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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 3, September 1944
Page 40
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40 FANTASY COMMENTATOR see man, the conqueror, at his best and his worst, and here too is a story which exposes man, the villain---that makes the reader angry at his own race. A story of a renegade Earthman and his desperate, losing battle with the races of Jupiter and Mars against foreign encroachment---of one, who, firmly convinced that a wrong is being done, leads alien hordes in a righteous, defensive war. But slowly, inexorably, man's mighty mechanized civilization exterminates the denizens of other worlds, and the Earthman dies in the last stronghold of defeated Jupiter... A lone Earth-dweller is stranded on Mars. All that stands between him and death is the friendship of a mute, rabbit-like race, whose sole diet is the Martian bean-like vegetation. The years pass, each laden with fearful monotony---till the yearning of the graying Earthman for his native planet becomes an all but impossible longing. Then one day there is a flash of red in the sky---it is a spaceship from Earth. The stranded man, now old indeed, is overcome with joy. At last his prayers have been answered; he will be returned to the world of his birth. But the newcomers discover that the cave-dwellings of the natives are veined with precious mineral. And they blow up sections of these caves, killing many Martians, and load their vessel with as much of the ore as can be carried. They plan to return---which would spell extinction for the natives, for the only food is dependent on radiation of this rare mineral for its growth. But the old man overhears their plans, and at last realizes that he is nothing to them; they would probably leave him, after all, so that the location of their wealth would remain a secret. He sees the still-suffering eyes of the Martians; he remembers their kindness in the long and lonely years of isolation on this ruddy world...The ship takes off---but is destroyed by a terrific explosion in mid-air. And P. Schuyler Miller's "Forgotten Man of Space" is again alone with the rabbit-like Martians---"But somehow they seemed to sense what he had done for them." Many readers remember Thomas Calvert McClary for his epic serial novel "Rebirth," but all save a few have forgotten the name of Calvin Peregoy, under which nom de plume his "Short Wave Castle" appeared. Those who do recall it may treasure one of the most touching fantasies ever told. Scientists create a tiny race of dissimilar beings who live in enforced confinement, their means limited to whatever their captors permit them to have. This highly intelligent race has a plan to overthrow the big, clumsy, slow men who created it. They are to send a grotesque member of their company, a violinist, to the scientists as an agent to accomplish their plot of revolt. The simple violinist, whose genius expresses itself in music, is heard playing his instrument by a beautiful young daughter of a scientist; she does not see him, however, and expresses delighted gratification. The poor violinist, accustomed to being treated as a simpleton and a buffoon, is overcome by the intensity of his emotions at her kindly words---and the poignancy shatters his tiny body into crystalline fragments... The ranks of the science-fiction-is-escape-literature group never received so stunning a set-back as with the publication of "The Raid on the Termites," by Paul Ernst, in the June 1932 issue of Astounding Stories. If a more absorbing, action-filled, yet scientifically authentic tale has ever been published I have no knowledge of it. Dr. Keller's "Human Termites" is distinctly a tale inferior to it, not only from the informational standpoint but in story value as well. And Stanton A. Coblentz, in "After 12,000 Years," deals more in potential possibilities of super-termites than with present-day facts. In my estimation, Paul Ernst has written the termite story. In "Peril among the Drivers," which appeared in Amazing Stories, Bob Olson presented another first-rate, action-packed tale of authentic science and information. This one dealt with the famed "driver ants," about which so many tales have already been recounted. Nor can more or finer information, coupled with sterling story value about bees be found than in W. K. Sonneman's superb offerings, "Greta, Queen of
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40 FANTASY COMMENTATOR see man, the conqueror, at his best and his worst, and here too is a story which exposes man, the villain---that makes the reader angry at his own race. A story of a renegade Earthman and his desperate, losing battle with the races of Jupiter and Mars against foreign encroachment---of one, who, firmly convinced that a wrong is being done, leads alien hordes in a righteous, defensive war. But slowly, inexorably, man's mighty mechanized civilization exterminates the denizens of other worlds, and the Earthman dies in the last stronghold of defeated Jupiter... A lone Earth-dweller is stranded on Mars. All that stands between him and death is the friendship of a mute, rabbit-like race, whose sole diet is the Martian bean-like vegetation. The years pass, each laden with fearful monotony---till the yearning of the graying Earthman for his native planet becomes an all but impossible longing. Then one day there is a flash of red in the sky---it is a spaceship from Earth. The stranded man, now old indeed, is overcome with joy. At last his prayers have been answered; he will be returned to the world of his birth. But the newcomers discover that the cave-dwellings of the natives are veined with precious mineral. And they blow up sections of these caves, killing many Martians, and load their vessel with as much of the ore as can be carried. They plan to return---which would spell extinction for the natives, for the only food is dependent on radiation of this rare mineral for its growth. But the old man overhears their plans, and at last realizes that he is nothing to them; they would probably leave him, after all, so that the location of their wealth would remain a secret. He sees the still-suffering eyes of the Martians; he remembers their kindness in the long and lonely years of isolation on this ruddy world...The ship takes off---but is destroyed by a terrific explosion in mid-air. And P. Schuyler Miller's "Forgotten Man of Space" is again alone with the rabbit-like Martians---"But somehow they seemed to sense what he had done for them." Many readers remember Thomas Calvert McClary for his epic serial novel "Rebirth," but all save a few have forgotten the name of Calvin Peregoy, under which nom de plume his "Short Wave Castle" appeared. Those who do recall it may treasure one of the most touching fantasies ever told. Scientists create a tiny race of dissimilar beings who live in enforced confinement, their means limited to whatever their captors permit them to have. This highly intelligent race has a plan to overthrow the big, clumsy, slow men who created it. They are to send a grotesque member of their company, a violinist, to the scientists as an agent to accomplish their plot of revolt. The simple violinist, whose genius expresses itself in music, is heard playing his instrument by a beautiful young daughter of a scientist; she does not see him, however, and expresses delighted gratification. The poor violinist, accustomed to being treated as a simpleton and a buffoon, is overcome by the intensity of his emotions at her kindly words---and the poignancy shatters his tiny body into crystalline fragments... The ranks of the science-fiction-is-escape-literature group never received so stunning a set-back as with the publication of "The Raid on the Termites," by Paul Ernst, in the June 1932 issue of Astounding Stories. If a more absorbing, action-filled, yet scientifically authentic tale has ever been published I have no knowledge of it. Dr. Keller's "Human Termites" is distinctly a tale inferior to it, not only from the informational standpoint but in story value as well. And Stanton A. Coblentz, in "After 12,000 Years," deals more in potential possibilities of super-termites than with present-day facts. In my estimation, Paul Ernst has written the termite story. In "Peril among the Drivers," which appeared in Amazing Stories, Bob Olson presented another first-rate, action-packed tale of authentic science and information. This one dealt with the famed "driver ants," about which so many tales have already been recounted. Nor can more or finer information, coupled with sterling story value about bees be found than in W. K. Sonneman's superb offerings, "Greta, Queen of
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