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| Jack Williamson was born in 1908 and died in 2006, aged 98 |
First published in
Marvel Science Stories, November 1938.
In his introduction,
Ashley says that science fiction in this period began to change from
the educationally inclined ‘scientifiction’ of Gernsback towards
a more adventurous character. I’m guessing that this story is the
sort of story he’s talking about.
It concerns a
mysterious ‘dead spot’ that appears without warning in an area of
about 10,000 square miles in the mid west of America. Everyone inside
– and anyone who enters it subsequently – quickly dies and is
reduced to grey powder by the mysterious ‘sigma radiation’ that
emanates from the very ground.
The government is
baffled and calls on the young scientist Ryland Ames to help them get
to the bottom of the mystery. What follows is a mix of elements from
pulp heroes like Doc Savage, scientific romances of the Burroughsian
sort and just enough science to keep it on the the right side of
respectability for the sci fi audience.
