Thought-variant stories from Astounding in the early 1930's

[Bick]

Shouldn't that building be on the National Register of Historic Places with some kind of plaque?

Yes, probably. A few years ago, when this pic was taken, you could have bought it - there's a real estate sign up!

 

[Bick]

By my scale above, "Colossus" gets a solid 3/5 or 3.5./5.

Interesting - I felt Nat Schachner's tale in the previous issue was considerably superior.

 

[dask]

Thank you. They sound like great resources. (The info in post #60, that is.)

 

[BAYLOR]

Interesting - I felt Nat Schachner's tale in the previous issue was considerably superior.

Bick, Ive never heard of this author . What happened to him and why is he seemingly unknown to modern readers ?

 

[dask]

Bick, Ive never heard of this author . What happened to him and why is he seemingly unknown to modern readers ?

I remember reading about a college professor teaching a class in science fiction who had never heard of Jack Vance.

 

[Bick]

Bick, Ive never heard of this author . What happened to him and why is he seemingly unknown to modern readers ?

Because he wrote most of his stories in the 1930's, wrote only one novel (Exiles of the Moon, 1931, co-written with Arthur Leo Zagat) and wrote in a pulp style that, while effective and engaging to readers in the '30's possibly hasn't aged well (in the sense that modern readers maybe looking for something different).

I think the benefits of Campbell's Golden Age are known to all SF fans, but what may not be so well appreciated is that it effectively drew a (rather false) line at approx. 1938-39, and suggested anything before then wasn't worth reading. As such, pre-Golden Age stuff has generally been forgotten. For some authors and stories that's a good thing, but certainly not all.

 

[Bick]

Double post - mods delete

 

[BAYLOR]

I remember reading about a college professor teaching a class in science fiction who had never heard of Jack Vance.

Wow.

 

[BAYLOR]

Because he wrote most of his stories in the 1930's, wrote only one novel (Exiles of the Moon, 1931, co-written with Arthur Leo Zagat) and wrote in a pulp style that, while effective and engaging to readers in the '30's possibly hasn't aged well (in the sense that modern readers maybe looking for something different).

I think the benefits of Campbell's Golden Age are known to all SF fans, but what may not be so well appreciated is that it effectively drew a (rather false) line at approx. 1938-39, and suggested anything before then wasn't worth reading. As such, pre-Golden Age stuff has generally been forgotten. For some authors and stories that's a good thing, but certainly not all.

Ive read a few good pre 1938 science fiction stores and novels . I don't agree with that demarcation line at all.

 

[Bick]

Ive read a few good pre 1938 science fiction stores and novels . I don't agree with that demarcation line at all.

No, and I suspect lots of true SF fans on here don't, but I feel the demarcation for the golden age is kind of viewed generally as a demarcation of when SF became worth reading. Maybe that kind of notion got enough traction over the years with publishers and editors of anthologies that you hear less about Schachner, Coblentz, Diffin, Gallun, etc, than they deserve.

 

[BAYLOR]

No, and I suspect lots of true SF fans on here don't, but I feel the demarcation for the golden age is kind of viewed generally as a demarcation of when SF became worth reading. Maybe that kind of notion got enough traction over the years with publishers and editors of anthologies that you hear less about Schachner, Coblentz, Diffin, Gallun, etc, than they deserve.

Stanton Coblentz was a historian, a satirist and science fiction writer . He's largely forgotten I read one book by him In Caverns Below it republished by Airmont book in 1964 under the title l The Hidden World . My mother picked it up for me in bargain bin at s called J M Fields . A department store chain that no longer exists . It's the only book I ever read by him and Ive never forgotten it . I reread it couple times. Its a pretty good satire novel. I make it a point to recommend this book to people.

 

[Bick]

I read a couple more of these thought-variants:

Born of the Sun - Jack Williamson (Astounding Stories, March 1934)
The editorial article "Coming Up?", posted above, states that the Thought-Variant this month was going to be John Russell Fearn's The Man Who Stopped the Dust. However, when it came to it, that story was introduced as a second "feature story" and the "thought-variant" moniker was instead applied to Williamson's inventive novelette. Fearn's tale was re-classified as the "ultra-scientific study of the month". The impression one gets is from this is that Tremaine was pretty much making this up as he went along, flying by the seat of his pants. My suspicion is that he sorted through whatever he had to publish in any one month, and then picked one that he thought best fulfilled the brief to be a thought-variant and called it such. So, on to Williamson's story: this is a bit of a classic, as its covers a big idea that had not been considered before. The idea itself is very silly - that the moons and planets are actually eggs, "born of the sun", which are starting to hatch. The hatching starts with Pluto and works its way in toward the Earth. Once the moon hatches, visible to all, panic takes hold on Earth. Luckily, our hero in the story owns a steel mill and has been experimenting with methods of antigravity travel. He dedicates his factory to making a large spaceship to escape the coming cataclysm, with his dutiful fiancé on his arm. What makes matters worse, is that a Mongolian sect who predicted the hatchings are trying to stop him succeed in leaving the Earth. Gripping, if rather daft, dated stuff. Whether it really ticks the box for a 'thought variant', according to Tremaine's own idea I'm not sure. The first thought-variant (Schachner's Ancestral Voices) was much more thought-provoking and mature in many ways. This tale was included in Asimov's 1974 anthology Before the Golden Age, however, so it may be more familiar to many.

Sidewise in Time - Murray Leinster (Astounding Stories, June 1934)
Leinster's classic novella has been heavily anthologised over the years and was one of the very first SF stories concerned with parallel universes and alternate history (possibly it was the first). In 1935 strange occurrences, including a dramatic solar flare, presage a shift in the natural order of the fourth dimension, time. Rather than go back or forwards, pockets of the world are shuttled to-and-fro, 'sidewise' in time to alternative universes. A mathematics professor was the only person to predict and understand the phenomenon, and with a small group of his students, he goes out on horseback from his college, armed with revolvers, hoping to not only survive but find a suitable alternative reality to inhabit. The mathematician's ultimate goals (which I won't spoil) are a bit ludicrous, but perhaps we should gloss over that, because the story is inventive (for its time, very much so) and is told with verve and energy, making it quite engaging and enjoyable. Some of the little touches Leinster brings to the story are terrific. There's a moment where time shimmers again, resulting in the close presence to observers of a world still locked in an ice-age. Leinster describes how it is only visible briefly, before condensation of the warm modern day air of a June day in the US condenses over the snowy landscape, hiding it from view - it's a great piece of hard SF imagery for such an old story. Like Born of the Sun, this tale presents a new idea in SF, but how much it makes one think in a new way, in the manner intended by Tremaine's 'thought-variant' project, I'm not sure. Recommended though as a classic in the genre.

 

[dask]

It all sounds logical to me.