Today’s post is brought to you by Ships of Steel, an upcoming collection of Space Opera novellas in the Swords of Fire format. Each story features an illustration by M. D. Jackson, the cover artist. In this volume you will find “The Price of Redemption” by Jack Mackenzie. This novella is a prequel to the novel, The Mask of Eternity. Just an ensign, Solis DeLacey causes an accident that sends her on a journey to a strange world where her enemies are gathering to attack her homeworld. Will this mean galactic war?
After reading Murray Leinster’s excellent “Exploration Team” I was in the mood for more Space Opera about colonies on terrible planets. This led me to Robert Silverberg. Not the masterful Silverberg of Downward to the Earth or Lord Valentine’s Castle. No, the Bob Silverberg of 1957-58. During that time, the author, along with Randall Garrett entered into a deal with Chicago publisher, William Hamling, to produce packets of stories for a set price. From Other Spaces, Other Times (2009):
Hamling’s letter followed a month or so later.What he wanted was short, punchy stories with strong conflicts, lots of color and action, and straightforward resolutions. And he made a very explicit offer: the Garrett-Silverberg team was invited to deliver 50,000 words of fiction a month, all lengths from short-shorts up to 7500 words or so, and we would be paid $500 for each monthly package.
This $250 a month guaranteed that Silverberg would go on writing SF instead of having to take a regular job or pump out Westerns. But it also produced works that the author has little love for. And you can see why. “….punchy stories with strong conflicts, lots of color and action, and straightforward resolutions” is publishing-speak for”hackwork”. As such, I doubt any of the stories we are going to look at here were given more than one draft. This was high-speed production for money.
That being said, there are still some bright stars hiding in the three tales I want to look at. The first is “Outpost Peril” (Imaginative Tales, September 1957) which has a spaceship, the Altair, crashed on Rigel IV. The survivors have created an outpost and guarded it with a force field. This is meant to protect them from the local Rigelians, giant crabmen with deadly claws until rescue comes. Chet Lloyd is almost killed by one while on sentry duty. How did the crabman get inside the shield? This leads Chet to investigate and discover that someone has sabotaged the equipment. There is a “quisling” among the crew.
The shield comes down again and there is a pitched battle with crabmen and needle guns. Chet realizes only three people could be the saboteur, and one of them is himself. (Mind control, of course.) Using a universal translator, Chet discovers the real culprit, who turns into a squidgy when captured and Chet blasts him into slime. Dave Morgan, a friend of long years, turns out to be Sirian spy. The Sirians hate the Terrans as much as the Rigelians do.
This tale is little more than Cowboys and Indians in space. You could take away the SF stuff, replace it with a fort in early America and have the same story pretty much. Still, I enjoyed the needle guns. This won’t be the only story here that is a recognizable plot from another kind of Pulp.
The second story is ‘Overlord of Colony Eight” (Imagination, October 1957) that begins with Jim Reese returning to Colony Eight after a month in the bush. Colony Eight is one of ten colonies on the jungle world of Dambhalla. Jim left after a fight with his girl, Ruth. He rushes back, hoping to patch things up. He runs into a local named Kuhli, an alien with a drug addiction thanks to the Terran doctors who saved him from an injury. Kuhli has a pack full of drugs and is making a run for it. He warns Jim that things are not well.
Reese enters the buildings to find his old friend Kramer stumbling about in a strange way. Kramer tries to capture him but Jim pulls a knife. Kramer asks a Dr. Tersen what he should do. Reese escapes into the jungle. He watches as his old friends hunt for him. Unfortunately, needle worms drive him out of his hiding place and he is captured.
Jim meets the doctor who runs Colony Eight, John Tersen of Earth, disgraced researcher who has fled imprisonment. Tersen has perfected mind-control and has everyone under his spell. He reveals that this is done with a generator but since Jim wasn’t in the colony at the time of completion, he will have to wear a silver bracelet that will control him. Tersen puts it on him but the bracelet has malfunctioned. Jim pretends to be a zombie. He is placed in a room with others, finding his love, Ruth. He tries to talk to her but she betrays him to the overlord.
Reese’s bracelet is fixed and he becomes a true zombie. He experiences the hell of having no control. He also sees everything inside Tersen’s mind as the thoughts run both ways. Jim bumps into Kuhli again, who has not yet fled. The alien likes the shiny-looking bracelet and tries to remove it. Tersen tells Jim to strike the local but Kuhli pulls off the silver thread.
Jim is free. He runs to the station where the generator is and has a shoot-out with Tersen. The overlord calls to his mind-controlled slaves to stop Reese but the generator is destroyed. The people of Colony Eight have a lot of anger for Tersen. Jim doesn’t stop them when they tear the scientist apart. Jim and Ruth are reunited.
Not a new idea in 1957, but at least it isn’t a Western disguised as a space opera. The character of Kuhli is intriguing and largely undeveloped. He is the drunken Indian of pulp. The later Silverberg would have made him the central character and written a much different tale.
The last is “Lure of Galaxy A” by Ivar Jorgensen (Imaginative Tales, March 1958) The Ivar Jorgensen pseudonym had originally belonged to Paul W. Fairman for editor Howard A. Browne, who bequeathed it to Hamling, making it a communal pen name. Silverberg appeared under several communal pseudonyms such as Alexander Blade, E. K. Jarvis, S. M. Tenneshaw and Gerald Vance.
The story begins with space pilot, Bree Lennon, being hired to take three men to Galaxy A. He takes the rail-thin Glair Hetchel, the fat Dongon Sharker and the muscular Ruil Zeeglak to Planet 16. Once there, Glair treats him like a slave, telling him to go to the local village and kill the headman. Bree goes but saves a child rather than hurt anyone. He talks to the natives. The other three had come the day before and made threats, now Bree has shown kindness. They are confused by this. The three men demanded Gorch-tusks, something sacred to the villagers. They offer Bree three of the objects but no more. Lennon knows Hetchel will not be satisfied with that, even though it will be worth a fortune back in his galaxy.
Instead, the pilot and locals cook up a plot. Bree returns and tells them of a gorsh graveyard where hundreds of tusks can be picked up off the ground. The locals lead the men through the jungle to a spot where live gorsh appear and kill Hetchel, Sharker and Zeeglak. (the illustration for the story.) Bree Lennon is safe because he wears a necklace given to him by the headman that protects him from attack. Bree takes the three tusks and departs, never to return.
Of the three, this tale is the worst for being an adventure Pulp re-written as a space story. Silverberg uses the old “elephants’ graveyard” without any real adaptation. This is a tale about ivory poachers in Africa. He wasn’t the only writer doing this kind of genre-switch though. John Jakes wrote “Doom Jungle” (Fantastic Adventures, October 1952), which was obviously meant as a jungle adventure but given a gloss of SF to sell it. Silverberg is in good company.
Conclusion
Masterpieces of Science Fiction? I think not. These aren’t even the best examples of Space Opera. These are what they were meant to be: competent but unremarkable filler for magazines that publishers had no real stake in. William L. Hamling started as an SF writer, turned publisher, but never had any real drive to produce quality SF. Imagination and Imaginative Tales were always adventure SF with no pretentions. And as long as they sold, Hamling was happy. By 1959, these publications would be gone and Silverberg would be out of a market. Distressing at the time for him, but ultimately part of what would drive him to write better stories. These three tales (and many others) mark Silverberg’s apprenticeship in storytelling. Not to be forgotten but enjoyed for what they are.
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