1956 Adventures from Edmond Hamilton, Harlan Ellison, and Randall Garrett & Robert Silverberg

My last eleven blog posts have been about anthologized science fiction short stories, and I have had my fill of joke stories and stories denouncing American mass culture for a while.  Remember when you were a kid and you saw the 1977 Star Wars movie for the first time, and it was just two hours of guys shooting monsters and space Nazis, like a child's amalgam of King Kong, the raid on St. Nazaire and The Battle of Britain, a confection composed of a maximum proportion of violence, a helping of horror and a minimum of jokes and preachiness?  Remember how awesome that was?  Where might we look if we wanted to recreate that experience?

Well, I own a copy of the first issue of Science Fiction Adventures, a magazine which endured from late 1956 to 1958 and produced twelve issues, and that seems like a decent place to start.  The cover depicts a uniformed alien shooting down a woman, and is emblazoned with the words "3 Complete New Action Novels."  The first "action novel" is by Edmond Hamilton, husband of Leigh Brackett and an MPorcius fave about whose work I have written many times.  The other two action novels are the work of Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg, presented under pseudonyms.  When we open to the contents page we see that a "Bonus Short Story" by Harlan Ellison has also been included.  Today I am reading this baby cover to cover--you can read it yourself for free at the internet archive.

"The Starcombers" by Edmond Hamilton

It made him wonder why they fought to live at all.  It made him wonder why anybody did.

A flotilla of four starships are searching the planets of a burned-out black star for salvage.  They discover the ancient foundations of a long-decayed city, and begin to dismantle them so they can bring the alien metal and plastic back to human space to sell.  But things on this planet ain't quite that simple!

The surface of this planet may be airless and dead, but deep down in a seventy-mile-wide cleft eerily lit by volcanic activity, some atmosphere lingers, and so do some native inhabitants: short humanoids, the last members of a dying race, and the giant monsters against which they must struggle!  The natives have fine vacuum suits, and powerful energy hand guns and energy artillery, but are very short on food, and the humans hope to trade with the natives, food supplies for technology.  But when one of the four human vessels goes down in the cleft to make the trade, during an attack by the ravenous dinosaur-sized monsters, the natives double cross the humans, killing some and capturing others.  Only one of the men remains free, Sam Fletcher, and he has to decide if he will try to flee to the surface or try to rescue his fellows from the ancient half-ruined fortified city in which they are being held.

Hamilton generates a grim and tense atmosphere in this story.  First of all, Hamilton presents the whole idea of searching the galaxy for ruins to salvage as sordid, like jackals and vultures picking the bones of superior creatures, and even the practice of trade as little more than swindlers trying to take advantage of each other.  While a guy in a Poul Anderson story might look out into space and think of all the opportunities for interstellar trade and how interstellar relations can make people's lives better, Sam looks at the stars and wonders "why men had ever bothered to struggle their way out to the stars...this was all the struggle came to in the end, sordid money-making...."

Adding to this story's air of cynicism and pessimism is that fact that all the characters are pretty sketchy--it's like reading about a criminal gang!  The leader of the four-ship squadron is greedy corner-cutting Harry Axe, who is accompanied by his second wife, Lucy, an ill-tempered wench who flirts with all the men in the company and bitterly insults any who resist her charms.  The aforementioned Sam Fletcher, a drunk who pilots the company's scout ship, is one of those who rejects Lucy's advances; Fletcher is also under Harry's thumb because he (Sam) lacks a license to work as a spaceman and would be an unemployed wretch were it not for Harry and his rule-bending ways.

A woman scorned, Lucy has been spreading the rumor that Sam has a thing for her, has been trying to steal her from Harry.  So, when Axe has been captured by the natives, Sam can't just jump in his ship and fly back to the surface where Lucy and the rest of the flotilla wait--people will assume Sam has murdered Harry and probably prosecute some lynch mob justice on Sam!  Instead he has to venture into the ruined city in search of his fellows.  While he is sneaking around among the ruins some natives from a rival city state, having learned that the locals have found a new source of precious food, launch an attack and a ray cannon artillery duel erupts. 

The confusion of the battle allows Sam to liberate one of his captured comrades, from whom he learns that Harry Axe, that greedy jerk, is now in league with the desperately ruthless aliens!  Axe heads for the landed ship with six of the little aliens, but Sam and his comrade beat them there and ambush them, wiping out the six natives in a barrage of energy gun fire and taking their traitorous leader into custody.  The story ends with a not very convincing change of attitude on the part of Sam--the natives of this nameless planet of a dead star remained on their dying world only to face inevitable decline and extinction, presenting an object lesson that proves that the human race's course of exploring the universe, no matter how risky or sordid it is, is the wiser course.

This is an entertaining, exciting adventure story, even if I can't endorse its skepticism of exploration and trade.  It includes ray guns, space suits, space ships, hostile aliens, monsters, disastrous sexual relationships, existential despair, so many of my favorite things.  There isn't a hell of a lot of science, and it is essentially a lost race story, so maybe "The Starcombers" will appeal most to fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert Howard; I am myself a fan of ERB and Howard, and I am giving this one a big thumbs up.

"The Starcombers" would reappear in 1958 in the British edition of Science Fiction Adventures with a different illustration of a redheaded woman dressed in white getting shot (or having a seizure or something.)  In the 1960s the story was included in multiple editions of a paperback anthology entitled Great Science Fiction Adventures.

Editor's Space by Larry T. Shaw

Page 50 of the magazine is devoted to a message from the editor of Science Fiction Adventures, Larry T. Shaw.  Shaw complains that SF isn't as fun as it used to be, that too many stories are "long-winded and one-sided arguments about psychology, sociology and culture" and tells us that Science Fiction Adventures is here to feed our need for entertaining SF.  This sounds like a complaint about the New Wave but it came seven years before Michael Moorcock took over New Worlds! 

"Secret of the Green Invaders" by Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg (as by Robert Randall)

In his intro to this story, Shaw just comes right out and says the authors are Silverberg and Garrett.  I don't think I've ever read anything by Garrett before, though I recognize the name.

As I read "Secret of the Green Invaders" I wondered if I was supposed to be reminded of Palestine, which has been ruled by a succession of foreign empires--the Romans, Crusaders, Ottomans, and the British among many others--over many centuries.  As the story begins it is the year 3035 and Earth has been ruled by the furry green Khoomish for seven years.  The leader of the small human resistance movement, Orvid Kemron, has been captured and is dragged before the Khoomish officer in charge of Earth.  Then we get a flashback in which we learn that in the 21st century there was a nuclear war which left Earth in shambles and an easy conquest by the reptilian Sslesor.  The Sslesor were benevolent rulers who managed our affairs for a thousand or so years.  But some men were more interested in freedom and independence than bland good government!  In 3027 these rebels, led by Joslyn Carter, planted a nuclear bomb in the Sslesor headquarters, but just before they detonated it the Sslesor announced they were leaving the Earth!

The Sslesor had been defeated in a war by the Vrenk, and as part of the peace treaty they were surrendering Earth to the Vrenk.  When representatives of the Vrenk arrived they announced a hands-off policy and immediately departed, leaving the people of the Earth to their own devices.  Carter tried to set up an Earth government, but nobody respected his authority and the world collapsed into hundreds of tiny antagonistic fiefdoms.

The climax of this story is when it is revealed to Orvid Kemron that the Khoomish are not aliens at all but Carter and his comrades in disguise.  Carter realized that a thousand years of alien rule had left humans conditioned to regard rule by aliens as natural.  When the "Khoomish" appeared, over 99% of humans welcomed them and started behaving again.  As the story ends we know that Carter and Kemron will be collaborating on a thirty-year plan of conditioning the human race to accept human rule by playacting out a fake tyranny and a fake rebellion that will inspire a human desire for independence and confer legitimacy on Kemron.

"The Secret of the Green Invaders" is solidly within the SF tradition of a guy using his noggin instead of his brawn or weapons to resolve the plot, and the SF tradition of smart committed elites manipulating the ignorant masses.  The idea of getting humanity to unite by tricking them into thinking an alien invasion is underway is another recurring idea in SF.

This story is also kind of boring.  In contrast to Hamilton's compelling "The Starcombers," there is no human feeling here, no excitement, no vivid images; "The Secret of the Green Invaders" is dry and feels gimmicky.  Hamilton, like a craftsman, worked assiduously to create a setting and a cast of characters and a plot that generated an atmosphere, a mood, while Silverberg and Garrett just came up with a basic idea and then rudely hammered together a utilitarian skeletal framework to support it.  By no stretch can you call this an "adventure" or "action novel."  Thumbs down.   

"Secret of the Green Invaders" was reprinted in the U.K. edition of Science Fiction Adventures but seems to have been neglected since.

"Battle for the Thousand Suns" by Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg (as by Calvin Knox and David Gordon)

After the plodding "The Secret of the Green Invaders" I embark on this story with low expectations.  Even though Shaw was upfront about the true authors of "Secret of the Green Invaders," in his little intro here he pretends that Calvin Knox and David Gordon are real people, apologizing to Gordon because his name was accidentally left off the cover.

Fifteen years ago Dane Regan fled the isolated Empire of the Hundred Kings, a star cluster of ten thousand stars and a thousand habitable planets, in fear for his life from King Gwyll of Jillane, most powerful of the hundred kings and the murderer of Regan's family.  For most of those fifteen years Regan has been training to become an expert fighting man in the Milky Way galaxy so he can get his revenge, and the time for revenge approaches as Regan returns to Jillane!

The societies of the Hundred Kings are feudal in nature, with a nobility, a merchant class and then the peasants.  This feudal structure is the result of a rare mutation.  A small number of people out in this cluster are born with psychic powers that can kill or stun non-psykers in an instant.  Those psykers who can kill are members of the royalty, those who can only stun, the lower members of the aristocracy.  Our hero Regan is the rightful King of Jillane and at the start of the story it is hinted that he has extra special psychic powers.

Travelling incognito as a passenger on a merchant ship from the Milky Way, Regan's plan is to join the Jillane military and work his way up the ranks until he is close enough to the reclusive hunchback King Gwyll to work his vengeance.  The first thing Regan does on Jillane is mug a merchant and steal his clothes so he won't be treated like a peasant.  (In general, writers look down on business people and, besides often portraying business as some kind of sin, they also enjoy depicting business people being abused.)  The second thing is buy a sword.  The third thing is go to the recruiting center and get in a brawl with non-commissioned officers and then a sword duel with a commissioned officer in order to prove how good a fighter he is.  He is commissioned a lieutenant.

Over the course of a year Regan becomes a hero by leading the Jillane space fleet to victory in a space naval battle (the various Kings are always fighting each other, something Regan's father hoped to be able to stop) and engages in another duel, killing his man.  The rise of Regan, who is ostensibly an outsider from the Milky Way, makes many native Jillanians jealous, and Regan is warned he will eventually be assassinated.  So he uses his psychic powers (hypnosis and illusion) to fake his own death and then leaves the planet.

Two years later the Emperor of the Hundred Kings dies; this is an elective lifetime office for which the hundred kings are the electors, and Gwyll is expected to win the election to the Imperial throne.  A week before the election Regan returns to Jillane, disguised as a prince from a bogus empire he claims is on the other side of the Milky Way.  He spends time with Gwyll's daughter, winning her affection.  Gwyll is duly elected, and at the coronation Regan exposes the fact that Gwyll isn't really a royal-class psyker--his hunchback is not a real malady, but a cover for a machine he wears behind his shoulders that artificially strengthens his psychic ability so he appears to be of the royal class.  Regan kills Gwyll and is immediately crowned king of Jillane.  We are lead to assume that the kings who just elected Gwyll emperor a few days ago will soon be electing the guy who just killed Gwyll to replace Gwyll.

"Battle for the Thousand Suns" is actually an adventure story and an "action novel" full of violence and death.  Unfortunately it is also a clunky piece of work, with no interesting characters (Gwyll gets almost zero screen time) and a somewhat frustrating plot--we watch Regan pursue his Plan A for many pages until he just abandons it to activate Plan B, which works after a few pages.  (The authors try to pass off the structure of their plot as a sort of demonstration that bold plans can be preferable to methodical plans.)  Many scenes just seem to be thrown in there to fill up pages, like the seduction of Gwyll's daughter.  Also, Regan kind of acts like a jerk--kicking an innocent waiter is one thing that comes to mind.

"Battle for the Thousand Suns" feels like something thrown together at the last minute to round out the magazine, unlike Hamilton's contribution, which feels like something that was created with care.  I have to give this thing a marginal thumbs down; it feels like filler.  The curious thing about it is that it faintly reminds me in its most surface elements of Jack Vance's Demon Princes novels, and, somewhat more strongly, of Silverberg's lucrative but mind-numbingly lame Lord Valentine's Castle, in which a boring dude goes on a boring journey of several hundred pages in order to retake his throne.

I believe this is the only appearance of "Battle for the Thousand Suns."

I recognize the Ray Harryhausen space suit
from Earth vs the Flying Saucers,
Robbie from Forbidden Planet, and the
female robot from Metropolis, but what is the
second figure from the left?  [UPDATE: 
April 20, 2019: In the comments below
Dennis identifies the mystery robot!]

"Hadj" by Harlan Ellison

"Hadj" has appeared in the Ellison collection sometimes titled Ellison Wonderland and sometimes titled Earthman, Go Home!, and in collections of short-shorts.  It is only four pages here.

It is the future Earth of world government!  Super powerful aliens--the "Masters of the Universe"--send a message to Earth to request that a single representative be sent to their homeworld; the message includes instructions on how to build the hyperspace ship necessary.  Earth computers choose an old retired businessman--the businessman is of course some kind of evil schemer who will be looking for ways that Earth can outwit the current masters and make the human race the new Masters of the Universe.  A Muslim pilots the ship that takes the businessman to the Masters' homeworld; when the Muslim compares the trip to the pilgrimage to Mecca the businessman tells him that this not a pilgrimage, that Earthmen are just as good, if not better, than these aliens.

The Earthers' ship enters the atmosphere of the alien planet, and they request directions from the local air traffic control.  The last lines of the story are the directions: "Please go around to the service entrance."  This is a disposable joke story that doesn't even make sense--the aliens ask for a representative, then, when he comes, treat him like a delivery boy, even though they didn't ask him to deliver anything?  Did they just ask us for a representative and give us the secret of hyperdrive so they could insult us?  Did Ellison write this one in fifteen minutes and then neglect to revise it?

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After Ellison's forgettable gag story there is a full page ad for a subscription to Science Fiction Adventures that tells you $3.50 for 12 issues is a bargain because the 36 novels you will get are sure to be published as expensive hardcovers--10 cents for such a novel will be a steal.  This is a little amusing and a little sad because, as we have seen, of today's three novels, two never saw book publication and the lead story has only ever appeared in paperback.

The final two pages of the magazine are a sort of bulletin board meant to facilitate interaction between SF fans.  The first item is about Stan and Ellen Crouch, who want to meet people interested in their innovative system of spelling, "Representative Spelling."  The second item promotes the Science & Fiction Critics Club, of Boston, and includes an aside about propeller beanies.  The third item promotes Stellar, a fanzine put out by Larry Stark and our friend Ted White, that included fiction about SF fans.

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Hamilton's "The Starcombers" is alone worth the price I paid for this magazine (I think I got it in a lot of 18 magazines for which I paid $45.00), the rest of the stories are just mediocre filler at best.

We'll be hunting for more adventures in the pages of SF publications from the mid-20th century in the next installment of MPorcius Fiction Log.