If you missed the last one…
This post is brought to you by The Cryo Game and Other Stories, the latest short story collection from Jack Mackenzie. (Be sure to check out the free story, “The Cryo Game” here.) This gathering of spaceships and other SF themes features some of Jack Mackenzie’s best short fiction: “Roadblock”, “Father Mars” and “The Old New Ensign” (along with “The Cryo Game”, of course). Check out this collection.
The idea of an invisible monster or villain was quite popular in 1930, and later in 1931 and 1932, but by 1935 the polish is off the apple. (1937 has none that I could find.) Stories using invisibility were losing popular until a sudden resurgence in 1939.
There were only three Science Fiction Pulps in 1933: Amazing Stories under F. O’Conor Sloane, Wonder Stories edited by Hugo Gernsback, the last of the Clayton Astounding Stories under Harry Bates then later, the newly re-minted version under F. Orlin Tremaine. (I have placed all the stories from Weird Tales in their own post, but they certainly happened over at the “Unique Magazine” in the 1930s too.)
As the decade moves on Wonder Stories is sold to Better Publications and becomes Thrilling Wonder Stories with a new angle on younger readers. Amazing Stories retired Sloane and Ray A. Palmer brought it back to life along with a new magazine, Fantastic Adventures. Invisible stories can be found in all of these places including John W. Campbell’s new Fantasy mag, Unknown, the Villain book Doctor Death and the highly illustrated Blue Book.
1933
“Lords of the Stratosphere” (Astounding Stories, March 1933) by Arthur J. Burks has a secret base in the stratosphere from which Eurasians plan to destroy cities by picking up buildings and dropping them. An evil Oriental has discovered invisibility and uses it for his syndicate to take over the planet. The platform is destroyed by reviving an airplane engine. Silly, racist Burks tale that includes airplanes, the market he wrote most for for. For more Burks and airplanes, go here.
“The Pellucid Horror” (Amazing Stories, August-September 1933) by B. F. Ray suggests invisibility through the pineal gland. The payoff for this one is seeing a suit of clothes walk around without a man. Wells did it long before 1933…
“The Lunar Consul” (Wonder Stories, November December 1933) by Sidney Patser has a megalomaniac super-villain who calls himself the Lunar Consul. He kidnaps world scientists and has a plan to use science to redefine the Earth (including killing ten cent of the Earth’s stupidest population and more racism.) The baddy hides inside a force field in the Morcoccan mountains and has personal invisibility from a device he wears on his head. Unfortunately, the machine can’t hide him from photography. The big Mystery of the story is who is this invisible man? I think Patser extrapolated what Wells’ Invisible Man would have done if he had gone on with his evil plans.
“Invisible Monsters” (aka “The Invisible Monster”) (Wonder Stories, December 1933) by John Beynon Harris (John Wyndham) is a space invaders tale with the alien being invisible. The thing is all mouths and devours its victims with plenty of gore. It is defeated with paint. When blown-up, it becomes a horde of killer pieces. For more on the early SF of John Wyndham, go here.
1934
“Redmask of the Outlands” (Astounding Stories, January 1934) by Nat Schachner has the Earth in the 55th Century a collection of rival city-states. Redmark is an outlaw who dwells in the wilderness around these cities. He has an invisible ship (what Space Pirate doesn’t?) With it, he brings peace to the warring factions.
“Scandal in the 4th Dimension” (Astounding Stories, February 1934) by A. R. Long (Amelia Reynolds Long) has the cliche mad scientist with the pretty daughter. Boswell doesn’t want his assistant, Felix, to marry her, but when he turns his lower body invisible by accident, things change. Long goes for laughs instead of thrills and chills.
“The Vengeance of a Scientist” (Wonder Stories, February 1934) by Abner J. Gelula is a precursor to the Vincent Price film The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) with a scientist seeking revenge on a four member medical board who put him in prison. To do this, Dr. Logan uses X-ray technology to make him invisible. He devises four nasty revenges, each suited to the victim. For more on Gelula, go here.
“Beyond the Spectrum” (Astounding Stories, August 1934) by Arthur Leo Zagat has a water pipe’s damage in Florida lead to an invasion by amorphous and invisible creatures from below. These invaders operate on one captive, taking his eye, which they implant in one of their own. The brave heroes must go down a tunnel to kill the unseeable things and rescue a woman. The tunnel is blown up and the tourist industry is saved!
“Dragon’s Teeth” (Astounding Stories, September 1934) by Wallace West has the inhabitants of Mu going to Mars, Atlantis and Egypt. A war breaks out between these factions. The Egyptians possess invisibility among their Sciences.
1935
“The Man Who Didn’t Exist” (Doctor Death, March 1935) by Arthur J. Burks has a scientist discover the power of invisibility but he is too jealous to share it. Instead, he goes on a murder spree as an invisible man.
“Zora of the Zoromes” (Amazing Stories, March 1935) by Neil R. Jones introduces us to Zora, a female Zorome who is not yet a machine person. She is in love with Bext, who dies in a war with Muned, where the Zoromes use invisible ships. Zora becomes a machine-woman early to be with her love. The invisible ship will be used in later stories as well. For more on the Zoromes, go here.
“The Son of Redmark” (Astounding Stories, July 1935) by Nat Schachner has the son of Redmark use the invisible ship against an invasion by the Purple Emperor. The attacker’s ships have impenetrable force fields but invisibility gives the good guys an edge and a chance to rebuild society.
“The Green Man of Graypec” (Wonder Stories, July August September 1935) by Festus Pragnell was his big novel with an Earthman sent into the body of an ape creature in a micro-world. He has many adventures including encountering the Larbies, super-scientists with invisible ships. Invisibility gets lost among the many wonders in this book. Bleiler calls it “…one of two or three finest original novels to appear in early SF Pulp.” (Science Fiction: The Gernsback Years (1998) H. G. Wells praised the volume too. Pragnell was British. For more of Pragnell, go here.
1936
“A Modern Comedy of Science” (Amazing Stories, April 1936) by Isaac R. Nathanson has an invisible man call himself the Utopian Reformer, then goes about trying to correct the sins of Humanity like speeding, corrupt politicians and union-busting. Our hero figures out the Reformer is a local college professor. He achieves invisibility by using the Fourth Dimension.
1938
“We, the Invisible” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1938) by Frank Belknap Long has the world invaded by invisible aliens. One of the creatures makes herself visible when she falls in love with an Earth scientist. Radiation makes this likely to end badly!
“The Invisible Bomber” (Amazing Stories, June 1938) by Liet. John Pease (Ralph Milne Farley) has an invisible plane used to drop bombs on the Goverment. Invisibility is produced by using a form of time travel.
“The Brain Pirates” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1938) by John W. Campbell has invisible monkeys called Krull who are parasites on the locals. Using bright flashlights, Penton and Blake disrupt their invisibility, which must be produced by concentration, and kill the scourge. For more on the Penton and Blake stories, go here.
1939
“Sinister Barrier” (Unknown, March 1939) by Eric Frank Russell was the Fortean novel that inspired John W. Campbell to create Unknown, a Fantasy magazine that took the same attitude toward logical thinking that Astounding used with Science Fiction. Sinister Barrier is the grand-daddy of the invisible forces that control the world tale. A scientist finds invisible (due to color) spheres called Vitons that control humanity. He creates a special gun to destroy them. The film The Forgotten (2004) borrows from this idea.
“The Valley of the Invisible Men” (Amazing Stories, March 1939) by Edmond Hamilton is another A. Merritt-style adventure SF tale with the Korlu, the Invisible People, fighting foreign spies who want the secret of the Shining God, the Moon force that makes the Korlu invisible. For other Merrittesque adventures, go here.
“The Cave of the Invisible” (Blue Book, April 1939) (reprinted in Avon Fantasy Reader, No. 14, 1950) by James Francis Dwyer has a temple in a cave in Java produce a terror that can’t be seen (until it is!), that comes from the memory of creatures long gone.
“The Invisible Invasion” (Amazing Stories, April 1939) by Frederic Arnold Kummer Jr. has London covered by a deadly cloud that allows an invasion of Germans. An early wartime story, our hero ventures into the cloud to solve the mystery and save captives.
“The Invisible Robinhood” (Fantastic Adventures, May 1939) by Eando Binder has another inventor turned social reformer taking on crime bosses and warlords. To make this hero more pathetic (or romantic) his invisibility hides his scarred and grotesque face. If this sounds like a comic book superhero, the author who was mostly Otto Binder alone (his brother Earl retired from writing around this time) went onto create Mary Marvel, Supergirl and many others. Like all good superheroes, The Invisible Robinhood returns in “Land of Shadow Dragons” (Fantastic Adventures, May 1941) but more about that next time…
Conclusion
1939 saw the coming of the true Golden Age of Science Fiction under John W. Campbell’s direction. Campbell expected his writers, if they were going to use invisibility, to do something new and well explained with it. Unless you are E. E. “Doc” Smith. The novel Gray Lensman appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction, October 1939 with a vast plot and some small amount of invisible things happening. Smith was SF’s golden boy in the same years that Campbell wrote his Space Opera. Campbell won the highest laurels from fandom but still gave Smith a place to tell his style of space saga. Under Campbell’s editorship, Smith produced his best and most famous idea: the Lensmen, a kind of space policeman who uses a special “lens” to focus his power. If that sounds a lot like the Green Lantern, it does. Early SF Pulps influenced most of the DC and Marvel Comics in some fashion. (Remember Invisible Girl in the Fantastic Four? DC had Invisible Man and several heroes like Martian Manhunter who could become unseeable.) All of these can be laid at H. G. Wells’ door but the SF Pulps had their share of influence. Science Fiction editors and writers like Mort Weisinger, Julius Schwartz, Edmond Hamilton, Otto Binder and many others worked in comics during and after the Pulps.
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