Astounding, Nov. 1949

Lester del Rey, A. E. van Vogt, L. Sprague de Camp, Theodore Sturgeon, and Robert A. Heinlein

Greetings and salutations! In this issue of the Official William Emmons Books Newsletter, we’ll be taking a look at the issue of Astounding Science Fiction dated November 1949.

There’s a little housekeeping before we dive in. This is the second installment of my attempt at a read through of 1950s Astounding, which for various reasons began with the October 1949 issue. Today’s is an incomplete review because I won’t be covering . . .And Now You Don’t, the Isaac Asimov Foundation serial that takes up about a third of the magazine, because the original Foundation stories are getting their own read through treatment.

Synopsis and Judgments

All of the fiction in this issue of Astounding was written by men who had some standing as authors of science fiction at the time. In addition to the serial by Asimov, there is a second serial by Robert A. Heinlein, three short stories by big names, and a novelette by Theodore Sturgeon.

The fiction in the issue is passable. There is some good stuff but no real high highs and the lows are lower than one would like.

I’ll get into individual story reviews below and admittedly I didn’t read the Asimov, but I didn’t come away with a sense that this magazine could be the leader in its field. I’m likely suffering from anchoring bias, but I find myself agreeing with the learned hands at the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction that Astounding was ripe for a challenge by the time The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction came around in late 1949.

I didn’t find the nonfiction in this issue compelling either and for that I fault two people. The first is John W. Campbell, Jr., for his utterly banal editorial that seems to imply market forces give science fiction its putative predictive power. We the people can wish color TVs into being.

The second is myself. I consider myself to be a bad science fiction fan in that I found myself unmotivated to read R. S. Richardson’s article about how the Bureau of Standards had started using ammonia molecules to measure units of time because the Earth is too unstable to use for this purpose. With this attitude, I will never help shepherd in our scientific future.

Also there were no book reviews in this issue. Bummer.

Story Reviews

“Over the Top” by Lester del Rey

Science fiction is a conversation. If one likes a classic story, one can come in and write one’s own version of it. Here Del Rey is doing a Cold War take on Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “The Martian Odyssey” (free audiobook here) where the protagonist is a shipwrecked little person working for a private American company and the alien is even more alien than Weinbaum’s avian Tweel. The protagonist spends a lot of time considering his imminent demise and listening to radio news from which he infers that the Great Powers are about to destroy the world in a nuclear exchange. But the alien saves his life when it replenishes his oxygen supply using Martian plants and nuclear war is averted by the feeling of international unity that follows Russia announcing that it is sending an unmanned rocket to rescue the little person astronaut. This one also has shades of Red Planet by Heinlein and that bit in The Martian Chronicles where everyone on Earth is killed in a nuclear war.

“Final Command” by A. E. van Vogt

This one was almost interesting but the craft was so poor that it was easy to lose the thread. It’s not as good as any of the robot stories I reviewed last week but shares the theme of the robot as worker.

Human-robot galactic civilization seems to have just won or be winning a war with unknowable aliens. Millions upon millions of robot soldiers have died in the war. Humans are totally reliant on robots not just in war but also in all areas of the economy, including entertainment. For example, all the movies are made by robots and robots done up as humans are all the actors. Despite this or perhaps because of it, humans have an uncomfortable attitude toward robots and many robots view themselves as mere tools. In addition to the servile robot masses, there is also a cabal of elite robots that has secretly developed a form asexual reproduction that mirrors the agonies and ecstasies of sex in humans.

All of this is back drop for the story’s wheels within wheels. The galaxy’s governing body has given the supreme leader Barr a decision he must make before the next day of whether or not to destroy all robots. The reasoning is that humans have become unable to do anything for themselves and the shock to the system would be good for civilization. The catch? Barr himself is a secret robot and he is contemplating sending out an order to the robot armies to kill all humans.

But Barr’s robot identity is secretly known to the galaxy’s governing body and asking him whether or not to destroy all robots is meant to be some sort of a test of robot psychology. The human conspirators, led by a man named Marknell, actually have a plan to align themselves with the unknowable aliens—not so unknowable after all—to fight the robots if Barr gives the order to wipe out humanity. But Marknell would rather reach a compromise and trade eventual equality for peace. Ultimately Marknell forces Barr into the compromise by threatening the life of Barr’s robot son. The upshot is that robots are more emotional than humans. It’s sort of a weird conclusion.

“Finished” by L. Sprague de Camp

This one is probably my favorite story in this issue. It happens to be the independent sequel of a couple stories from earlier in 1949 that I haven’t read and the third in order of publication of De Camp’s Viagens Interplanetarias series.

It seems like what is going in the background here is that Brazil has become a Great Power and either the country itself or a Brazilian company has set up outposts in a sector of space. In this sector space is a planet the explorers have named Krishna that is at either a medieval or ancient level of social and economic development. Krishna is under a technological blockade because its natives cannot be trusted with advanced technology due to their perceived cultural and moral backwardness. If I’m sketchy on the details here, it’s because I’m dipping in mid-series.

The story begins with an Algerian engineer Akelawi leaving Krishna getting held up at customs because he has purchased the important mummy of a native god-king, who is the Krishnan nation of Sotaspé’s legal head of state in perpetuity. The head of customs Abreu ultimately allows the engineer and his mummy through because the former has a bill of sale from Prince Ferrian of Sotaspé, who ostensibly governs on the mummy’s behalf.

Not long after this, Prince Ferrian arrives irate that his god-king mummy is already en route to Earth. After an appropriate amount of bureaucratic rigmarole, Prince Ferrian is allowed to accompany Abreu’s assistant Herculeu to Earth to reclaim the mummy. In subjective time, the trip takes 100 days in which Herculeu scrupulously sequesters Prince Ferrian from any information that would breach the technological blockade. However, Herculeu does encourage the regent to study an Earthly law book hoping to edify him culturally and politically.

After 1500 objective days pass, the pair return with the mummy in tow. The law book has convinced Prince Ferrian to abolish polygamy. This is all played satirically with the customs bureaucracy being mocked along the way and the regent making a lot of comments about getting out from under the machinations of his harem.

What follows is a swashbuckling adventure. Abreu and Herculeu get wind that Prince Ferrian is now voyaging around in a steamship. The customs agents hire a pirate ship cum smuggling vessel powered by 80 oars to track down and destroy the steamship. I recommend reading this story because the ensuing chase and battle scenes are both humorous and exciting. It turns out the mummy was returned with science books sewn into it by Akelawi who had a secret deal with Prince Ferrian the whole time.

Once his plans for leap frogging into the industrial revolution are foiled, the story ends with Prince Ferrian establishing the first patent system of Sotaspé so the nation can develop its own science along capitalist lines. This last bit is funny but also bordered on propaganda.

I came away thinking there’s maybe something to this Viagens Interplanetarias series and feeling pretty open to reading more L. Sprague de Camp.

“What Dead Men Tell” by Theodore Sturgeon

This one was my other favorite story in this issue. It had the effect of convincing me I wouldn’t be a very good candidate to join a cabal of immortals who secretly nudge along the course of human events. I was still happy for this story’s film projectionist protagonist that he was qualified to join one though.

The protagonist starts seeing dead famous people in the crowd at the movie theater where he works and it makes him suspect the existence of an immortality treatment. It also inspires him to come up with a philosophy that all we really have is the past in the sense that the only thing we can count on is our memories. The upshot of this is that one should take it slow so as to form the best memories possible. Improbably he is able to get his write up of this new philosophy published in a low circulation quarterly that he saw tucked under the arm of one of the dead famous people.

This causes the immortals to reveal themselves to him. They’re impressed not so much with the content of his philosophy but with his thinking process. They offer him a chance to join them but only if he is willing to go through a test that may kill him.

The story starts in media res in the test which I won’t detail. The test is interesting but what I like about this one is that it’s about a working stiff who uses his native intelligence. Every person is a philosopher ultimately.

In my review of S. J. Sackett’s short story “The Last Plunge,” I mentioned the idea of proletarian science fiction:

Ever since reading The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester for the first time, I’ve been toying with the concept of proletarian science fiction. My notion is that this kind of science fiction would take the. . .perspective of a worker rather than the technocratic middle stratum perspective of a scientist or space captain. The Stars My Destination does this deliciously by portraying the criminalized and amoral space sailor Gully Foyle’s quest for revenge from which he ultimately course corrects unlocking high levels of human potential and demanding that all common people. . .take responsibility for society or die a fiery death. In essence, Gully Foyle rejects bourgeois values in order to constitute a new set of proletarian ones. Heady stuff.

The stakes are a little less high in “What Dead Men Tell” and most food for thought is less compelling than The Stars My Destination. But I’m clipping out “What Dead Men Tell” for my proletarian science fiction file nonetheless. I recommend it.

Gulf Part I of II by Robert A. Heinlein

I’m breaking my own rules by reviewing another Heinlein so soon after reviewing Double Star. In this instance, I fear I might be perceived as coming down on Heinlein with both feet because every issue I have with Double Star I also have with this one and then some.

It’s a mediocre spy story with bad pacing that is barely science fiction. Well, that is until it reaches the very end of this section of the serial when it is revealed that the microfilms the protagonist has been trying to protect contain the formula for how to make the Earth explode and that he has been recruited to join a secret organization of “supermen.”

I’ll admit I’m interested to read the next issue to see what is meant by supermen. I’m curious if this involves the same sort of training regimen that Doc Savage undergoes—isometric exercises; sniffing different sort of substances to be able to recognize them—or if these fellows are just naturally better than the rest of us.

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