“The Man Who Evolved”
The Edmond Hamilton Megapack
Wildside Press
ebook $0.55

I haven’t forgotten about this challenge.  I just haven’t had a chance to sit down and write this post.  Work has gotten hairy, so my blogging and general writing has slowed down.

I don’t recall if I first read “The Man Who Evolved” in Isaac Asimov’s anthology Before the Golden Age or in the Ballantine Del Rey collection The Best of Edmond Hamilton.  Not that it really matters.  Both books are worth reading.  I happened to reread it this time in Before the Golden Age.  Fortunately for anyone wanting to read it, it’s available in The Edmond Hamilton Megapack for just fifty-five cents, plus tax.

Mild spoilers to follow.  You have been warned.

The story is narrated by Arthur Wright, who has been invited along with a third man, to visit the isolated home of John Pollard.  Thee three had attended  college together and were close friends.

Pollard has been researching the causes of evolution.  He’s concluded that evolution is caused by cosmic rays.  In his quest to discover the ultimate end of human evolution, he’s built a giant receiver to collect and store cosmic rays.  By sitting in a specially prepared chamber for fifteen minutes, he hopes to force himself to evolve into a higher state, what mankind will become in fifty million years.  He needs the help of his friends to operate the device while he is in the chamber.

Wright and the other man, Hugh Dutton, are reluctant at first, but they go along with the plan.  Much to their regret.

At first he’s a superman. Pollard isn’t content to just evolve for one fifty million year increment.  He keeps going.  Soon he isn’t recognizable as anything human.  His forms regard the previous form as primitive, and his intentions change as he evolves.

The alert reader should be able to guess the final stage of Pollard’s evolutionary journey.  Hamilton gives a hint in Pollard’s own words earlier in the story.  I’ll not give it away.

The ending is pretty pessimistic, which is a little surprising since the story was first published in Gernsback’s Amazing Stories in 1931. He tended to have an optimistic outlook of the future.

The science is rather outdated, but it would have qualified as hard science in the early 1930s.  I enjoyed, but then Hamilton was one of my early favorites.  We’ll be looking at more of his work here and at Adventures Fantastic.

I’ll be reading through Before the Gold Age.  I’m also going to reread Science Fiction of the 30’s, edited by Damon Knight.  Unfortunately there are no electronic copies of these books.  I’ll also read some things that aren’t in these books.