John Russell Fearn Omnibus
John Russell Fearn
© Philip Harbottle, John Russell Fearn 2017
John Russell Fearn and Philip Harbottle have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work.
First published in 2017 by Venture Press.
Table of Contents
The Best of John Russell Fearn Vol. 1
The Best of John Russell Fearn Vol. 2
Waters of Eternity
War of The Scientists
Secret of the Buried City
The Multillionth Chance
The Best of John Russell Fearn Vol. 1
Edited by Philip Harbottle
INTRODUCTION
JOHN Francis Russell Fearn was born in Worsley, near Manchester, England, on 5th June, 1908. He was the only son of Manchester businessman Percy Slate Fearn, and his wife, Florence Rose Fearn (nee Armstrong).
In 1910, the Fearns moved to nearby Irlams on the Height. Their new home was surrounded by the perpetual smoke of goods yards and coal mines, and to escape the forbidding gloom the young Fearn developed a passion for visits to the clean, bright world of the cinema. A second-hand typewriter given for his tenth birthday fired his writing ambitions, and he began to write continuously and compulsively. On leaving school at fourteen (then the standard age) Fearn was put into his father’s cotton business.
He fretted at the job, and could not make a success of it. He continued to educate himself in scientific matters, chiefly by reading the books of Sir James Jeans (celebrated for The Mysterious Universe) and Sir Arthur Eddington—two famous scientists who were the Stephen Hawkings of their day. He developed, too, a profound love of science fiction from reading Wells and Verne. More significantly, he also fell under the spell of Edwy Searles Brooks, a prolific contributor to Boys’ Papers, especially the Nelson Lee Library, in the 1920s and early 1930s. Fearn’s name first appeared in print in that magazine’s readers’ letter columns. In 1954, speaking at a Science Fiction Convention in Manchester, Fearn was to publicly acknowledge E.S. Brooks as the greatest influence on his own writing style. In 1947 he had dedicated a detective novel, Thy Arm Alone, to “Brooky”, his childhood mentor. Brooks was by then better known as an adult detective fiction writer himself, under the names of Victor Gunn and Berkeley Gray.
When the family moved to Blackpool in 1925, Fearn had to find other employment. He took several temporary jobs, principally that of a Solicitor’s Clerk, where his phenomenal typing speed enabled him to prepare weighty legal documents in double-quick time. But he yearned to become a writer, and eventually he broke into print in 1931. He sold a string of articles about the cinema to a leading magazine, Film Weekly. They included an interview with the actor Edward Everett Horton, whom Fearn met personally at the Savoy Hotel in London, in order to get the story.
Thus encouraged, Fearn plunged into the writing of his first science fiction novel, The Intelligence Gigantic. He had little hope of selling it in the difficult English market, where the genre was still largely unknown. But Providence was at work when Fearn discovered a copy of the American pulp Amazing Stories as a remainder in a Woolworth’s Store. It was the first all-science fiction magazine he had ever seen. “This showed me the very thing I’d dreamed about for years. A market! Promptly I shipped off my brainchild to the editor and waited results.”
After a long delay, the novel was accepted, with a request for more. Fearn became galvanized: “—something snapped inside me. All my submerged ambitions shot to the surface. If England didn’t want science fiction, then I would write for America.”
Fearn quickly wrote two epic super-scientific novels, Liners of Time, and a sequel, Zagribud. Both were accepted before the first novel appeared in print, eventually serialized in the June-July 1933 issues of Amazing Stories.
The Intelligence Gigantic owed nothing to the American pulp tradition, being essentially an English scientific romance, carefully and plausibly written in a restrained style. But his next two novels were completely different, being patterned directly on the pseudo-scientific extravaganzas of E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith, following Fearn’s exposure to his serials in Amazing Stories, of which he had become an ardent follower whilst awaiting results. Even as a tyro author, Fearn was shrewd enough to “write for the market.” Fearn strove to emulate—and even surpass—Smith’s universe-busting epics.
But by the time Amazing’s octogenerian editor ‘Doc’ Sloane got around to serializing Liners of Time in 1935, Fearn had already switched to writing for its rival magazine. Astounding Stories. He had also completely changed his style yet again for its new editor, F. Orlin Tremaine, who had challenged his writers to submit “thought variants,” stories containing “new and unexplored” ideas. Fearn saw this emerging market as his big chance. Ideas teemed in his mind.
His first submitted story, “The Man Who Stopped the Dust” was accorded the cover illustration of Astounding’s March, 1934 issue. SF historian Sam Moskowitz has confirmed that its plot, describing the weird consequences to the world following the destruction of all dust particles, was utterly unique. Reprinting the story as a classic in 1973, Forrest J Ackerman wrote that it was “the kind of story that makes an old member of dinosaur fandom like me weep, ‘Why don’t they write yarns like that anymore?’”
Fearn followed the story with a host of well-remembered “thought variants,” many of them featured on the cover, including “Before Earth Came,” (1934) “Earth’s Mausoleum” and “The Blue Infinity” (1935), and “Dark Eternity” (1937). With some of these stories Fearn quite deliberately went the limit with imagination. This earned him some criticism for having forsaken science for sheer imagination. He readily admitted this was so. Replying to his critics in a fanzine piece he said in part: “Science Fiction, as I see it, entails both science and fiction, and if one strives for scientific accuracy the result is too much like a text-book. I admit quite openly that I take liberties with science, but only so as to get a twist in the story which I could not get if I stuck to facts all the time … I’ve always understood imagination was the author’s greatest asset; that’s why I try to exert mine to the full—though I hope some of the things I’ve pictured never come to pass!”
Fearn spent weeks studying the theories of Jeans, Eddington, and Einstein before attempting his famous “Mathematica” stories. They extrapolated from Sir James Jeans’ speculation that the creator of the universe must have been a “Supreme Mathematician,” and literally depicted the whole universe as a series of equations against a background of figurative abstract ether. The stories have a fascinating and surreal dream-like quality. In fact, they had actually been based on a dream, whilst Fearn had been under anaesthetics during a dental operation. The dream had been so vivid that Fearn had sought to capture it in story form.
The stories caused a furore amongst his critics and admirers, the latter far out-numbering the former, as expressed through the magazine’s letter columns. After the second story had appeared, Lester del Rey made perhaps the shrewdest assessment in the July 1936 issue:
“Mathematic Plus was a fascinating yarn, too. It brings up the old problem though—what is science fiction?
“… Mathematica Plus was not science fiction at all. It was pseudo-mathematics, fiction, and hokum. Its appeal lay in a trick of using grand-sounding phrases and vague hints which orators have used to thrill the masses since Greece, but this time they were given a semi-mathematical form. Analyze most of it, and it means nothing.
“Fearn tricks the reader into kidding himself that he is following great ideas and is in touch with something out of the ordinary. Like the old stage magicians, he brings up again those grea
test words in any language—“maybe” and “if.” He does a good job of it, too, and I enjoy his tricks thoroughly.”
The two “Mathematica” stories were included in an earlier incarnation of this book, but as both stories were novelized as To the Ultimate by Fearn, which is currently in print as an e-book, I have replaced then with a later novelette, “Debt of Honour” (of which more later.)
Fearn’s 1936 thought-variants for Astounding are still here represented by “Deserted Universe.” This story is a more carefully controlled—but no less imaginative—work, offering a fascinating exploration of the catastrophic consequences of what happens when one man attempts to see what lies beyond death.
Fearn’s rare supernatural story, “Portrait of a Murderer” was published in the December 1936 Weird Tales, alongside stories by Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. Its quality was acknowledged when Walter Gillings reprinted it in his first collection of Strange Tales in 1946, along with work by Bloch and Lovecraft and several other notables, including Ray Bradbury. It was given the more descriptive title of “Experiment in Murder” which I have retained for this reprinting. The story shows Fearn’s amazing versatility, and his ability to write for whatever market he was aiming for.
The “thought variant” phase of Fearn’s science fiction work lasted only three years. By 1937, it was becoming apparent that in constantly striving for ever more audacious thought-variant ideas, the practitioners of the form in Astounding had backed themselves into a corner—there was a “sameness” about the stories—a kind of cosmic monadism—that represented a literary dead-end. Fearn was one of the first to realize this, and after discussing the matter with his agent (who agreed that he was in danger of being “type-cast” as a writer of “cosmic doom” stories) he decided to abandon the pseudo-scientific thought-variant approach, and explore instead more human and adventurous elements, which had been introduced to the field by the late Stanley G. Weinbaum.
At the prompting of Weinbaum’s agent, Julius Schwartz—who was also his own agent—Fearn attempted to fill the gap by writing pastiches of Weinbaum, creating the pseudonym of Polton Cross. To double his chances of sales, he also created a second pseudonym, ‘Thornton Ayre.’ He told his agent that these stories were the work of a friend, Frank Jones, for whom he was acting as mentor. Over a short interval, Fearn eventually wrote no less than eight Weinbaum pastiches, which he sent to his agent. He quickly realized it had been a mistake to use his Cross byline for Weinbaum-type stories—he could simply use Ayre for those—so he experimented with yet another change of style, still writing as Cross. His new Cross stories were also more human stories (in which his protagonist usually fell victim to some strange scientific nemesis) but owed nothing to Weinbaum. So Fearn now had three distinct identities, with which he hoped to increase his sales chances. His strategy was an immediate success.
The shrewd Schwartz submitted his first Ayre story, “Penal World” to Astounding, where it was promptly bought by Tremaine. A novelette, “World Without Chance,” as Cross, was bought by Mort Weisenger at Thrilling Wonder Stories. But then the magazine markets were about to be turned upside down, with not just one, but two seismic changes!
First, Orlin Tremaine was “moved upstairs” by the hierarchy at Street and Smith, and author John W. Campbell was appointed editor of Astounding Stories, effectively taking over with the October 1937 issue. The implications were to be far-reaching.
Fearn actually had three stories in the January 1938 Astounding, under all of his three names—Ayre, Cross and Fearn. Most commentators have erroneously assumed that Campbell was here still clearing out Tremaine’s inventory, but my research has proven this to be completely untrue. All three Fearn stories had actually been bought by Campbell—along with a fourth story, “The Degenerates” by Polton Cross, which appeared the following month. All four stories had been accepted by Campbell in October and November 1937.
Campbell fully intended to continue to use Fearn in his new Astounding, and wrote to him following his acceptance of “Red Heritage.” A letter from Fearn to Walter Gillings dated 9th January 1938, revealed: ‘“Dark Eternity” (which Fearn had sold earlier to Tremaine) marked the last thought variant story I ever intend to write. Come to think of it, it was a fitting closing story to a long run of crazy scientific expositions. “Red Heritage” marks the birth of the new Fearn, with a new style story. Campbell has written me expressing his liking for this yarn and urges all future yarns be written in the same vein. Further (in confidence) he tells me that the readers are swinging from the heavy science thought-variant type of yarn to more interesting characters and lighter science. So I’ve changed my methods utterly. “Red Heritage” was the start of the new method, and henceforth I shall change unrecognisably into the (in confidence) Polton Cross type of yarn. My latest yarn for Astounding, “Debt of Honor” is almost straight fiction, but I think it’ll click. I hope so.”
Fearn also received a second letter from Campbell at the same time, addressed to ‘Thornton Ayre.’ Whilst accepting “Whispering Satellite,” Campbell gave notice that it was the last such story he was prepared to use. Apparently too many authors were “going like Weinbaum” and the editor was sick of it.
“Campbell wrote me an explanatory letter and suggested changes of style,” Fearn later recalled. “I chewed things over … imitation would not do any longer. Why not go to the other extreme and find out what had not been done before? I felt that I had got something there. Well, what hadn’t been done? Mystery!
“Mystery! Of course! So far as I could figure out all the yarns were more or less straight experiments, adventures, theories, or—very rarely—a detective sort of problem. But what about a real juicy mystery woven round with science?
“… So I launched on a style which, I have since found, was unique. I unwittingly brought webwork plots into science fiction with my initial yarn in a new style—“Locked City.”
But, after appearing in the February 1938 issue, Fearn never again appeared in Astounding. Successive commentators have assumed that Fearn simply couldn’t meet Campbell’s “higher standards” and was ruthlessly discarded. The real picture was nowhere near as simple as that, however.
By the beginning of 1938, Amazing Stories was ailing badly. Paying the lowest rates in the field—one half cent a word, on publication—it was being squeezed by its better-paying competition. Then early in February, news reached Fearn via his agent that Teck Publications had sold Amazing, to the established Ziff-Davis chain. Payment was to be doubled, and paid on acceptance. The new editor in charge was Ray Palmer—who also happened to be a good friend of Julius Schwartz!
Palmer was horrified at the parlous state of the Amazing inventory he had inherited. He quickly decided that nearly all of it was unusable: “… half-baked ideas, screwy science, and pedantic, unprofessional writing … (a) dung heap of gadgets, theories, and interplanetary travelogues. There wasn’t a living breathing character, emotion (or) adventure in the whole lot,” he later recalled. In desperation, he appealed to his friend Schwartz for help, in his capacity as a literary agent specializing in sf. Amongst the mss he offered Palmer were stories that Fearn had written especially for Campbell, including “Debt of Honor” as Fearn, and “Locked City” as Ayre. Campbell never got to see them: they were instead diverted straight to Palmer. He eagerly snapped them up, with a request for more.
On learning of the changes at Amazing from Fearn, Walter Gillings had written to Palmer seeking more information, for publication in his fanzine. Scientifiction. Palmer—ever a seeker of publicity—replied quickly, and told Gillings: “Our first issue has not been made up yet, but “Debt of Honor” by John Russell Fearn, will grace the contents page. We consider this a fine story, and we intend to get more like it, and better. Authors would do well to regard this as a model, although our first issue should not be taken as entirely indicative of our future policy.”
On being notified of this by Gillings, Fearn replied on 14 March 1938, admitti
ng: “It came as a surprise to know my “Debt of Honor” has landed at Amazing. I figured it was for Astounding, but evidently Julie thinks differently.”
This historically important story was first printed as “A Summons from Mars” in the June 1938 Amazing Stories, but I am reprinting it here under Fearn’s original title of “Debt of Honour.” Fearn had written it especially for Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction—but Campbell never got to see it. If he had, I believe he would have almost certainly accepted it, and Fearn’s entire career would have been changed.
Any misgivings Fearn may have had about his agent’s action in bypassing Campbell were soon swept aside. On 25 March he wrote again to Gillings: “Learned this morning that as well as “Debt of Honor” (to be retitled “A Summons From Mars”) Amazing have bought Polton Cross’ “Eternal Sleepers” (to be retitled “Master of the Golden City”) for publication in the same issue. Nice going, particularly as it’s 17,000 words long. Two long novelettes in no. 1! Oh, boy, oh boy! Got the check this morning, a comforting little total of well over fifty quid.”
Schwartz had quickly discovered that Campbell was going to be a difficult market to crack. Nearly all of his other clients, who had previously sold most of their submissions to Tremaine, were now receiving more frequent rejections from Campbell, or requests for extensive revisions.
Palmer paid the same rate as Campbell—one cent a word—promptly, on acceptance. Moreover, he quickly introduced a bonus system for authors, the Monthly Merit Award, whereby authors whose story was voted the most popular story in the issue according to reader votes received a $50 bonus. Whilst the scheme was running, throughout 1939, Fearn consistently won the bonus under both his pseudonyms of Thornton Ayre and Polton Cross. Palmer also invited Fearn, via his agent, to submit a synopsis of proposed novelettes, from which he would select those that best appealed to him—thus virtually guaranteeing their eventual acceptance. Consequently, nearly all of Fearn’s mss written in 1938 and early 1939 went straight to Palmer. When Palmer launched a second magazine, Fantastic Adventures, also paying one cent a word—but with a Merit Bonus of $75 for best-liked story—Fearn naturally wrote for this market also, quickly mastering its particular requirements. He was soon scooping the Merit Bonus in this magazine, as well as in Amazing!.
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