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Arcot, Morey and Wade a.k.a. The Black Star #1
The Black Star Passes
THREE AGAINST THE STARS! A sky pirate armed with superior weapons of his own invention... First contact with an alien race dangerous enough to threaten the safety of two planets... The arrival of an unseen dark sun whose attendant marauders aimed at the very end of civilization in this Solar System... These were the three challenges that tested the skill and minds of the brilliant team of scientist-astronauts Arcot, Wade, and Morey. Their initial adventures are a classic of science fiction which first brought the name of their author, John W. Campbell, Jr., into prominence as a master of the inventive imagination -- long before he became the editor of Astounding/Analog and changed the field of science fiction forever!
176 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1930
About the author
John W. Campbell Jr.
616 books240 followersJohn Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later called Analog Science Fiction and Fact), from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in science fiction ever, and for the first ten years of his editorship he dominated the field completely."
As a writer, Campbell published super-science space opera under his own name and moody, less pulpish stories as Don A. Stuart. He stopped writing fiction after he became editor of Astounding.
Known Pseudonyms/Alternate Names:
Don A. Stuart
Karl van Campen
John Campbell
J. W. C., Jr.
John W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell
Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in science fiction ever, and for the first ten years of his editorship he dominated the field completely."
As a writer, Campbell published super-science space opera under his own name and moody, less pulpish stories as Don A. Stuart. He stopped writing fiction after he became editor of Astounding.
Known Pseudonyms/Alternate Names:
Don A. Stuart
Karl van Campen
John Campbell
J. W. C., Jr.
John W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
November 9, 2017
This was originally published in 1930, serialized in one of the pulps. Campbell went on to become one of the most influential editors of SF & this was the kind of story he liked. As he says in his introduction, it was written for the young minds of the day, those that wanted the stars & could release themselves from the mundane world. This certainly does that.
In his own words:
In 1930, the only audience for science-fiction was among those who were still young enough in spirit to be willing to hope and speculate on a new and wider future —and in 1930 that meant almost nothing but teen-agers. It meant the brightest group of teen-agers, youngsters who were willing to play with ideas and understandings of physics and chemistry and astronomy that most of their contemporaries considered "too hard work."
I grew up with that group; the stories I wrote over the years, and, later, the stories I bought for Astounding Science Fiction changed and grew more mature too. Astounding Science Fiction today has many of the audience that read those early stories; they're not high school and college students any more, of course, but professional engineers, technologists and researchers now. Naturally, for them we need a totally different kind of story. In growing with them, I and my work had to lose much of the enthusiastic scope that went with the earlier science fiction.
There are really 3 stories here. In the first, Arcot & Morey meet Wade. In the second, they go to Venus, & finally they deal with the alien threat of the Black Star. Oh, Fuller is along for the ride, but he's just an engineer. Arcot is a physicist. (Shades of Sheldon! It's a serious version of the "Big Bang Theory"!) They're all geniuses in the sciences, the sons of very smart, rich men. Their numerous inventions are given to the company so they can have a full lab to tinker in & whatever they need whenever they want, but they use it only for good. They live in a bachelor quarters with no time for girls. Fuller does the cooking.
There is a lot of science that is explained in detail. Some of it is even true. Some is out-dated & other stuff is just hokey, but fun. More important, it's interesting & made me want to know more as a kid. Not as compelling as Heinlein's stuff, but of the same nature. While there are some neat concepts & ideas of what the future will be like around 2116, there are also some hilarious oversights. Arcot having his wristwatch magnetized, for instance.
Everything just works out since they're smart, work hard, care a lot, & have RIGHT on their side. There are 2 more books in the trilogy. There's really no need to read them, but reading any one of them will lend a lot of insight into the thinking of the Pulp & Golden Ages of SF.
All are available on Gutenberg.org & Librivox.org for free in either text or audio format. This is the wrong edition. Mine is a Librivox recording very well narrated by KirksVoice. It's free here:
https://librivox.org/the-black-star-p...
In his own words:
In 1930, the only audience for science-fiction was among those who were still young enough in spirit to be willing to hope and speculate on a new and wider future —and in 1930 that meant almost nothing but teen-agers. It meant the brightest group of teen-agers, youngsters who were willing to play with ideas and understandings of physics and chemistry and astronomy that most of their contemporaries considered "too hard work."
I grew up with that group; the stories I wrote over the years, and, later, the stories I bought for Astounding Science Fiction changed and grew more mature too. Astounding Science Fiction today has many of the audience that read those early stories; they're not high school and college students any more, of course, but professional engineers, technologists and researchers now. Naturally, for them we need a totally different kind of story. In growing with them, I and my work had to lose much of the enthusiastic scope that went with the earlier science fiction.
There are really 3 stories here. In the first, Arcot & Morey meet Wade. In the second, they go to Venus, & finally they deal with the alien threat of the Black Star. Oh, Fuller is along for the ride, but he's just an engineer. Arcot is a physicist. (Shades of Sheldon! It's a serious version of the "Big Bang Theory"!) They're all geniuses in the sciences, the sons of very smart, rich men. Their numerous inventions are given to the company so they can have a full lab to tinker in & whatever they need whenever they want, but they use it only for good. They live in a bachelor quarters with no time for girls. Fuller does the cooking.
There is a lot of science that is explained in detail. Some of it is even true. Some is out-dated & other stuff is just hokey, but fun. More important, it's interesting & made me want to know more as a kid. Not as compelling as Heinlein's stuff, but of the same nature. While there are some neat concepts & ideas of what the future will be like around 2116, there are also some hilarious oversights. Arcot having his wristwatch magnetized, for instance.
Everything just works out since they're smart, work hard, care a lot, & have RIGHT on their side. There are 2 more books in the trilogy. There's really no need to read them, but reading any one of them will lend a lot of insight into the thinking of the Pulp & Golden Ages of SF.
All are available on Gutenberg.org & Librivox.org for free in either text or audio format. This is the wrong edition. Mine is a Librivox recording very well narrated by KirksVoice. It's free here:
https://librivox.org/the-black-star-p...
August 21, 2015
Back in the late 1970s and early '80s, some of my favorite reading material, sci-fi-wise, was the wonderful series of 21 "Best of" anthologies put out by Ballantine. In an early indication of my future tastes, my favorites among those 21 collections were those by C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner, Leigh Brackett, Edmond Hamilton and Philip K. Dick, although to be truthful, I thoroughly enjoyed them all...with one exception. "The Best of John W. Campbell," it seemed to me, was just OK; a bit crude, and just too dryly written for my tastes...with the exception of one story, the now-classic "Who Goes There?," which was of course rather loosely transformed into the excellent 1951 film "The Thing (From Another World)," and more faithfully adapted by John Carpenter as 1982's "The Thing." John W.Campbell, as most of the sci-fi community knows, made his main contribution to the genre as the editor of "Astounding Science-Fiction" from 1937 till his death in 1971; indeed, he is generally regarded as the single most important editor in sci-fi history, not only helping to steer the young genre into maturity but also fostering the careers of such future luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, A.E. van Vogt and many others, thereby ushering in science fiction's "Golden Age." It had been a good 35 years since my last underwhelming Campbell dose, and so, figuring that the time was right to give him another chance (as a writer, that is), I picked up the volume entitled "The Black Star Passes." Originally released in hardcover in 1953, the three linked novellas in the book first appeared in 1930 (when Campbell was only 20) in the original science fiction pulp magazine, Hugo Gernsback's "Amazing Stories." And it would seem that my memory of more than three decades past was not in error; these tales are decidedly dry, crudely written and creaky...but still, somehow, compelling, and surely of historical interest today.
In the first novella, "Piracy Preferred," which takes place in either 2116 or 2126 (depending on which of my Ace paperback's typos is to be disbelieved), a supercriminal has invented an invincible knockout gas as well as the secret of invisibility, with which he commences to steal from the aircraft of Transcontinental Airways while they are in mid-flight! It is up to the nation's top physicist, Dick Arcot, his engineering pal Robert Morey, and their designing buddy Fuller, to stop the madman. In "Solarite," which picks up three months later, the trio is back, aided now by the rehabilitated pirate of the previous story, the scientific genius Wade. The four decide to build a ship capable of interplanetary flight and ultimately DO make it to Venus, where they become embroiled in a war between the northern and southern continents. Finally, in "The Black Star Passes," the residents of a dying solar system set their eyes on our worlds and send a humongous armada of spaceships in their bid for conquest. Once again, it is up to Arcot, Morey, Fuller and Wade to think of a means of combating the menace, leading to a full-bore space battle between the invaders and the Earth/Venus allies.
As is my wont, I shall endeavor to find something nice to say about the book in question, dated and clunky as it may be. Campbell certainly does have a wide-ranging imagination, and his love of science and its limitless possibilities is certainly apparent here. That elusive "sense of wonder," which was held at a premium in early sci-fi tales, is captured by the author intermittently, and when his tales don’t grind to a halt courtesy of scientific "info dumps," they really do move. Campbell even manages to foresee the use of "guided missiles with atomic warheads," which Arcot considers using against the "Venerians" at one point. But basically, these stories can be something of a tough slog. Campbell, who was a physics major at M.I.T. when he wrote these tales, admits in his intro that his early efforts were written for fellow science geeks and engineers, and boy, does it ever show! Rather than using scientific chatter to flesh out his story, Campbell instead seems to be adding some sort of loose plots to expound his physics and engineering extrapolations. In his introduction to "The Best of John W. Campbell," author Lester del Rey tells us "...in those days, the science fiction stories had almost no literary value. They were crudely written, at best, and there was little attempt at characterization. The people were merely used as props to discuss the heavy use of superscience and to make the simple plots work." And that is most assuredly the case here. Arcot & Co. will often engage in pages of discussion regarding counterbalanced condensers, bus bars, Jolly scales, the specific gravity of Venusian elements, and the construction of a new solar generator or molecular motion gizmo. In the latter two stories, the team explores the spaceships of the Venusians and the extrasolar invaders, commenting at length on the generators and so on to wearisome effect. Yes, all this science chatter DOES add a patina of realism to the proceedings, but most people, I have a feeling, will be screaming "Get on with it!" When Campbell tells us at one point that "The planning continued with exasperating slowness," the reader cannot agree more!
And despite all this goobledygook, much of Campbell's science comes off as impossibly dated. For example, the Venerians of the southern continent have mile-long aircraft built of impenetrable armor, but how are these supermachines moved around? Via 100 propellers on the wings! In assorted bits of science fallacy, Campbell tells us that the Earth is 2 billion years old, whereas we now know that it is more on the order of 5 billion. He says that Venus has a 24-hour day, like Earth, whereas its "day" is actually more like 243 of ours. He tells us that Venus' surface temperature is 150 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas 860 degrees would be closer to the mark. He mentions the substance called coronium as being a new element found in our sun, whereas this "new element" was shown, later in the 1930s, to be merely composed of highly ionized nickel and iron. Another dated item: Istanbul is referred to as Constantinople, even though it had been renamed in the early '20s! And one more problem: When Campbell gives us the percent constituents of Venus' atmosphere ("23 percent oxygen, .1 percent carbon dioxide..."), they add up to...104 percent? And then there is the matter of women in Campbell’s book. There are none--not one--in all its 250-page length. Truly, this is strictly boys' club reading material. So much so that when our quartet decides to christen their spaceship, the Solarite, Arcot declares, "We can't have a pretty girl christen this ship, that's sure. A flying bachelor's apartment christened by a mere woman? Never!" In a word, oy!
But I have perhaps saved "the best" for last. The name that Campbell gives the residents of that dying black star, despite their pale white skins, is Nigrans; their star, of course, receives the rather unfortunate appellation Nigra. Now, ordinarily I might not make a big deal of this, but in light of Campbell's later racist comments (he famously proclaimed that the U.S. slaves of the 18th and 19th centuries had a higher standard of living than they'd had in Africa, and that the 1965 Watts riots could be partially explained by the fact that some men were "natural slaves" who were unhappy as free men!), his poorly chosen nomenclature for this alien race cannot come off as anything but subtly (perhaps not so subtly) bigoted. So I suppose the bottom line is that if misogynistic, racist, dated sci-fi is your cup of tea, "The Black Star Passes" just might be for you! In his introduction to the current Rocket Ride Books edition of "Who Goes There?," William F. Nolan tells us "In today’s character-driven sf market most of the early Campbell fiction has become outdated," and I would certainly not argue with that assessment here. This is most surely a book that can only be recommended to those curious about the young roots of science fiction. Others should probably veer off faster than a 100-prop Venerian aircraft!
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website, http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ , a most excellent destination for all fans of John W. Campbell, Jr....)
In the first novella, "Piracy Preferred," which takes place in either 2116 or 2126 (depending on which of my Ace paperback's typos is to be disbelieved), a supercriminal has invented an invincible knockout gas as well as the secret of invisibility, with which he commences to steal from the aircraft of Transcontinental Airways while they are in mid-flight! It is up to the nation's top physicist, Dick Arcot, his engineering pal Robert Morey, and their designing buddy Fuller, to stop the madman. In "Solarite," which picks up three months later, the trio is back, aided now by the rehabilitated pirate of the previous story, the scientific genius Wade. The four decide to build a ship capable of interplanetary flight and ultimately DO make it to Venus, where they become embroiled in a war between the northern and southern continents. Finally, in "The Black Star Passes," the residents of a dying solar system set their eyes on our worlds and send a humongous armada of spaceships in their bid for conquest. Once again, it is up to Arcot, Morey, Fuller and Wade to think of a means of combating the menace, leading to a full-bore space battle between the invaders and the Earth/Venus allies.
As is my wont, I shall endeavor to find something nice to say about the book in question, dated and clunky as it may be. Campbell certainly does have a wide-ranging imagination, and his love of science and its limitless possibilities is certainly apparent here. That elusive "sense of wonder," which was held at a premium in early sci-fi tales, is captured by the author intermittently, and when his tales don’t grind to a halt courtesy of scientific "info dumps," they really do move. Campbell even manages to foresee the use of "guided missiles with atomic warheads," which Arcot considers using against the "Venerians" at one point. But basically, these stories can be something of a tough slog. Campbell, who was a physics major at M.I.T. when he wrote these tales, admits in his intro that his early efforts were written for fellow science geeks and engineers, and boy, does it ever show! Rather than using scientific chatter to flesh out his story, Campbell instead seems to be adding some sort of loose plots to expound his physics and engineering extrapolations. In his introduction to "The Best of John W. Campbell," author Lester del Rey tells us "...in those days, the science fiction stories had almost no literary value. They were crudely written, at best, and there was little attempt at characterization. The people were merely used as props to discuss the heavy use of superscience and to make the simple plots work." And that is most assuredly the case here. Arcot & Co. will often engage in pages of discussion regarding counterbalanced condensers, bus bars, Jolly scales, the specific gravity of Venusian elements, and the construction of a new solar generator or molecular motion gizmo. In the latter two stories, the team explores the spaceships of the Venusians and the extrasolar invaders, commenting at length on the generators and so on to wearisome effect. Yes, all this science chatter DOES add a patina of realism to the proceedings, but most people, I have a feeling, will be screaming "Get on with it!" When Campbell tells us at one point that "The planning continued with exasperating slowness," the reader cannot agree more!
And despite all this goobledygook, much of Campbell's science comes off as impossibly dated. For example, the Venerians of the southern continent have mile-long aircraft built of impenetrable armor, but how are these supermachines moved around? Via 100 propellers on the wings! In assorted bits of science fallacy, Campbell tells us that the Earth is 2 billion years old, whereas we now know that it is more on the order of 5 billion. He says that Venus has a 24-hour day, like Earth, whereas its "day" is actually more like 243 of ours. He tells us that Venus' surface temperature is 150 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas 860 degrees would be closer to the mark. He mentions the substance called coronium as being a new element found in our sun, whereas this "new element" was shown, later in the 1930s, to be merely composed of highly ionized nickel and iron. Another dated item: Istanbul is referred to as Constantinople, even though it had been renamed in the early '20s! And one more problem: When Campbell gives us the percent constituents of Venus' atmosphere ("23 percent oxygen, .1 percent carbon dioxide..."), they add up to...104 percent? And then there is the matter of women in Campbell’s book. There are none--not one--in all its 250-page length. Truly, this is strictly boys' club reading material. So much so that when our quartet decides to christen their spaceship, the Solarite, Arcot declares, "We can't have a pretty girl christen this ship, that's sure. A flying bachelor's apartment christened by a mere woman? Never!" In a word, oy!
But I have perhaps saved "the best" for last. The name that Campbell gives the residents of that dying black star, despite their pale white skins, is Nigrans; their star, of course, receives the rather unfortunate appellation Nigra. Now, ordinarily I might not make a big deal of this, but in light of Campbell's later racist comments (he famously proclaimed that the U.S. slaves of the 18th and 19th centuries had a higher standard of living than they'd had in Africa, and that the 1965 Watts riots could be partially explained by the fact that some men were "natural slaves" who were unhappy as free men!), his poorly chosen nomenclature for this alien race cannot come off as anything but subtly (perhaps not so subtly) bigoted. So I suppose the bottom line is that if misogynistic, racist, dated sci-fi is your cup of tea, "The Black Star Passes" just might be for you! In his introduction to the current Rocket Ride Books edition of "Who Goes There?," William F. Nolan tells us "In today’s character-driven sf market most of the early Campbell fiction has become outdated," and I would certainly not argue with that assessment here. This is most surely a book that can only be recommended to those curious about the young roots of science fiction. Others should probably veer off faster than a 100-prop Venerian aircraft!
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website, http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ , a most excellent destination for all fans of John W. Campbell, Jr....)
November 10, 2012
What. Absolute. Dreck. And such a disappointment too, since Campbell is so revered by other science fiction authors for his editorial work on Astounding. When I subscribed to it in its later incarnation as Analog, I eventually got tired of it when it seemed that it was nothing but fiction for engineers, by engineers, about engineers. Now I see the roots of that go deep.
So why is this book so bad? Imagine Star Wars if the scene where the rebel leader explains the Death Star plans went on for two hours and the rest of the movie lasted five minutes. That's what each of the three novellas in this book are like. Campbell has no characters, just mouthpieces to explain how the machines work. He has some interesting ideas, but he doesn't know which ideas those are and spends all his time on the wrong ones. For example: in the midst of a first contact situation on Venus, surrounded by an alien city on an alien planet, Campbell spends - I kid you not - three pages explaining how the Venusian elevator works. The elevator.
I plowed on in the hopes that the later stories would improve as Campbell grew as a writer, knowing that this was some of his early stuff. The stories do get progressively better, but Campbell never gets over his "machines are more interesting than people" fetish and the stories don't get good enough to warrant spending any time on them.
So why is this book so bad? Imagine Star Wars if the scene where the rebel leader explains the Death Star plans went on for two hours and the rest of the movie lasted five minutes. That's what each of the three novellas in this book are like. Campbell has no characters, just mouthpieces to explain how the machines work. He has some interesting ideas, but he doesn't know which ideas those are and spends all his time on the wrong ones. For example: in the midst of a first contact situation on Venus, surrounded by an alien city on an alien planet, Campbell spends - I kid you not - three pages explaining how the Venusian elevator works. The elevator.
I plowed on in the hopes that the later stories would improve as Campbell grew as a writer, knowing that this was some of his early stuff. The stories do get progressively better, but Campbell never gets over his "machines are more interesting than people" fetish and the stories don't get good enough to warrant spending any time on them.
December 7, 2020
Time for a bit of sci-fi after the subdued but serious craziness of "The Good Soldier." No sci-fi there, just adults with a lot of defects of character. Mr. Campbell was a sci-fi pioneer who gave up writing fiction to focus on publishing/editing early sci-fi periodicals. This slim, volume was first published in 1950 and consists of a few stories written back in the 1930's. The first one was pretty good, but as is often the case with the "old" stuff misses out on a MAJOR future development(in aviation). The paperback I possess looks to be a first edition of the 1950 publishing. Still in pretty good shape except for the brown paper. Nice cover illustration by Jerome Podwil, a prolific artist BITD.
So ... I'm fifty or so pages in and somewhat appalled by the awfulness of the author's prose. It's not like I was expecting that much, but please ... ICK! The datedness is to be expected, but the juvenile style of writing is truly stinky. He did well to abandon his fiction career and make himself more useful in publishing. That said, the overbearing weight of Krazy Science keeps one going. But ... the amazingly short time it takes our heroes to build their amazing machines is not even remotely believable. I hope the "plot" will catch up any moment now. I have NO idea how much, if any of the speculative hard stuff has been developed between now and when this was written but it sounds pretty juicy. I can see how a non-science person would be turned off, however. It's not a long book and I suppose I can hang in there and finish it.
I've gone back to reading this and the second tale is a bit better, though not by much. Mr. Campbell apparently apologized for this juvenile, unrealistic silliness in later years. Anyway, our trio of scientists and mathematicians has headed off to Venus and found a ridiculously advanced civilization there who look suspiciously like humans except that they are blue(this is more less logically explained). It's kind of hot on Venus, but not nearly as hot as we know it to be nowadays. There's a nasty world wide(north vs. south) war going on and the war machines of the bad guys are something to behold. Our plucky and oh-so-creative Earth guys gin up some neat super-weapons in no time using slide-rules and notepads, and off we go. Oh yeah, they'll be saving earth from invasion and destruction too.
- pranks in space? probably not ... just sayin'
Well, our heroes have saved the day on Venus, and prevented a disastrous invasion/attack on Earth to boot. The engineering-chemistry-physics descriptive stuff continues unabated and the result is some impressive explosions. One more story to go, as Earth will be threatened from another direction. I'm sure the baddies will be vanquished by an attack of highly motivated(i.e. killer) slide rules.
Finished with the title story a few days ago and decided to bump the rating back up to 2.75*/rounds up to 3*. The third story is a bit of an improvement on the first two as our scientist heroes save the planet from invasion and destruction, while the would-be invaders find a new purpose from their disastrous defeat. In other words, a win-win ending! The usual overload of chem-physics jargony speculation crops in the middle of the story, but I mostly skimmed it and didn't miss a beat. The beginning and ending stuff was actually pretty good, and more in keeping with good quality speculative sci-fi.
- calls space ships "planes"
- dEsease?????
- Magnetism = Chester Gould and Dick Tracy. I remember Mr. G. opining that magnetism was the future of science. remember the two-way wrist radios?
So ... I'm fifty or so pages in and somewhat appalled by the awfulness of the author's prose. It's not like I was expecting that much, but please ... ICK! The datedness is to be expected, but the juvenile style of writing is truly stinky. He did well to abandon his fiction career and make himself more useful in publishing. That said, the overbearing weight of Krazy Science keeps one going. But ... the amazingly short time it takes our heroes to build their amazing machines is not even remotely believable. I hope the "plot" will catch up any moment now. I have NO idea how much, if any of the speculative hard stuff has been developed between now and when this was written but it sounds pretty juicy. I can see how a non-science person would be turned off, however. It's not a long book and I suppose I can hang in there and finish it.
I've gone back to reading this and the second tale is a bit better, though not by much. Mr. Campbell apparently apologized for this juvenile, unrealistic silliness in later years. Anyway, our trio of scientists and mathematicians has headed off to Venus and found a ridiculously advanced civilization there who look suspiciously like humans except that they are blue(this is more less logically explained). It's kind of hot on Venus, but not nearly as hot as we know it to be nowadays. There's a nasty world wide(north vs. south) war going on and the war machines of the bad guys are something to behold. Our plucky and oh-so-creative Earth guys gin up some neat super-weapons in no time using slide-rules and notepads, and off we go. Oh yeah, they'll be saving earth from invasion and destruction too.
- pranks in space? probably not ... just sayin'
Well, our heroes have saved the day on Venus, and prevented a disastrous invasion/attack on Earth to boot. The engineering-chemistry-physics descriptive stuff continues unabated and the result is some impressive explosions. One more story to go, as Earth will be threatened from another direction. I'm sure the baddies will be vanquished by an attack of highly motivated(i.e. killer) slide rules.
Finished with the title story a few days ago and decided to bump the rating back up to 2.75*/rounds up to 3*. The third story is a bit of an improvement on the first two as our scientist heroes save the planet from invasion and destruction, while the would-be invaders find a new purpose from their disastrous defeat. In other words, a win-win ending! The usual overload of chem-physics jargony speculation crops in the middle of the story, but I mostly skimmed it and didn't miss a beat. The beginning and ending stuff was actually pretty good, and more in keeping with good quality speculative sci-fi.
- calls space ships "planes"
- dEsease?????
- Magnetism = Chester Gould and Dick Tracy. I remember Mr. G. opining that magnetism was the future of science. remember the two-way wrist radios?
Shelved as 'dnf'
January 31, 2018I didn't want another dnf book, but when I found myself being frequently reluctant to read this, I decided there wasn't much point continuing.
The plot is fairly good, and would probably appeal to hard science fiction fans. But there were a lot of scientific info dumps that I found painfully boring. And honestly, I grew sick of such an intensely male dominated book. Apparently the world of 2017 is without the female sex. Aside from a comment about a "mere woman" not being suitable to christen their ship, and the mention of alien women in a crowd, females do not exist. I'm used to male dominance in classic sci fi, but sometimes it gets to me.
The plot is fairly good, and would probably appeal to hard science fiction fans. But there were a lot of scientific info dumps that I found painfully boring. And honestly, I grew sick of such an intensely male dominated book. Apparently the world of 2017 is without the female sex. Aside from a comment about a "mere woman" not being suitable to christen their ship, and the mention of alien women in a crowd, females do not exist. I'm used to male dominance in classic sci fi, but sometimes it gets to me.
December 28, 2009
Great classic science fiction novel. I fully enjoyed reading it. Highly suggested for those of you who like reading this type of literature
January 24, 2020
Vacillating between 3 and 4 stars, I ultimately give this the higher rank, because despite its flaws, I certainly remembered it vividly over a decade after I first read it. This was the second book I read of the legendary John W. Campbell, the first being "The Ultimate Weapon," of which I had not been a fan. But "The Black Star Passes," full of awe-inspiring mind visuals, action, and a sense of alien wonder, renewed my interest in the writer and his work, and ultimately led me to read the ingenious "Who Goes There?"
"The Black Star Passes" is really Radium-Age scifi repackaged and rediscovered in the Golden-Age. It is a mashup of three pulp stories from 1930 that found renewed life and fandom in the 50s and 60s. Along with other Radium-Age greats like "The Skylark of Space" and "Triplanetary," this is one of the game-changers that grew to define the genre in the first Golden-Age. The first story introduces us to one of the main heroes in the series who at this point is actually a villainous pirate and later gets recruited to the cause of saving the human race from two invasions by bizarre alien species. The rest of the novel concerns us with those said invasions.
And I must say, the description of the alien craft and technology is about as Radium-Age as it gets: The hum of hundreds of propellers cutting through the air, supporting kaiju-size airships with massive wings rolling through the clouds. Ominous, but oh so deliciously "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow!"
What brings this novel down is its incredibly juvenile writing and frequent breaks from the action as one of the heroes has to "man-splain" to the reader the science behind what they intend to do about their latest alien threat. I know that partly this was because these stories were written for a younger audience and were meant to be partially educational, but it tends to be a little more grating in this series than in similar works by say Edmond Hamilton or "Doc" Smith.
But overall, a fun and adventurous romp, and a great introduction to the Space Opera subgenre.
"The Black Star Passes" is really Radium-Age scifi repackaged and rediscovered in the Golden-Age. It is a mashup of three pulp stories from 1930 that found renewed life and fandom in the 50s and 60s. Along with other Radium-Age greats like "The Skylark of Space" and "Triplanetary," this is one of the game-changers that grew to define the genre in the first Golden-Age. The first story introduces us to one of the main heroes in the series who at this point is actually a villainous pirate and later gets recruited to the cause of saving the human race from two invasions by bizarre alien species. The rest of the novel concerns us with those said invasions.
And I must say, the description of the alien craft and technology is about as Radium-Age as it gets: The hum of hundreds of propellers cutting through the air, supporting kaiju-size airships with massive wings rolling through the clouds. Ominous, but oh so deliciously "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow!"
What brings this novel down is its incredibly juvenile writing and frequent breaks from the action as one of the heroes has to "man-splain" to the reader the science behind what they intend to do about their latest alien threat. I know that partly this was because these stories were written for a younger audience and were meant to be partially educational, but it tends to be a little more grating in this series than in similar works by say Edmond Hamilton or "Doc" Smith.
But overall, a fun and adventurous romp, and a great introduction to the Space Opera subgenre.
May 2, 2018
Some interesting ideas, but overly technical. This was a hard one to listen to without zoning out. Initially I would rewind the audiobook a little, but I got to the point where it didn't matter because the jargon was simply not captivating. Too much detail on the workings of machines and not enough story or character development.
January 9, 2019
This is three connected, sequential stories (based on 22nd century Earth) that don't quite form a novel: In the first story, our heroes Arcot and Morey must defeat an ingenious sky pirate who operates by paralyzing everyone in a plane (somehow) and stealing the sick cash money that they're still carting around in 2179. In the next story, our heroes are joined by Wade, and journey to Venus where they are immediately embroiled in a planetary war. In the final story, "The Black Star Passes", an ancient race of beings on planets orbiting a long dead star decide they want a live star for a change, and since they're passing Earth and Venus, why not just grab those? It's up to our heroes to stop them.
As Campbell notes in his foreword from the '50s, these were written in the '30s, and—to be frank—they were written for smart, nerdy boys (who would grow up to be smart, nerdy, and relatively affluent men), and in true Campbell style, the biggest swaths of writing are taken up with descriptions of the various gizmos used in the stories and the science behind them. You can practically see an imaginative youngster drawing it out on paper.
There's not much drama in the traditional sense. A character we're briefly introduced to dies. I mean, there's LOTS of death—it's interstellar war, after all!—but these deaths aren't even numbers for the most part. There is not one female anywhere in any of the stories.
The action scenes themselves are kind of cool. Campbell's world-building (thin as it was in most ways) allowed him to convey how battles would play out. As always, the out-dated view of the future is quaint (something JWC alludes to as well).
But really, if you can't get through the long, science-y explanations with a smile, you're not going to enjoy the action scenes much.
As Campbell notes in his foreword from the '50s, these were written in the '30s, and—to be frank—they were written for smart, nerdy boys (who would grow up to be smart, nerdy, and relatively affluent men), and in true Campbell style, the biggest swaths of writing are taken up with descriptions of the various gizmos used in the stories and the science behind them. You can practically see an imaginative youngster drawing it out on paper.
There's not much drama in the traditional sense. A character we're briefly introduced to dies. I mean, there's LOTS of death—it's interstellar war, after all!—but these deaths aren't even numbers for the most part. There is not one female anywhere in any of the stories.
The action scenes themselves are kind of cool. Campbell's world-building (thin as it was in most ways) allowed him to convey how battles would play out. As always, the out-dated view of the future is quaint (something JWC alludes to as well).
But really, if you can't get through the long, science-y explanations with a smile, you're not going to enjoy the action scenes much.
April 24, 2023
John W. Campbell is known as a legendary scifi editor and the author of the novella Who Goes There?, which of course was the basis for two great films, i.e. Christian Nyby's / Howard Hawks' The Thing from Another World (1951) and John Carpenter's The Thing (1982).
I liked Who Goes There? a lot and, therefore, had fairly high hopes for The Black Star Passes. Unfortunately, The Black Star Passes was just plain awful. The "novel" actually consists of three short stories, Piracy Preferred, Solarite and The Black Star Passes. According to Wikipedia, they "were 'extensively edited' for book publication, with Campbell's approval, by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach."
I haven't read the original short story versions, and I really don't want to. They cannot have been particularly good, because if they were, it's hard to imagine that Eshbach could have been able to completely ruin them. It's more likely that they were bad to start with and he just made them worse. The stories don't merge together properly, the main characters are completely uninteresting, and the plots are stupid (in a bad way).
The only positive thing was that the title story starts and ends with the point of view of the aliens, which was refreshing. Thus, the book gets 1.5/5, rounded up to 2/5. I have no interest to read the other stories about the adventures of Arcot, Morey and Wade.
(The edition I read was Gutenberg's Kindle version, not the paperback as shown here.)
I liked Who Goes There? a lot and, therefore, had fairly high hopes for The Black Star Passes. Unfortunately, The Black Star Passes was just plain awful. The "novel" actually consists of three short stories, Piracy Preferred, Solarite and The Black Star Passes. According to Wikipedia, they "were 'extensively edited' for book publication, with Campbell's approval, by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach."
I haven't read the original short story versions, and I really don't want to. They cannot have been particularly good, because if they were, it's hard to imagine that Eshbach could have been able to completely ruin them. It's more likely that they were bad to start with and he just made them worse. The stories don't merge together properly, the main characters are completely uninteresting, and the plots are stupid (in a bad way).
The only positive thing was that the title story starts and ends with the point of view of the aliens, which was refreshing. Thus, the book gets 1.5/5, rounded up to 2/5. I have no interest to read the other stories about the adventures of Arcot, Morey and Wade.
(The edition I read was Gutenberg's Kindle version, not the paperback as shown here.)
July 11, 2020
The three stories that make up this novel were all written in 1930, so they are quite dated, yet fun. This was science fiction's adolescence. Science fiction was beginning to find its legs and John W. Campbell helped in many ways. First as a writer in this fairly new genre, he was writing some amazing works, more than a few which would be looked back on as classics. Then Campbell began his "second" career by taking the reins of Astounding in 1937 until 1971, when he died. John W. Campbell put his brand on the whole genre.
November 29, 2011
Arcot, Morey and Wade discover there IS life on other planets, and with it comes terrible and amazing new technology that will help them save their own planet and eventually the solar system from threat of destruction!
Science fiction as a genre is relatively young, compared to what is available on the bookshelves today. A lot of more recent SF is focused on world-building and technology. But older SF is sometimes even more interesting a read than modern SF because of its lack of technology. Instead, this book relies on science to advance the plot.
In reality, there isn't a lot of plot in this book. Two scientists, in an attempt to foil a pirate of the sky, inadvertently solve the puzzle of space travel. In so doing, they meet the inhabitants of Venus, save one Venerian nation from another, unite the two planets into mutual cooperation for the benefit of both, and then repel an invading fleet from another solar system. Pretty simple, right?
To make up for the lack of story, though, the characters go on and on and on and on and on about how they are making the ships and other technology used to defeat both armies. They thoroughly discuss it to the point where I had no idea what they were talking about. It made a little sense to my scientifically-challenged mind, which was nice, but it did become overwhelming. It wasn't so much of an adventure as a description of how all of these things can be made. I'm curious, though, if the science was correct, or if the author just made it up. I'm an English major, not a physics professor, after all.
I really enjoyed the humor at the beginning of the book, and the sky pirate's (Wade) storyline, but it kind of waned from there. Overall, though, it was a great book, and I am looking forward to reading more of this writer's work. Recommended to all SF lovers, as it is a fantastic example of early SF.
Science fiction as a genre is relatively young, compared to what is available on the bookshelves today. A lot of more recent SF is focused on world-building and technology. But older SF is sometimes even more interesting a read than modern SF because of its lack of technology. Instead, this book relies on science to advance the plot.
In reality, there isn't a lot of plot in this book. Two scientists, in an attempt to foil a pirate of the sky, inadvertently solve the puzzle of space travel. In so doing, they meet the inhabitants of Venus, save one Venerian nation from another, unite the two planets into mutual cooperation for the benefit of both, and then repel an invading fleet from another solar system. Pretty simple, right?
To make up for the lack of story, though, the characters go on and on and on and on and on about how they are making the ships and other technology used to defeat both armies. They thoroughly discuss it to the point where I had no idea what they were talking about. It made a little sense to my scientifically-challenged mind, which was nice, but it did become overwhelming. It wasn't so much of an adventure as a description of how all of these things can be made. I'm curious, though, if the science was correct, or if the author just made it up. I'm an English major, not a physics professor, after all.
I really enjoyed the humor at the beginning of the book, and the sky pirate's (Wade) storyline, but it kind of waned from there. Overall, though, it was a great book, and I am looking forward to reading more of this writer's work. Recommended to all SF lovers, as it is a fantastic example of early SF.
December 2, 2015
Genocidal Hero Scientists
The heroes of these stories, Messrs Arcot, Morey and Wade, like science. I mean they REALLY like science. It is literally all they talk about. There is never any mention of women, chess or a weekend in Paris. They are differentiated from each other not by their character traits, but merely by their speciality. There is no joker, no cautious one - there is the one who is best at math, the one who is best at physics. (nb there is actually no difference at all between any of them). They take no payment for their science, instead asking only that their laboratories continue to be maintained so that they can keep doing science. Seriously, this obsession is bordering on monomania.
Also they are totally amoral. When they apply their latest formula to the construction of some new device meant only for killing on an industrial scale, not once do they pause to consider if they are doing the right thing. Nor do they pause before using said device on it's victims, or voice any regret afterwards. In one scene they are literally stepping over the bodies of their latest thousand victims, and make no comment at all on the matter.
They are emotionless ciphers.
In the retrospective introduction, a slightly apologetic, perhaps embarrassed Campbell tries to justify these stories with the get out "You know... for kids!" And maybe he's right. The eleven year old me first getting into science fiction didn't want to read about love or morals or character arcs. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't!
But I still have a soft spot for this kind of frippery. There is stuff to enjoy here. Certainly Campbell was enjoying showing off his scientific knowledge, and it is fun guessing which of the scientific 'misses' were justifiable in 1930, and which are just plain errors. It is still worth at least three stars.
The heroes of these stories, Messrs Arcot, Morey and Wade, like science. I mean they REALLY like science. It is literally all they talk about. There is never any mention of women, chess or a weekend in Paris. They are differentiated from each other not by their character traits, but merely by their speciality. There is no joker, no cautious one - there is the one who is best at math, the one who is best at physics. (nb there is actually no difference at all between any of them). They take no payment for their science, instead asking only that their laboratories continue to be maintained so that they can keep doing science. Seriously, this obsession is bordering on monomania.
Also they are totally amoral. When they apply their latest formula to the construction of some new device meant only for killing on an industrial scale, not once do they pause to consider if they are doing the right thing. Nor do they pause before using said device on it's victims, or voice any regret afterwards. In one scene they are literally stepping over the bodies of their latest thousand victims, and make no comment at all on the matter.
They are emotionless ciphers.
In the retrospective introduction, a slightly apologetic, perhaps embarrassed Campbell tries to justify these stories with the get out "You know... for kids!" And maybe he's right. The eleven year old me first getting into science fiction didn't want to read about love or morals or character arcs. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't!
But I still have a soft spot for this kind of frippery. There is stuff to enjoy here. Certainly Campbell was enjoying showing off his scientific knowledge, and it is fun guessing which of the scientific 'misses' were justifiable in 1930, and which are just plain errors. It is still worth at least three stars.
May 22, 2015
John W Campbell Jr is, of course, a legend of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, but I’d never had an opportunity to read any of his stories until now. This is a collection of his first three space-opera adventure stories (edited into the novel format) featuring the scientist team of Arcot, Morley and Wade. The first involves an air pirate, the second involves the discovery of an alien race on Venus, and the third involves the invasion of another alien race whose dead sun is passing through our solar system. In many ways it’s classic pulp science-hero fare, but it’s also a textbook example of what happens when you write science-fiction where one-dimensional characters talk about and perform science and nothing else (except fight wars and smoke pipes, maybe). Which might not be so bad if the science discussions/performance didn’t take up two thirds of the story. If science is the only part of SF you care about, you might get something from this. I thought it was okay at times, and certainly imaginative in terms of future technology (if not the aliens), but too often it’s kind of drab, and at times ludicrous (and not in a good way). I don’t question Campbell’s accomplishments as an SF editor and publisher, and perhaps his writing got better over time, so I might try him again if I can find more of his books. But at a time when some people are calling for a return to this style of Golden Age SF, The Black Star Passes makes the case for why it’s a good thing the genre evolved.
April 10, 2021
One of Campbell's early novels and it shows.
It has three main characters and they have so little personality that I can't tell them apart, they are as flat as the paper they are printed on. The only growth? is the sky pirate Wade who goes to the magic shrink for a couple of months before becoming the third character.
The plot is simple, four guys invent a bunch of crazy stuff with a large amount of silly explanations, build the Earth's first spaceship, flies to Venus saves the good Venusian civilization and the Earth from the baddies.
And welcome to the boy's club, no girls allowed! You get such great lines like: "We can't have a pretty girl christen this ship that's sure. A flying bachelor's apartment christened by a mere woman? Never!" and "well-built men and woman of unusually large chests".
The author wrote a forward to this 23 years after for this reprint saying this is how all old SF was like. I disagree, ER Burroughs, Conan Doyle and others wrote stories with better characters, that were less sexist and with better plots. It would have been better if he didn't have his juvenalia republished. About half way through I started skimming, it didn't get better.
Not recommended.
It has three main characters and they have so little personality that I can't tell them apart, they are as flat as the paper they are printed on. The only growth? is the sky pirate Wade who goes to the magic shrink for a couple of months before becoming the third character.
The plot is simple, four guys invent a bunch of crazy stuff with a large amount of silly explanations, build the Earth's first spaceship, flies to Venus saves the good Venusian civilization and the Earth from the baddies.
And welcome to the boy's club, no girls allowed! You get such great lines like: "We can't have a pretty girl christen this ship that's sure. A flying bachelor's apartment christened by a mere woman? Never!" and "well-built men and woman of unusually large chests".
The author wrote a forward to this 23 years after for this reprint saying this is how all old SF was like. I disagree, ER Burroughs, Conan Doyle and others wrote stories with better characters, that were less sexist and with better plots. It would have been better if he didn't have his juvenalia republished. About half way through I started skimming, it didn't get better.
Not recommended.
May 23, 2015
John W. Campbell one of the main figures in the golden age of science fiction as an editor, but could he practice what he preached. Err, no. I don't know though if its due to when he wrote this (1930) or when I read it. Certainly it seems dated now, not the technology, but the writing style, the simplistic way everything seems to be build and some of the different names of things which today we have established names. However I am reading it when totalling different things are expected in a good science fiction book.
Overall not very enjoyable and I'll probably leave the other two books for a while, if I read them at all.
Overall not very enjoyable and I'll probably leave the other two books for a while, if I read them at all.
February 28, 2014
I quite enjoyed the stories in the first two installments in this volume, and felt primed to enjoy the story of the third. The beginning premise of the third installment was intriguing, but I was utterly turned off by the portrayal of war and genocide as the default option. Out and out war as the only conflict almost equates to no actual conflict.
All of the stories bogged down for me when the author delved into highly detailed explanations of the chemistry and physics involved, but only because I REALLY had NO idea what he was talking about, and he seemed to assume, not only a base knowledge, but a Bachelor's degree knowledge of the subjects on the reader's part.
All of the stories bogged down for me when the author delved into highly detailed explanations of the chemistry and physics involved, but only because I REALLY had NO idea what he was talking about, and he seemed to assume, not only a base knowledge, but a Bachelor's degree knowledge of the subjects on the reader's part.
January 22, 2022
Of historical interest only, even though there is a nice, free edition from Standard Ebooks.
We've clearly learned a lot since 1930. A lot about physics, chemistry, aerodynamics, and also about characterization, plotting, engagement, and that women exist. There is one female mentioned in the entire book, and she's essentially a prop, a passenger on a plane.
If you want to go back to this era, read the Lensmen series. Here's an introduction.
https://www.tor.com/2020/01/02/the-or...
We've clearly learned a lot since 1930. A lot about physics, chemistry, aerodynamics, and also about characterization, plotting, engagement, and that women exist. There is one female mentioned in the entire book, and she's essentially a prop, a passenger on a plane.
If you want to go back to this era, read the Lensmen series. Here's an introduction.
https://www.tor.com/2020/01/02/the-or...
September 26, 2013
BAD no TERRIBLE science and a writing style that is jarring to say the least.
This is supposed to be a classic of the genre so I plodded through the entire book.
I was hoping that the book would improve as the story progressed, but except for long winded descriptions of machines and circuits there was nothing in the book. This despite the fact that there are two intelligent alien life forms and cultures that could have been explored
Can't say it was worth the effort.
This is supposed to be a classic of the genre so I plodded through the entire book.
I was hoping that the book would improve as the story progressed, but except for long winded descriptions of machines and circuits there was nothing in the book. This despite the fact that there are two intelligent alien life forms and cultures that could have been explored
Can't say it was worth the effort.
November 28, 2018
I have never read a science fiction book which is so heavy on the science. If this is what the majority of early science fiction was like, it's no wonder that so many people chose to enter the science and engineering fields after reading it. The book and the science is dated, but it's still a fascinating read, and the science picks up when the story lags and vice versa.
November 2, 2020
This is an excellent story to read to learn how much "good" writing has changed over the years. The writing is so poor it slowed me down to the point of stopping my reading several times.
As a study, excellent. As a read, not so much.
As a study, excellent. As a read, not so much.
March 26, 2013
The style is just too oldfashioned for my taste.
November 23, 2018
I really wanted to like this anthology of three short works, because I read JWC as a kid, and remember adoring The Islands of Space so much, I still have the ancient paperback. Recently got my hands on this prequel ... and can only say it left me scratching my head.
This kind of storytelling must be a product of its times, because it surely wouldn't be published today, much less admired by sufficient readers to make it a best seller and classic. Sad to say, this work is rather a mess of vastly overblown pseudo-tech and undeveloped characters. Some of the science doesn't hold up, 80 years later -- but this is NOT the problem. Great storytelling carries Verne and Wells into our era, while Campbell is so obsessed with machinery, he barely has time to name his characters, much less give them body or personality. For example: the sky pirate, Wade -- other than being told he was a complete fruit loop for a while, and is a genius, we know zero about him. He gets about four lines of dialog and no narrative -- we don't even know what he looks like. Same with Fuller: he's an engineer, and this is the sum total of what we know. Hmm.
The other problem of characterization the stories have is that women do. not. exist. in these guys' world. None. At all. Which of course makes you and me (nudge, wink) guess that Arcot, Morey, Fuller and Wade are gay, and outside of working hours are quite happy with their own company. No women work with/for them. No women are ever alluded to, even sisters and mothers, much less wives or friends. Not that I have any slightest peeve with them being gay! Check my reviews: I am Mel Keegan's greatest fan and flag carrier! But these stories were written circa 1930, in a homophobic society ... so I'll just bet gayness was the last thing on Campbell's mind when he edited half the human race out of the equation. Double hmm.
The pseudo-tech I could actually forgive as "steam punk on steroids" IF the characters were properly developed ... and if the book wasn't also plagued by jaw-dropping silliness that goes beyond "naive," right to juvenile. Example: our four heroes build an interplanetary ship in six months flat (o...kay; as raging steam punk, I'll buy this), but they're *arriving* at Venus and still have to figure out how to brake for orbital insertion. Say -- what, now?! Yes, spaceflight was still a bold dream when these stories were written, but sheer common sense and thorough advance planning are concepts that go back to the building of the effing pyramids!!
Sigh. I finished the book, because I always do; but I had thought I knew and loved JWC after "The Best of," and Islands. I was wrong, and am both astonished and disappointed. :/
This kind of storytelling must be a product of its times, because it surely wouldn't be published today, much less admired by sufficient readers to make it a best seller and classic. Sad to say, this work is rather a mess of vastly overblown pseudo-tech and undeveloped characters. Some of the science doesn't hold up, 80 years later -- but this is NOT the problem. Great storytelling carries Verne and Wells into our era, while Campbell is so obsessed with machinery, he barely has time to name his characters, much less give them body or personality. For example: the sky pirate, Wade -- other than being told he was a complete fruit loop for a while, and is a genius, we know zero about him. He gets about four lines of dialog and no narrative -- we don't even know what he looks like. Same with Fuller: he's an engineer, and this is the sum total of what we know. Hmm.
The other problem of characterization the stories have is that women do. not. exist. in these guys' world. None. At all. Which of course makes you and me (nudge, wink) guess that Arcot, Morey, Fuller and Wade are gay, and outside of working hours are quite happy with their own company. No women work with/for them. No women are ever alluded to, even sisters and mothers, much less wives or friends. Not that I have any slightest peeve with them being gay! Check my reviews: I am Mel Keegan's greatest fan and flag carrier! But these stories were written circa 1930, in a homophobic society ... so I'll just bet gayness was the last thing on Campbell's mind when he edited half the human race out of the equation. Double hmm.
The pseudo-tech I could actually forgive as "steam punk on steroids" IF the characters were properly developed ... and if the book wasn't also plagued by jaw-dropping silliness that goes beyond "naive," right to juvenile. Example: our four heroes build an interplanetary ship in six months flat (o...kay; as raging steam punk, I'll buy this), but they're *arriving* at Venus and still have to figure out how to brake for orbital insertion. Say -- what, now?! Yes, spaceflight was still a bold dream when these stories were written, but sheer common sense and thorough advance planning are concepts that go back to the building of the effing pyramids!!
Sigh. I finished the book, because I always do; but I had thought I knew and loved JWC after "The Best of," and Islands. I was wrong, and am both astonished and disappointed. :/
September 14, 2013
A lot of the science doesn't hold up after all these years but it is still a decent story. I give it a B-. One of the best parts actually is the Author's Introduction. Now that it is out of copyright it can be found quite easily.
Introduction
These stories were written nearly a quarter of a century ago, for the old Amazing Stories magazine. The essence of any magazine is not its name, but its philosophy, its purpose. That old Amazing Stories is long since gone; the magazine of the same name today is as different as the times today are different from the world of 1930.
Science-fiction was new, in 1930; atomic energy was a dream we believed in, and space-travel was something we tried to understand better. Today, science-fiction has become a broad field, atomic energy—despite the feelings of many present adults!—is no dream. (Nor is it a nightmare; it is simply a fact, and calling it a nightmare is another form of effort to push it out of reality.)
In 1930, the only audience for science-fiction was among those who were still young enough in spirit to be willing to hope and speculate on a new and wider future—and in 1930 that meant almost nothing but teen-agers. It meant the brightest group of teen-agers, youngsters who were willing to play with ideas and understandings of physics and chemistry and astronomy that most of their contemporaries considered “too hard work.”
I grew up with that group; the stories I wrote over the years, and, later, the stories I bought for Astounding Science Fiction changed and grew more mature too. Astounding Science Fiction today has many of the audience that read those early stories; they're not high school and college students any more, of course, but professional engineers, technologists and researchers now. Naturally, for them we need a totally different kind of story. In growing with them, I and my work had to lose much of the enthusiastic scope that went with the earlier science fiction.
When a young man goes to college, he is apt to say, “I want to be a scientist,” or “I want to be an engineer,” but his concepts are broad and generalized. Most major technical schools, well knowing this, have the first year course for all students the same. Only in the second and subsequent years does specialization start.
By the sophomore year, a student may say, “I want to be a chemical engineer.”
At graduation, he may say, “I'm going into chemical engineering construction.”
Ten years later he may explain that he's a chemical engineer specializing in the construction of corrosion-resistant structures, such as electroplating baths and pickling tanks for stainless steel.
Year by year, his knowledge has become more specialized, and much deeper. He's better and better able to do the important work the world needs done, but in learning to do it, he's necessarily lost some of the broad and enthusiastic scope he once had.
These are early stories of the early days of science-fiction. Radar hadn't been invented; we missed that idea. But while these stories don't have the finesse of later work—they have a bounding enthusiasm that belongs with a young field, designed for and built by young men. Most of the writers of those early stories were, like myself, college students. (Piracy Preferred was written while I was a sophomore at M.I.T.)
For old-timers in science-fiction—these are typical of the days when the field was starting. They've got a fine flavor of our own younger enthusiasm.
For new readers of science-fiction—these have the stuff that laid the groundwork of today's work, they're the stories that were meant for young imaginations, for people who wanted to think about the world they had to build in the years to come.
Along about sixteen to nineteen, a young man has to decide what is, for him, the Job That Needs Doing—and get ready to get in and pitch. If he selects well, selects with understanding and foresight, he'll pick a job that does need doing, one that will return rewards in satisfaction as well as money. No other man can pick that for him; he must choose the Job that he feels fitting.
Crystal balls can be bought fairly reasonably—but they don't work well. History books can be bought even more cheaply, and they're moderately reliable. (Though necessarily filtered through the cultural attitudes of the man who wrote them.) But they don't work well as predicting machines, because the world is changing too rapidly.
The world today, for instance, needs engineers desperately. There a lot of jobs that the Nation would like to get done that can't even be started; not enough engineers available.
Fifty years ago the engineering student was a sort of Second Class Citizen of the college campus. Today the Liberal Arts are fighting for a come-back, the pendulum having swung considerably too far in the other direction.
So science-fiction has a very real function to the teen-agers; it presents varying ideas of what the world in which he will live his adult life will be interested in.
This is 1953. My son will graduate in 1955. The period of his peak earning power should be when he's about forty to sixty—about 1970, say, to 1990. With the progress being made in understanding of health and physical vigor, it's apt to run beyond 2000 A.D., however.
Anyone want to bet that people will be living in the same general circumstances then? That the same general social and cultural and material standards will apply?
I have a hunch that the history books are a poor way of planning a life today—and that science-fiction comes a lot closer.
There's another thing about science-fiction yarns that is quite conspicuous; it's so difficult to pick out the villains. It might have made quite a change in history if the ballads and tales of the old days had been a little less sure of who the villains were. Read the standard boy's literature of forty years ago; tales of Crusaders who were always right, and Saracens who were always wrong. (The same Saracens who taught the Christians to respect the philosophy of the Greeks, and introduced them to the basic ideas of straight, self-disciplined thinking!)
Life's much simpler in a thatched cottage than in a dome on the airless Moon, easier to understand when the Villains are all pure black-hearted villains, and the Heroes are all pure White Souled Heroes. Just look how simple history is compared with science-fiction! It's simple—but is it good?
These early science-fiction tales explored the Universe; they were probings, speculations, as to where we could go. What we could do.
They had a sweep and reach and exuberance that belonged.
They were fun, too....
John W. Campbell, Jr.
Mountainside,N.J.
April, 1953
Introduction
These stories were written nearly a quarter of a century ago, for the old Amazing Stories magazine. The essence of any magazine is not its name, but its philosophy, its purpose. That old Amazing Stories is long since gone; the magazine of the same name today is as different as the times today are different from the world of 1930.
Science-fiction was new, in 1930; atomic energy was a dream we believed in, and space-travel was something we tried to understand better. Today, science-fiction has become a broad field, atomic energy—despite the feelings of many present adults!—is no dream. (Nor is it a nightmare; it is simply a fact, and calling it a nightmare is another form of effort to push it out of reality.)
In 1930, the only audience for science-fiction was among those who were still young enough in spirit to be willing to hope and speculate on a new and wider future—and in 1930 that meant almost nothing but teen-agers. It meant the brightest group of teen-agers, youngsters who were willing to play with ideas and understandings of physics and chemistry and astronomy that most of their contemporaries considered “too hard work.”
I grew up with that group; the stories I wrote over the years, and, later, the stories I bought for Astounding Science Fiction changed and grew more mature too. Astounding Science Fiction today has many of the audience that read those early stories; they're not high school and college students any more, of course, but professional engineers, technologists and researchers now. Naturally, for them we need a totally different kind of story. In growing with them, I and my work had to lose much of the enthusiastic scope that went with the earlier science fiction.
When a young man goes to college, he is apt to say, “I want to be a scientist,” or “I want to be an engineer,” but his concepts are broad and generalized. Most major technical schools, well knowing this, have the first year course for all students the same. Only in the second and subsequent years does specialization start.
By the sophomore year, a student may say, “I want to be a chemical engineer.”
At graduation, he may say, “I'm going into chemical engineering construction.”
Ten years later he may explain that he's a chemical engineer specializing in the construction of corrosion-resistant structures, such as electroplating baths and pickling tanks for stainless steel.
Year by year, his knowledge has become more specialized, and much deeper. He's better and better able to do the important work the world needs done, but in learning to do it, he's necessarily lost some of the broad and enthusiastic scope he once had.
These are early stories of the early days of science-fiction. Radar hadn't been invented; we missed that idea. But while these stories don't have the finesse of later work—they have a bounding enthusiasm that belongs with a young field, designed for and built by young men. Most of the writers of those early stories were, like myself, college students. (Piracy Preferred was written while I was a sophomore at M.I.T.)
For old-timers in science-fiction—these are typical of the days when the field was starting. They've got a fine flavor of our own younger enthusiasm.
For new readers of science-fiction—these have the stuff that laid the groundwork of today's work, they're the stories that were meant for young imaginations, for people who wanted to think about the world they had to build in the years to come.
Along about sixteen to nineteen, a young man has to decide what is, for him, the Job That Needs Doing—and get ready to get in and pitch. If he selects well, selects with understanding and foresight, he'll pick a job that does need doing, one that will return rewards in satisfaction as well as money. No other man can pick that for him; he must choose the Job that he feels fitting.
Crystal balls can be bought fairly reasonably—but they don't work well. History books can be bought even more cheaply, and they're moderately reliable. (Though necessarily filtered through the cultural attitudes of the man who wrote them.) But they don't work well as predicting machines, because the world is changing too rapidly.
The world today, for instance, needs engineers desperately. There a lot of jobs that the Nation would like to get done that can't even be started; not enough engineers available.
Fifty years ago the engineering student was a sort of Second Class Citizen of the college campus. Today the Liberal Arts are fighting for a come-back, the pendulum having swung considerably too far in the other direction.
So science-fiction has a very real function to the teen-agers; it presents varying ideas of what the world in which he will live his adult life will be interested in.
This is 1953. My son will graduate in 1955. The period of his peak earning power should be when he's about forty to sixty—about 1970, say, to 1990. With the progress being made in understanding of health and physical vigor, it's apt to run beyond 2000 A.D., however.
Anyone want to bet that people will be living in the same general circumstances then? That the same general social and cultural and material standards will apply?
I have a hunch that the history books are a poor way of planning a life today—and that science-fiction comes a lot closer.
There's another thing about science-fiction yarns that is quite conspicuous; it's so difficult to pick out the villains. It might have made quite a change in history if the ballads and tales of the old days had been a little less sure of who the villains were. Read the standard boy's literature of forty years ago; tales of Crusaders who were always right, and Saracens who were always wrong. (The same Saracens who taught the Christians to respect the philosophy of the Greeks, and introduced them to the basic ideas of straight, self-disciplined thinking!)
Life's much simpler in a thatched cottage than in a dome on the airless Moon, easier to understand when the Villains are all pure black-hearted villains, and the Heroes are all pure White Souled Heroes. Just look how simple history is compared with science-fiction! It's simple—but is it good?
These early science-fiction tales explored the Universe; they were probings, speculations, as to where we could go. What we could do.
They had a sweep and reach and exuberance that belonged.
They were fun, too....
John W. Campbell, Jr.
Mountainside,N.J.
April, 1953
January 22, 2021
An interesting, I'd daresay even good collection of three stories that were published back in 1953, before even the first trip to the Moon, yet they talk about interstellar travel and discovering other planets that is not out of place even now, almost 70 years later.
The stories are laser-focused on the science side of things, the characters are simply mouthpieces for the author to explain how stuff works. As someone who likes this, I didn't much too much, but it's definitely the biggest weakness of this book.
The stories are laser-focused on the science side of things, the characters are simply mouthpieces for the author to explain how stuff works. As someone who likes this, I didn't much too much, but it's definitely the biggest weakness of this book.
May 9, 2022
Part I: After we outsmart the enemy, let’s hire him!
Part II: Let’s build our own rocket and fly to Venus! They have aliens there!
Part III: some sort of war allegory, I guess, with an abrupt ending.
Campbell has an award formerly named after him (because he was on the racialist side) but it seems his appeal is his complex sentence structure and use of “hard science.”
Part II: Let’s build our own rocket and fly to Venus! They have aliens there!
Part III: some sort of war allegory, I guess, with an abrupt ending.
Campbell has an award formerly named after him (because he was on the racialist side) but it seems his appeal is his complex sentence structure and use of “hard science.”
September 7, 2020
old school space opera
great read, excellent story. interesting how some of the scientific ‘facts’ have changed over time. very creative fictional scientific discoveries, too. always fun to see a different approach.
great read, excellent story. interesting how some of the scientific ‘facts’ have changed over time. very creative fictional scientific discoveries, too. always fun to see a different approach.
September 16, 2022
надзвичайно занудна манера автора описувати події та технології радше як розповідати історію — перетворює неймовірні космічні пригоди на монотонну «жуйку». слухав-слухав, наче крізь нескінченне поле плентався… вислухав таки. на трієчку.
February 27, 2018
Classic
A
classic really good read of early SciFi. It is a good Space Opera from one of the masters. Take some time to go back when you first started reading science.
A
classic really good read of early SciFi. It is a good Space Opera from one of the masters. Take some time to go back when you first started reading science.
November 23, 2021
3.5 out of 5
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