Astounding April 1941: L R Hubbard, M Jameson and P Schuyler Miller

Here at MPoricus Fiction Log we are reading the Kilkenny Cats series, a bunch of stories written by L. Ron Hubbard that appeared in Astounding in the early 1940s under the pen name Kurt von Rachen.  We are reading these tales in scans of the magazines in which they debuted, and sampling other offerings from each issue as we proceed.  Today we read the fourth Kilkenny Cats story, "The Mutineers," from the April 1941 Astounding, in which also appear two stories I have already read, Theodore Sturgeon's famous classic "Microcosmic God" and A. E. van Vogt's "Not the First," as well as the first part of a serial by L. Sprague de Camp.  Leaving those pieces aside, at least for the nonce, today we'll be reading the tales in this issue of John W. Campbell, Jr's iconic magazine by less prominent authors Malcolm Jameson and P. Schuyler Miller.  

"The Mutineers" by L. Ron Hubbard 

In "The Mutineers" Hubbard builds up the backgrounds of hero Steve Gailbraith and his other characters, for example describing in greater detail than heretofore vouchsafed to us Gailbraith's decision to betray the aristocracy and side with the rebels who overthrew the monarchy, and providing us more info on Fagar, the miner at the head of the communist faction of rebels who made himself dictator of Earth and had Gailbraith and other non-communist rebels killed or sent into exile on Sereon.  Besides these sorts of flashbacks and expository passages, we learn how the exiles have fared since Gailbraith captured them a ship and got them off Sereon in the last episode.

An experienced space naval officer who has already saved the exiles' lives repeatedly, Gailbraith felt it natural he should take command of the ship, but neither the leader of the small coterie of scientists among the exiles, Jean Mauchard, nor the leader of the hundreds of longshoremen, Dave Blacker, would recognize Gailbraith's authority.  And Gailbraith is also on the outs with beautiful blonde Fredericka Stalton, who like Fagar fought her way up from the working classes to be a leader of the rebellion (the charismatic and gorgeous Stalton found her ladder to success in the propaganda department.)  Stalton objects to Gailbraith's imperiousness, and Gailbraith's aristocratic attitudes about women, whom he doesn't see as fit for leadership, also rankle.  At the same time, Hubbard makes it still more clear that Gailbraith and Stalton belong together by revealing that Stalton has aristocratic blood--she grew up in a tenement because she was abandoned and unacknowledged by her philandering upper class father (ripped from today's headlines!)

We also learn more about Mauchard, who is the prime mover of the plot of this story.  The scientist knows of a planet, New Terre, rich in natural resources, and wants the exiles to travel there in their captured battleship.  Gailbraith and Blacker are reluctant to go, Steve warning that such a valuable piece of real estate is probably guarded by a force of Fagar's or has even been captured by hostile aliens during the chaos of the Terran civil war, while Blacker objects because he suspects on such a planet his working-class followers will be consigned to the position of laborers--Blacker's idea is that the exiles they should use the battleship to take up space piracy.  In an effort to cut this Gordian knot, Mauchard pumps the ship full of sleep gas, leaving only himself and his dozen or so fellow scientists awake so they can take over the ship and chart a course to New Terre, where, after the twelve-day trip they are, sure enough, fired upon by the locals.  Luckily Gailbraith has woken up a little earlier than everybody else and employs his sterling leadership ability and intimate knowledge of space ship operations to quickly win the subalterns over to his way of thinking, take over the ship from Mauchard, and save the day by bluffing the hostile aliens.

This is an entertaining classic-style SF story with space naval battles and people using technology and trickery to try to defeat foes and overcome other plot obstacles.  Like the first Kilkenny Cats story, it explicitly denounces revolution, and like so many SF stories, it romanticizes the role of the individual in society and endorses what we might call "the great man theory of history," pushing a sort of elitism and suggesting the common people should defer to their betters if they want a stable and comfortable society.  Perhaps interestingly, Hubbard in "The Mutineers" favors the highborn fighting man over the middle-class scientist, though the blackest villains of the piece are of course vengeful working-class thugs.  Hubbard in Steve Gailbraith tries to depict a character who evolves--a man who has made a terrible mistake and is almost psychologically destroyed by regret, but under pressure proves his abilities and works towards some kind of redemption, and who, perhaps, is going to grow out of his antediluvian attitudes about women.

"Slacker's Paradise" by Malcolm Jameson 

Way back in 2015, I read a story from Malcolm Jameson's Bullard series and denounced it as something a child would write.  Eight years later I read another Bullard tale--will I like it any better?  

The Solar System is wracked by war, millions dying as the the alliance of Earth and Mars resists the expansion of the Jovian Empire.  The main character of "Slacker's Paradise" is a young junior lieutenant in the space navy, MacKay, skipper of a patrol boat; as the scion of a wealthy family, he is experienced in operating small spaceships because he has his own space yacht.  MacKay is somewhat ashamed because he has never been in a battle--his influential aunt has pulled strings, against his wishes, to make sure he is never sent in harm's way--"slacker's paradise" is the slang term for his vessel's assigned duties, which are far from the battle zone.

Suddenly, MacKay gets an opportunity to be a hero!  His idol, Captain Bullard, winner of many battles, needs MacKay's fast patrol boat to deliver a message so important it cannot be transmitted through the aether, only hand delivered!

On the mission strange and unexpected circumstances arise that force MacKay to make drastic decisions that may well determine the fate of the war and the futures of all the peoples of the Solar System.  The plot is a little complicated, but basically it looks like Earth and Mars are worn out and may have to come to terms with the Callistan dictator who has forged the Jovian Empire by subjugating the other moons of Jupiter, but MacKay, by luck, learns that many of the peoples of the Jovian moons are sick of the war themselves and will consider rebelling against the Callistan tyranny if promised Terran aid.  Inspired by the example and advice of his hero Bullard ("any action is better than inaction"), MacKay takes the radical risk of shouldering the responsibility of Terran diplomacy without any authorization from his superiors, sending deceptive messages to the Callistan rulers and to potentially rebellious factions within their empire.  MacKay's trickery pays off, the war is won, and Bullard pins a metal on MacKay's chest.

A long footnote from Jameson explains how a major part of the plot of "Slacker's Paradise" is based on an incident at the end of the First World War, the surrenders of the Austrian battleships Zryini and Radetzky to American submarine chasers.  Maybe we're supposed to think of Callisto as being an analog of Prussia.  

"Slacker's Paradise" feels a little like a juvenile, what with its plot that centers on a young person meeting his role model and earning the respect of this father figure by making good by following surrogate daddy's advice, but the story is reasonably well-written and kinda fun.

"Bird Walk" by P. Schuyler Miller

"Bird Walk" is set in a wildlife preserve on Venus, which has been inhabited by Terran colonists for like 200 years.  These have been two turbulent centuries, with a struggle for independence from Earth which ended up founding an autocratic monarchy which was in turn overthrown and replaced by a democratic republic; since then there has been a series of royalist revolts.  One of the symbols of the currently deposed Venusian royal family is a huge ruby, and more than once leaders of the royalist uprisings have kicked off their restoration attempts by seizing this jewel from its resting place in a museum and using the fabulous relic to inspire royalist sympathizers among the masses.

The hero of our tale is the junior of the two-man staff of a small space navy outpost on the edge of the wildlife preserve.  Young New York-born officer Dave is a keen amateur ornithologist who knows the wildlife preserve like the back of his hand and has become an expert on the local flying fauna.  Miller's story begins with some metal-eating Venusian birds somehow getting into the outpost's radio shack and destroying the only radio in the area; the outpost's senior officer accuses our boy Dave of letting the gluttonous birds in, but he protests his innocence, and soon evidence arises that somebody else probably let the birds get at the radio as part of a scheme to hide the royal jewel, which the naval officers learn has just been stolen again.  Could the culprit be the head park ranger, an aristocratic type with whom the space naval officers don't get along?  

A tour group arrives at the wildlife refuge--our heroes deduce that a member of this group must be in possession of the jewel, and Dave uses his knowledge of the exotic local fauna and a lot of chicanery to identify the rebellious royalists and save Venusian democracy. 

"Bird Walk" reminded me a bit of Jack Vance's short stories.  As Vance sometimes does, Miller develops a somewhat elaborate background full of speculative politics, sociology and biology, including a long list of strange animals, to serve as the foundation of a crime story.  Among the things that really struck me as Vancian were Miller's suggestion that life on Venus, after only two hundred years, could lead to changes to the human phenotype, with Venus-born humans having a different skin and hair color than Earth-born humans, and how fashionable people in the story's universe cosmetically alter their skin and hair color.                 

Pretty good.  I've only read one other story by Miller (1944's "As Never Was"), but I have enjoyed both, so maybe I should make an effort to read more work by him.  

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Three stories about space naval officers fighting autocracy by outwitting people, perhaps a reflection of the time in which they were written as well as the SF genre in general.  I enjoyed all three, but none of them has ever been anthologized; the Hubbard and Jameson stories have been reprinted in collections, while it looks like the Miller has never reappeared.  I, for one, generally find it profitable to read these sorts of minor almost-forgotten SF stories, and I certainly did so today.  Kudos to the internet archive yet again for making this sort of material easily accessible.