This post is brought to you by Whispers of Ice and Sand: Space Westerns by G. W. Thomas, a collection of stories set on different worlds in a star system dominated by explorers and pioneers. Five of the stories take place on the planet Utukku where the sand is so fine that footprints disappear in seconds. Bandits and gunmen stalk this new frontier where ancient Harlequin ruins are the most sought after treasure. The other four stories are about Sudana the space captain and her android companion, Zaar. Together they face the freezing cold of Hel III, the jungles of Divu VI and a rebellion, the burning rock of Blister and an intergalactic game show, and finally, a rescue from the radioactive moon of Rigon. This is space opera in the finest tradition of Firefly and Star Wars.
I think it would be interesting to compare the last issue of Hugo Gernsback’s Wonder Stories (April 1936) with Mort Weisinger’s first issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories (August 1936). There was a three-month hiatus between the two during which the roster was completely changed. New writers, new artists, new direction. In my mind, the Gernsback stuff will be old-fashioned, tired and mostly dull. The Mort Weisinger material has a reputation for being more juvenile, so I would expect some unsophisticated Space Opera. Let’s see if my prejudices are warranted. I could be completely off the mark.
“The World of Singing Crystals” by Thomas S. Gardner is a sequel to “The Insect World” (Wonder Stories, April 1935). This rough tale has the explorers of the last tale reporting to the Council of Eo. The humans have found a planet inhabited by living crystals. Unfortunately, they are dying from radiation from a meteor. The humans remove the threat and everyone is happy.
“The Cosmic Cocktail” by Siegfried Wagener has Edwin McCall ridiculed for his theories on radiation. To get revenge, he bombards a colleague and critic, Dr. Waldorff-Palmer, with radiation, almost driving him mad. WP’s daughter is McCall’s girlfriend, who begs him to stop. More radiation. I think I see a pattern.
“Earth’s Lucky Day” by Forrest J. Ackerman and Francis Flagg has scientific discoveries disappearing all around the world. Twenty five years later a giant metal cylinder is opened in Arizona. Inside are the missing tech along with a message written on giant metal sheets. Aliens had been watching the Earth and found no life. Turns out the giants moved at such speed they never saw the humans. This story was considered good enough to be reprinted in Fantastic Story Quarterly, Spring 1951. The two authors were interesting SF icons. 4E was key in SF fandom as well as the publisher of Famous Monsters of Filmland, while Francis Flagg wrote good Wellsian SF.
“The Duplicate” by Alan Connell has Dr. Green copied by his enemy, Jordan, and an android made of him. The android goes on a crime spree to discredit Green. The plan fails because Green has already been arrested and has an alibi. Connell appears twice and was an Australian writer.
“The Imperfect Guess” by Philip Barshofsky has hack SF writer, Philip Ganese, write a story about a comical race of aliens. He plans to sell it to Eggsaturated Tales, but the real aliens show up and make his life uncomfortable. (An early parody of an SF mag!) In the end, he changes the story as they requested. In return, the aliens promise to share their advanced tech with him. Barshofsky made his reputation with his other story “One Prehistoric Night” (Wonder Stories, November 1934), one of the shortest stories to get a cover.
“Fate” by Alan Connell (as by Alan Conn) has a man obsessed with living forever. He takes all kinds of quack medicine then plans to live in an underground chamber shielded from cosmic rays. He falls accidentally and dies. Ironic, but not SF.
“Emotion Solution” by Arthur K. Barnes has two scientist argue about evolution and eventually the role of emotion in human development. George Jonas develops a chemical that kills all emotion. His friend, Ted King, tries to stop him but Jonas puts it into the water supply. This condemns humanity to death, as no one will even think about sex any longer. There is no cure for the drug.
“Futility” by Gerald H. Adams was the third-place winner in Hugo’s July 1935 cover contest. On the planet Heva, a scientist invents a super-telescope for looking at distant planets (like Earth.) Unfortunately, the device require the ability to endure cold, which the Hevans can not. They recruit from the planet’s dark side primitive and savage beings to do the job. These destroy the machine when they start chasing the local fauna.
“The Emotion Gas” by George F. Gatter has an inventor create a gas that effects emotion. He sells it to a theater owner who uses it to make money off of bad films. The gas makes you feel satisfied even if the movie is terrible. Greed gets in the way and the inventor bankrupts the other by releasing the gas too early. Borderline SF, not really interesting.
“A World Unseen” (Part 2 of 2) by Joe W. Skidmore is a sequel to “The Velocity of Escape” (Amazing Stories, August 1934). It is also the second half. These stories feature Donald Millstein, an inventor and kind of super-cop, and his Russian nemesis, Verensky. This time around, Millstein has invented an atomic reducer. As he is explaining the device, one of Verensky’s goons shoots through a window. Don’s girlfriend, Joane Cromwell, takes a bullet for him. Don and Mado, reduce themselves to the size of germs and enter her bloodstream. They even fight white blood cells and germ viruses. Now if this sounds familiar, it will be thanklessly stolen for The Fantastic Voyage (1966), which Ike Asimov will adapt for the paperback as well as rewrite in a sequel. Joe W. Skidmore is well-known as a terrible writer (who gave us the Saga of Posi and Nega in Sloane’s Amazing Stories) but deserves some credit here.
Concepts in this final issue include silicon lifeforms, subatomic surgery, android clones, aliens who move at a different speed and some tales that feature emotions. Over-all, nothing new or startling (or Amazing or Thrilling!) here. In terms of story-telling, the fuse often burns out before the explosion. Gernsback is publishing one-shot duds like Gatter and Wagener, with lesser pieces from more established writers like Barnes, Flagg and Skidmore. The precursor to The Fantastic Voyage is about the only story even worth a footnote.
Let’s look at Thrilling Wonder now. Mort Weisinger is a twenty-one year old at the helm of a Pulp. What a thrill for any fanzine geek!
“Blood of the Moon” by Ray Cummings has a shipful of Martian pirates attack the gold miners on the Moon. This is not new territory for Cummings as he wrote the 193o classic, Brigands on the Moon (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March April May June 1930). For more on Space Pirates, go here.
“The Drone Man” (reprinted from Fantasy Magazine, September 1934) by A. Merritt has a man turn himself into a bee. Roald Dahl would repeat this idea in “Royal Jelly” (1959).
“The Hormone Menace” by Otto Binder (as by Eando Binder) follows Secret Operative S-23, James Wisert (Wisert, James Wisert!) during a war between the US and Europe. He teams up with female spy Y-44. The hormone of the title creates a Cloak of Invisibility. The SF mags suggested the coming of WWII long before 1939. Otto Binder and Mort Weisinger would work together at DC Comics in the 1940s and 1950s.
“The Circle of Zero” by Stanley G. Weinbaum is not really an SF tale, more of a scientific tale. A kidnap victim stumps his jailer with math. For more on all of Stanley G. Weinbaum’s fiction, go here.
“The Nth Degree” by Mort Weisinger has a brilliant chemist, Arthur Ainsworthy, up against a de-evolving ray. In the end, it proves a chemical fake.
“Zarnak: “The Plunder Plague” by Max Plaisted was the comic strip Weisinger introduced in the first issue. This proved to be a little too juvenile even for the Pulp crowds so it was eventually dropped. Max Plaisted proved to be a real person, not a pseudonym like I thought when I wrote this: go here.
“Revenge of the Robot” by Otis Adelbert Kline takes place in the year 2000! The President is about to award one million dollars to the scientist who can invent a thinking robot. Bradshaw, the winner, dies before he can claim his prize…until his robot reveals a human brain inside its skull. Bradshaw is his robot, and plans to kill himself by opening the brain shell since Yvonne Darcy doesn’t love him. This revelation has the woman expose her brain too, also a robot, and they live happily for a thousand years.
“The Land Where Time Stood Still” by Arthur Leo Zagat has a group of characters stranded in a crater where old things and future things exist together. They are trapped between ray-gun wielding future-men and savage Neanderthals. Zagat’s archaic dialogue is a scream: “Marry! Thou hast slain him with a single thrust of the poinard!”
“Death Dives Deep” by Paul Ernst is the type of novella Ernst did for Astounding back in the early 1930s, with a group journeying to the center of the Earth to stop a wave of stone creatures attacking the surface. Like everything Paul Ernst does, it is competent and enjoyable.
Weisinger’s themes prove to be space pirates, moon-mining, transmogrification, invisibility, robots, de-evolution, time travel and underground adventure. Mort does have a minor coup publishing A. Merritt and Stanley G. Weinbaum, both super stars of the period. The rest of his writers are familiar pros. Despite that nothing really original here but a more adventurous slant than Gernsback.
Conclusion
Comparing the themes of the two issues, you see several changes. Gernsback’s issue is largely Earth-bound with only “The World of Singing Crystals” by Thomas S. Gardner being a space tale. Most of Hugo’s selection are the older “scientist invents something” that has this effect type story that goes all the way back to H. G. Wells. Mort Weisinger does have a few of these but he also has more interplanetary tales. The reader who was expecting Gernsback would find “The Hormone Menace”, “The Drone Man” and even “The Revenge of the Robot” similar to previous issues.
My prediction was that the Gernsback stuff will be old-fashioned while Mort Weisinger’s material would be more juvenile. While this is true on the surface, I don’t think there is actually all that much difference between the two issues. Weisinger has more space opera but this is really book ends around stories not much different from Gernsback. Both editors include stories that aren’t really SF at all. Both have inventors gone awry. The dressing on Thrilling Wonder is a bit more appealing, with characters being spies, moon miners and such, but again, not that different. Neither is innovating themes. Weisinger hasn’t invented anything new: much of what he offers reminds me of the Clayton Astounding five years earlier, some of it even came from fanzines. Still, a comic book, Mort?
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