Magazine Review: High Adventure #162: The Uranium Pomegranates edited by John P. Gunnison
World War Two is over, but the dust is still settling. Bud Harper has been out of the military just long enough to be bored in his old job of bond salesman for Lewis & Co. While delivering some bonds to dynamic entrepreneur James Crunkleton, Bud is offered a position by the older man. However, there’s a mix-up, and Bud’s envelope contains five thousand dollars that should have gone to the lovely Donna Bryan. When our hero tries to rectify the error, he learns that Crunkleton is dead!
“The Uranium Pomegranates” by H. Bedford-Jones is one of two pulp reprints in this issue; it was a serial published in four issues of Short Stories in 1946, so is short novel-length.
Bud learns that Donna’s father is an explorer-scientist who was investigating mineral deposits in the Gobi Desert prior to the war. Among other things, he had discovered a particularly rich uranium ore. To hide the locations of the valuable deposits he found, Dr. Bryan somehow encoded the information in a set of pewter pomegranate ornaments. Before he could tell his daughter the secret of the pomegranates, the war came and Dr. Bryan fell into the hands of the Japanese. Donna herself was trapped in Communist Chinese territory by a broken leg.
Now free, Donna is searching for her father’s whereabouts (he disappeared from Japanese custody sometime between their surrender and anyone thinking to look for him) and the secret of the pomegranates. She’s aided by Crunkleton’s employee, aging but two-fisted sailor Mike Dolan, and now Bud.
Opposing them are forces led by Jim Murdock, former opium smuggler, suspected Japanese agent, and current gang leader. Oh, and he’s also Donna’s husband, sorry, Bud. There’s some Soviet agents lurking about as well, and some American big business types. Almost everyone wants that uranium!
Adding a fantastic element to the story is the factor of “Oriental philosophy” which allows certain people to gain weird mental powers. Donna has the ability to project mental images over a short distance (which never gets used past its introduction) and Murdock can exert his will over other men’s to a certain degree. The master of this, however, is Dr. John Lee, a Chinese-American scientist who has developed a machine that allows amplification of mental abilities.
The author had been writing pulp adventure since 1911 and there are parts where it’s plain that he wasn’t up with the times. Most of the usual Chinese stereotypes are skipped as they’d become our allies during the war, but Dr. Lee is a deliberate anachronism, choosing to dress and act like old-style Chinese aristocrats.
It’s a bang-up pulp action story; the ending is perhaps a little too optimistic given how the political landscape changed post-war; we certainly could have used more of Dr. Lee’s humanitarian philosophy!
“Thy Son Grows Cold” by W. Wirt was printed in Short Stories in 1935, and is more in the older pulp treatment of China. Machu princess Chi Huan is captured by Tartar raiders, and former Legionnaire Jimmy Cordie and his mercenary allies must help her cousin Kwang-si rescue the headstrong girl.
Nicely enough, it’s shown that Chi Huan is a warrior in her own right, and had she not been outnumbered five to one could have made it through. Her fiery tongue also serves her well in the camp of the Tartars, as she cannily uses it just enough to impress the chieftain rather than anger him.
Wicked though he may be, the chieftain has a soft spot for his spoiled son, and this is the crux of Jimmy’s plan. There may be some blood along the way, but everyone understands the rules of the game, and they’re jolly good sports.
There’s some ethnic stereotype humor among the mercenaries–they have stereotypes instead of personalities.
Not as good a story as the other, but it fills the issue out nicely.
