Nebula Awards Showcase 2010 (4 page)

Argosy
published a variety of popular fiction, ranging from short stories to complete novels to multipart serials. Adventure fiction of all types was the main thrust of the magazine, and there were no rules regarding content. So Frank Aubrey’s novel,
A Queen of Atlantis
, appeared in
Argosy
for February through August 1899 and William Wallace Cook contributed “A Round Trip to the Year 2000” in the July through November 1903 issues. And there was more science fiction, much more, to follow.

In American publishing, success breeds competition. Thus it was with the pulp magazines. By 1910, Munsey was publishing a second magazine,
Munsey’s,
modestly named after himself, and had announced a third, a weekly fiction magazine, titled
The All-Story
. Other publishers had their own cheap “wood-pulp paper” fiction magazines, soon nicknamed “pulps.”
Adventure
began in 1910, and it was quickly followed by
Detective Story Magazine
. Pulps began to diversify in content and by 1930, more than a hundred different titles crowded the newsstands, with a combined circulation of over 50,000,000 copies.

Editor of
The All-Story
magazine was Bob Davis, who had worked for the Munsey chain for years. Davis understood the appeal of good science fiction, having bought George Allan England’s
Darkness and Dawn
trilogy in 1908. The three novels told of a modern couple who fell into suspended animation; their awakening hundreds of years later in a long-abandoned New York City; and their search for civilization. The series was immensely popular and was reprinted complete in one thick hardcover soon after serialization. But even Davis couldn’t predict the incredible success of his next science fiction discovery.

The serial, published in
The All-Story
from February to July 1912, was titled “Under the Moons of Mars,” and the author, under a pen name, was Edgar Rice Burroughs. The story told of ex-soldier John Carter, who was magically transported to the planet Mars, where he discovered an ancient, dying civilization; barbaric green men with four arms; and a beautiful princess name Dejah Thoris. Fortunately, John Carter was one of Earth’s greatest swordsmen.

Carter and “Mars” was a tremendous hit and the Age of the Scientific Romance was born. A year later, Burroughs cemented his place as the world’s most popular pulp author with the publication of
Tarzan of the Apes
complete in the October 1912 issue of
The All-Story
magazine. For the next quarter-century, much of science fiction consisted of vividly imagined adventure stories taking place on far worlds or among lost civilizations with noble heroes conquering savage hordes and winning beautiful princesses. It was all quite entertaining but not very deep.

Notable pioneers of the scientific romance included Ray Cummings, Ralph Milne Farley, and Abraham Merritt. Cummings’ first story, “The Girl in the Golden Atom,” popularized the concept of atoms resembling miniature solar systems and advanced civilizations living on electrons. A prolific author, Cummings moved effortlessly from the Munsey pulps to the early science fiction magazines.

Ralph Milne Farley wrote a series of immensely popular novels featuring Myles Cabot,
The Radio Man
. A scientist sent via “radio waves” to the planet Venus, Cabot battled giant intelligent ants and rescued the inevitable beautiful princess. In the 1930s, Farley wrote
The Radio Flyers
and
The Radio Gunrunners
, although neither novel took place on Venus or involved Myles Cabot.

Abraham Merritt was perhaps the only writer of fantastic fiction whose popularity rivaled that of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Merritt wrote lost-race novels filled with exotic crumbling civilizations and near-magical super science. His heroines were not only beautiful but sensual, a remarkable achievement in otherwise prudish pulp magazines. A master of purple prose, Merritt created some of the most memorable villains in the pulps, ranging from Nimir, a gigantic stone face that dripped tears of gold, to Khalk’ru, an octopoid monster-god from another dimension that fed on human souls. Except for two short stories, all of Merritt’s fiction appeared in the Munsey pulps.

Along with Frank A. Munsey and Edgar Rice Burroughs, a third figure important to the development of pulp science fiction was Hugo Gernsback. An immigrant from Luxembourg, Gernsback started the world’s first mail-order business selling radio parts. By 1908, his catalog had evolved into the first real magazine about electronics and radio,
Modern Electrics
. In 1911, Gernsback serialized his magnum opus, a science fiction novel,
Ralph 124C41+,
in
Modern Electrics
. In the story, Gernsback made numerous predictions about future inventions, including a description and diagram of radar, a quarter-century before its actual appearance. In 1913, Gernsback began publishing
Electrical Experimenter
magazine, which in 1920 evolved into
Science & Invention
. The magazine ran one science fiction story per issue, with art done by Frank R. Paul, an architectural artist discovered some years earlier by Gernsback. The August 1923 issue of
Science & Invention
was dubbed “the scientifiction issue” and featured several science fiction short stories and serials, along with a space-suited man on the cover. The issue served as a trial balloon for
Amazing Stories
, the first all science fiction magazine, which Gernsback launched in April 1926.

The new magazine was a major success even though during its first two years Gernsback filled the issues mostly with reprints of stories by H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Slowly, ever slowly,
Amazing
began to print new material. However, it wasn’t till his magazine published “The Skylark of Space” by E. E. Smith, Ph.D., that
Amazing
reached for the stars.

Dr. Smith wrote “space operas” filled with smart heroes, beautiful heroines, evil villains, and lots of spaceships. More important, Smith’s stories soared to distant planets, far outside the solar system. He was the author credited with opening the universe for science fiction.

The success of
Amazing
led to competition. Clayton Magazines began publishing
Astounding Stories
in January 1930 and attracted top authors with their word rate of two cents a word, three or four times better than what Gernsback offered. When Gernsback lost control of
Amazing Stories
in 1929, he immediately started two other SF pulps,
Air Wonder Stories
and
Science Wonder Stories.
Notable authors working for the early SF pulps included John W. Campbell Jr., Nat Schachner, John Taine, and Murray Leinster. All survived to contribute to the onrushing “Golden Age” of SF. Unfortunately, Stanley Weinbaum did not.

Weinbaum’s first story, “A Martian Odyssey,” was published in
Wonder Stories
for July 1934. The story, which told of a trek across the surface of Mars by a human astronaut accompanied by Tweel, an intelligent ostrichlike Martian, was written with style, grace, and humor. The aliens encountered on Mars were truly alien, and Tweel was a believable but definitely nonhuman character. Weinbaum was hailed as the first science fiction writer to write literate, intelligent science fiction. For the next two years, Weinbaum stories, each as good as the one before, poured from the writer’s typewriter in Milwaukee and into the pages of
Wonder Stories
and
Astounding Stories
. And then there was nothing.

Stanley Weinbaum died in surgery on December 14, 1935.

Childhood days were over. It was time for science fiction to grow up.

T
he hiker vanished.

Janelle peered at the distant hill. She could have sworn a person had appeared there—and disappeared just as fast. Perhaps it was a trick of the wind. The rhododendron bushes on the hillside where she sat undulated in the breezes like a dark ocean frothed with purple flowers, and a hum of cicadas filled the air. The Great Smoky Mountains rose in the distance, green and gray against a late afternoon sky as blue as a cerulean glaze.

She shifted her weight uneasily, wondering if she should have come out here alone. Her hair blew across her face in a swirl that reminded her of yellow corn in the fields back home. The breeze whispered against her arms and rippled the summer dress she had worn instead of sensible hiking clothes. Right now she probably resembled some forest creature more than a new college graduate. She smiled at the image that conjured up: Janelle the wild-woman stalking into math class, strewing leaves and equations. Then her disquiet returned, like a hawk gliding in the sky, circling a rabbit, ready to plunge.

“Oh, stop,” she muttered, annoyed at herself. She pulled her hair out of her face. Birds wheeled above the figure on the next ridge—

Someone
was
there. She strained to see better. A man was standing on that hill with his back to her. As she rose to her feet, he turned in her direction.

Then he compressed into a line and vanished.

Whoa. Janelle squinted at the hill. She must have mistaken whatever she had seen. She had no wish to share her solitude, but curiosity tugged at her. She hiked up the hill, headed back to the trail, uncertain whether to investigate the vanished fellow or return to her car. Although it would take thirty minutes to reach the parking lot, she should probably go back; the afternoon had cooled as it aged, and her flimsy dress couldn’t stave off the chill. Seeking an escape from her hectic life, she had left her cell phone and purse in the car, taking nothing more than her keys.

The leafy canopy of an old growth forest arched above her. Wood chips crackled under her feet, and a red squirrel skittered up the trunk of a basswood. Stretching out her arms, she turned in a circle, her eyes closed. Sweet blazes, she loved these mountains. Laughing, she opened her eyes. Life was good. She had finished her math degree at MIT just a few days ago, and it felt great.

Like a shift in a sea current, her mood changed. She had no one to share her happiness. It had been two years since her father’s assassination in Spain. Her mother and brother had unexpectedly joined him for lunch that day, and the explosion that destroyed his car had taken them as well, her entire family. Even now, the pain felt raw.

Janelle inhaled deeply. She would survive this moment, as she had all the others, until the grief became bearable.

“Janelle?” a voice asked.

What the . . . ?
She whirled around.

A man stood several paces away. He resembled the figure from the hill, though she hadn’t seen him well enough to be sure this was the same person. She stepped back. He had only said her name, but given that they had never met, that was plenty to make her nervous.

His presence did nothing to allay her unease. He was too tall, maybe six foot six, with a muscular physique that reminded her of her vulnerability. His clothing was strange. She had nothing against unconventional self-expression, but in some subtle way, this went beyond that. The blue of his shirt vibrated in the shadowed forest, as vivid as an ocean where sunlight slanted through the water. His black pants were tucked into black boots. Silver links set with abalone gleamed on his shirt cuffs and in the silver chain around his neck. Well-trimmed hair brushed his shoulders, glossy and black. It wasn’t the length that surprised her, but the gray at the temples. Although obviously hale and fit, he seemed rather old to adopt such styles. Then again, just because she knew no one his age who made such fashion statements, that didn’t mean it never happened.

What compelled her the most, though, was his face. His high cheekbones and strong nose, and the dark brows arching above his gray eyes, made her think of a senator in the Roman Empire. He projected a sense of contained force.

Then she saw what hung from his belt. Ah, hell.
Dagger
was too tame a word. The sheath for the knife stretched as long as her forearm.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” His gravelly voice had an unfamiliar accent, harsh and throaty. “You are Janelle Aulair, aren’t you?”

She stood poised to run. “Why do you want to know?”

“I was sent to look for you.”

With relief, she realized what must have happened. Ben, the grocer in town, had sent him to check on her. Ben always worried when she came up here alone. The last time he had sent his sister and brother-in-law, and they had startled her the same way.