Thrilling Wonder Feb '49: R Bradbury, J Blish & D Knight, and T Sturgeon

Finding some elements of Jack Williamson's "With Folded Hands...," which I read recently, similar to A. E. van Vogt's Isher stories, I was inspired to reread the magazine versions of the three 1940s stories ("Seesaw" and "The Weapon Shop" from Astounding and "The Weapon Shops of Isher" from Thrilling Wonder) that were jammed together to form the 1951 novel The Weapon Shops of Isher, as well as the 1943 magazine version of The Weapon Makers, which appeared as a serial across three issues of Astounding.  I have to say, I really enjoyed rereading these, as, having read them before in one form or another, I didn't have to break my brain trying to figure out the plot intricacies but could enjoy the images, the relationships between the characters, and the philosophical and psychological theories of our favorite Canadian.  I also think the original magazine versions of some of van Vogt's short stories are better than the novels they were developed into for book publication; I am certain this was the case with "The Rull," for example, and suspect it is the case with the Isher stories.  The reviewer who wrote about The Weapon Makers for British magazine Nebula Science Fiction in 1954 opines that the revision of the Astounding serial for hardcover publication was to the story's detriment, and I think I may agree.  

Anyway, the February 1949 issue of Thrilling Wonder that has "The Weapon Shops of Isher" as its cover story also presents stories by other SF figures of interest to us here at MPorcius Fiction Log, so let's take a look at three: one by perhaps SF's greatest mainstream success, Ray Bradbury; a collaboration of Futurians James Blish and Damon Knight; and something by Theodore Strugeon, who (as Disch tells it) invited Thomas Disch to a threesome with his wife, an offer Disch declined.

"The Man" by Ray Bradbury

An Earth rocket lands on an inhabited planet.  The natives don't rush to meet the astronauts, much to the consternation of their captain.  He sends his lieutenant to town to find out what is going on.  It turns out that Jesus Christ visited the town yesterday, and his appearance has monopolized people's attention.  (Bradbury doesn't actually use the words "Jesus Christ," but leaves no doubt as to the identity of the visitor.)  The lieutenant is thrilled and decides to stay on this planet, where he can find the peace of mind that is impossible to find on filthy Earth since everyone's faith was destroyed by Darwin back in the Victorian era.  The captain, however, thinks the natives have been duped by another Earth rocket's captain, an unscrupulous rival, and sets out to interview the natives about the man who allegedly healed the town's sick and comforted its poor yesterday.  When the evidence they provide of Christ's appearance doesn't satisfy the captain, he is more sure than ever it is the work of one of a fellow astronaut.  The lieutenant denounces the captain for threatening to spoil the wonderful thing that has happened on this planet with his skepticism and his "scientific method."

When it becomes clear that the healer was not a fellow Earthman in disguise, the captain sees the light but instead of the reality of Christ bringing him peace he becomes obsessed with a desire to meet his lord and savior and blasts off to feverishly search the universe for Him.  The lieutenant stays behind--his mild pursuit of the peace offer by Jesus is bound to succeed, while the captain's aggressive, desperate hunt for Him is doomed to failure. 

It is interesting to see such an in-your-face Christian SF story, as well as an SF story that denounces science in no uncertain terms--"The Man" is a good example of the diversity of thought in the SF field (we might also see it as an anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist SF story, with its talk of how Earthmen plot to exploit the natives.)  But "The Man" is not exactly a fun or exciting story--it is a preaching-to-the-choir polemic.  

Acceptable.  I prefer the Ray Bradbury of "The October Game" and "The Silent Towns," myself, but "The Man" was a hit, being chosen by Everett Bleiler and T. E. Ditky for their The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1950 and included in 2003's Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales, as well as the oft-reprinted collections The Illustrated Man and S is for Space.      

"The Weakness of Rvog" by James Blish and Damon Knight

"The Weakness of Rvog" would later be expanded by Blish into the novel VOR, which I read long ago and remember very little about.  The novel seems to have been a success, though: isfdb lists a dozen physical editions, and many have pretty awesome covers.  (I wonder if Knight made any money on those books.)  This magazine version seems to never have have appeared again after its debut in Thrilling Wonder--it's a Futurian deep cut!

I'm hardly the biggest fan of James Blish or Damon Knight, and have repeatedly trashed stories by them on this blog (though Knight has produced some legit gems), and I expected to not like this story, but in fact it is pretty entertaining.  "The Weakness of Rvog" is a traditional science fiction tale about a bunch of scientists racing against time to figure out a scientific problem--if they fail the Earth will be destroyed!

In the spacefaring future in which Mars has been colonized by Earth, an extrasolar craft lands on our beloved Terra.  An alien, RVOG, whose body is indestructible and who communicates via sequences of flickering lights, emerges.  It takes the boffins months to figure out how to talk to this creature, and when communication is achieved RVOG demands to be killed.  RVOG has asked numerous other alien races to put it out of its misery, and they all failed; the human scientists have reason to suspect that RVOG punished those other civilizations by wiping them out.  Some off the eggheads want to get to work on a means of killing RVOG right away, while others want to try to cure RGVOG's depression so they can pick his brain--no doubt RVOG has much to teach us about the universe and can give us a leg up on the development of such technology it already has but which is currently out of human reach, like an FTL drive.  

Before these PhD's can anything come to any conclusions RVOG goes on a rampage, killing thousands or millions of people but luckily one of the scientists figures out how to neutralize it through psychology and trickery; this genius also figures out the alien's origin and purpose here on Earth.

We can perhaps see reflections of the political views of the Futurians in the fact that the genius is a Russian and that a theme of the story is one-world government based in Sweden.  (A related side note: SF people love Norse mythology, as I recently mentioned when opining about a weak Fritz Leiber story, and the Terran space warships in "The Weakness of RVOG" are named after components of Norse mythology.) 

"Messenger" by Theodore Sturgeon

Unlike van Vogt's epic of the struggle of a virgin empress against a cabal of super-scientists, Bradbury's parable of Jesus visiting an alien planet, and Blish and Knight's tragic tale of a genius Russki psychoanalyzing a suicidal robot (oh, spoiler), Sturgeon's "Messenger" does not seem to have been destined for great things.  "Messenger" did reappear in a 1966 reprint magazine, and then in 1998 in the fifth volume of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, The Perfect Host, though, so it didn't exactly disappear without a trace.

"Messenger" is a story about how a scientific genius with good values uses science to help other people and save his life from a guy with terrible values.     

Auckland Ford has invented many things and gotten rich.  But he thinks being rich and idle is unhealthy, so he gives most of his money away to charity and works a lowly technician's job at the nuclear power plant he designed, watching gauges all day.  He has a sexy daughter, Dorcas, who is of below average intelligence.  The power plant's public relations guy, Bentow, is vain, lazy, and evil; he wants to marry Dorcas to get at Ford's money and already has the dimwitted dame going gaga over him.  Then he learns that Ford is going to sign his will next week, leaving all his money to charity!  Bentow decides to kill Ford in a way that will look like an industrial accident, and much of the story's text concerns the workings of the power plant and how Bentow plans to exploit these technical facts to murder Ford.  Much of the rest of the story explains how Ford uses his knowledge of science to escape death and bring Bentow to justice.

Acceptable.  The inventor who comes up with stuff that radically improves human life, like cancer cures, and selflessly offers it to the public, even though the public treats him like crap, appears to be a sort of stock character in Sturgeon's body of work; check out "Slow Sculpture," "Occam's Scalpel." and "Extrapolation."  

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This is actually a pretty good issue of Thrilling Wonder, with plenty of pages of work by important writers that is good or at least interesting, and plenty of illustrations by Virgil Finlay that are worth looking at. The MPorcius staff encourages you to Check! It! Out!