Magazine Review: High Adventure #170: Best of Science Fiction Stories edited by John P. Gunnison
This volume of the long-running pulp reprint magazine dips into the pages of Science Fiction and Science Fiction Stories, a magazine that ran from 1939 to 1943 with the last two issues being under the latter name. As so often happens, “best of” is less of a descriptor than “selected stories from” would be. The first and last stories are from June 1941, and the rest are from April 1943. Columbia Publications was a low-paying publisher, so wasn’t most authors’ first choice as a market.
“The Man Who Was Millions” by Willard E. Hawkins is our cover story, though the cover is more symbolic than illustrative. Scientist Dave Drennan has developed a new powerful engine fuel and named it after his lovely assistant and fiancee Zella. So it’s especially hurtful when Zella immediately steals the formula. Silent men then capture both Dave and his friend Harry Flint, who stumbled across the abduction.
The men are taken to an island off the coast of Los Angeles owned by millionaire Adolphus Drukker. Just as Mr. Drukker is about to explain what’s going on, he stops in the middle of a sentence, as he’s just learned that he’s needed on the mainland. His brother Ernest Drukker takes over without missing a beat.
Dave accidentally kills Ernest during his escape from the island, but the people who are pursuing him don’t seem to care much. Dave is picked up by a passing boat, and taken to Dr. Fu Yin. The aging scientist finally gives some answers.
900 years before, science priests in India learned how to manipulate the process of reincarnation. In an unprecedented experiment, Yogarth allowed his fellow philosophers to attempt reincarnating him into two bodies at once! It worked. The man and woman Yogarth had become were truly soulmates and became married once they found each other in physical form.
Soon, the woman became pregnant. Yogarth decided it wanted to reincarnate into this body as well. Shim, one of the other philosophers, felt that this would stretch the experiment too far, but Yogarth proved able to do the process on his own. And it was infinitely reproducible.
So, 900 years later, Yogarth is a significant fraction of the world’s population. It’s about ready to take over the world for humanity’s own good, obliquely referring to the then ongoing World War Two as an example of why people can’t be left to manage themselves. One weakness of the reincarnation process, though, is that if the person is less than 1/8th descended from the original couple, that person has free will unless Yogarth concentrates on bringing them under direct control. This is what happened to Zella, making her a sleeper agent.
Fu Yin, the reincarnation of Shim, has a plan to prevent Yogarth from becoming all who live and freezing the reincarnation cycle forever, but he’s at the end of his current life so must strike now. But is the pandemic known as the Sleeping Doom a cure, or an even worse disease?
An inventive premise, but heavy on the infodumps between action sequences.
“Venus Station” by Arthur Leo Zagat takes place on Venus at a station for the exploitation of a local resource. One of the former workers was framed for a crime years before by the wealthy owner of the station, and has come for revenge upon that man’s offspring. Except that the offspring isn’t as advertised. Too bad there’s no way to contact the other escaped prisoners to let them know the revenge plan is off!
The ending has the main male character decide he doesn’t want to set off another cycle of revenge, which makes him sensible for a pulp protagonist.
“Murderer’s Apprentice” by Cleve Cartmill is crime noir. The engineer in charge of a mining operation comes up with a plan to fake his own death, be hired as his own replacement, and take over the company just as the mine starts to pay off. It’s an ingenious plan, and he’s plugged almost all the holes in it. Gerry Talbot seals his doom in this reader’s mind when he adds marrying his former boss’ pretty daughter to his planned triumph…”Until I get tired of her.”
This story is the most satisfying in the issue.
“The Millionth Year” by Martin Pearson features a scientist traveling into the distant future. He arrives a million years from 1950, only to find that humanity appears only subtly different in facial features from when he left. And their civilization is not a whit more advanced than his own, with the same social ills and roughly the same technology. As it happens, the man is also musically trained, and his long-lost melodies make him a success in the future world.
But is this truly all Man has come to? He goes in search of a higher truth, and to his sorrow learns it.
“The Man Who Could Stand Up” by Carl Selwyn is the tale of “Cokey” Ferret, drug addict and pickpocket. One day Cokey is walking down the street seeking victims to feed his habit when everyone else falls down. It soon becomes apparent that Cokey is the only person in the city, in the world, who can still stand upright and walk!
There’s an SFnal explanation of course, and now Cokey is the only person who can set things right. But it’s going to take all the selflessness and willpower he as a cocaine addict doesn’t have!
“An Old Martian Proverb” by John M. Taylor finishes the issue on a somewhat lighter note. The first two men to land on Mars find a peaceful civilization with telepathy helmets that solve the translation problem.
But not every citizen of Mars wants to have a peaceful civilization. Thullav would prefer just enough violence to put himself in as dictator, and he wants to get the secret of firearms from the Earthmen, so abducts them. The telepathic helmets prevent the humans from refusing to answer questions, but don’t prevent them from answering with proverbs and nursery rhymes. Also, the helmets do not convey sarcasm, so Thullav is fooled into thinking the Terrans are just couching the secret of gunpowder in obscure terms.
“Apprentice” is the best overall story in this issue, “Millions” has the most interesting premise, (but smacks of Orientalism) and “Stand Up” has good character development.
A nice collection of B-grade pulp science fiction.
