Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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Summary Review of The Metal Giants and Other Stories!
Okay, so let's begin with the fact that the stories in this volume are incredibly formulaic. Most of them follow pretty much the same basic pattern. The narration begins by talking about the great cataclysm that almost destroyed humanity, and that the story will be reconstructed as well as possible. There's pretty much always a scientist who is exploring some unknown field/area. Often the scientist mysteriously vanishes. There's usually a young assistant or colleague of the scientist, who either goes looking for them or at least becomes the POV character until they show up again. Mysterious destruction begins to rain down on civilization. Then the cause of the destruction is revealed, usually by the scientist who often is responsible for it in the first place. Then there's a desperate attempt to defeat the invaders who are usually the cause of the destruction. Often, at the last minute the scientist sacrifices himself in order to stop the invasion (getting shot as he pulls the switch that destroys the invasion force, for example). The young assistant is often left alone as the only source for the tale.
Vary it by changing the exact nature of the threat and the exact details of the plot structure, and you get almost every story in the volume, the notable exceptions being the "Monster God of Mamurth" and "The Time Raider". Interestingly, "Locked Worlds" combines the standard pattern with some of the plot elements of "The Time Raider".
The characters are pretty much stock, and largely interchangeable from one story to the next. I don't believe there's a single named female character in the volume. The variety of tales that I praised in the "Best of Edmund Hamilton" is pretty much absent here.
Having said all that, the stories are quite a bit of fun, and it's pretty interesting seeing what zany idea Hamilton will come up with to put the entire world in danger next! And his descriptions of humanity facing destructive forces which they can't understand are often pretty powerful. I'd have to pick "The Time Raider" as easily the strongest story of the lot, however, and I'm hoping future volumes will quickly get to more stories that break the pattern established in these early tales. I'm assuming that since the next volume features The Interstellar Patrol, it will pretty have to.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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Volume Two is currently in my hands!
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
"Crashing Suns" takes place in a time in which Earth has colonized the solar system, but not yet moved beyond the orbit of the sun. Fortunately, the tech needed for interstellar travel is invented just in time for Jan Tor* of the Interplanetary Patrol to investigate the strange phenomenon of a sun that has changed direction until it is on a collision course with our own! You can bet there's creepy aliens behind it!
Random cool outdated scientific concept: Ether Holes! Strange holes in the fabric of the ether permeating space in which light can't pass!
*Legion fans will note the similarity of the name to Jan Jor, aka False Pretences Lad!
[ January 23, 2012, 07:45 PM: Message edited by: Eryk Davis Ester ]
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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"The Star Stealers" features the threat of a giant "dark star" that's traveled across the space between galaxies and whose course threatens to take it close enough to our sun to "kidnap" it with it's greater gravitational force. To deal with the emergency, Earth calls home Starship Captain Ran Rarak of the Interstellar Patrol, where he has been hanging out with the diverse members of the Federation of Stars, such as the strange brain-men of Algol and the bird-men of Sirius. Anyway, he has to go investigate the dark star and to figure out what to do about it.
This story also features the introduction of a bizarre new thing in Hamilton stories, a named female character! Dal Nara, the second-in-command of the Starship, is totally a woman! Well, apparently she was a man until the editor changed her sex in order for "cover design purposes", basically so they could put a "damsel-in-distress" on the cover. The result, however, is that she's written basically the same as a man, up until the end of the story, where we discover that she "after the manner of her sex throughout the ages, sought a beauty parlor" after returning from the mission!
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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So, in the far-flung future of the Federation of Suns, one of the greatest dangers in space are nebulae, such as the Orion Nebula! Nebulae are basically vast regions of intense fire in space, hotter than most suns, and ship lanes have to be routed to avoid them. Well, in "Within the Nebula" the Orion Nebula starts spinning wildly, threatening to break up and release its super-heated flame in random bursts throughout the galaxy, potentially destroying all planets and solar systems in their paths!
And so the Interstellar Patrol sends Sar Than (a bulbous tentacled man from Arcturus), Jor Dahat (a plant-man from Capella), and Ker Kal (a human from Earth) in an experimental starship that can withstand great heat to investigate. Soon they discover by accident that the Nebula is in fact hollow and that there is a whole universe (well, at least a planet) inside the nebula!
And who should live on this planet but creepy protean blobs who change their shape in order to communicate!
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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So, "Outside the Universe" features our galaxy under attack by weird serpent beings from another galaxy! The fleets of the Interstellar Patrol fall before the might of the invader. The only hope lies in human captain Dur Nal and his two lieutenants: Korus Kan of Antares, whose metal flesh guards his internal organs and prevents him from needing rest, and Jhul Din of Spica, whose large Crustacean body is quite imposing. These three and their crew must travel in a stolen serpent-ship to the Andromeda galaxy to seek the aid of its inhabitants, who have already beaten the serpent-folks once, before the invaders can complete their super-weapon, which will ultimately allow them to dominate all three galaxies!
Coolest bit in this story: the serpents have this creepy "museum of the living dead" in which they keep specimens of vanquished races in a kind of conscious suspended animation!
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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In "The Comet Drivers", our galaxy is once again threatened by a danger from outside! This time it is in the form of a giant comet headed straight towards our galaxy, big enough to seriously disrupt the gravitational balance of the galactic system. It turns out that this comet actually houses a whole solar system of strange disc-worlds orbiting its nucleus and protected by its coma, on which weird liquid-beings live and intentionally drive their comet-system into other galaxy to absorb the energy of their suns. It's up to the chief of the interstellar patrol with his three sub-chiefs, Gor Han (a giant, shaggy eight-limbed creature from Betelgeuse), Jurt Tul (an amphibian-man from Aldeberan), and Najus Nar (one of the insect-men of Procyon), to find some way of diverting the comet from it's immanent course of destruction! And not all of them will survive!
Cool bit in the story: I'm guessing the scene where all of the liquid-creatures unite into one single being to share their thoughts as well as to rest is probably the first of its kind.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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In "The Sun-People", we find the Council of Suns, governing body of the Federation of Suns, meeting in desperation. It turns out that some strange force is negating the gravitational pull that attracts the stars together and binds them into our galaxy. Already, solar systems have begun drifting away from the galaxy, and soon they will begin to fly off into outer space. It has been discovered that the source of the problem are strange vibrations coming from within Canopus, the giant star around which the capital world of the Federation floats and which is located near the center of the galaxy. And so the Interstellar Patrol has put together a new ship that is capable of entering Canopus to investigate. And so Nort Norus, human Chairman of the Council of Suns, J'Han Jal, birdlike Sirian Chief of the Interstellar Patrol, and Mirk En, Chief of the Science Bureau, together lead the mission into Canopus.
There they find that, surprisingly, the star is in fact hollow, and there's a whole solar system inside the sun! And there they find a race of cube-people who are desperately trying to save themselves from the destruction caused by the fact that the gravitational force of the other stars in the galaxy has been slowly pulling their worlds outward into the sun. Thus their attempts to neutralize this gravitational force.
And, of course, our heroes set about destroying the mechanism whereby this force is being projected, thus keeping the stars of the galaxy together and projecting a message of peace and unity of a variety of different species coming together to work for the common good, even if they have to commit genocide to achieve it!
Cool bit in the story: I actually really liked the cool vacuum sheath method of protecting them from the sun. And the generator that projects vibrations to neutralize heat is totally reminiscent of early explanations of Polar Boy's power!
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There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
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I have to get my hands on these stories, they sound amazingly cool!
quote:Cool bit in the story: I'm guessing the scene where all of the liquid-creatures unite into one single being to share their thoughts as well as to rest is probably the first of its kind.
How many decades was this before Deep Space Nine did the same thing with it's Changeling Founders and their 'great link?' Way, way cool!
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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These stories were published around 1929-1930, so that's, like, 65-70 years before DS9?
Whatever weaknesses Hamilton has as a writer at this point in his career, these stories are incredibly fascinating from the point of view of how much stuff he must be inventing practically from scratch. This has to be one of the first, if not the first, continuing sci-fi universe, so it really is the ancestor of Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. According to the Introduction, Hamilton was the first to introduce the idea of a space suit, which seems like such a fundamental concept that I wouldn't have even thought about it being something new if it weren't pointed out.
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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So, in the hundreds of thousands of years of space travel, no one who has ever entered "The Cosmic Cloud" at the center of the galaxy has ever returned from it. In fact, some years before this story opens, famed Denebian Bat-scientist Zat Zanat had tried to explore the cloud, but had never been heard from again! The cosmic cloud is an area of darkness where no light-vibrations can exist. So, the interstellar trade routes have to be routed around this cloud.
Then, suddenly, one day a strange force begins compelling ships that come near the cosmic cloud to fall into the cloud! After this happens for the third time, the Interstellar Patrol sends one of their bravest crews to investigate. This crew consists of Dur Nal, Korus Kan, and Jhul Din of "Outside the Universe" fame! Apparently Hamilton decided that maybe these stories would be even better with recurring characters!
Anyway, of course it turns out there's a race of aliens living inside the cosmic cloud who are causing the problem as part of a plan to invade the rest of the galaxy. These aliens apparently live their lives entirely by sound, with no light to see by. And so our heroes, with the help of Zat Zanat, have to foil the invasion plan.
Cool bits of the story: the most interesting part of this story really is Dur Nal's attempts to simply maneuver around/evade capture/figure out what the heck is going on while in total darkness. I don't quite buy the fact that the aliens could get along with only a sense of hearing. At one point it's suggested that have some limited echolocation ability, which makes a lot more sense, but also defeats the point of Dur Nal's hiding from them by being very quiet. And, oddly, the bat-folk of Deneb apparently don't use echolocation, which surprised me. Kind of a short and underdeveloped story, but an interesting idea, nonetheless.
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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Dur Nal, Korus Kan, and Jhul Din return once more for "Corsairs of the Cosmos", the last of the Interstellar Patrol tales (there are, however, two non-IP stories in this volume). The plot of this one kind of revisits the territory of the "The Star-Stealers", only this time there's twenty dark stars that are intentionally driven to our galaxy to steal our suns for another galaxy. The other galaxy is inhabited by machines whose builders have long since died out.
It seemed to me that Hamilton was trying to add a bit more characterization to the main players in this story, and, maybe it's just me reading stuff into it, but I definitely got a Kirk/Spock/McCoy vibe from the trio of Nal/Kan/Din this time around. The Star Trek comparison was heightened by the evil robots freakish love of telling them that "resistance" would not accomplish anything (they never quite say "resistance is futile", but they do seem to really like the word "resistance"!).
Anyway, this was another story that seemed too brief for the actual scope of the plot. Choice dialogue: "By the suns, this is better than driving ships!... Driving dark stars to battle!"
Groovy Legion-esque thing: We are briefly introduced to young pilot Jan Allon, who really seemed like he was going to play a bigger role in the story than he did!
[ February 11, 2012, 03:58 PM: Message edited by: Eryk Davis Ester ]
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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Okay, so moving on to non-Interstellar Patrol stories, we have "The Hidden World", which features four adventurer-scientists investigating a series of strange beams of lights that have been appearing at regular intervals around the equator. They soon discover that these lights are the prelude to an invasion by ancient flesh-things from inside the Earth! Which, of course, they have to stop!
Among the cool things about this novel-length story were the fairly elaborate pseudo-scientific explanations of how the flesh-things's world worked in relation to ours and the cause of its imminent destruction. Definitely stuff that would make Jules Verne proud!
Apparently Hamilton must've been a fan of the Battle of Thermopylae, because this is the second time he's used the motif of a small band of warriors defending a "pass" against overwhelming odds!
Groovy Legion-esque thing: the flesh-things travel in transparent spheres, though, unfortunately for them, they don't travel through time!
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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So, I finally read the last story of The Collected Hamilton vol. 2, "The Other Side of the Moon".
So, we open up with the scientist from Midwestern University named Howland who is traveling to the Yucatan to gather evidence of his theory that there used to be a series of islands in the Atlantic Ocean which allowed human and animal life to migrate from Africa/Europe to the Americas. This idea, while pretty cool on its own, plays no role in the story, however. Instead, Howland and his party come across turtle-men from the moon who kill most of them, except Howland who they kidnap and take back to the moon, and another man, Carson, who escapes.
So, what does Carson do? Call in the army, perhaps? No way! He does what any main character in a Hamilton novella would do... he travels back to Midwestern University and recruits the aid of two fellow college professors to help him rescue Howland and discover and thwart the no doubt nefarious plans of the moon-turtles!
This story actually has a lot of cool stuff, with the elaborate explanation for the craters on the moon as the result of an ancient Earth-Moon war, and the groovy airtight city that the turtle-men live on, which covers the entire dark side of the moon. And even though it's pretty full of what were becoming cliches in Hamilton's writing by this point, it's still an exciting tale, and another one that I could just see being adapted into a movie (at least a cheesy SyFy movie or something!).
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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Hmmm... I suppose I should do a summary review of the second volume, so here goes...
Summary Review of The Star-Stealers: The Complete Tales of the Interstellar Partol
It's totally awesome! Hamilton's still playing with set formulas, though the longer stories especially give him the chance to branch out, with "Outside the Universe" being probably the strongest. The characters are still pretty much stock, and the aliens pretty much massive hordes of invaders, but, hey, there still a lot of fun!
Next up: Vol. 3, in which it looks like we finally start getting a more diverse set of stories, the first one of which features groovy floating cities!
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