Telepathy on the Moon

in the Ekcolir Reality

In my previous blog post I discussed six stories by Russell Winterbotham that were published between 1952 and 1956. I was searching for evidence that he might have become a more sophisticated science fiction story teller in the later part of his career (1952 - 1958). 

In the earlier phase of his science fiction story publishing (1935 - 1943), Winterbotham published creative short stories. During the 1950s, there were more options for the publication of longer format stories and Winterbotham moved in that direction. 

In this blog post, I explore one more of Winterbotham's stories from the early 1940s and contrast it with three of his stories that were published in the late 1950s.

in the Ekcolir Reality

Winterbotham was a creature of his times and his female characters were not given much freedom to explore their human potential. It is tempting to imagine alternate versions of Winterbotham's stories that might have been made more interesting with the inclusion of more prominent and dynamic female characters. Maybe Winterbotham had a female analogue in the Ekcolir Reality and she was able to create female characters who were on equal footing with the male characters.

 Telepathy in 1957. "Extra Space Perception" was published by Winterbotham in the May 1957 issue of Science Fiction Stories. In "Extra Space Perception", Winterbotham took a serious look at the mystery of human telepathy. Winterbotham adopted an evolutionary approach, imagining that after living on the Moon for many generations, human colonists from Earth might evolve new abilities. 

interior art for "Extra Space Perception"

In particular, Winterbotham depicted human residents of the Moon as gaining the ability to survive for several minutes on the surface of the Moon without a spacesuit and also developing telepathic abilities.

 Big 300. The story is set 300 years into the Space Age. The three main characters in "Extra Space Perception" are Ace Crosbi, Diane Walace (that's the two of them, driving across the surface of the Moon, in the image to the right) and Judd Beecher. Ace owns a casino on the Moon and Diane runs Crap Table No. 3.

 Sciensy™. Winterbotham's theory of telepathy is built around "Teq"; Thought energy quanta. According to Winterbotham, Teq is a type of radiation produced by the Sun. Teq is absorbed by living creatures, but when they can hold no more, they release "old Teq" from their bodies which can carry thought impressions into the minds of nearby people (see Figure 1, below). Teq is in short supply on Earth, but more readily available on the Moon.

Figure 1. thought energy quanta

 Hypnosis, too. Humans on the Moon also have a chance to develop special hypnotic powers because the Moon has deposits of "Staghorn Crystals". Judd Beecher tries to hypnotize Ace by making use of a Staghorn Crystal, but he fails. Then poor Diane finds the Staghorn Crystal and soon she is like a zombie, exiting from the casino... completely under the control of Beecher.

magic moonbeams strike the Moon Pool

Winterbotham's story "Extra Space Perception" reminds me of "The Moon Pool", an old story first published in 1918. Winterbotham was born in 1904 and may have read "The Moon Pool" when he was in his early teens. For "The Moon Pool", Abraham Merritt imagined the existence of a special element on the Moon. When sunlight was reflected off of that element and off of the surface of the Moon, the resulting moonlight had magical powers.

Mathematics in 1958. In the October 1958 issue of Future Science Fiction was "The Variable Constant" by R. R. Winterbotham. At the ISFDB, "The Variable Constant" is listed as the last science fiction story ever published by Winterbotham in a magazine. I generally despise alien invasion stories, but as the title suggests, "The Variable Constant" concerns mathematics and the Evil™ invading aliens never kill anyone or destroy a single city of Earth.

Figure 2. Text excerpt from
"The Variable Constant".

 Big 600. The invading aliens (they are called the Beorhi) are able to use mathematics and computerized calculations to predict human behavior and control the people of Earth. The story begins 600 years after the arrival of the aliens on Earth when only a few humans have avoided the Beorhi effort to selectively breed humans for docility (see Figure 2). 

Readers are quickly informed by Winterbotham that Gerd Thane is the one human who the Beorhi fear. Gerd is special because he is the protagonist can think for himself and his behavior is not completely predictable. Now, see if you can guess who will liberate Earth from the Evil™ clutches of the Beorhi. You may not even need mathematics and a computer to successfully make your prediction.

Figure 3.

 Figure 3 shows the page one interior art that was published along with "The Variable Constant". That image has nothing to do with the story. 😡

Sadly, a major component of the story concerns the ability of the aliens to use hypnosis or conditioning to control the behavior of Earthlings. In particular, Gerd's lover, Miss Charis Ryna, has been conditioned since birth to play her part in the future for Earth that the Beorhi have carefully calculated and worked hard to achieve.

You might ask: if the mathematical calculations of the Beorhi show that Gerd Thane is a potential threat to their control of Earth, then why don't the Beorhi simply kill Gerd? 

Figure 4.

The answer is shown in Figure 4. There is only a small cadre of Beorhi overlords on Earth and they need a few special human helpers who can keep essential parts of Earth's infrastructure running. Gerd Thane is a trained expert in electronics and he keeps the factories running.

In the January 1939 issue of Amazing Stories was a short autobiographical blurb from Winterbotham in which he mentioned that when in school he had an interest in medicine and science. 

in the Ekcolir Reality

For another autobiographical essay in the January 1940 issue of Fantastic Adventures, Winterbotham stated that his introduction to science fiction magazines came by way of an issue of Amazing Stories that he discovered on a news-stand. However, he also recalled a Nick Carter story that involved going into a volcano, and it was that story that first got him interested in science fiction. It was not until 1934 that he had enough free time to begin seriously reading "everything in sight" and soon he began selling his fiction for publication in pulp magazines. He wrote stories in the science fiction genre and others (such as westerns and detective stories) as well. Winterbotham claimed that he got his story ideas from his "day job", which was writing non-fiction.

Poor Man's Time Travel. A full-blown Sci Fi time travel story has a time machine, but there is a way to reach the far future without a time machine. Just "sleep" your way to the future.

image source

 The Early Winterbotham. In that January 1940 issue of Fantastic Adventures that included an autobiographical essay by Winterbotham was his short story "Captives of the Void" which concerns two spacemen who "travel to the future" by means of suspended animation. In 1939, "The Black Flame" was published by Stanley G. Weinbaum in Startling Stories. Weinbaum's story featured a dead man who crawls out of his grave after 1000 years. Soon he is fit as a fiddle and having a grand adventure in the future. 

Alan Brown wrote: "The Black Flame" at its heart it is a love story." Similarly, Winterbotham usually managed to configure his science fiction stories so as to include a romantic love-interest for the male protagonist. I have no idea if Winterbotham was influenced by having read "The Black Flame", but it would not surprise me if he had been. And if other Sci Fi story tellers imagined a trip of 1000 years into the future (see also: "The Cosmic Engineers"), then why not go even further into the future?

Figure 5. interior art for "Captives of the Void"

 The Big Sleep. In "Captives of the Void", two spacemen (John Deno and Aaron Cleef) are held in a state of suspended animation for billions of years. Sadly, Winterbotham did not provide any details about the technology that was used to keep Deno and Cleef alive for billions of years. Winterbotham mentioned radium, which was enough of a sciensy hand-wave for his purposes. When they finally wake up it takes Deno and Cleef a few days to clear their heads, get the kinks out of their muscles and recover their memories. Having "slept" for so long, their clothing disintegrated, but the artist for the story magically provided them with pants (Figure 5).

Figure 6. In the Ekcolir Reality.

I'll leave the ending of "Captives of the Void" as a puzzle for the reader. Here is a hint, a line from near the end of the story: "The universe was beginning all over again." Winterbotham has sent Deno and Cleef off to a far future when no stars remain shining; there is nothing visible surrounding their spaceship, just an endless black void. Cleef is resentful and cracks under the strain, but Deno stays hopeful, searching for some indication that there is a future for them in this dark future. Winterbotham liked to wrap-up his stories with a happy ending and the protagonist winning the heart of a cute girl. How did Winterbotham provide John Deno, captive of the void, with a "they lived happily ever after" ending?

The ending provided by Winterbotham for "Captives of the Void" reminds me of Isaac Asimov's 1956 story "The Last Question". 

in the Ekcolir Reality

It is easy to view Asimov's story as science fiction because he centers the tale on the universe's ultimate super-computer. In contrast, Winterbotham's story feels more like magical fantasy with no attempt to rationally explain how John Deno gets out of the pickle he is in.... and he even gets the girl.

 Gerd and Charis. Now we can return to "The Variable Constant" and Winterbotham's problem of finding a way for the protagonist Gerd and the cute Charis to live happily ever after. First of all, don't worry about the Beorhi overlords. They are killed by a mysterious plague, and when reinforcements arrive from the alien home world, the newly arriving Beorhi spacecraft are blasted by a squadron of nuclear-bomb-equipped missiles that is conveniently on hand. However, a slave to her Beorhi conditioning, Charis has tried to kill Gerd (see Figure 7). 

Figure 7. The Last Question

 The thrilling conclusion.  When Charis dolefully asks Gerd,  "Would you marry a woman who tried to kill you?" you might imagine that this is the time for Gerd to reassure his lover and say he knows that she was forced into her attempted murder by her Beorhi conditioning and that misdeed can't diminish his never-ending love for her. However, we get the unusual passage shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8.

Sadly, the ending of "The Variable Constant" has the look and feel of either 1) Winterbotham became bored with his story and quickly wrapped it up, or 2) the magazine editor had just a limited amount of space in that issue and condensed the last 20 pages of Winterbotham's original story into a single page. Having defeated the Beorhi, Gerd quickly outlines the future that he will provide for Earth with a government founded on the principle that "all authority derives from the Creator" and that it is now time to convene constitutional conventions. Charis showers Gerd with fiery kisses and tells him, "I know you'll be elected president".

cover art by Ed Valigursky

I have to wonder if by 1958 Winterbotham's interests might have been shifting towards the writing of longer stories. His story "The Space Egg" in the March 1958 issue of Amazing Science Fiction was described as a "complete novel". The story begins in Kansas where a new super-sonic aircraft is being tested: the WD-40 XDW-49. 

Figure 9. Uncredited art for "The Space Egg".

There in Figure 9 is the interior artwork for "The Space Egg" showing the XDW-49.

  This is a Test

Janet in the Ekcolir Reality

The nimble and quick test pilot is Jack. He flies the XDW-49 above 200,000 feet and mysteriously runs into something that drills two neat holes in the plane's canopy (Figure 10). 

The story's first person narrator is Bob, who is tasked with managing the cameras that capture images from the XDW-49 while it is in flight. Since this is 1958ish, the film has to be taken off of the plane and sent by train to Kansas City to be developed. 

Winterbotham quickly introduces readers to Janet (a secretary, working for the test-flight team) who seems to be the number one interest of Bob. While Jack is landing the XDW-49, injured and bleeding, Bob is asking Janet out on a date. Bob starts providing hourly reports on the cute outfits that Janet is wearing.

Jack snaps.

 UFO. The plot thickens when a mysterious egg-shaped object is found inside the cockpit. The "egg" is about the size of the two holes in the canopy. Once on the ground, Jack behaves strangely and then one of the flight team's members is killed. A second egg-shaped object is found near the crew quarters. Houston, we have a mystery.

At this point, about 30 pages into "The Space Egg", I could not stop myself from thinking about Hal Clement's 1949 story "Needle" which was about aliens who arrive on Earth and take up residence inside the bodies of humans. 

Now Jack no longer blinks his eyes. What has gotten into Jack? He gets a gunshot wound, which then almost instantly heals. With a UFO mystery like this, we need the help of a physicist, Dr. Maynard, the brains behind the XDW-49 space-plane.

The Dr. Maynard theory of energy beings.

 Red-shirt Casting Call. Janet's friend Ruby (another secretary) has become the second pod person, apparently host for whatever was inside space egg #2. Jack and Ruby have guns 🔫 and the body count quickly starts to rise.

Ruby and Jack in the sun.

When Jack and Ruby are seen sunbathing on the roof, Dr. Maynard assumes that they are soaking up sunlight energy and getting ready to reproduce and turn more people into alien pod-people.

 The Dreaded Energy Beings. With two gunshot deaths and two people (Ruby and Jack) under the control of the alien energy creatures, Bob is undeterred from his mission and he invites Janet to lunch.

Figure 10. alien egg attack

Finally, the film from the XDW-49 space-plane flight returns from Kansas City (see Figure 11, below) and we get to see the alien "eggs" form when two mysterious energy creatures from outer space pass through the plexiglass canopy of the space-plane. One energy being quickly moves inside Jack's body as soon as it is within the cockpit of the XDW-49 (see Figure 10).

Winterbotham provided readers with a whole lot of hand-waving about how "life is energy" so we should not be surprised by the existence of alien energy beings. 

image source

 Regeneration. The "explanation" for why Jack and Ruby can now instantly repair any gunshot wounds they receive is that animals have always been able to regenerate tissues and the energy beings simply know how to activate that regeneration process.

 X-rays to the Rescue. So, how can the alien energy creatures be defeated? Dr. Maynard quickly decides to fight energy with energy and he builds an x-ray generator. Apparently, Winterbotham wrote for some comicbooks such as Chris Welkin-Planeteer and in fine comicbook fashion, laboratory glassware (on-hand at an airport) is quickly fashioned into an x-ray generating tube.

in the Ekcolir Reality

 Bison Drama. Sadly, Winterbotham's "The Space Egg" feels like a comic strip struggling to become a science fiction novel. And with so many pages available to him, Winterbotham even included a riveting account of how in 1958 you could pay $450.00 to have the privilege of shooting a bison and having the meat flash frozen and shipped to your house. 

That passage about bison was how Winterbotham raised the issue of how the alien energy beings might take-over the world and exterminate Humanity. 

Planeteers of the Ekcolir Reality. (image sources)

interior art for "The Space Egg"

 Printer's Devil. Dr. Maynard pulls a story collection by Ambrose Bierce off of the shelf and asks Bob to read part of "Moxon's Master": "There is no such thing as dead, inert matter: it is all alive; all instinct with force, actual and potential; all sensitive to the same forces in its environment and susceptible to the contagion of higher and subtler ones residing in such superior organisms as it may be brought into relation with, as those of man when he is fashioning it into an instrument of his will." Maynard raises the question: which is the higher form of life, humans or the alien energy beings? Which will most successfully fashion the other into its instrument?

Who's Counting? Jack and Ruby defend their sunny position up on the roof. They each have a hand-gun and are ready to shoot anyone that gets in their way. In two "dramatic" scenes, they each try to shoot Bob, but each has used up all their bullets and so Bob survives. 

 Figure 11. Movie night; alien creature feature.

 No Bullets. You might think this would be the time to capture the two alien pod people, but no. Jack and Ruby also have super-human strength! 

Tit for Tat. Charged-up with sunlight, Ruby "reproduces" and infects another human with the mysterious alien "energy", creating a third pod-person. However, this new pod person is almost immediately blasted to bits by Maynard's x-ray generator. Is it a stand-off?

"Scratch One Alien"

 What Now? Clearly this is the time for another long sciency digression by Dr. Maynard. Unfortunately, the type-setter for Amazing Science Fiction does not help. Dr. Maynard theorizes about "mirror energy" and "mirror matter", but "positron" gets rendered as "position". Oh, well... this whole hand-wavium digression is Winterbotham's attempt to account for the mysterious "space eggs" as being a type of composite matter; a mixture of the plexiglass of the space-plane's canopy and "mirror energy"... whatever that is. 

Dark Energy. Bob thinks that some misty "mirror energy" was captured on film of the XDW-49 flying through the ionosphere, and it looked dark. Did Winterbotham anticipate the concept of dark energy?

The China Egg in the Ekcolir Reality

 And ESP, Too. When Dr. Maynard ends his lecture on composite matter, he is still unable to explain how the mirror energy that got trapped inside a "space egg" was able to recognize Jack as a suitable host. Dr. Maynard suggests that: "extrasensory perception will explain a lot of things like this".

Some of the typographical errors in "The Space Egg" are rather comical. Winterbotham depicted the local sheriff as chewing gum. When Jack and Ruby come down off of the roof for the big dramatic final shoot-out (even a light-weight Colt Cobra had been found for Janet) the text of the story says that the sheriff "spit out his gun". 

You'll have to read "The Space Egg" to find out how the energy beings from the ionosphere are defeated. The ending reminds me of the Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

cover art by John Schoenherr

Don't worry that after Jack's flight of the XDW-49 more of these annoying energy beings will attack everyone who else who enters the ionosphere. Dr. Maynard suggests that the two mirror energy life-forms that entered Jack and Ruby were created by some kind of random, freak interaction between the XDW-49 space-plane and the ionosphere. Dr. Maynard suggests that new life is only created about once every billion years. He suggests that life as we know it on Earth began with a lightening bolt. Once it started, that "life force" gathered molecules and cells around it, resulting in life as we know it on Earth.

 Electrical Virus. I've never read the free-standing novel form of The Space Egg. The cover of the Monarch Books edition describes the space eggs as bringing an "electrical virus" to Earth. The cover shows a "space egg" outside of the XDW-49, which was not part of the story as I read it in Amazing Science Fiction. 

image source

Mention of a virus raises the question: might The Andromeda Strain have been inspired by "The Space Egg"?

Sinister Symbionts. In the November 1958 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Anthony Boucher provided a one-sentence synopsis of The Space Egg in which he labeled the story as being "lightweight". I suspect that we can interpret that "lightweight" descriptor as indicating that the imaginary science in The Space Egg is likely to remind readers of the slap-dash science deployed in comics where action or romance is of most concern to some author who has no scientific training. However, I give Winterbotham credit for trying to think outside the box and imagine a form of life that truly unlike life as we know it on Earth.

in the Ekcolir Reality

 In the September 1959 issue of Science Fiction Stories was a longer commentary on  The Space Egg by Robert Silverberg. It is not clear that Silverberg did more than quickly skim the story since he miss-states the origin of the titular space eggs. Also, Silverberg dismisses the whole "mirror matter" hypothesis that is devised by Dr. Maynard in the story. I'd like to ask Silverberg: if Maynard's idea is wrong, do you have a better theory that could account for the strange events taking place in the story? While reading "The Space Egg", I had fun imagining that some unknown form of sedronic matter might be able to enter into a person and alter their behavior, but then I'm confortable imagining that humans evolved as biological organisms containing a zeptite endosymbiont.

in the Ekcolir Reality

In the March 1959 issue of Astounding Science Fiction was commentary on The Space Egg provided by P. Schuyler Miller. Miller felt that the plot of The Space Egg was ready-made for Hollywood. "No roman candle, but no wet fuse, either." With so much effort being made by folks in Hollywood to parade an endless stream of comicbook-inspired stories across the big screen, I can understand Miller's comment. Lightweight comic-style adventure seems to be in the Hollywood sweet-spot.

I like to imagine that in an alternate Reality, women dominated the golden age of science fiction and wrote stories that gave more prominent roles to female characters. Winterbotham's character Ruby Cascade starts out as a sexy bimbo and then turns into a vengeful and jealous puppet of an alien life-force. 

in the Ekcolir Reality

Nobody is saddened when Ruby disappears in a flash of "mirror energy" radiation at the end of "The Space Egg". Maybe in the Ekcolir Reality Ruby could have been a scientist who devised a plausible theory to account for the alien-encounter of Janet, the pilot of the XDW-51 space plane.

Winterbotham suggested that life as we know it here on Earth originated from the same "primordial life-force" that shows up in "The Space Egg" and transforms Jack the test-pilot into a new kind of super-human entity. Sadly, Winterbotham made no attempt to account for Jack's sudden increase in strength. Winterbotham raised the specter of extrasensory perception in "The Space Egg" to account for the ability of the "primordial life-force" to select the two appropriate human bodies that the alien force takes control of. If we invite telepathy into the story, then why not add telekinesis?

bullet-proof man

in the Ekcolir Reality

 The Final Phase. I'm not sure if I'm ready to try reading one of Winterbotham's novels that went straight to book formal between 1962 and 1966. The ISFDB lists six of these including "The Men from Arcturus".

Related Reading: Philip Wylie's 1930 superman who like Jack and Ruby could not be killed by bullets. Also: "The Pompous Asteroid" by Winston Marks.

Next: more old Sci Fi stories published from 1930 to 1943.

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Dr. Fitzjames

see this review

 This blog page is the 4th in a series of blog posts (starting here) concerning science fiction stories about doctors. I began exploring stories about doctors as collected in Groff Conklin's anthology called Great Science Fiction About Doctors, but I've also included any other such stories that I can find, even if they were not known to Conklin. My search has been going far and wide, but I'm restricting myself to older stories that were published before this millennium. 

Fantasy. I get it. Science fiction can be viewed as a sub-specialty within the broader literary domain of fantasy. I've never read "Doctor Rat" by William Kotzwinkle, but that novel won a World Fantasy Award and it is not my mission here to venture too far outside the domain of science fiction in my exploration of stories about doctors. However, I must admit, some blatantly unscientific stories have crept in...

image source

 Title. Included here on this page, below, is a ghost story featuring Dr. Fitzjames. That ghost story was written by a man who I will now only identify as "the good doctor". I must add, this good doctor might have become a medical doctor instead of a biochemist had he not become sicked by the task of dissecting a cat during a biology course. However, I'll begin Part 4 of my adventure with a story that was written by someone who is more famous than "the good doctor", Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle...

Asterothrope telepathy
in the Ekcolir Reality

 Return to the 1800s. It was with much trepidation (and a gloomy expectation of having to wade through a magical fantasy story) that I read "The Great Keinplatz Experiment" by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published around 1885, but often re-published in places such as the October 1936 issue of Weird Tales. While in his late 20s, Doyle studied some medical subjects, so it is no real surprise that his story features a Professor of Physiology. The renowned Alexis von Baumgarten, who teaches at the University of Keinplatz medical school, is fascinated by the idea that by placing someone in a trance, their mind might be free to wander away from their body. 

 Mind Transfer. Professor Keinplatz puts both himself and his young assistant into trances. After an hour, they both come to their senses and return to "normal" consciousness, but their minds have swapped bodies. Hilarity ensues, but eventually they go through the mind swapping process once again and they are returned to their correct bodies.

Life after Death.

 Last AND Least. The last remaining story that was collected in Great Science Fiction About Doctors is an even older tale from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe. "The Facts of M. Valdemar's Case" was first published in December 1845 in The American Review. Like the "Keinplatz Experiment" (above), Poe's story is about Mesmerism and trances. The ailing Valdemar is placed into a trance just before his death. For several months, Valdemar then hangs at the edge of death, his body occasionally "speaking" in an unnatural way, stating that he is dead. Finally, the body abruptly liquefies and only a "detestable putrescence" remains where Valdemar once reposed on his death bed. There are several medical doctors who attend Valdemar at the end of his life, but there is no doctoring for them to do. Poe's story is not science fiction; I'd label it as pseudoscience horror fiction.

An elektron box in the Ekcolir Reality.

 Life After Death. Having mentioned (above) the October 1936 issue of Weird Tales, I feel compelled to mention a story called "Doctor DeBruce" by Earl Leaston Bell. "Doctor DeBruce" was published in the February 1924 issue of Weird Tales and it is another story about life-after-death. 

I can almost picture in my mind a young Jack Vance reading Weird Tales and then later writing lines such as: "Life, death... these are imprecise terms." (see The Palace of Love) Doctor DeBruce spends his last few days among his book collection and we readers of the story are left to ponder the possibility that among the texts in his library was one holding the secret of how to return (at-least briefly) from the dead. 

interior art by Austin Briggs

 The Struggle to Die. Earl Bell also wrote "The Young Old Man" which was published in the September 1929 issue of Amazing Stories. "The Young Old Man" lives more than 5 centuries before finally dying. 

She Turned Me Into a Newt Ghost. You ask: what was the secret of this man's long life? Bell explains: brief treatment by electrical forces emerging from a mysterious elektron box which created blue sparks and even cured the Young Old Man's tuberculosis. Centuries later, the Young Old Man still has in his possession an old book written in Latin; the author, Roger Bacon. I think readers are expected to assume that Bacon was a Hi Tek™ wizard. Finally, tired of life, the Young Old Man uses a powerful poison to put an end to his long life. Sadly, Bell did not tell readers very much about the mysterious life-giving Bacon box from the Middle Ages. 😞

Ghost Lines in the Ekcolir Reality

 Fantasy Stories. I've long been impressed by Isaac Asimov's ability to write stories in so many different genres. I suspect that Asimov did sometimes read Weird Tales when he was in his formative years, but some of the story telling in that magazine apparently left him cold (see this essay). Try to imagine the young Asimov in 1929 reading "Doctor Pichegru's Discovery" by Carl F. Keppler as published in the July 1929 issue of Weird Tales. Doctor Pichegru's discovery was a tricky surgical technique for how to perform a successful brain transplant.

In Part 3 of this series, I discussed "Doctor O'Glee's Experiment" by T. Proctor Hall, a 1929 story in which a futuristic technology is found for treating criminals and curing them of their criminal propensities. The surgical wizard Dr. Pichegru demonstrates his criminal tendencies: as soon as he refines his brain transplantation surgical procedure, he is eager to apply it to the goal of stealing a million dollars worth of jewels.

a paragraph from "Doctor Pichegru's Discovery"

 Cavanaugh Goes Ape. Dr. Pichegru transplants the brain of Cavanaugh, a young colleague, into the body of a gorilla. Dr. Pichegru wants his friend to use his new powerful ape body to sneak into a nearby home and break into a steel safe (see the image to the left). Dr. Pichegru proposes to return Cavanaugh's brain to his original body after they obtain the valuable jewels. What could go Wrong?

source

You will have to read "Doctor Pichegru's Discovery" to discover what happens to the criminally insane Pichegru and Cavanaugh's brain. "Doctor Pichegru's Discovery" is a fantastic (in the sense of "fantasy", not "good") horror story and makes no attempt to explain how it is possible for Pichegru to perform brain transplants. It is fun to imagine how reading such fantasy stories effected Asimov as a young boy. Soon after Asimov began publishing stories, he wrote a ghost story that was initially rejected, but which eventually was published in Weird Tales under the title "Legal Rites".

 Ghost Busters. I mentioned in Part 2 of this series that I'm a sucker for stories about mysterious peoples living secretly among us. I'll place "Legal Rites" in this category (you can read it here). Puzzle: how would young Isaac, a budding scientist, design a ghost story in 1940? 

"James MacCreagh" was Frederik Pohl

 Spoiler. In "Legal Rites", Asimov quickly introduced readers to a "man" named Nicholls. I put "man" in quotes because when Nicholls tells Russell Harley, "we may be of service to each other", readers should start to question the motives of Nicholls and wonder: who what is Nicholls?

Is Nicholls the original ghostbuster?

 

in the Ekcolir Reality

The first story by Asimov that I ever read was The Gods Themselves for which Asimov imagined a kind of parallel universe and way for things to move between our universe and the other universe. Where does Nicholls come from?

 The Spirit Universe. Asimov depicted extra-demensional transfers to-and-from an astral plane. Hank uncontrollably drips extra-dimensional blood on poor Harley.

Figure 1. Do ghosts have legal rights?

Hank died in a gun fight (the story is set in the desert southwest) and he can endlessly drip blood which can mysteriously materialize right out of thin air in our universe and upon falling on the ground, evaporate with a quick, sizzling pop. Nicholls quickly demonstrates his thaumaturgical skills and casts spells from the Ars Magicorum while dealing with the cantankerous Hank who claims ownership of the old house that Harley has inherited. 

An astral entity?
see Alien Obelisk Scene
by Henry1850 availble under
the CC BY-NC 3.0.

 Devil's Dung. Nicholls identifies Hank as a "low-order ghost who can't materialize to any great density". As a chemistry student, Asimov included in the story the idea that stinky asafoetida can repel ghosts. As shown in Figure 1, the dispute between Hank and Harley over ownership of the house ends up in court. Hank calls himself an "astral entity" and he has been dead for more than 75 years, but he is trapped and "stuck" to our universe because of his violent death. While working in the previous century as a prospector, Hank amassed a cache of gold and this wealth allows him to hire a lawyer. 

Dr. Fitzjames. The defense attorney objects to Hank serving as a witness in the case, but there is expert testimony from the eminent Dr. Fitzjames revealing that psychiatric examination of Hank indicates the ghost is a reliable witness. Asimov was a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan, so he depicted Hank as owning a book of their plays. Hank wins the case, setting the legal precedent for ghosts to haunt houses. At the end of the story, it is revealed that Nicholls is also an "astral entity" of some sort and he carefully set-up Harley to lose the case.

interior artwork by Frank R. Paul

Having mentioned Dr. Pichegru and his skill at transplanting brains (above), I feel obliged to mention "The Living Test Tube" by Joe Simmons. This is the only story attributed to Simmons by the ISFDB. "The Living Test Tube" was published in the November 1928 issue of Amazing Stories. For "The Living Test Tube", a criminal dies, but his head is kept alive by Dr. Hausen. The dead man's brain is kept functioning just long enough for it to give testimony in a murder case. 

image source

"The Living Test Tube" includes a rather large amount of bogus biological science which decorates a twisted and contrived plot. Still, I have to wonder if "Joe Simmons" was a pen name for some well-known author.

 Related Reading: I've never read the story, but Professor Dowell's Head (1925) featured the evil surgeon Dr. Kern who murders Dowell and keeps alive the professor's head. I'd be interested to know if Alexander Belyaev put any effort in to explaining how a disembodied head might be kept alive. See also: The Brain That Wouldn't Die.

editorial blurb introducing "Doctor Satan"

 Dr. Satan. I began this blog post with mention of Dr. Rat. Here is a fun game to play... start with Dr. and add another word... "Doctor Satan" sounds like what you would expect from Weird Tales and there it was, in the August 1935 issue of Weird Tales. Paul Ernst produced a whole string of Doctor Satan stories. Having read "Doctor Pichegru's Discovery" (see above), I was intrigued by the editorial blurb (see the image to the left) introducing the Doctor Satan series to readers of Weird Tales. I wondered: is this Dr. Satan actually our old friend Dr. Pichegru returned from the grave? Was "Carl F. Keppler" nothing but a pen-name for Ernst? We have to wonder, why is Dr. Satan so devilish?

text from "Doctor Satan"

I'm a sucker for stories about ancient sources of knowledge. As shown in the image to the right, Dr. Satan makes use of both ancient Egyptian knowledge and Hi Tek™ gizmos to do battle with square-jawed Ascott Keane and his cute assistant, Beatrice Dale. 

Dr. Satan in the Ekcolir Reality

In Part 1 of this series I mentioned "Rappaccini's Daughter" in which it is implied that Dr. Rappaccini created a special kind of poisonous plant that was like a sister to Rappaccini's daughter, Beatrice. Paul Ernst told his readers that Dr. Satan was able to modify a type of Australian thorn bush and turn it into a plant that could grow rapidly when rooted in a human brain. This specially designed plant has tiny seeds that can float in the air, enter the nasal passages and take root. Then within two hours the plant has grown large enough to explode the person's head. You will have to read "Doctor Satan" to see how this evil plant is used by Dr. Satan.

I've long been puzzled by a line in Jack Vance's novel The Palace of Love when the excitable Navarth exclaims: "He'll kill us all. He'll drown us in dog vomit. He'll grow trees in our ears." I've wondered: who comes up with these things? I really have to wonder if Vance was influenced by the stories of Ernst.

another "Doctor Satan" cover (1936)

 And Hypnosis, Too. Dr. Satan has many tricks up his red sleeves. He is an expert in the art of hypnosis. Early in the story, in order to provide readers with some background on Doctor Satan and his evil ways, readers are introduced to Dr. Satan's assistant, Monroe. After a conversation between Monroe and Dr. Satan allows readers to learn about the plant that grows in the brains of victims, Monroe is quickly hypnotized and then reduced to ashes by Dr. Satan by means of a highly flammable yellow powder. 

Its a Small World After-all. A month before the start of the story, Keane set out to destroy Dr. Satan. After informing Keane that he can read minds, Dr. Satan has to ask Keane how he learned about Dr. Satan's existence. Keane can also "read minds" and he learned of Dr. Satan from the mind of Monroe.

in the Asimov Reality

 Green Trumps Yellow. The ancient Egyptian knowledge deployed by Dr. Satan is a yellow powder that he used to incinerate Monroe. However, the erudite Keane, recognizing the yellow powder, protects himself with some green paste, another Egyptian invention that counter-acts the yellow powder. Then things get nasty. Keane desperately tries to destroy Dr. Satan using the Force "the pure form of electricity known as the Life Force". Keane fails to kill Satan and breathless readers are told to wait a month for the next thrilling chapter in the Dr. Satan saga.

Before departing from the electric pages of Weird Tales, I'll mention that Paul Ernst published another story called "The Tree of Life" in the September 1930 issue of Weird Tales. That story hints that somewhere in upper Michigan there is a fabulous Tree of Life that can bring dead people back to life. 

in the Ekcolir Reality

Just like Beatrice Dale and Beverly G. Grocke, of Arlington, New Jersey, I must ask: Who is Dr. Satan? Maybe he's a retired botanist or plant geneticist. I confess that when I began reading the stories in Great Science Fiction About Doctors, I hoped that some of the stories would actually be about scientists, not medical doctors. 

A Physicist. One such story that I found is "Doctor Royker's Experiment" by Joseph Whitehill from the September 1960 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. (story here). This is apparently a time travel story although it ends rather abruptly and we readers are left to guess what has just happened to Dr. Royker, a physicist. Dr. Royker is renowned for his work in the field of Time-and-Information circuitry. I have no idea what that means, but I want to believe that it is the foundational science that will make time travel possible.

Figure 2. interior art by Elliott Dold

 A Biologist. Earlier this year I blogged about a story called "The Living Equation" by Nat Schachner which was published in September 1934 issue of Astounding Stories. In that same issue of Astounding was "A Scientist Divides" by Donald Wandrei. 

In "A Scientist Divides", Dr. Weylith, a biologist, is well-known for having been the first person to photograph a virus. Now he has isolated what he calls homoplasm... which is kind of like protoplasm on steroids.

image source

I'm intrigued by the idea that human bodies might contain within them nanoscopic components as yet unknown to science. In any case, when Dr. Weylith spills the newly-isolated homoplasm on himself, he quickly turns into an amorphous mass which first splits in half and then forms two half-sized copies of Weylith. The fission process continues, creating the gaggle of mini-Weyliths shown in Figure 2. That scene is not the end of the story, but it degenerates into an incoherent ending that reminds me of "Liquid Life" by Ralph Farley. Maybe Farley was influenced by having read "A Scientist Divides". What about the fictional science in these two stories? Sadly, writing in the 1930s, Wandrei and Farley were just about as "scientific" as anyone might be expected in those days when little was known about the molecular basis of life.

 Professor I.V. Frost. Starting in 1934, Wandrei wrote a series of stories about the scientific detective Professor I.V. Frost, Sc.D. (doctor of science).

Figure 3. Editorial blurb appearing right at the end of "A Scientist Divides".

Figure 4. Cover by Les Edwards

 Astounding and Clues Detective Stories were owned by the same company (Street & Smith), so it is not a surprise that the editor of Astounding advised his readers to go out and get a copy of Clues.

In "Frost", when Jean Moray enters the mansion of Professor Frost, her body is x-rayed, revealing her two guns, one in her purse, the other worn on her thigh (see Figure 4). Professor Frost is quick to call that second little gun a "toy". However, Jean is soon blasting away at bad-guys and holding up her end of the first Ivy Frost adventure.

I have to wonder if the young Isaac Asimov was permitted to read Clues Detective Stories. Supposedly, he talked his father into letting him read science fiction magazines because anything with the word "science" in it must be educational.

Figure 5. Educational?

The covers of those old 1930s detective magazines (such as the one in Figure 5) might have attracted readers, but under inspection by suspicious parents, they would not have suggested much in the way of educational science content. Reading "Frost" (you can read it here), I was impressed (not favorably) only by the endless violence.

Violence is the refuge of incompetents. Still, Isaac Asimov did eventually write his own detective stories (such as The Caves of Steel) and his "Cal" is an amusing robot story. A robot named "Cal" tries to learn how to write mystery fiction from his owner. Cal's first written story is about a detective named Cal. In Asimov's detective stories, what little violence there is tends to take place "off stage". I imagine that the young boy, Isaac, was rather disheartened by all of the violence that he saw in the pulp magazines.

Dr. Frost (left). Interior art by H. W. Wesso.

 The Other Dr. Frost. In the February 1938 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories was "The Changer of History" by Alexander Samalman. I'm always on the lookout for stories about time travel. "The Changer of History" really concerns viewing the past by means of a device created by Dr. Frost; that device is something like a telescope but its lens is composed of a marvelous material called lumindust. Also in that issue is an account of the initial stimulus that led Samalman to write "The Changer of History".

interior art for "Medical Note"

"The Changer of History" is not a very good story which is probably to be expected... according to the ISFDB it was the first published work by Samalman. Of more interest is "Medical Note", published by Alexander Samalman in the February 1942 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. I have not been able to learn very much about Alexander Samalman. Apparently, he worked for many years in the publishing industry and occasionally published one of his own stories.

medical humor in the Ekcolir Reality

"Medical Note" is a kind of joke story that might very well have been written to mock other stories such as the previously described "Doctor O'Glee's Experiment". In "Doctor O'Glee's Experiment" there was a magical "ether wave" to cure every illness. 

For "Medical Note", Samalman imagined that music could be used to treat any affliction. Earlier in this series, I mentioned "A Matter of Ethics" by Clifton Dance, in which the Intergalactic Board of Mural Cardiosurgery had a monopoly on use of a life-saving medical treatment that could repair the hearts of heart-attack victims. 

Similarly, in "Medical Note", the Medical Music Trust charges unreasonably high prices for the therapeutic music used to treat patients in hospitals. Read the story to learn the comical means that were used by a daring doctor to defeat the evil Medical Music Trust.

Figure 6. The first paragraph of "The Last Story".

Before I abandon Alexander Samalman, I must mention what the ISFDB identifies as his last published speculative fiction story which was published in 1951. Samalman only lived 52 years and died in 1956. "The Last Story" appeared in the September 1951 issue of Startling Stories. It is another joke story concerning the one writer in the universe who is pleased to receive a rejection slip. The story is set in the year 2160, in an alternate utopian future where money was abolished in the year 2015. 

interior art for "The Last Story"

In the future imagined by Samalman for "The Last Story", fiction is now illegal (see Figure 6). In defiance of the law, Ignatius writes a Western story and shares it with Jonathan Hearsay, an old man who edited the last magazine, Western Whimsies.

In this "utopian" future of 2160, every 4-dimensional super-television set has a camera built-in and the television set in Hearsay's room captures images of the two men reading and enjoying the story. Soon the police arrive to execute the two criminals. Hearsay completes one last task before he dies. He provides Ignatius with a rejection slip for the story. Thrilled to have even had the chance to write one last story, Ignatius dies happy, with the rejection sheet in his hand.

Fig. 7. Long Life

 Vitality Index. I've long been dismayed by science fiction stories about the future in which the entire economic system of the galaxy is built around one rare substance such as the "spice" of Arrakis or kyrt. 

I also have little interest in the seemingly endless parade of vampire and zombie fantasies that has saturated our modern world, and for that reason alone I tend to avoid much speculative fiction that was written during the past 50 years. "A Bonus for Dr. Hardwick" is one such "modern" vampire story by Brian C. Coad that was published in the February 1974 issue of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact. Yes, it is a vampire story pretending to be a science fiction story.

"A Bonus for Dr. Hardwick" is set in the near future after it has been discovered that the bodies of living creatures contain an Essence of Vitality™. Each person's "Vitality Index" is measured when, as a new employees of Long Life Corporation, they arrive at the sprawling research facility in Long Life City, Nevada (see Figure 7).

Schizzy Frehan checks out Smith's Vitals

 A whole vampiric industry has grown up around the process of taking the Essence of Vitality™ out of some peoples' bodies and giving it to other more deserving people. This is accomplished by the Schlagle Process™.  

Schizzy Frehan, PhD. Schizzy was close to devising a way to synthesize the Essence of Vitality™. However, her work has been halted and her Vitality Index lowered by draining her body of the Essence of Vitality™. Can anything be done to save poor Schizzy? This is where Dr. Smith walks on stage and is quickly smitten 💕 by the cute Schizzy and then he is soon battling the corporate vampires who are content to continue sucking the Essence of Vitality™ out of people as a way to prolong their own lives.

image source

 In Conclusion. This 4 part series of blog posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) documenting my exploration of fiction about doctors has included discussion of more than 50 old stories that were published between 1844 and 1974. My favorite type of fiction is science fiction, but I allowed myself to examine a few stories from other genres (including detective fiction) for this series. I remain tempted to read more adventures of the scientific detective Professor I.V. Frost, Sc.D., but I fear the meager scientific content of the "Ivy" Frost stories is seriously out-weighed by all the silly fantasy violence and use of magic potions from ancient Egypt. On a more positive note...

Figure 8. Dr. Iglowt P. Slakmak (left)

 Arthur Porges. I'm please that some of the stories I've read concern doctors who are not medical doctors (Dr. I. V. Frost is a good example). In Part 2 of this series I discussed "Emergency Operation" and "The Fly", two stories by Arthur Porges. Porges taught mathematics and some of his stories had a distinctive mathematical flavor and an academic setting. I'll end my collection of stories about doctors with three more short stories by Porges...

Figure 9. In the Ekcolir Reality.

 Alien Educator. In the January 1954 issue of Dynamic Science Fiction was "The Unwilling Professor" by Porges. The titular professor is shown in Figure 8, professor Slakmak, an alien visitor to Earth who happens to look like a rabbit. Slakmak crash-lands on a college campus and is force to help some college students with their math homework before another alien arrives and rescues Slakmak. Such stories by Porges have two big advantages: 1) they are very short and 2) they don't take themselves too seriously.

Larsen vs Corman. Two stories published by Porges in 1963 both feature Dr. Larsen and Dr. Corman. In "Controlled Experiment", Porges made mention of Oliver Lodge and Samuel Soal. Corman loves playing tricks on Larsen. Larsen is something of a hot-head and can't help falling for Corman's gags. Larsen is skeptical when Corman claims that he can telepathically communicate with his friend, Merritt.

in the Ekcolir Reality

You will have to read "Controlled Experiment" to learn how Corman is able to seemingly send telepathic messages to Merritt, while Larsen carefully controls the conditions of the experiment. Two hints: 1) it involves a dog and 2) since this was still before 1964, Corman's trickery also involves cigarette smoking. "The Formula" is a sequel to "Controlled Experiment". At a faculty gathering on a warm evening, Corman claims that he can always tell what the outdoors temperature is. When Larsen challenges Corman on this claim, Corman suggests that he is able to telepathically obtain information about the current temperature, saying, "It's a sort of ESP thing with me." As the evening progresses and the outside temperature drops quickly, poor Larsen can't figure out how Dr. Corman is able to accurately report the outside temperature from inside an air-conditioned house.

Please, Doctor, I want to stop. see also

 The End. On the topic of tobacco smoking, there was good old Doc Newell ready to help if you wanted to quit (see image to the right).

 Related Reading: The Brazen Android by William Douglas O'Connor, 1891

Next: 4th dimensional surgery

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