In addition to looking at Bradbury’s  short stories “The Illustrated Woman” and “The Illustrated Man” in the previous post, I wanted to look at a pair of stories that might not be familiar to many of you. Those stories are “The Pendulum” and “Pendulum”. The former was written by Bradbury alone; the latter in collaboration with Henry Hasse. These could be a bit of a challenge to track down, although “Pendulum” is currently in print in The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury.

When I was in high school, I was visiting my grandparents and walked down the highway to one of the nearby houses that was having a yard sale. There I found a copy of a paperback anthology entitled Horrors Unknown, edited by Sam Moskowitz.

I had struck pay dirt. In addition to having “Werewoman” by C. L. Moore and the fantasy version of “The Challenge From Beyond“, it also contains both of these stories. It’s Moskowitz’s notes that I’ll be referencing in this post. ABE shows a couple of paperback copies available, plus a number of hardcover copies. (One in New Zealand. I’m looking at you, Woelf.)

Bradbury tired to sell “The Pendulum” but was unsuccessful. He eventually published it in his fanzine, Futuria Fantasia. Henry had written a story, “He Who Shrank”, which had been well-received when it appeared in the August 1936 issue of Amazing Stories (1). Hasse was also a contributor to Futuria Fantasia. Bradbury asked Hasse for help in revising the story for resubmission. They convinced Julius Schwartz, who was acting as a literary agent (well before he joined DC comics), to try and  place the story. He eventually did, in the Novmber 1941 issue of Super Science Stories. They were paid $27.50 for the story. It was Bradbury’s first professional sale. It was the first of three collaborations they would write.

While the details of the stories are different and “Pendulum” is significantly longer, the basic plot is the same in both. A scientist named Layeville has invited the greatest scientists of the world to witness his demonstration of a working time machine. The demonstration is televised. Something goes wrong, and an electrical discharged kills al the scientists.

After a quick trial, Layeville is put in a giant glass pendulum constructed from what had been his time machine. Although no explanation is given as to why, something about the pendulum gives Layeville some type of immortality. He watches as civilization rises and falls and robots take over providing him with food and vacuuming waste from the pendulum. He goes from being a villain everyone hates, to a tourist attraction, to a subject of scientific inquiry, to the last man on Earth. As long as the pendulum swings, he’ll live.

Both versions of this story are early Bradbury, so they’re kind of rough, even with Hasse’s help. Still, I like both versions. They have, for lack of a better term, an innocence about them. They combine several tropes that were in common usage in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, such as time travel and last man on Earth. The science is completely hokum, but one doesn’t read Bradbury for his scientific acumen. I can easily imagination some type of residual radiation from the time machine causing the immortality Layeville experiences. I also like the final imagery in both versions. I hadn’t read these stories since I first encountered them back in high school. It was nice to see that my memories of them held up.

One last item of note. Another contributor to Futuria Fantasia (2) was a young artist who had yet to make his mark on the field, Hannes Bok. He was not yet to be professionally published. He provided an illustration for “The Pendulum” and for “Pendulum”. The illustration for the fanzine version was just a reclining figure. The illustration from Super Science Stories is shown on the left.

(1) This story was reprinted in Adventures in Time and Space edited by Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas and in Before the Golden Age, edited by Isaac Asimov. It should be easy to find if you’re interested.

(2) All four issues of Futuria Fantasia are available in a single ebook. Click the link.