1932 - Year in SF&F: Reviews

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE Read other issues here ---------------------------------------------- "Cosmos Serial" - (plotted by Raymond A. Palmer) 1. Ralph Milne Farley "Faster Than Light" 2. David H. Keller "The Emigrants" 3. Arthur J. Burks "Callisto's Children" 4. Bob Olsen "The Murderer From Mars" 6. John W. Campbell "Interference on Luna" 7. Francis Flagg "Son of the Trident" 8. Otis Adelbert Kline & E. Hoffmann Price"Volunteers From Venus" 9. Abner J. Gelula "Menace of the Automaton" 10. Raymond A. Palmer (as Rae Winters) "The Return to Venus" 11. A. Merritt "The Last Poet & The Wrongness of Space" 12. J. Harvey Haggard "At the Crater's Core" 13. E. E. "Doc" Smith "Course Perilous!" 14. P. Schuyler Miller "The Fate of the Neptunians" 15. Lloyd Arthur Eshbach "The Horde of Elo Hava" 16. Eando Binder "Lost in Alien Dimensions" 17. Edmond Hamilton "Armageddon in Space" © Science Fiction Digest, Jul 1932 Fantasy Magazine, Dec 1934 Perry Rhodan, Ace Books --/ fourth place space sf series --/ wonder award --/ awesome scale --/ rare find Unreal... This is simply the most unique event in history of science fiction, the collaboration between the brightest stars in the field, some at the beginning of their career, some at the peak of their powers. The list of writers is a shining "all-star" galaxy in itself. The fiction is... well, it's certainly big-scale, brimming with grand conflict, ridiculous science, unpronounceable names and places, and more BANG that you ever encountered between soft book covers - testing, in fact, the limits of reader's imagination and believability. Impossibly hard to find today, "Cosmos" spanned the issues of "Science Fiction Digest", and then "Fantasy Magazine" (the installments were not printed in the issues themselves but as a separately-bound supplements). Personally I liked the "Last Poet" part of the serial and the crazy, absolutely delirious space battle extravaganza contributed by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach. A multi-dimensional "Wrongness of Space" anomaly attacks our system; a bunch of alien menaces and mad scientists pop out of every wrinkle of time and space, flying around (some may say chaotically) and driving the serial to its bang-up finish - good old Edmond Hamilton destroying planets Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus with an atomic disintegrator ray in his "Armageddon in Space". In other words, "The Cosmos" series is well worth searching out, it's a monumental literary artifact from the "wonder pulps" era, quite enjoyable even to this day. (cover images credit: Chris Perridas) review by Avi Abrams: 10-Jan-08 (read in 2008) ---------------------------------------------- Harry Bates & Desmond W. Hall "A Scientist Rises" © Astounding Stories, Nov. 1932 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award One sunny day a scientist comes out of his laboratory (which is strangely located in one the classy brownstone buildings on a busy Manhattan street), takes deep breath and... starts to grow. Yes, he grows and grows to become higher than skyscrapers, in no time at all rising above the clouds - all with a peaceful, contented half-smile on his bearded face. The city below him watches in utter consternation and the army tries to obliterate him from the New York's skyline - but regardless of all that he keeps growing, soon to grow so vast as to become immaterial, dispersing his molecules all over the Earth's atmosphere. Whatever the heck all this supposed to mean? Well, there is a brief (almost disinterested) explanation in the obscurest scientific terms possible... so it really does not matter. We can consider this story entirely surrealistic, and just enjoy the idea of the American Einstein-zilla towering over New York. review: 27-Dec-07 (read in 2007) ---------------------------------------------- Francis Flagg "After Armageddon" © Wonder Stories, Sep 1932 Startling Stories, Autumn 1946 --/ fourth place apocalyptic sf story --/ wonder award --/ awesome scale --/ emotion award --/ shock value --/ rare find Classic "end-of-times" story, full of wonder, color and great atmosphere. Loved every single passage of it. If only one story had ever been written about global cataclysmic events, this story is prime candidate for it. review: 01-Jul-06 (read in 2006) ---------------------------------------------- Another one of my absolute favorite pulp covers: David H. Keller "The Metal Doom" (nv) © Wonder Stories, May-Jul 1932 --/ cool apocalyptic sf novel --/ awesome scale --/ rare find Very self-conscious and "proper" pulp novel of economic disaster, caused by the rapid & global deterioration of metal. All the obvious consequences ensue in detail, which is why I could not be bothered to read the last dozen pages. This predictable (but classic, nevertheless) scenario is told in quite fluid, but uninspired style. David H. Keller set out to write a "category-killer" novel and he perhaps succeeded - this novel is counted among the best published in "wonder pulps". It reads partly like a L. Ron Hubbard pot-boiler though, partly as a poor-man version of H. G. Wells. review: 10-Jan-08 (read in 2008) Read more reviews for this writer ---------------------------------------------- Edwin K. Sloat "Beyond the Planetoids" © Amazing Stories, Aug 1932 Great SF Classics magazine, 1967 --/ fourth place space sf story --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ awesome scale --/ rare find Such a pity that this writer did not write many stories! The style may be not that polished, but action and wonder simply over-spill from the page! It is nothing less than all-stakes-pulled-out space piracy adventure, with all the right scale and details. Delicious. review: 01-Jul-06 (read in 2003) ---------------------------------------------- Harl Vincent "Thia of the Drylands" © Amazing Stories, Jul 1932 --/ third place space sf novella --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ romance award --/ rare find I loved this spectacular, colorful, dynamic romp in outer space and through the moody landscapes of classic "space opera" Mars. This short novella has almost as much energy and as many plot twists as "Total Recall" Hollywood movies (though original Philip K. Dick story, of course, is unassailable in its quality and holds very much its own). Where this briskly-told novella truly shines, though, is in the romance category. Thia of the Drylands joins the ranks of the most bewitching and lovely Mars-based "princesses" (though she can also be very contemporary lady), and the engaging story of our main hero fighting against his disability while wading through various corporate and political evil schemes (some of which evoke Holocaust imagery, quite a morbid premonition) - this full-bodied story is so masterfully told that I have to make comparisons with the best of Edmond Hamilton himself. Find this rare marvel of space adventure and enjoy the best that pulps of the Gernsback Era had to offer. review by Avi Abrams: 25-Jan-2013 (read in 2013) ---------------------------------------------- Return to the Wonder Timeline

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