DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 7, Summer 1945

Transcribe
Translate

Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 7, Summer 1945

Page 136

136    FANTASY COMMENTATOR
them, The Earthquake by W. Holt White, tells of a mighty earthquake that shook the city of London in 1901. The resulting chaos in that city, and the efficient handling of the situation by the Prime Minister make a very good tale. The other novel referred to is The Doomsman by Van Tassel Sutphen. When this story opens, we find most Americans in its future era living in stockaded farms; the highly mechanized civilization of the land has been shattered by a great catastrophe, many years before. But in the ruins of the crumbling city of New York---known now as "Doom"---a tribe of arrogant men, descended from ancient robber bands who roamed the land in the days immediately following the disaster, have established themselves. The young hero of the book, daring existing penalties, makes his way into Doom, investigates wonderingly its half-ruined structures, and after many exciting adventures wins from the Doomsmen a maiden with whom he has fallen on love. Sutphen has written an excellent tale in this, and the reader is fascinated to the final page.
    Probably one of the most famous stories of this sort is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932). Huxley, though writing satirically for the most part, nevertheless gives us an interesting and absorbing story. The future world he depicts has been unified and mechanized according to a set pattern of stability. The conception on which this civilization is founded is the legends and accounts of Henry Ford's factories; indeed, every head is bowed in adoration at the mention of this man's name. Every individual is condition synthetically before and after birth to fill one particular job, to detest all others. Contrast between this civilization and that of our own day is excellently drawn by the decide of allowing characters in the story to visit a reservation where Indians and certain of civilization's misfits live in aboriginal confinement. An especially brilliant young man from this reservation is brought back into mechanized society that his reactions may be studied; he proves to be a misfit there.
    Herbert Best's Twenty-Fifthy Hour (1940) is an intriguing picture of a Europe almost depopulated due to the present war, with a few men left in roving bands, living the life of a semi-savage. Because of a deadly plague, America is nearly void of humanity. A girl and her sick brother, alone in the Western Hemisphere, voyage to Europe and later visit the still-civilized races of the African continent. Anymoon (1919) by Horace Bleackley is another intriguing novel in this genre. Here the Prime Minister of England, serving in a time of political chaos and finally swept aside by female domination of government, succumbs to a brain-fever. In this state he dreams of being in a far-distant future where the race has degenerated to a vast bee-hive, women predominating and males being kept only for breeding purposes, to be destroyed or ruthlessly when their periods of service are over. Somewhat similar to this conception is that in Ayn Rand's Anthem (1938); here too humanity is regimented to the nth degree, and in this tale one young man flees the monotonous existence to rediscover elsewhere the old way of living and to plan new happiness for his race.
    In The Moon Maid (1926), Edward Rice Burroughs also goes into the days of the future. In this book he first tells of adventures on the moon by a man of the earth; in later sections of the novel the Moonmen invade the earth, subjugate it, and make its inhabitants their slaves and vassals. And in the final pages of the novel a descendant of that first adventurer on the moon leads an onslaught of the invaders. Burroughts wrote another extremely good story of the future, but for some reason this novel has never been reprinted since its original appearance thirty years ago. Its title is "Beyond Thirty," and it was published in All Around Magazine in February, 1916. America, aghast at the continual warring in Europe and Asia, has created a sea and air fleet of such magnitude as to forbid attack, and then prevented by law the crossing by any inhabitant of North or South America a certain degree of latitude.  Caught in a

Saving...

136 FANTASY COMMENTATOR them, The Earthquake by W. Holt White, tells of a mighty earthquake that shook the city of London in 1901. The resulting chaos in that city, and the efficient handling of the situation by the Prime Minister make a very good tale. The other novel referred to is The Doomsman by Van Tassel Sutphen. When this story opens, we find most Americans in its future era living in stockaded farms; the highly mechanized civilization of the land has been shattered by a great catastrophe, many years before. But in the ruins of the crumbling city of New York---known now as "Doom"---a tribe of arrogant men, descended from ancient robber bands who roamed the land in the days immediately following the disaster, have established themselves. The young hero of the book, daring existing penalties, makes his way into Doom, investigates wonderingly its half-ruined structures, and after many exciting adventures wins from the Doomsmen a maiden with whom he has fallen on love. Sutphen has written an excellent tale in this, and the reader is fascinated to the final page. Probably one of the most famous stories of this sort is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932). Huxley, though writing satirically for the most part, nevertheless gives us an interesting and absorbing story. The future world he depicts has been unified and mechanized according to a set pattern of stability. The conception on which this civilization is founded is the legends and accounts of Henry Ford's factories; indeed, every head is bowed in adoration at the mention of this man's name. Every individual is condition synthetically before and after birth to fill one particular job, to detest all others. Contrast between this civilization and that of our own day is excellently drawn by the decide of allowing characters in the story to visit a reservation where Indians and certain of civilization's misfits live in aboriginal confinement. An especially brilliant young man from this reservation is brought back into mechanized society that his reactions may be studied; he proves to be a misfit there. Herbert Best's Twenty-Fifthy Hour (1940) is an intriguing picture of a Europe almost depopulated due to the present war, with a few men left in roving bands, living the life of a semi-savage. Because of a deadly plague, America is nearly void of humanity. A girl and her sick brother, alone in the Western Hemisphere, voyage to Europe and later visit the still-civilized races of the African continent. Anymoon (1919) by Horace Bleackley is another intriguing novel in this genre. Here the Prime Minister of England, serving in a time of political chaos and finally swept aside by female domination of government, succumbs to a brain-fever. In this state he dreams of being in a far-distant future where the race has degenerated to a vast bee-hive, women predominating and males being kept only for breeding purposes, to be destroyed or ruthlessly when their periods of service are over. Somewhat similar to this conception is that in Ayn Rand's Anthem (1938); here too humanity is regimented to the nth degree, and in this tale one young man flees the monotonous existence to rediscover elsewhere the old way of living and to plan new happiness for his race. In The Moon Maid (1926), Edward Rice Burroughs also goes into the days of the future. In this book he first tells of adventures on the moon by a man of the earth; in later sections of the novel the Moonmen invade the earth, subjugate it, and make its inhabitants their slaves and vassals. And in the final pages of the novel a descendant of that first adventurer on the moon leads an onslaught of the invaders. Burroughts wrote another extremely good story of the future, but for some reason this novel has never been reprinted since its original appearance thirty years ago. Its title is "Beyond Thirty," and it was published in All Around Magazine in February, 1916. America, aghast at the continual warring in Europe and Asia, has created a sea and air fleet of such magnitude as to forbid attack, and then prevented by law the crossing by any inhabitant of North or South America a certain degree of latitude. Caught in a