Also of Interest Skylark Three E. Donnell With an introduction by Jack Williamson. Magellania Jules Verne. Too many writers and editors from the Gernsback days have been unjustly neglected, or unfairly criticized. Now, I hope, Robert A. Lowndes and I have provided the grounds for a fair consideration of their efforts, and a true reconstruction of the development of science fiction. It's the closest to time travel you'll ever get.
I hope you enjoy the trip. Author : Gary Westfahl Publisher: Greenwood Publishing Group ISBN: Category: Fantasy fiction, American Page: View: Download » A comprehensive three-volume reference work offers six hundred entries, with the first two volumes covering themes and the third volume exploring two hundred classic works in literature, television, and film. The author also evaluates the importance of John W.
Campbell's theories, and critiques Heinlein's Beyond the Horizon. Name index only. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc. Author : Mary W. Tolkien, H. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, or George Orwell? Or do some more recent authors come to mind?
Looking for your next sci-fi must-read? We've pulled together some of the favourite science fiction novels. Let us wait until to see if he was correctly reported. This and many other strange things our descendants may see. But to me the most impressive pages of this strange book are those that outlined with striking clarity the basic idea of radar as we know it today.
Although gummed over with reference to imaginary metals, inter-planetary ships travelling at comet speeds, and a very earthy romance, the uncanny foresight of Hugo Gernsback in into the realities of World War II constitutes perhaps the most amazing paragraphs in this astonishing Book of Prophecy. Chicago, Ill. May This is a book of historic importance, which belongs on the shelves of a variety of types of people, though not for the usual reasons why a fictional work is a must.
The story is the simplest kind of romantic adventure tale and characters are not particularly significant as such. What matters is the view from the windows as the train runs through the landscape.
For it is a book of prophecy, one of the most remarkable ever written. It has long since been a gold mine for nearly every writer of science-fiction during a generation.
No author laying his story in the future would think today of doing without Mr. Gernsback's three-dimensional color television, and very few without his satellite city circling the Earth; and no reader would think of questioning the feasibility of these devices. The very method employed in the book, that of supplying the people of the future with technical inventions which are the logical outgrowths of those currently in use or logically developed from currently accepted principles—this method has become fundamental in science-fiction.
This will doubtless bring some protest from the admirers of Mr. But a little thought will show that, in spite of some arresting and rather wonderful pictures of the future, and some extremely ingenious scientific devices described, Mr. Wells was not really writing science-fiction.
There is nothing known to science out of which the time machine could be developed; Wells simply tells us that it was built and goes on with his story.
The invincible balloon-battleships in The War in the Air are flatly contradictory to logic; even when the book was written, everybody knew that hydrogen is inflammable. Heat dissipates in air far too rapidly to allow the heat-ray camera of the Martians in The War of the Worlds to be built; and a very brief consideration will show that the construction of the antigravity plates in The First Men in the Moon would be child's play beside the problem of constructing the screens which temporarily kept those plates from working.
It is the same all down the line, and with Jules Verne as well—whose passengers in the moon-shell would be killed at the moment of firing. The fact is that Wells, himself enough of a scientist to use technical terms correctly, was afflicted with low scientific morality where fiction was concerned. He tried to be a prophet in the domain of sociology, but he was not really interested in the progress of physical science.
As long as he could get his characters into a situation by means of a plausible-sounding device, he was quite willing to flim-flam the reader about the practicability of the device and the soundness of the principles involved. Gernsback, on the other hand, founded the school [Pg 21] of fiction in which the technical plausibility of the surroundings is at least as important as the literary plausibility of the characters.
For that matter, the reader is besought to show some interest in what can be done for us by the chemist, the inventor, the electrician, and even the meteorologist.
It has often been pointed out that these technicians cannot change human nature, but Mr. Gernsback indicates that they can put human nature into a position where it can hardly avoid changing itself. World government is not an impossibility in an atmosphere where any person on the planet can be instantly in visible communication with any other, and where the barrier of language can be thrown down during a night's sleep. Thanks to the rules he set for himself and also, no doubt, to his wide acquaintance with that region in which all the sciences are applied to the practical service of man in the form of inventions Mr.
Gernsback has been rather astoundingly successful in predicting actual developments. The writer's most famous hit, of course, is radar p. Yet his description will do as a fair working description of radar as it is today. The device here called "the hypnobioscope" p. Gernsback has a share in the patents. Rustproof alloy steel p. In addition, there are a number of items where the essential correctness of the concept may be concealed from the reader by the terms employed in this book—for it is not granted to prophets to foresee what words will be employed when inventors designate their products.
The "glass" furniture p. Fluorescent lighting appears on p. Newspapers are printed on microfilm on p. Baseball and football are played at night on p. A device which is essentially the radio-direction-finder is on p. This by no means exhausts the list, but it would detract from the reader's enjoyment not to allow him to make some discoveries for himself. To be sure, there are certain inaccuracies.
The underearth tube from France to New York does not seem a good engineering proposition today. Nobody understood the nature of radium emanation in and neither did Mr. But the percentage of accurate judgments one cannot call them guesses, when they are so numerous and so close to the mark is somewhere up in the nineties.
Which leads one to the thought that this book perhaps has an importance beyond that as a literary and historical curiosity. Not all the predictions have been fulfilled or placed beyond fulfillment; and if research had proceeded along the lines of for instance Mr. Gernsback's suggestion for radar, we might have had that device a good deal earlier. We seem to be edging in that direction, but maybe a little more push is needed—the kind of push that could be supplied by a book like this.
Medical research has now caught up with Gernsback by deciding that thought in the human brain is accompanied by electrical manifestations; on p. The idea of draining off all the blood from a living body for purification and then replacing it transfusion also ranks as a Gernsback prediction is today far from fantastic. It is the standard and only treatment for RH newborn infants. Yet perhaps the most interesting of all the predictions is that regarding space flight.
Incidentally, the physical and psychological effects of space travel are worked out with a care that would be worth the attention of some current science-fiction writers.
But be it noticed that this is not the mysterious metal of H. Gernsback does it in a technically explicable and plausible way, by means of a metal grid, electrically or electronically excited. Today it is as possible to do this [Pg 24] as it was to build a radar set in ; that is, not at all. But the new formula of Dr. Einstein, at last integrating gravity with other manifestations, makes it seem probable that it is not beyond hope to screen gravitation from a selected area; and when that happens, Mr.
Gernsback's educated imagination, which has preceded the normal human mind to so many things on Earth, will have led the way to the stars. As the vibrations died down in the laboratory the big man arose from the glass chair and viewed the complicated apparatus on the table. It was complete to the last detail. He glanced at the calendar. It was September 1st in the year Tomorrow was to be a big and busy day for him, for it was to witness the final phase of the three-year experiment.
He yawned and stretched himself to his full height, revealing a physique much larger than that of the average man of his times and approaching that of the huge Martians.
His physical superiority, however, was as nothing compared to his gigantic mind. Stepping to the Telephot on the side of the wall he pressed a group of buttons and in a few minutes the faceplate of the Telephot became luminous, revealing the face of a clean shaven man about thirty, a pleasant but serious face.
As soon as he recognized the face of Ralph in his own Telephot he smiled and said, "Hello Ralph. I have something unusually interesting to show you. He stepped to one side of his instrument so that his friend could see the apparatus on the table about ten feet from the Telephot faceplate. Edward came closer to his own faceplate, in order that he might see further into the laboratory.
At this moment the voice ceased and Ralph's faceplate became clear. Somewhere in the Teleservice company's central office the connection had been broken. After several vain efforts to restore it Ralph was about to give up in disgust and leave the Telephot when the instrument began to glow again. But instead of the face of his friend there appeared that of a vivacious beautiful girl. She was in evening dress and behind her on a table stood a lighted lamp. Startled at the face of an utter stranger, an unconscious Oh!
I shall certainly have to make a complaint about the service. Her reply indicated that the mistake of "Central" was a little out of the ordinary, for he had been swung onto the Intercontinental Service as he at once understood when she said, " Pardon, Monsieur, je ne comprends pas! He immediately turned the small shining disc of the Language Rectifier on his instrument till the pointer rested on " French. Realizing however, that she was hardly being courteous to the pleasant looking young man who was smiling at her she added, "But sometimes Cen [Pg 27] tral's 'mistakes' may be forgiven, depending, of course, on the patience and courtesy of the other person involved.
She was now closer to the faceplate and was looking with curious eyes at the details of the laboratory—one of the finest in the world. Secondly, you have a lamp burning in your room although it is only four o'clock in the afternoon here in New York. You also wear evening dress. It must be evening, and inasmuch as the clock on your mantelpiece points to nine I would say you are in France, as New York time is five hours ahead of French time.
I am not French nor do I live in France. I am Swiss and I live in western Switzerland. Swiss time, you know, is almost the same as French time. She hesitated, and then, impulsively, "I wonder if it would be too much to ask you for your autograph? Much to his astonishment Ralph found himself pleased with the request. Autograph-hunting women he usually dismissed with a curt refusal. I am Alice B , of Ventalp, Switzerland.
Ralph then attached the Telautograph to his Telephot while the girl did the same. When both instruments were connected he signed his name and he saw his signature appear simultaneously on the machine in Switzerland.
From what I have heard of you this is the first you have ever given to a lady. Am I right? The awe and admiration in her dark eyes began to make him feel a little uncomfortable.
She sensed this immediately and once more became apologetic. The storm was so terrific that no aeroflyer could come near the house; I have never seen such a thing. Five days ago my father and brother left for Paris, intending to return the same afternoon, but they had a bad accident in which my brother dislocated his knee-cap; both were, therefore, obliged to stay somewhere near Paris, where they landed, and in the meanwhile the blizzard set in.
The Teleservice line became disconnected somewhere in the valley, and this is the first connection I have had for five days. How they came to connect me with New York, though, is a puzzle!
However, I managed to put the light magnesium power mast into a temporary [Pg 30] position again, and I had just called up the Teleservice Company, telling them again to direct the power, and getting some other information when they cut me in on you.
You had better try the power now; they probably have directed it by this time; anyhow, the Luminor should work. The delicate detectophone mechanism of the Luminor responded instantly to her command; and the room was flooded at once with the beautiful cold pink-white Luminor-light, emanating from the thin wire running around the four sides of the room below the white ceiling.
The light, however, seemed too strong, and she sharply cried, " Lux-dah! I am frozen stiff; just think, no heat for five days! I really sometimes envy our ancestors, who, I believe, heated their houses with stoves, burning strange black rocks or tree-chunks in them! It must be a dreadful predicament to be cut off from the entire world, in these days of weather control. It must be a novel experience. I cannot understand, however, what should have brought on a blizzard in midsummer.
They claimed the authorities did not furnish them with sufficient luxuries, and when their demands were refused, they simultaneously turned on the high-depression at the four Meteoro-Towers and then fled, leaving their towers with the high-tension currents escaping at a tremendous rate.
They had erected especially, additional discharge arms, pointing downward from the towers, for the purpose of snowing in the Meteoros completely. They will probably encounter considerable difficulty, because our snowed-under district naturally will give rise to some meteorological disturbances in their own districts, and therefore they will be obliged, I presume, to take care of the weather conditions in their districts as well as our own.
She opened her mouth as if to say something. But at that moment an electric gong began to ring furiously, so [Pg 32] loud that it vibrated loudly in Ralph's laboratory, four thousand miles away. It's just started—what shall I do, oh, what shall I do! It'll reach here in fifteen minutes and I'm absolutely helpless. Tell me—what shall I do? Now act quick! Run to the roof and attach the Communico mastpiece to the very base of the power mast, and point the former towards the avalanche.
Then move the directoscope exactly to West-by-South, and point the antenna of the power mast East-by-North. Now run—I'll do the rest! He saw her drop the receiver and rush away from the Telephot. Immediately he leaped up the glass stairs to the top of his building, and swung his big aerial around so that it pointed West-by-South.
He then adjusted his directoscope till a little bell began to ring. He knew then that the instrument was in perfect tune with the far-off instrument in Switzerland; he also noted that its pointer had swung to exactly East-by-North. He ran down to the laboratory and threw in a switch. Then he threw in another one with his foot, while clasping his ears tightly with his rubber-gloved hands. A terrible, whining sound was heard, and the building shook. It was the warning siren on top of the house, which could be heard within a radius of sixty miles, sounding its warning to all to keep away from tall steel or metal structures, or, if they could not do this, to insulate themselves.
He sounded the siren twice for ten seconds, which meant that he would direct his ultra-power for at least twenty minutes, and everybody must be on guard for this length of time. No sooner had the siren blast stopped, than he had seen Alice at the Telephot, signalling him that everything was in readiness. He yelled to her to insulate herself, and he saw her jump into a tall glass chair where she sat perfectly still, deathly white.
He could see that she clasped her hands to her ears; and he knew that she must be trying to shut out the thunder of the descending avalanche. He ran up his high glass ladder; and having reached the top, began to turn the large glass wheel the shaft of which was connected with the ultra-generator.
As he started turning the wheel, for the first time he [Pg 34] looked at the clock. He observed that it was just nine minutes after he first had heard the gong and he smiled, coldly.
He knew he was in time. A terrifying roar set in as soon as he had commenced to turn the wheel. It was as if a million devils had been let loose.
Sparks were flying everywhere. Small metal parts not encased in lead boxes fused. Long streamers of blue flames emanated from sharp objects, while ball-shaped objects glowed with a white aureole. Large iron pieces became strongly magnetic, and small iron objects continually flew from one large iron piece to another.
Ralph's watch chain became so hot that he had to discard it, together with his watch. He kept on turning the wheel, and the roar changed to a scream so intense that he had to pull out his rubber ear vacuum-caps so that he might not hear the terrible sound. As he turned the wheel farther around the tone of the ultra-generator reached the note where it coincided with the fundamental note of the building, which was built of steelonium the new substitute for steel.
Suddenly the whole building "sang," with a shriek so loud and piercing that it could be heard twenty miles away. Another building whose fundamental note was the same began to "sing" in its turn, just as one tuning fork produces sympathetic sounds in a similar distant one. A few more turns of the wheel and the "singing" stopped. As he continued turning the wheel of the generator, the latter gave out sounds sharper and sharper, higher and higher, shriller and shriller, till the shrieking became unendurable.
The frequency had passed over twenty thousand, at which point the human ear ceases to hear sounds. Ralph turned the wheel a few more notches and then stopped.
Except for the flying iron pieces, there was no sound. Even the myriads of sparks leaping around were strangely silent, except for the hissing noise of flames streaming from sharp metal points. Ralph looked at the clock. It was exactly ten minutes after the first sounding of the gong.
He then turned the wheel one notch further and instantly the room was plunged into pitch-black darkness. He would also have undergone some remarkable experiences. The uninitiated stranger standing—well insulated—on a roof not very far off from Ralph's laboratory, would have witnessed the following remarkable phenomena:.
As soon as Ralph threw the power of the Ultra-Generator on his aerial, the latter began to shoot out hissing flames in the direction of West-by-South.
As Ralph kept turning on more power, the flames became longer and the sound louder. The heavy iridium wires of the large aerial became red-hot, then yellow, then dazzling white, and the entire mast became white-hot. Just as the observer could hardly endure the shrill hissing sound of the outflowing flames any more, the sound stopped altogether, abruptly, and simultaneously the whole landscape was plunged into such a pitch-black darkness as he had never experienced before.
He could [Pg 36] not even see his hand before his eyes. The aerial could not be seen either, although he could feel the tremendous energy still flowing away. What had happened? The aerial on top of Ralph's house had obtained such a tremendously high frequency, and had become so strongly energyzed, that it acted toward the ether much the same as a vacuum pump acts on the air. The aerial for a radius of some forty miles attracted the ether so fast that a new supply could not spread over this area with sufficient rapidity.
Inasmuch as light waves cannot pass through space without the medium of ether, it necessarily follows that the entire area upon which the aerial acted was dark.
The observer who had never before been in an etherless hole the so-called negative whirlpool , experienced some remarkable sensations during the twenty minutes that followed. It is a well known fact that heat waves cannot pass through space without their medium, ether, the same as an electric bell, working in a vacuum, cannot be heard outside of the vacuum, because sound waves cannot pass through space without their medium, the air. No sooner had the darkness set in, than a peculiar feeling of numbness and passiveness would have come over him.
As long as he was in the etherless space, he absolutely stopped growing older , as no combustion nor digestion can go on without ether. He furthermore had lost all sense of heat or cold. His pipe, hot previously, was neither hot nor cold to his touch.
His own body could not grow cold as its heat could not be given off to the atmosphere, [Pg 37] nor could his body grow cold, even if he had sat on a cake of ice, because there was no ether to permit the heat to pass from one atom to another.
He would have remembered how, one day, he had been in a tornado center, and how, when the storm center had created a partial vacuum around him, he all of a sudden had felt the very air drawn from his lungs. He would have remembered people talking about an air-less hole, in which there was no medium but ether inasmuch as he could see the light.
Now things were reversed. He could hear and breathe, because the ether has no effect on these functions; but he had been robbed of his visual senses, and heat or cold could not affect him, as there was no means by which the heat or cold could traverse the ether-hole.
Alice's father, who had heard of the strike of the Meteoro-Tower operators and guessed of his daughter's predicament, rushed back from Paris in his aeroflyer. He had speeded up his machine to the utmost, scenting impending disaster as if by instinct.
When finally his villa came into sight, his blood froze in his veins and his heart stopped beating at the scene below him. He could see that an immense avalanche was sweeping down the mountain-side, with his house, that sheltered his daughter, directly in the path of it.
As he approached, he heard the roar and thunder of the avalanche as it swept everything in its path before it. He knew he was powerless, as he could not reach the house in time, and it only meant the certain destruction of himself if he could; and for that reason he could do nothing but be a spectator of the tragedy which would enact it [Pg 38] self before his eyes in a few short minutes.
His eye chanced to fall on the Power mast on the top of his house. He could see the iridium aerial wires which were pointing East-by-North suddenly become red-hot; then yellow, then white-hot, at the same time he felt that some enormous etheric disturbance had been set up, as sparks were flying from all metallic parts of his machine. When he looked again at the aerial on his house, he saw that a piece of the Communico mast, which apparently had fallen at the base of the Power mast, and which was pointing directly at the avalanche, was streaming gigantic flames which grew longer and longer, and gave forth shriller and shriller sounds.
The flames which streamed from the end of the Communico-mast-piece looked like a tremendously long jet of water leaving its nozzle under pressure. For about five hundred yards from the tip of the Communico mast it was really only a single flame about fifteen feet in diameter.
Beyond that it spread out fan-wise. He could also see that the entire Power mast, including the Communico mast, was glowing in a white heat, showing that immense forces were directed upon it. By this time the avalanche had almost come in contact with the furthest end of the flames.
Here the unbelievable happened. No sooner did the avalanche touch the flames, than it began turning to water. It seemed that the heat of those flames was so intense and powerful that had the avalanche been a block of solid ice it would not have made any marked difference. As it was, the entire avalanche was being reduced to hot water [Pg 39] and steam even before it reached the main shaft of the flame.
A torrent of hot water rushing down the mountain was all that remained of the menacing avalanche; and while the water did some damage, it was insignificant. For several minutes after the melting of the avalanche the flames continued to stream from the aerial, and then faded away. He climbed down his glass ladder, stepped over to the Telephot, and found that Alice had already reached her instrument. She looked at the man smiling in the faceplate of the Telephot almost dumb with an emotion that came very near to being reverence.
Before she could continue, the door in her room burst violently open and in rushed a fear-stricken old man. Alice flew to his arms, crying, "Oh father—". The hum of the great city came faintly from below. Aeroflyers dotted the sky. From time to time, trans-oceanic or trans-continental air liners passed with a low vibration, scarcely audible. At times a great aircraft would come close—within yards perhaps—when the passengers would crane their necks to get a good view of his "house," if such it could be called.
Indeed, his "house," which was a round tower, feet high, and thirty in diameter, built entirely of crystal glass-bricks and steelonium, was one of the sights of New York. A grateful city, recognizing his genius and his benefits to humanity, had erected the great tower for him on a plot where, centuries ago, Union Square had been. The top of the tower was twice as great in circumference as the main building, and in this upper part was located the research laboratory, famous throughout the world.
An electromagnetic tube elevator ran down the tower on one side of the building, all the rooms being cir [Pg 41] cular in shape, except for the space taken up by the elevator. Modern Electrics, April Modern Electrics Publication. Modern Electrics, May Modern Electrics, June Modern Electrics, July Modern Electrics, August Modern Electrics, September Modern Publishing Company.
Modern Electrics, October Modern Electrics, November
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