What I've Been Reading Lately

Plus Free Book Giveaway and Bundle Program Updates and I'm Going on Vacation

I sell science fiction like it’s my job and the amount of energy I put into collecting it comes a close second. But I actually blocked off some time to read some short stories over the past few days. Reading is the real reason I love science fiction and I hope to stay back in the habit of doing it.

Two Big Thinks on the Vanity of Human Evolution: “The Man Who Evolved” by Edmond Hamilton and “Limiting Factor” by Theodore Cogswell

It took me all weekend because I was hustling orders, but I read “The Man Who Evolved” by pulp science fiction giant Edmond Hamilton, originally published in the April 1931 issue of Wonder Stories, in my thick hardcover of Before The Golden Age, Isaac Asimov’s 1974 anthology of stories he read as a kid in the 1930s.

The basic premise is that two dudes go to visit their college pal in his remote laboratory where he tells him the two big questions about evolution are (1) “What causes it?” and (2) “What is the final stage of human evolution?” He tells them he has answered the first question: cosmic rays. And that that very night he proposes to answer the second question.

He reveals that he has built a device in which he can be safely bombard himself with cosmic rays so intense that 15 minutes of such bombardment causes him to evolve 50 million years. Against their better judgment the friends agree to help and bear witness.

After the first 15 minutes he becomes a demigod with a perfect body. But another 15 minutes shrivel his body and give him a giant head. (See illustration at top). Then another 15 minutes makes him only a head with tiny legs and arms.

In this form, he become maniacal and declares he will rule the human race and use the earth as a giant laboratory. But first: another 15 minutes. This new form is only a brain with tentacles and it no longer longs to rule for it can perceive things we can’t imagine and no knows no emotion not even pride. A final 15 minutes and he is reduced to a puddle of protoplasmic goop.

The narrator declares that evolution is a great pointless circle and monologues about this much longer than necessary I think. Over all, I liked this story and thought it was a good example of what I call 1930s strangeness in science fiction. The stories could overcome their literary faults with an elemental energy that is hard to replicate.

Monday I read “Limiting Factor” by Theodore Cogswell, first published in the April 1954 issue of Galaxy Magazine, in a yellowed 1960 paperback of The Third Galaxy Reader. It was a different take on the vanity of human evolution.

I had a hard time finding purchase on this story as it was opening. I finally figured out it was two guys talking about how they are quitting their jobs and breaking up with their girlfriends to go on some clandestine mission. You see they are supermen, homo superior.

The supermen (at least one of whom is a woman) have some kind of telekinetically powered spaceship they are going to use to get away from Earth before trouble develops between them and the “Normals” in a few generations. They leave and go to Alpha Centauri.

At Alpha Centauri they meet a man in a bowler hat free-floating in space who comes aboard their vessel and explains that the migration of the “Superiors” is a thing that usually happens in the course of the development of a civilization. He warns them that before making any decisions they should check out the nearby planet reserved for “primitives.”

What they find, a dwindling population of scrawny and slack-jawed people, causes the supermen to decide to return to Earth and not leave the “Normals” to the fate of the “primitives.” Just as they are about to depart, the man in the bowler hat teleports back in and reveals that the “primitives” are actually the descendants of “Superiors” who through developing their biological faculties had lost their intelligence for machines.

You see, dear reader, where biological faculties have an inherent (as the title suggests) limiting factor, mechanical faculties do not. The teleporting man who had been free-floating in space reveals that he himself is a “Normal” using a mechanical apparatus!

As literature of ideas both these stories fail because they set up a wrong idea of how human evolution works and end up writing a manifesto about it. They both come to the conclusion that human evolution is vain. Whether or not this is true, we cannot come to that conclusion from the scenarios provided by these stories. Hamilton’s story at least had elemental energy that I enjoyed. Cogswell left me cold.

For my money, a better Big Think on human development is Don A. Stuart (i.e., John W. Campbell)’s story “Forgetfulness,” first published in the June 1937 issue of Astounding Stories. Length limitations prevent me from getting into it; suffice to say read that not either of these. It has been republished in the excellent anthology Adventures in Time and Space and a number of other places.

An Incomplete Thought: “Mark Elf” by Cordwainer Smith

Yesterday I read “Mark Elf” by Cordwainer Smith, first published in the May 1957 issue of Saturn, in the giant NEFSA hardcover of The Rediscovery of Man, which collects Smith’s entire short fiction. This was Smith’s third published science fiction story as an adult and fits into his Instrumentality of Mankind universe.

I don’t approve of reviews of Smith’s work that mainly talk about how a story fits into his overarching universe or of how the hardcover collection I have reorders the stories to fit together “chronologically” (rather than in order of publication). There’s apparently a lot of “scholarship” devoted to the correct ordering of the stories.

This story made me see why that it is. It is basically an incomplete thought. It doesn’t have what you would call a traditional plot. There is a charming fairy tale quality, the prose is good and there is an underlying ideology that is interesting (if sketchy). But who the characters are and what their fate might be? A big to be continued.

The basic set up is that tens of thousands of years from now a powerful telepath pulls a Nazi satellite with a sleeping Junker aristocrat’s daughter inside back down to Earth. The girl awakens and is understandably disoriented to find herself in a world that is unrecognizable.

She finds herself in the company of a “Moron.” The Morons are some kind of administrative or government officials that “True Men” like the powerful telepath leave matters of state to so they can live lives of quiet contemplation. First the Moron succors her, then he wants to rape her and ultimately he decides to succor her some more before running away in the face of a millennia old German killer robot called Mark Elf (Mark 11).

Mark Elf has been scouring the Earth killing non-Germans for the Fifth or Sixth Reich (I forget) for tens of thousand of years. The robot is able to detect the Junker aristocrat’s daughter’s “German thoughts” and recognizes her as someone it (he?) should succor. But really succoring isn’t its main thing and she needs some kind of robot that doesn’t exist anymore to come pick her up. Mark Elf is really bugging out the whole time and explains in a sing song voice that there are no Germans anymore and that it can’t find Germany. Eventually it decides that it will check in with her every 100 years and goes back to the business of killing.

The girl falls asleep and when she wakes up she is greeted by a telepathic, talking bear wearing spectacles. The bear explains that bears like him are great friends to the True Men and that the powerful telepath who brought her back to Earth is on his way to make her his wife. What’s more the telepath wants to have many children with her and has great hopes that the human race will be reinvigorated thereby. And then the story is simply over.

I basically already knew the plot of this one, insofar as it has one, from watching this hagiographic but entertaining documentary about Cordwainer Smith a few months ago and honestly I recommend watching that over seeking out this particular story. That said, I really dug on “Scanners Live in Vain” (audiobook here) and “The Game of Rat and Dragon” (audiobook in this collection) and intend to continue exploring Smith’s work and recommending others do the same.

Update on the Book Giveaways

So far I have given away nine free books! I intend to give away five more. I would have done so by now if people would respond to my emails. If you are subscriber to this newsletter I encourage you to check and see if you have an email from will.emmons@gmail.com in your promotions or spam. In my email, I stated that if you don’t respond by a certain date your prize is forfeit but I haven’t enforced that rule so far. I will start picking new winners at some point though.

Bundle Program Going Strong!

Last Wednesday I began advertising for my bundle program. Above are four bundles I curated over the weekend for customers in Alabama, California, Massachusetts, and New York.

What is the bundle program? I am curating personalized bundles of three to six books based on your tastes and interests (or, in lieu of those, mine) for $25.00-$45.00 for US customers only. Price depends on how many books you want, which books are selected, and shipping and handling. Local pickup is available. Want to get the ball rolling? Initiate a conversation with me over email, Facebook chat, Twitter DM, or you can use the button below.

You’ll let me know how many books you want and we’ll discuss what you’re interested in and what you like to read. From there, I’ll work up a proposal for a bundle for you. I can usually get this done within a business day.

Once we agree on a bundle, you pay me and I ship to you via media mail. I prefer Venmo and Cash App but also accept PayPal, personal check and money order.

I’m Going on Vacation

From Saturday April 6 through Tuesday April 9, I will be visiting beautiful Ann Arbor, MI, and unable to fill orders. Additionally, next week’s newsletter will be coming out on Thursday rather than Wednesday.

In Ann Arbor, I am looking forward to visiting a few used bookstores. I’m especially excited to visit Motte & Bailey which has science fiction and fantasy as one of its areas of specialization. If I like what I find, I may share it with you all in next week’s installment. That’s all for now.