Category Archives: pulp

Kuttner Unkollected: “Dark Dawn”

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Thilling Wonder Aug 47“Dark Dawn”
Henry Kuttner writing as Keith Hammond
Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1947

Kuttner had three stories in this issue of Thrilling Wonder, one under his own name and two under psuedonyms.  I’ll look at all of them since two of them have been reprinted and the third never appeared in one of Kuttner’s collectons and hasn’t seen print since the 1960s.

In the post War years, Americans were definitely interested in atomic bombs and the possibility of radioactive fallout.  “Dark Dawn” deals with these concerns, as does “Atomic!”, the story in this issue that appears under Kuttner’s byline. Continue reading →

Kuttner Unkollected: “Trophy”

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$(KGrHqZ,!i4E8VDJi4qGBPHe1IuBYQ~~60_35“Trophy”
Henry Kuttner writing as Scott Morgan
Thrilling Wonder Stories, Winter 1944

As I mentioned in my post on “A God Named Kroo”, this is the second of three stories Kuttner had in this issue of Thrilling Wonder. Unlike “Kroo”, “Trophy” isn’t a humorous yarn. It’s a science fiction story with a nice little horror ending.

Like “A God Named Kroo”, this story concerns the Japanese theatre of operations during WWII. This time the viewpoint character is a Japanese officer who is also a Western trained surgeon. In fact he’s one of the best surgeons in the world.

The backstory is that he and his men are marooned on a remote island in the Pacific when they see a US plane. They attempt to lure the plane to the island one evening and are almost successful when a flying torpedo shaped object zoomed by, causing the plane to crash. The airmen aren’t the pushovers the Japanese soldiers are expecting. A gun battle ensues, and the surgeon and a single airman are the only survivors. Continue reading →

A Look at Vulcan’s Dolls by Margaret St. Clair

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Startling-Stories-Vulcans-DollsVulcan’s Dolls
Margaret St. Clair
Startling Stories Feb. 1952, p. 10-73

When I posted my essay “The Women Other Women Don’t See“, I said I would be reading and reviewing the works of some of the women whose contributions to the field have been neglected.  “Vulcan’s Dolls” and Margaret St. Clair are a perfect example.

Margaret St. Clair (1911-1995) was active in the field from the late 1940s through the early 1980s, but most of her work was published in the 1950s.  Stories that appeared in F&SF carried the byline Idris Seabright.  Today, to the extent that she’s known at all, she’s remembered for a handful of short stories.

“Vulcan’s Dolls” was billed as a novel on the cover of the issue of Startling Stories in which it appeared.  Stories published as “novels” in the pulps usually weren’t long enough to be considered novels today or long enough to be reprinted in book form.  Book length work, as a general rule, was published as serials.  Consequently, “Vulcan’s Dolls” has never been reprinted.  Startling Stories isn’t a highly sought after pulp, so copies shouldn’t be too hard to come by.  I picked mine up at Half Price Books for $3.

Startling Stories, and to a lesser extent its sister publication Thrilling Wonder Stories, mixed fantasy in with the science fiction, sometimes blending the two together.  “Vulcan’s Dolls” draws on Greek mythology (St. Clair had an educational background in the classics) but is inarguably science fiction, although the science doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny.   Continue reading →