This post is brought to you by Ships of Steel, an anthology of Space Opera in the Swords of Fire format: you get four novellas, each with their own illustration. In this collection there is T. Neil Thomas’ “Gideon’s Burden” set in the Solar System, near Jupiter. JoJo Station is a gigantic sphere set beside the giant to harvest the gases of its atmosphere. The tale follows Gideon Stormcrow as he maneuvers through the seedy underworld of the station, searching for a stolen child. It’s a Noir style detective story set in a world of low to no gravity, extreme poverty and insidious graft. Stormcrow drags a new recruit along, Gideon James, as they uncover just how rotten things are in their metal world in space.
Pulp Science Fiction in the 1930s was all about the Solar System. Not until pioneers like E. E. Doc Smith and Edmond Hamilton would take SF outside our nine planets (Pluto joined us in 1930, only to lose planet status seventy-six years later.) Mercury was no exception, being the closest to the Sun, so therefore very hot. But since it doesn’t expose both sides, it also has a very cold side. The space in between is called the Libration Zone. SF writers came up with the idea that this might be a band that allows some life. (Like McDonalds’ McDLT, it likes to keep its hot side hot and its cool side cool.)
Some stories needed a convenient location for invaders to come from, so we get the Mercurian baddies showing up on Earth as well, but we haven’t included these. They deserve to be featured in a post about Earth Invasions.
Tama of the Light Country (Argosy, December 13-27, 1930) by Ray Cummings is a novel written in the Edgar Rice Burroughs mode with an Earthman who goes to Mercury where women have wings. (For more on winged humans, go here.) Since Mercury has less gravity, the winged human idea isn’t as silly as you might think. Cummings is one of the first to use the idea of Mercury having a habitable belt between the hot and cold regions. There were two sequels.
“Too Many Boards” (Amazing Stories, April 1931) by Harl Vincent has people on Earth in a strict breeding program. This forces Larry Conover and his girl, Una Sinclair, flee to Mercury where the locals don’t follow Earth ways. The crafty people behind Una’s declassification get to Mercury first and attempt an extradition treaty. Only some fancy fast talk saves the couple.
“Earthman’s Burden” (Astounding Stories, June 1931) by R. F. Starzl offers a Mercury with thick vegetation. Olcar of the Interplanetary Flying Police is there to find the missing men who run the outpost. He discovers a Plutonian has riled up the local Mercurians, frog-like creatures who gather a special gum that cures cancer. Plutonians are almost extinct, being an old race with superscience of their own. Their visiting the Earth long ago gave us the devil, since they have horns and tails. This story is a Northern dressed up as Science Fiction. For more on R. F. Starzl, go here.
Tama, Princess of Mercury (Argosy, June 27-July 18, 1931) by Ray Cummings is the second Guy Palisse adventure. Cummings would write a third book Aerita of the Light Country (Super Science Novels Magazine, August 1941).
“The Immortals of Mercury” (Science Fiction Series #16, 1932) by Clark Ashton Smith has a jungle in the libration zone of Mercury. It is inhabited by Mercurians who worship a strange plant called the Rocculim. The Earthman, Cliff Howard, escapes sacrifice by going into the cold zone where he freezes to death. Love those CAS happy endings.
“Mutiny on Mercury” (Wonder Stories, March 1932) by Clifford D. Simak has domed cities on Mercury, in the strip between the night and daysides. The plot involves a revolt by the Martians and their lunar stooges, with an airlock that is blown out. This was one of the first stories to describe the loss of atmosphere in space, a standard of SF today. Simak’s Earthmen have a space empire that includes other planets like Mercury. For more early CDS, go here.
“The Great Dome on Mercury” (Astounding Stories, April 1932) by Arthur Leo Zagat has more interplanetary warfare. Inside the dome, three Earthmen, some Venusians, mine rare elements. The great dome has a leak, which our Earth hero, Darl, has to fix. When he does, he sees who has made the hole, a Martian. The invader captures Darl, telling him that Mars and Earth are at war. In the end, Darl must destroy the dome to send a message to any Earth ships as a warning.
“The Menace From Mercury” (Wonder Stories Quarterly, Summer 1932) by John Michel and Raymond Z. Gallun has a space liner detect visitors on Mercury. They are setting up a nuclear plant. This fails and the planet is consumed by atomic energy. For the Martian captain and Earth first mate, the liner’s safety is at risk and some crafty maneuvering is needed to save the five hundred passengers on board. For more on the Interplanetary Story contest, go here.
“The Mole-Men of Mercury” (Wonder Stories, December 1933) by Arthur K. Barnes has the Interplanetary Legion fighting the Mole-Men on Mercury. The Legion is made up of criminals including Gower, our “hero”. He notices that the Mole-men are hurt by volcanic fumes. A bomb is created to drop in the depths of the mines to eradicate the locals. Gower is sent on a suicide mission to explode the bomb. He tries to kill his commander and dies by accident. He is remembered as a hero despite his awful nature. Again, other types of Pulps suggest this story. It is a French Foreign Legion tale dressed up as SF. Leigh Brackett would do it better in “The Stellar Legion” Planet Stories, Winter 1940.
Barnes wrote many tales with strange aliens for his Gerry Carlyle series. This one is no different with the Mole-Men being quite strange:
…It was a fantastic, nightmare figure. About four feet in height, it was, looking roughly like two eggs set one atop the other—a fat, oblong body covered with reddish hair, and a smaller ovoid head resting on narrow shoulders. The face, which seemed featureless in the uncertain light, twisted and grimaced constantly. Short arms carried a pair of metal instruments shaped much like the ancient miner’s hand-lamp. There were scarcely any legs at all, the base of the body consisting of long, mobile flaps of flesh covered with innumerable powerful suction cups.
“The Last Planet” (Wonder Stories, April 1934) by R. F. Starzl has the Sun dying and the last remnants of humanity living on Mercury. A ship called the Ventura is being built to take everyone to a new planet. But human nature gets in the way. The Technics are the scientists who created the rocket. The financial-legal people paid for it. And the Peace Makers are the police who protect the Technics. Squabbles almost sink the expedition but our hero Jay uses his fencing skills when the Peace Makers seize the ship.
“The Mystery of the Twilight Belt” (Scoops, June 16, 1934) by J. N. T. Lintott, B.Sc begins in a mining station in the libration zone. A murderer is loose on the station and Tom Hewat looks to be blamed for it. The real culprit is Mandrake, the station manager. mercury acts as a bottleneck for this Murder Mystery.
Dawn to Dusk (Wonder Stories November December 1934 January 1935) by Eando Binder has Earthmen entering suspended animation to wake up two billion years later on Mercury. The futuremen live underground since the Sun has lost its energy. The Futuremen are dying out because they have become sterile. The awakened scientists can do nothing to save them. They go back to a dead earth to die. The story has a religious element that is not usual for 1930s SF, which was dominated by “Science will save us!” kind of thinking.
Land of Twilight (Amazing Stories November December 1934 January 1935) by Robert Page Preston begins with a rocket headed for the Moon. An electrical storm sends them sunward but they land on a Mercury covered with jungle and full of dinosaurs. There are three races of humanoids: the cavemen like Dars, the beleagued Vereans, and the advanced but evil, Nimara. Our heroes join up with the Vereans, eventually brokering peace between the Dars and Vereans. The Nimara invade both and the heroes must save everyone. An Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche with less sophistication than Ray Cummings. Buy, hey, at least there are dinosaurs!
“W62 to Mercury” (Astounding Stories, September 1935) by Clifton B. Kruse has the city of Satania in the libration zone of Mercury. A ship lands and discovers people have been dying. Some new form of life has arisen on Mercury, a vast blue bubble, that eats the newcomers’ ship. No real solution is offered.
“The Fall of Mercury” (Amazing Stories, December 1935) by Leslie F. Stone has two Earthmen pulled off course by a cosmic whirlpool that takes them to Mercury. There they learn they are human guinea pigs for a race of small, white, four-armed Mercurians. They met a giant, black twelve foot version of their captors named Chen-Chak. He is a Saturnian. The Mercurians and Saturnians are related races that came to our Solar System. Chen-Chak leads the men out of captivity and into a space war that includes the destruction of Mercury and a trip through the Sun. Stone offers a version of the Solar System with intriguing races on each planet.
“Cones” (Astounding Stories, February 1936) by Frank Belknap Long has scientists in the libration zone getting killed by sudden hot flashes. These prove to be a weapon belonging to the cone aliens, who can move so fast you can’t see them. The two survivors fall in love and escape. Long usually included some form of emotional story in his SF. This story appeared in the same issue as the first part of H. P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness”. Seems appropriate.
“The Great Illusion” (Fantasy Booklet #4, September 1936) by Eando Binder, John Russell Fearn, Raymond Z. Gallun, Edmond Hamilton and Jack Williamson. This round-robin was part of a dual contest. H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, C. L. Moore, A. Merritt and Frank Belknap Long wrote the famous “Challenge From Beyond” as a Fantasy/Horror tale while these gents did an SF tale. The editor, Julius Schwartz, got two big stories out of these professional writers for his fanzine. For more on round-robins, go here.
“Madness On Mercury” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1936) by Max Plaisted was the comic strip included in TWS. Wonder Stories was sold by Hugo Gernsback in 1936 to Beacon Magazines, Inc. The newly re-conceived Wonder was targeted to a juvenile audience. This meant a comic strip in its pages was a no-brainer. Zarnak crashlands in the dark zone of Mercury. He encounters giant insects then Mercurians. They are led by Thark, who calls himself a god. Zarnak escapes when a flying monster takes him away. The name “thark” is an obvious nod to Edgar Rice Burroughs. The strip was ultimately unpopular and dropped. Editor, Mort Weisinger, would go to work at DC Comics in a few years. For more on Zarnak, go here.
Back Cover of Fantastic Adventures, September 1939
Conclusion
As you can see by the dates, the idea of Mercury and its libration zone fell out of popularity by 1936. (Not completely, Leigh Brackett’s “Cube From Space” (Super Science Stories, August 1942) will take us back to Mercury. She was fond of the planet, making it the savage home from which her hero, Eric John Stark, sprang. As in all these stories here, Brackett’s Mercury is not a nice place. Whether it is barren or covered in jungle, those who go to Mercury are in for trouble. Most tales use the habitable belt idea, some exploring either the hot or cold region a little. The idea of a safe haven surrounded by terribly dangerous zones to either side is irresistible.
Isaac Asimov would revisit it in the 1950s with Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury (1956). Asimov uses chestnuts like the Libration Zone, mining and dome cities. The stories of the 1930s certainly informed his retro feel for this juvenile series.
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