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randy_byersThis story by science fiction legend Murray Leinster was first published in The Argosy magazine in 1920. It feels like full-fledged, post-Gernsbackian SF, and in fact feels like something that could have appeared in Healy and McComas' famous anthology of Campbellian SF, Adventures in Time and Space. To some extent, it reminds me of the story in that anthology about the weakling caveman who uses his wits to invent the club and becomes chief of the tribe by using this tool to beat up stronger competitors.
"The Mad Planet" is set in the far future of Earth after the atmosphere has been filled with carbon dioxide (partly by human burning of coal and oil, in a strange foreshadowing of global warming) and most plant and animal life has died off, leaving monstrous fungus forests and giant insects and a meek, devolved shred of the human race. We follow Burl, a member of a human tribe, who wanders through a nightmare world of deadly spores, giant hunter spiders, killer crayfish, and foot-long army ants. Burl sporadically begins to think, and discovers the wonders of tools -- specifically, spears and clubs. This is classic stefnal conceptual breakthrough stuff, and thus it's easy to believe that this story and it's sequel, "The Red Dust," was considered pretty exciting by early fans. Gernsback reprinted both stories in Amazing in 1927, along with Poe, Verne, Wells, Serviss, and Burroughs. I read it in Sam Moskowitz's Under the Moons of Mars - A History and Anthology of "The Scientific Romance" in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920, in which Moskowitz lavishes great praise on it.
This is no longer the quaint Edwardian narrative of even Serviss or Burroughs. The prose and attitude is terse and tough and modern (and not courtly), but also heading towards that sentimental faith in human intelligence and rationality that typifies the stefnal, fannish mindset. The world of the story reminds me of Aldiss' Hothouse stories, which are set on a far future Earth that has stopped rotating and has an enormous jungle on the sunward face, full of strange monsters and a fearful remnant of humanity eking out a hazardous existence. Leinster later took "The Mad Planet," "The Red Dust," and a much later sequel, "Nightmare Planet" (published in 1953), and created a fix-up novel called The Forgotten Planet, which apparently changes the setting to an alien planet that has been seeded with life and then accidentally inhabited by humans who crashlanded in a spaceship.
By 1920, American SF was already evolving in ways that Gernsback would only poke and prod a few years later in Amazing. He certainly didn't invent this stuff. Leinster, Ray Cummings, Homer Eon Flint, and Abraham Merritt were leading the way in Munsey's magazines by 1918 and 1919. It's possible that space opera was invented in the pages of Amazing, but I'm not even sure about that at this point. Edmond Hamilton started writing for Weird Tales before Gernsback established Amazing. Doc Smith had been working on the first Skylark novel since 1915, although it wasn't published until 1928 in Amazing.
"The Mad Planet" is set in the far future of Earth after the atmosphere has been filled with carbon dioxide (partly by human burning of coal and oil, in a strange foreshadowing of global warming) and most plant and animal life has died off, leaving monstrous fungus forests and giant insects and a meek, devolved shred of the human race. We follow Burl, a member of a human tribe, who wanders through a nightmare world of deadly spores, giant hunter spiders, killer crayfish, and foot-long army ants. Burl sporadically begins to think, and discovers the wonders of tools -- specifically, spears and clubs. This is classic stefnal conceptual breakthrough stuff, and thus it's easy to believe that this story and it's sequel, "The Red Dust," was considered pretty exciting by early fans. Gernsback reprinted both stories in Amazing in 1927, along with Poe, Verne, Wells, Serviss, and Burroughs. I read it in Sam Moskowitz's Under the Moons of Mars - A History and Anthology of "The Scientific Romance" in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920, in which Moskowitz lavishes great praise on it.
This is no longer the quaint Edwardian narrative of even Serviss or Burroughs. The prose and attitude is terse and tough and modern (and not courtly), but also heading towards that sentimental faith in human intelligence and rationality that typifies the stefnal, fannish mindset. The world of the story reminds me of Aldiss' Hothouse stories, which are set on a far future Earth that has stopped rotating and has an enormous jungle on the sunward face, full of strange monsters and a fearful remnant of humanity eking out a hazardous existence. Leinster later took "The Mad Planet," "The Red Dust," and a much later sequel, "Nightmare Planet" (published in 1953), and created a fix-up novel called The Forgotten Planet, which apparently changes the setting to an alien planet that has been seeded with life and then accidentally inhabited by humans who crashlanded in a spaceship.
By 1920, American SF was already evolving in ways that Gernsback would only poke and prod a few years later in Amazing. He certainly didn't invent this stuff. Leinster, Ray Cummings, Homer Eon Flint, and Abraham Merritt were leading the way in Munsey's magazines by 1918 and 1919. It's possible that space opera was invented in the pages of Amazing, but I'm not even sure about that at this point. Edmond Hamilton started writing for Weird Tales before Gernsback established Amazing. Doc Smith had been working on the first Skylark novel since 1915, although it wasn't published until 1928 in Amazing.
