1939 - Year in SF&F: Reviews

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE Read other issues here ---------------------------------------------- Eando Binder "The Black Comet" (as John Coleridge) (Mad Moor Series) © Science Fiction, Jun 1939 --/ fourth place space sf story --/ wonder award --/ emotion award --/ rare find This story has not been reprinted since its appearance in a pulp - nor any of the stories about the legendary space explorer Mad Moor. And this is a shame, because this series is a perfect example of wide-eyed, enthusiastic, sense-of-wonder fiction so beloved by fans in the 1930s-1940s. This particular installment is somewhat short on the plot and ends quite abruptly, but where it truly shines is describing great space liners, cool-cat space pilots, and conveying the romance and dangers of no-holds-barred (wild west style) space exploration - it even includes a shockingly violent stand-off with hordes of Martians, machine-gunning them to oblivion a la Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" (1969). Other than that crazy episode, it's a beautiful, smoothly told adventure story - full of excitement and the Glory of the Spaceways! ---------------------------------------------- Eando Binder "Where Eternity Ends" (nv) © 1939, Science Fiction, June --/ fourth place space sf novella --/ wonder award --/ emotion award --/ awesome scale --/ romance award --/ rare find I can share the enthusiasm of early sci-fi fans Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury who wrote letters to Charles Hornig, the editor of this pulp, saying how they appreciated the raw excitement and wonder that this magazine brought to science fiction market of the times! This novel is everything that "sense-of-wonder" space adventure yarn can be - written in spare and concise prose (almost minimalist in style; "Kraftwerk" German electronic music would be a perfect soundtrack for it) and bursting with stupendous ideas and seriously mind-boggling special effects. This is a Captain Future novel that Edmond Hamilton never written; a "Lost in Space" script for the 1930s, done on steroids; a full-speed-ahead storyline which can potentially be turned into something deeply psychedelic and exciting like Gordon R. Dickson's tour-de-force "Time Storm", perhaps? The idea of traveling to the border of space and time (with accompanying bizarre physics and space-time-continuum-disruption effects at the fringes of this anomaly) is obviously preposterous enough to be super-exciting, although it could only occur in some parallel Universe (talking about suspension of disbelief!). But who cares about plausibility, when you have a great cast of characters (including an evil scientist and his lovely daughter), glorious Edmond-Hamilton-style space vistas, crazy plant-like aliens, and beginning of a glorious romance with a beautiful lady: sounds like a perfect pulp adventure recipe to me! ---------------------------------------------- Ray Cummings "Secret of the Sun" © Thrilling Wonder Stories, Aug 1939 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award --/ rare find This is not the best example of wonder-laden stories by Ray Cummings, but Forrest J. Ackerman's right when he (as a lucky collector of infinite amount of pulps) laments the absence of any short story collection of this prominent pulp writer. It could be that some small press did issue a collection recently, or even put some of his stories online; but the fairy dust of obscurity has already touched Cummings' literary output since the 50s, and once touched, it's hard to shake it off. ---------------------------------------------- P. Schyler Miller "Spawn" © Weird Tales, Aug 1939 The Titan, 1950 --/ second place apocalyptic sf novella --/ wonder award --/ idea award: Elemental Monsters --/ style award --/ awesome scale --/ emotion award --/ shock value --/ rare find Some stories are docile and can be easily re-told by the campfire, or in a circle of friends; some stories are so ferocious and wild, that you can only shake your head, utter "what the heck was that?" and forget trying to tell someone about the experience. How could anyone convey the steam-roller impact of crushing imagery and seriously twisted cataclysmic events, over-the-top emotional charge and enough horrific visuals to make any special effects producer sweat with professional envy? This is a shocking story, which inherits some fearsome atmosphere from H. P. Lovecraft, some from Clark Ashton Smith, some from Donald Wandrei. The mesmerizing, almost trance-like narrative, which only gets weirder with every page until it reaches some feverish pitch that no writer or reader can sustain for long. You are almost exhausted by the time the story ends... It's enough to say that even seasoned dark fantasy writers of the period (Henry Kuttner, for example) were overwhelmed and deeply impacted by it. The Elemental Beings arise from sinister spores: the carnivorous ocean, the hungry gold-mountain, the undead prophet and his undead spawns - all wage battles against each other and against stunned mankind. All this looks and feels like Japanese disaster animation on drugs, 50 years ahead of its time. Add to it some kind of Russian revolution "red terror" mad marriage with Apocalypsis. I guarantee you, you will never forget the imagery in this warped tale, for better or for worse. review: 23-Jan-07 (read in 2007) ---------------------------------------------- Vic Phillips "Maiden Voyage" © Astounding Stories, Jan 1939 --/ third place space sf novella --/ adventure award --/ style award --/ romance award --/ shock value --/ rare find This is an outstanding novella: nothing much is known about Vic Phillips, who only published a few stories in Astounding between 1939-1942, so any info is appreciated. Well, turns out, this is a definitive treatment of "disaster in space" scenario: ship wreckage, mutiny, pirates, thick atmosphere of doom and more heroic action than in the best Hollywood disaster movies - plus entertaining, hard-hitting dialogue, with a hint of smart romance thrown in for good measure. I can see how this story can be "disaster voyage" category killer - it's hard to top Vic Phillips with a more hardboiled account. Although later efforts were made (for example, the excellent "The Star Lord" by Boyd Elanby) - but here we get blood-n-thunder action with such intensity that the pages literally smolder in your hands. Doc Smith's stuff is close but not written as intelligently, and Robert Heinlein's "Universe" depicts a similarly mutinous crew on a generation ship. All good comparisons - but this pulp superhit is as engrossing, as it is unexpected and darkly intense. ---------------------------------------------- Return to the Wonder Timeline

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