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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 3, September 1944
Page 41
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 41 Queens" and "Council of Drones". If these stories do not furnish a greater fund of accurate information than a standard text-book, and furnish it in a readily-palatable form besides, I miss my guess. But, you say, these science stories---with their emphasis on a sugar-coated science---can never depict the true inflections of human emotions, can never reach the heights of near-literature and still profess educational value. But ah, you're wrong, dead wrong, my friends! Have you ever read "Isle of Gargoyles" by Dr. William Lemkin, which was published in the February 1936 number of Wonder Stories? Have you ever heard of a cretin? ---An unfortunate human born with a thyroid gland deficiency, and because of it existing like "an idiotic, dwarfish, deformed monstrosity of a being"? Thousands of these creatures do exist in actuality, and only the the recently-discovered drug thyroxin gradually restores them to near-normal human beings. But should the intake of the drug be discontinued, they would revert back to their original state. Lemkin's story is about a scientist who discovers an entire island of these unfortunates living in a savage society of their own. It teels of the companions who accompany the scientist, and of the research carried out in an attempt to effect a cure for this terrible affliction. One reads of the tiny human monster which is restored to normalcy, and of the terrible uprising of the cretin colony when the whereabouts of the ship is discovered, and of the subsequent wrecking of the laboratory. Thus all the painstaking research is destroyed overnight. The scientist, his friend, and the cured cretin escape, only to be shipwrecked---and they hopelessly watch the boy revert to his former self as the symptoms of cretinism reappear. The sight of this tragedy appears to be unhinging the scientist's reason, for day by day he grows more dulled and hopeless. But one morning both of the two are gone, and in a note which they left behind the friend discovers the true reason: the scientist is himself a born cretin, kept normal by periodic injections of thyroxin, and, knowing his own case to be as helpless as the boy's, he joins the latter in flight to the monstrous colony. "Isle of the Gargoyles" is a story poignant with mounting despair, a story of remarkable power. Even while many---often justifiedly---rained abuse upon Nat Schachner as a "hack" writer, he frequently showed qualities which have today elevated him into the best-seller ranks. In his story, "The Isotope Men" he displayed a knowledge of humanity rare even in great writers. This tale tells of the invention of a machine that is able to separate men into their component chemically isotopic counterparts, and how an entire army is duplicated and forced to fight, each man pitted against his twin isotopic self. Schachner's deft handling of the emotional struggle involved makes this story a top-ranking one in science-fiction. Upon somewhat the same theme Henry J. Kostkos wrote a sadly underrated classic entitled "Men Created for Death". Here the author told of the scientific manufacture of test-tube men for the explicit purpose of fighting wars and being killed. The heartless butcherings of these men continues until finally it is discovered that they possess all the finer emotions of a normally-born human, and thus the story ends on a note of crashing power. Shall we also consign to oblivion that little gem from Wonder Stories Quarterly, "The Martian," by A. Rowley Hilliard and Allen Glasser? This moving story relates an incident of a fragile Martian who comes to Earth to save his race, which is slowly dying for lack of water. His frantic efforts to convince Earthmen of his mission, how he is exploited and tortured, how his great mental powers are selfishly utilized, and his final realization of betrayal while dying helplessly, and knowing that the hopes of his race will be entombed with him---all these things are told with a beautiful sympathetic realness. As this article continues, the stream of "greats" assumes larger and larger proportions. I haven't even touched upon great novels, or mentioned some tales having a faint fantasy tinge. Nor have I said a word about the many great
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 41 Queens" and "Council of Drones". If these stories do not furnish a greater fund of accurate information than a standard text-book, and furnish it in a readily-palatable form besides, I miss my guess. But, you say, these science stories---with their emphasis on a sugar-coated science---can never depict the true inflections of human emotions, can never reach the heights of near-literature and still profess educational value. But ah, you're wrong, dead wrong, my friends! Have you ever read "Isle of Gargoyles" by Dr. William Lemkin, which was published in the February 1936 number of Wonder Stories? Have you ever heard of a cretin? ---An unfortunate human born with a thyroid gland deficiency, and because of it existing like "an idiotic, dwarfish, deformed monstrosity of a being"? Thousands of these creatures do exist in actuality, and only the the recently-discovered drug thyroxin gradually restores them to near-normal human beings. But should the intake of the drug be discontinued, they would revert back to their original state. Lemkin's story is about a scientist who discovers an entire island of these unfortunates living in a savage society of their own. It teels of the companions who accompany the scientist, and of the research carried out in an attempt to effect a cure for this terrible affliction. One reads of the tiny human monster which is restored to normalcy, and of the terrible uprising of the cretin colony when the whereabouts of the ship is discovered, and of the subsequent wrecking of the laboratory. Thus all the painstaking research is destroyed overnight. The scientist, his friend, and the cured cretin escape, only to be shipwrecked---and they hopelessly watch the boy revert to his former self as the symptoms of cretinism reappear. The sight of this tragedy appears to be unhinging the scientist's reason, for day by day he grows more dulled and hopeless. But one morning both of the two are gone, and in a note which they left behind the friend discovers the true reason: the scientist is himself a born cretin, kept normal by periodic injections of thyroxin, and, knowing his own case to be as helpless as the boy's, he joins the latter in flight to the monstrous colony. "Isle of the Gargoyles" is a story poignant with mounting despair, a story of remarkable power. Even while many---often justifiedly---rained abuse upon Nat Schachner as a "hack" writer, he frequently showed qualities which have today elevated him into the best-seller ranks. In his story, "The Isotope Men" he displayed a knowledge of humanity rare even in great writers. This tale tells of the invention of a machine that is able to separate men into their component chemically isotopic counterparts, and how an entire army is duplicated and forced to fight, each man pitted against his twin isotopic self. Schachner's deft handling of the emotional struggle involved makes this story a top-ranking one in science-fiction. Upon somewhat the same theme Henry J. Kostkos wrote a sadly underrated classic entitled "Men Created for Death". Here the author told of the scientific manufacture of test-tube men for the explicit purpose of fighting wars and being killed. The heartless butcherings of these men continues until finally it is discovered that they possess all the finer emotions of a normally-born human, and thus the story ends on a note of crashing power. Shall we also consign to oblivion that little gem from Wonder Stories Quarterly, "The Martian," by A. Rowley Hilliard and Allen Glasser? This moving story relates an incident of a fragile Martian who comes to Earth to save his race, which is slowly dying for lack of water. His frantic efforts to convince Earthmen of his mission, how he is exploited and tortured, how his great mental powers are selfishly utilized, and his final realization of betrayal while dying helplessly, and knowing that the hopes of his race will be entombed with him---all these things are told with a beautiful sympathetic realness. As this article continues, the stream of "greats" assumes larger and larger proportions. I haven't even touched upon great novels, or mentioned some tales having a faint fantasy tinge. Nor have I said a word about the many great
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