John Russell Fearn Omnibus

by John Russell Fearn

  Occasionally, a number of Fearn stories, not written to Palmer’s commission, were sent to Campbell, but were rejected, or else adjudged unacceptable unless they were rewritten to his exacting demands. I consider it to be entirely possible that Campbell may well have been annoyed with Fearn for having “defected” from his magazine to that of a rival, and was deliberately being intractable. Additional evidence for this view lies in a revealing remark made by Palmer in his editorial notes for the November 1938 Amazing, which contained Fearn’s second new-style Ayre story, “The Circle of Life” (retitled as “Secret of the Ring”).

  “And finally, we present Thornton Ayre (better remember that name from now on!) with “The Secret of the Ring.” Plot? You readers who like a story with meat to it, and who enjoy a darn good mystery, will really sink your teeth with delight into this one. Whoever told Ayre to develop a new technique sure knew his stuff.”

  The last sentence was obviously Palmer enjoying a joke at Campbell’s expense—and Campbell would not have appreciated having been editorially outflanked. Palmer further rubbed Campbell’s nose in it by adding, “… your editor has another (Ayre) manuscript on his desk that will make it three in a row.”

  Whatever Campbell’s reasons, it should be noted that the Fearn stories he rejected were readily accepted by other magazines without revision. More and more new sf magazines sprang up in 1939, as other publishers entered the field, and Schwartz found no trouble in placing all of the material Fearn sent him, outside of Astounding. He sold readily to every other U.S. sf magazine editor, including Malcolm Reiss (Planet Stories), Frederik Pohl (Astonishing and Super Science Stories), Charles Hornig (Science Fiction and Future Fiction) and Robert O. Erisman (Marvel Stories), whilst in England Fearn appeared in a further three different magazines, Fantasy, Modern Wonder, and Tales of Wonder.

  By 1939, Campbell—one suspects because of lack of submissions from established authors, as much as the fact that he had his own radical ideas of the new direction sf should take—had begun to build up his own coterie of new authors, together with a handful of older professionals who were prepared to go along with his requests for revisions. He felt he could now afford to pick and choose stories exactly as he wished. Subsequent developments in the field would triumphantly vindicate Campbell’s stand, and he eventually came to be recognised as the creator of modern science fiction. As the decade progressed, he became the first choice for all aspiring authors. Those older authors who persevered and stuck with him throughout—such as Jack Williamson -achieved a high reputation, and nearly all of the magazine stories that began to be reprinted or anthologised in the late 1940s onwards, were selected from Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction.

  Many authors made the mistake of completely failing to realize this at the time, and Fearn was one of them. On 5 March 1939 he wrote to his young writer friend William F. Temple: “Authors everywhere, and Ray Z. Gallun in particular (and me) are complaining bitterly at his (Campbell’s) idiotic editorial ideas. There’ll have to be a change ere long: mark my words.” Exactly a month later he wrote in the same vein to Walter Gillings: “Of course, these days, it is only a matter of time before Campbell gets thrown out on his ear—or so I hear. He’s estranged R.Z. Gallun, Manly Wellman, Fearn, and now Seabury Quinn—and looks like losing plenty more because of his high-handed notions.” His letter concluded: “What think you of £10 Merit Award bonus with Amazing? Good idea. Hope I win something for “Secret of the Buried City” or that 18,000 word Polton Cross novelette in the next issue (he did!) … Haven’t bothered with Unknown. Little time to aim at undecided editorial policies, and even less time for Campbell …”

  To Fearn, writing for Palmer (and other magazines, such as Thrilling Wonder stories, which also paid one cent a word) offered an equal reward with scarcely any risk of rejection. His father had died in 1935, and with his widowed Mother to support, Fearn—who had no income other than from his writing—naturally followed the best markets. Any other author in his situation would have done exactly the same.

  But there was another—and more commendable—reason why Fearn could not afford to take time to rewrite stories for Campbell—he simply did not have the time to spare! In a letter to Temple in December 1938 he had revealed that he had been working solidly for months on a non-sf novel: “… I’ve been finishing a 100,000 word book of Blackpool life. Plain human characters, boarding house life, following the seasons through from beginning to end, with all its sidelights—its joys, its tragedies, the struggle, the tinsel and glitter, the hard bits, the battle to make ends meet. A sort of “Good Companions” of Blackpool. And not a ray gun or spaceship in sight. Ow! But I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Curtis Brown will agent it … the title is Little Winter.” But despite the fact that Curtis Brown were the biggest agency in the country, and decided to try and find a publisher for Fearn’s magnum opus on the strength of two favourable readers’ reports instead of the usual army of twelve, the book never saw publication. So as the 1930s drew to a close, Fearn was obliged to continue writing for the U.S. pulp magazines …

  I have selected “Wings Across the Cosmos” as representative of the best of his pre-war work appearing in Thrilling Wonder Stories, where it ran under his Polton Cross byline in the June 1938 issue. It is a quintessential science fiction story, told in the first person. The narrator is the victim of a strange metamorphosis, when a female creature from another solar system tries to change his body into the form of her own race—tiny, but immensely heavy, made of densely packed atoms.

  Despite having appeared outside of Astounding, the story was selected by the leading anthologist Groff Conklin, for inclusion in his landmark anthology A Treasury of Science Fiction (Crown, 1948). Conklin found the story—which had been recommended to him by correspondents—to be “disquieting,” and adjudged it as far too good “to be left lying forgotten in the deciduous back files of the science fiction pulps.” The story “deserved a better fate.” An expert judgement, with which I readily concur—hence its inclusion in this collection.

  “The Circle of Life” is the best of Fearn’s pre-war Thornton Ayre stories, in which he successfully introduced a new kind of sf, which he called “webwork.” This involved connecting seemingly disparate elements together to unravel a mystery. The method was already well known in detective fiction, the leading exponent being the American writer Harry Stephen Keeler. As noted above, he originally intended these new-style Ayre stories for Campbell, but his agent sensed that they would suit Ray Palmer. Such indeed proved to be the case, and Thornton Ayre made an immediate hit with Palmer and the readers of Amazing Stories. Within a few months of his debut, Palmer was stating that “Ayre” was his second most popular author, a short length behind Eando Binder.

  Whilst the actual writing of the story is unremarkable, its enduring appeal is in the underlying ideas, which are rather fascinating, and Fearn’s mastery of mystery techniques makes it intensely interesting throughout. Four years after it was published in the November 1938 Amazing, Palmer departed from his new fiction only policy, and actually reprinted the story: “A super story from the back files of Amazing Stories, presented once more in answer to popular demand.” His editorial note added: “You readers still praise it, and we feel that we are making no mistake in presenting this story as our “Amazing Classic” for this month …”

  Rounding out this first volume is “Thoughts That Kill,” a story that is hard to classify. Whilst unashamedly a pulp story, it has a curiously haunting quality, and an underlying sense of wonder and irony that imparts an agreeable frisson. It appeared in the October 1939 issue of Science Fiction, edited by Charles Hornig. Hornig’s magazine—and its companion, Future Fiction—were backed by one of the smaller publishing chains, and offered only one half cent a word. Schwartz sold him stories that had been rejected by the other magazines, but only on condition that new pen names were used, so as to protect his authors’ earning power with other higher-paying markets. But Hornig was so keen to run “Though
ts That Kill” under Fearn’s own name that he offered to pay the full one cent a word for the privilege!

  He was right to do so. The story has been adapted and published as a comic strip (by myself and artist Ron Turner), and more recently anthologist Mike Ashley asked me to revise the story for inclusion in one of his collections. It seemed fitting, therefore, to close this collection by including this intriguing story in its original form.

  Here, then, are seven stories, representing the Best of John Russell Fearn, from 1934 to 1939. Their diversity and variety reflects the astonishing versatility of the author, but also reveals the rapid evolution of the science fiction field itself, in the “hothouse” atmosphere of the pulp magazines. A second volume of stories, covering the 1940s through to Fearn’s death in 1960, is also available in this series. Both volumes are offered to modern readers in the hope that they may surprise and entertain, and, perhaps, restore something of the reputation that Fearn once enjoyed.

  *

  Philip Harbottle,

  Wallsend,

  December 2015

  THE MAN WHO STOPPED THE DUST

  I

  Professor Boris Renhard was a curious, violently temperamental man. A scientist by profession, and something of an idealist by nature, his main objective in life was the improvement of mankind’s environment, and the obviation of needless work in order to attain a specified objective. At thirty, he had been a brilliant inventor; at forty he had achieved wealth by that very reason; at fifty his extraordinary power of perception and conception had become a trifle dulled; and at sixty, as we find him now, his great mind was but a ghost of its former self.

  It still retained its inventive faculty in some degree, but that careful insight upon cause and effect; that wonderful, almost intuitive sense of being able to see ahead the outcome of almost any invention, was entirely missing.

  And that, perhaps, was why he did not foresee the tragic, unbelievable things that were to result from his curious idea of “stopping the dust.”

  He had one confidant, the thirty-five-year-old Dr. Anderson, who did his utmost to keep the professor on the path of sane reasoning—a task of formidable proportions with a temperament so volcanic and didactic as that possessed by Renhard.

  It was on a January day of completely unreasonable inclemency when the professor suddenly propounded his latest and most extraordinary theory to his friend.

  “Anderson, something has got to be done about all this!” he announced decidedly.

  “About what?” Anderson had merely dropped in for one of his weekly chats, which he managed to sandwich between a steadily growing medical practice, and was not feeling particularly intrigued by the possibility of scientific elucidations of the professor’s type at the moment. He was standing at the window looking out on the dense London murk.

  “About this!” Renhard said, jabbing a bony index finger at the pall.

  “Oh, you mean the fog? Well, after all, London expects fogs in January—at any time during the winter, in fact. It’s had them for centuries. Caused by the evaporation from the Thames, you know.”

  “You are telling me what causes a fog, John Anderson?” The professor’s eyes gleamed. “Don’t I know what causes it? What I am going to do is remedy it! Science is making great progress in other fields—the bigger, wider fields where my old brain cannot reach; but so mighty are their aims, so celestial their ambitions, they forget the little, everyday inconveniences. They strain at the gnat and swallow the camel, Anderson. I am going to stop a fog, my young friend; more, I am going to stop all dust!”

  There was a faint twinkle in the eyes of Anderson. He laid his hand on the elder man’s shoulder.

  “You get some queer ideas, don’t you, professor?”

  “There’s nothing queer about stopping dust, is there?”

  “Nothing except the fact that you can’t do it. It’s been tried—fog devourers, air-cleaners, molecular vacuums —”

  “Fog devourers—bah!” Renhard snorted, and reaching forward snatched up a daily paper from the table. “Look at that!” he commanded.

  “ ‘Four ships lost at sea in the worst fog of years,’ “ Anderson read aloud. “ ‘Airplanes lose their way and crash despite radio signals.’ Well, what about it?” He tossed the paper back onto the table. “It’s one of those things that’s inevitable—they call it ‘Act of God,’ don’t they?”

  “ ‘Act of God?’ “ Renhard groaned and spread his emaciated hands. “I should have thought that a physician with a rising clientele would have had greater breadth of vision; would have been more ready to admit the possibilities of science. Instead you drivel like a first-grader about the clause of ‘Act of God.’ A little while ago you hinted at the fact that you knew what a fog is. What exactly is the process that causes all this inconvenience and loss of time and life?”

  “Why, fog is caused by dust particles, estimated at about 0.001 inch in diameter. The particles might be composed of evaporated ocean spray, disintegrated dust from shooting stars and meteorites, volcanic dust—anything like that. Fog particles are bound to have some kind of dust for their nucleus.”

  “Beyond question, we are improving,” said Renhard sourly. “You admit, freely, that fog is caused by dust particles?”

  “Certainly it is. But what of it? You can’t stop dust. It is just bound to take place.”

  “And as long as it happens life will be endangered,” Renhard added grimly. “That isn’t right, Anderson. Man has brains enough to overcome the difficulty—even as he has overcome everything else.

  “You have perhaps heard of the ingenious instrument that contains a pump, a lens, filter papers, and a glass plate divided off into millimeters? Samples of air are sucked into this apparatus, and the number of dust particles determined. In a crowded city there are about 100,000 dust particles to the cubic centimeter; whilst over an ocean the amount is lowered to only 2,000 per cubic centimeter. You appear to know three of the operative factors which cause dust—evaporation of ocean spray, disintegrating shooting stars, volcanic dust; and the fourth is the action of wind over the earth’s surface.”

  “This sounds more like a treatise on the cause of dust, than how to remedy it,” Anderson remarked dryly.

  “If you will be so good as to give me an opportunity, my dear friend, I will come to my point in due time,” Renhard replied acidly.

  “Firstly, one must expound the qualities of the particular thing in question, then decide upon the necessary plan to defeat it. We will start again with the phenomenon known as twilight. This happens only because of the refraction of dust particles—the dusty, translucent curtain through which the sun’s rays have to pass. Raindrops and hailstones all have a particle of dust within them that serves as the original point upon which to condense. Again, when condensation is sufficiently vigorous, the water vapor becomes small globules of water with the dust speck as the center—and so clouds are formed.

  “Suppose we taken an example of how vital a point is volcanic dust. The eruption of the volcano of Krakatoa in or near Java in August, 1883, sent dust twenty miles into the air! That dust impregnated the whole atmospheric envelope and took years to descend. That occurrence provided mankind with some of the most glorious sunrises and sunsets in earthly history. Yet that same beauteous creation can be also the deadliest enemy—the destroyer of life and liberty.”

  “Admitted,” Anderson nodded. “And what do you propose to do next?”

  “I am making a machine, Anderson, which will have a 2,000-mile radius of dust elimination when I have completed it. It is what I call a dust vibrator. You admit, of course, that a dust particle is composed of atoms—and that those atoms when aggregated create a molecule?”

  “True enough.”

  “We are indeed improving. You admit also that the electron is essential to the structure of an atomic formation—and the atomic formation to the structure of a molecule? Splendid!

  “Now, it is conceivable that in time the atoms would lose many of thei
r electrons, owing to the terrific velocity with which the latter move. The disappearance of all electrons would make the weight of the molecule too heavy for the atom to support, and the result would be collapse. That occurrence would take a time that I do not wish to compute, for the simple reason that I evolved a way of destroying all electrons within the molecules that go to make up a dust particle. The result would be collapse of the molecule—and, incidentally, collapse of the dust particle. You get the idea?”

  “It certainly sounds all right,” Anderson admitted.

  “The electrons can be disrupted—a feat hitherto believed impossible—by vibration. Not an actual force, but a shifting plane of disturbances powerful enough to destroy the electron. The result will be complete absence of dust wherever my vibrator gets to work. Think of that!”

  “The idea certainly isn’t at all bad,” Anderson said slowly. “But how exactly do you propose to go about this disruption of the electron? You said something about a vibration—but I’m afraid I’m not so well up in such matters.”

  For a space the professor sat in silence. Then:

  “I’ll make it as clear as I can to your limited understanding, Anderson. I propose to disrupt the electrons by negative electricity in the form of vibration. An electron is of course pure negative electricity; it will be repelled by my vibration. Now, electricity, if one gets down to fundamentals, is vibration in a certain form—a vibration of such a periodicity that it becomes light. My vibration will be below that of light. It will be invisible, but tremendously destructive. It will repel and smash an electron completely. In the machine I am making normal electricity is converted into vibration, and when I have finished, the bombardment of electrons will commence—that is, the bombardment of dust electrons.”