Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Astounding Science-Fiction, November 1941

Hubert Rogers did some good covers for the issues of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION that had Lensman stories by E.E. "Doc" Smith in them. This issue features the opening installment of the novel SECOND STAGE LENSMAN. Other authors of note in this issue are Eric Frank Russell (I've enjoyed everything I've read by him, I need to read more), L. Sprague de Camp, Malcolm Jameson, John Hawkins, and forgotten SF authors E.A. Grosser and Oliver Saari (forgotten by me, anyway, or more precisely, I don't recall ever hearing of them before). Even though when it comes to Forties science fiction my tastes run more toward STARTLING STORIES, THRILLING WONDER STORIES, and PLANET STORIES, there was a lot of classic work published in ASTOUNDING.

Forgotten Books: Triplanetary - Edward E. "Doc" Smith, Ph.D.

A few years ago I got an email from someone whose name I didn't recognize. Normally I'd think that was just spam, but the subject line had to do with the Lensman books, the famous science fiction series by Edward E. "Doc" Smith, so I was curious enough to open it. When I read the email, I could tell that it was part of an ongoing conversation about the series that had somehow wound up in my inbox. I had gotten the email equivalent of a wrong number. So I replied to the guy to let him know and mentioned that while I hadn't read the Lensman series myself, I'd been meaning to get around to it for a long time. I wound up trading several more emails with him, intentionally this time, talking about Doc Smith and SF. My new-found friend advised me to skip the first two books in the series and start with the third one, GALACTIC PATROL, and to read the original pulp versions if I could.

Well, there are two problems with that. First of all, my OCD makes it difficult for me to just skip books in a series like that, and second, I don't own the pulp versions of any of the Lensman books. I do, however, have the Pyramid paperback reprints from the Sixties, and so finally, at long last, being in the mood for some classic SF, I read TRIPLANETARY, which is, chronologically, at least, the first book in the series. (The scan above is the copy I read.)

Most of you probably know this, but for those who don't, some quick background: TRIPLANETARY was originally published as a stand-alone serial in the pulp AMAZING STORIES. Three years later in ASTOUNDING, Smith began the Lensman series with GALACTIC PATROL and wrote several sequels to it. In the late Forties, those novels were reprinted by a small publisher called Fantasy Press. At that time, Smith took TRIPLANETARY and wrote a new opening sequence about 30,000 words long that ret-conned it into the Lensman series. He also wrote a new novel, FIRST LENSMAN, that fits between TRIPLANETARY and GALACTIC PATROL.

Based on all that, it's easy to see why my email friend suggested that I start with GALACTIC PATROL, then go back and read the others later if I wanted to. But that's not what I did.

Actually, it's easy to separate the later additions from the original material. The new opening sequences lay the groundwork for a long war between two super-intelligent and super-powerful galactic empires, the Arisians (the good guys) and the Eddorians (the bad guys). As you'd immediately assume, a small, backwater planet called Earth is going to turn out to be vital to both sides. Throughout our history, from the fall of Atlantis to the fall of Rome to the world wars in the 20^th Century, events were actually being manipulated by the Arisians and the Eddorians.

Jump ahead a few centuries, and our solar system is governed by the Triplanetary League, an alliance between Earth, Mars, and Venus. The main section of the novel involves a space pirate named Roger waging war on the solar system and the efforts by various Triplanetary agents to stop his reign of terror. Then, out of the blue, a bunch of aliens called the Nevians show up to attack the solar system and try to steal all our iron, which they use as a power source. The Nevians aren't really bad guys, though, just so far advanced they regard humanity as an annoyance to be brushed aside. They find out different, though, since our human scientists are smart enough to turn the Nevian technology against the invaders, while still battling Roger and the space pirates.

Smith did some rewriting in this section, as well, to make Roger a pawn of the Eddorians who's actually being controlled by one of them. You can tell what the book was like in its original version, though: stalwart heroes versus evil space pirates versus invaders from another galaxy. Adding the Arisia/Eddore war just widens the scope and sets up the later books.

Is TRIPLANETARY worth reading? Well . . . all the things Smith was notorious for can be found in this book: the clunky prose, the minimal characterization, the tin-eared dialogue. But the things which make him one of the most influential figures in science fiction history are here, too: the vast ideas (every "warring galactic empires with Earth caught in the middle" book and movie owes something to Smith), the super-weapons (Roger has a warship the size and shape of an asteroid, sort of like . . . oh, the Death Star, anyone?), the universe-spanning force of agents dedicated to battling evil ("In brightest day, in blackest night . . ."), armed with a super-powered lens instead of a power ring like the Green Lanterns. If you can overlook the shortcomings, and for the most part I could, TRIPLANETARY definitely has that sense of wonder I look for in science fiction. The space battles are great, and even the stodgy characters are sort of likeable. I don't know if I'll ever make it to the end of the series, but I plan to push on and read more of the Lensman saga.

Forgotten Books: The Vortex Blasters - Sam Moskowitz, ed.

This book has some special meaning for me because I remember that my brother-in-law (who introduced me to science fiction) had a copy of it when he and my sister lived down the street from us in the early Seventies. I borrowed it from him and read the title story, but I don’t think I ever got around to the others. The stories in THE VORTEX BLASTERS were pulled from another anthology edited by Sam Moskowitz, MODERN MASTERPIECES OF SCIENCE FICTION, published by World Publishing Company in 1965. “Masterpieces” might be going a little too far, but there are some good stories in here.

“The Vortex Blasters” (originally published in COMET, July 1941 under the title “The Vortex Blaster”) was my introduction to the work of Edward E. “Doc” Smith, PhD. (Gotta add the PhD after his name.) It’s set in the same universe as his magnum opus, the Lensman series, and is sometimes counted as part of that series although the only Lensman in the story is a supporting character. The protagonist is an atomic scientist named Neal “Storm” Cloud. Earth has atomic power, but it’s not very stable and will sometimes generate out-of-control vortices, which are basically atomic tornadoes. One of those vortices kills Cloud’s wife and children, and in his obsession for vengeance he comes up with a way to destroy these violent forces of nature.

I enjoy Doc Smith’s work, but I’m not a huge fan. His prose is pretty stiff and his dialogue usually sounds like nothing that ever came out of a human mouth. But his ideas are always big and interesting and the stories move along well. His stodgy heroes kind of grow on me, too. I enjoyed “The Vortex Blasters” when I read it 40-some-odd years ago, and I enjoyed it when I reread it now, too. That same long-ago summer, my brother-in-law and I both read Smith’s Skylark of Space series. That was enough Doc Smith to last me for a good long while. He had a huge influence on science fiction for decades, though.

Edmond Hamilton’s “Requiem”, from the April 1962 issue of AMAZING STORIES, is a far-future tale about an expedition sent to explore a planet about to be consumed by an expanding star and then observe its extinction. That planet, of course, is Earth, the birthplace of the by now far-flung galactic empire. I loved Hamilton’s pulp space opera stories, but late in his career he was writing thoughtful, poignant stories like this that are even better. I liked this one a lot.

Eric Frank Russell is almost totally forgotten these days (although I’ll bet many of you reading this remember his work), but I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read by him. Good ideas and a nice undercurrent of humor running through all his stories. “The Witness” (OTHER WORLDS SCIENCE STORIES, September 1951) is a first contact story of sorts, with an alien visitor being put on trial for possibly being a spy for a race that wants to invade and conquer Earth. Russell has a lot of fun with the legal system. This is another good one.

Lester del Rey’s “Kindness”, from the October 1944 issue of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, is also a far-future story in which a new, super-smart mutation of humanity, homo intelligens, has replaced good old homo sapiens . . . except for one guy. His fate has a bittersweet taste to it that echoes Hamilton’s “Requiem”. I’ve never been a big fan of del Rey’s work and this story is maybe a little too predictable, but it still has some nice touches to it.

“—We Also Walk Dogs” (ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, July 1941, under the pseudonym Anson McDonald) is part of Robert A. Heinlein’s Future History series. It’s the story of a company that hires out to do any sort of legal job, no matter how seemingly impossible, and how they manage to set up a diplomatic conference for various alien races and in the process come up with an unexpected bonus. I’ve read a lot of Heinlein’s work over the years (he was my brother-in-law’s favorite SF author) but don’t recall ever reading this story before. The prose is as smooth as always and I love the premise, but I don’t think Heinlein did as much with it as he could have. Still a good story.

Fritz Leiber is another author I usually like, but his story “Coming Attraction”, originally published in the November 1950 issue of GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION, was kind of a miss for me. Set in New York City after it’s been semi-devastated by a limited nuclear war, it’s mainly about how women have started wearing masks over their faces as a fashion trend, inspired by anti-radiation garb after the war. I’m not sure why it didn’t work very well for me, but it didn’t. A little too much of a kitchen sink story, maybe, with lots of changes in society but no real point to any of them. Or maybe I’m just dense.

Then we come to the final story in this volume, Henry Kuttner’s “We Guard the Black Planet!” (SUPER SCIENCE STORIES, November 1942). Now this is the real deal! A hardboiled Norwegian spacer throws in with a couple of shady characters to track down the origin of the Valkyrie myth on Earth. Seems he’s got this golden armband with the directions to a legendary invisible planet engraved on it, and the inhabitants of that planet are supposed to be beautiful winged women who visited Earth in the far distant past and gave rise to the stories of Valkyries bearing fallen warriors off to Valhalla. This is by far my favorite story in this anthology. Kuttner’s prose is colorful, imaginative, and very fast-moving, and the story has some decent scientific background to boot. I really enjoyed it. My kind of SF.

So all in all, THE VORTEX BLASTERS is a pretty strong anthology, with a couple of excellent stories (“We Guard the Black Planet!” and “Requiem”), several very good ones, and only one that I didn’t care for—and it wasn’t terrible. I’m glad I finally got around to reading the whole thing after so many years.