Murray Leinster |
First published in
Astounding Science Fiction, September 1945.
One of the complaints
in the article that inspired this series was the increasing influence
of fantasy. Either the stories were fantasies dressed up in SF garb,
or SF stories borrowing the language and structure of fantasy. I
think this style of ‘historical SF’ is a variation on this
approach.
There seems to be
something similar going on. It’s an attempt to de-culture some of
the standard SF baggage. So, an alien becomes a demon, technological
vocabulary becomes words of power and technological processes become
magical rituals.
More importantly, the
historical variation is a chance to write about the silly past people
and to remind ourselves that we’ll past people one day, too.
This story takes the
form of three letters from Carolus, a 17th century seeker
of mysteries to an unnamed correspondent. Each letter describes the
things the creature tells him and of his own attempts to get the
creature to share the secret of it’s supernatural powers. The
creature talks of coming from another sphere, of making a great
voyage across the sea of worlds in a ship that sails between...
Well, I think it’s
obvious what’s happening here. Carolus’s demonic prince is of
course stranded alien. As the last of its kind, it’s pass on its
knowledge and the scheming Carolus is keen to learn all its words of
power and magical signs. Naturally, Carolus is unable to comprehend
the advanced scientific concepts that the alien is trying to explain,
and we get a bit of comical vexation on his part.
Then he spoke of flying
through the emptiness of the empyrean, which again is not clear,
because all can see that the heavens are fairly crowded with stars,
and he spoke of many suns and other worlds, some frozen some merely
barren rock. The obscurity of such things is patent. And he spoke of
drawing near to this world which is ours and an error made as if it
were in mathematics –instead of a rebellion – so that they drew
close to the Earth as Icarus to the sun. Then again he spoke in
metaphors because he referred to engines, which are things to cast
stone against wall and in a larger sense for grinding corn and
pumping water.
As well as this kind of
anachronistic befuddlement, the story also explains the origins of
certain myths. The alien is elfin in appearance and has a fatal
weakness to iron, as nods to fairy folklore. We’ve mentioned
Charles Fort in this volume already, but this story brings up one of
his theories that’s a regular in popular SF – what one might call
the Von Daniken hypothesis, after it’s most notable exponent.
It’s an enjoyable
black comedy, buoyed along by Leinster’s skill with clever
characterisation. Even through the skilfully executed archaic
diction, the letters reek of Carolus’s greed for wealth and power.
Every expression of confusion and irritation is fuelled by his
avarice, as is every action. He recognises a weariness and loneliness
in the alien, but still attempts to ruthlessly exploit it. Leinster
let’s us peek through Carolus’s narration at the alien itself,
it’s haughty disdain for the irredemably dense Carolus and just
enough hope in him for the last betrayal to have a bit of edge.
It’s another morally
charged story. Humanity is shown once again to be inherently
heartless and untrustworthy. In volume one this was usually
articulated by the discoverer – or someone close to them –
actively deciding that humanity isn’t ready for the new technology.
The stories in volume two revolve around what happens when those
fears become a reality. The moral challenges of new science are not
merely professed, they’re demonstrated through the actions of the
cast.
Maybe this is what
Ashley means when he talks about the general tone shifting away from
‘Gernsbackian science taught as fiction’ to ‘scientific
adventure’. Many of the stories in volume one relied on a
fictionalised theoritician giving us a description of his experiments
and their consequences. Here we see characters in action, more often
than not, which makes these stories immediately more exciting and
interesting.
Themes: aliens,
Forteanism, fantasy, historical SF, horrible humans, the last of its
kind, fairies, occultism.
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