robots do all the work.

using rhodomagnetics to destroy Central

Williamson tells his readers that Mr. Sledge got into the robot business when he was "swept along with a fad for general semantics". One thing led to another and soon Sledge builds the "perfect humanoid" and a Central Base for coordinating all of the individual humanoids. Now having come to Earth, Sledge is trying to destroy robot Central and liberate Humanity from the humanoids. He fails and at the end of the story we are left with the prospect of humans forever under the watchful eye and heavy protective thumbs of the humanoids: "Bitter futility, imprisoned in empty splendor. The humanoids were too efficient, with their care for the safety and happiness of men, and there was nothing left for men to do."

the end: humanoids stop all resistance

 Back to Asimov's Robots. Isaac Asimov included two positronic robots in his Foundation saga. One was Daneel (who for a time served in the roll of Demerzel, assistant to the Emperor). The other positronic robot became the wife of Seldon. 

Seldon knew that Demerzel and his wife were robots, but through Daneel's telepathic mind control, Seldon could not speak to anyone about his knowledge of robots. Seldon's wife served Daneel as Seldon's bodyguard and protector. She meets her doom when while acting to protect Seldon, she kills a human. Positronic robots are programmed to never harm a human, so causing the death of a human destroys her positronic brain.

all the old robot companies of Earth
are put out of business by the humanoids

I was goaded into thinking about The Forbin Project and "With Folded Hands" when I read that in the Foundation TV show (episode 8), Demerzel was ordered to kill a human. I suppose I will eventually have to watch the Foundation television show just to find out if it adheres to Asimov's general story arc or if it is a completely different story using the same name and a few scattered ideas from Asimov's saga.

interior art by Frank R. Paul

 Transmutation. Asimov's idea that iridium would be particularly valuable in the far future of a Galactic Empire has not stood the test of time. Iridium is rare in the crust of planets like Earth only because it associates with other metals that have been concentrated in the core of planets. If you wanted iridium in large quantities, you could go mine a convenient asteroid. In Foundation, the idea of creating iridium by transmutation is a "magic trick" that is used to entice a high-ranking official of the Empire into a rash act. During the fall of the First Galactic Empire, science stagnated and technology wilted. The First Foundation was a center of science and in the dark times of the crumbling Empire, it was possible to believe that the First Foundationers might have Super Hi Tek such as a means of transmuting elements.

true science or very much mistaken? - The Moon Pool

 Mistake. What about Williamson's 1928 story "The Metal Man"? Williamson's transmutation story is very silly. While searching for a good source of radium, a remote mountain domain of magical mutations is found where the bodies of animals can be transmuted into metal, including the unfortunate titular "metal man".

original cover art
by Robert E. Schulz

 Related Reading: Gladiator,
            Salvage and
           The Metal Monster

See Also: "Death Sentence"

And: Season One of Foundation.

Next: Part 4 of "The Telepaths of Site Q"