BACKTRACK TO THE FUTURE

It's the year 11,959 and everything is screwed worse than ever.

We thought we’d hit the sci-fi genre, since it’s been a while, and chose Edmond Hamilton’s Star of Life. It’s one of the books visible in the photo of a 1959 airport paperback rack we showed you in August. The story concerns an astronaut named Kirk Hammond whose lunar capsule goes off course toward the far reaches of the solar system. Hammond decides to end his life rather than starve in the void, and when he vents the capsule the absolute cold of space freezes him. He awakens in the hot spacecraft hurtling back toward Earth. Turns out he was frozen so rapidly that his cells sustained no damage, and re-entry has thawed and revived him.

He’s thrilled to be alive, but when he lands he’s stunned to learn he’s made a long elliptical orbit through the solar system and returned to Earth 10,000 years after he left. He’s immediately caught in the middle of a millennia-old conflict between two races—the Vramen, immortal humanoids who control all galactic space, and the Hoomen, descended from ancient humans, and imprisoned on Earth. At least that’s how it all sets up at first. Revelations are in the offing. Hammond is rescued by the Hoomen, but the Vramen have seen the capsule arrive, and their search for this strange object sends Hoomen-Vramen tensions into overdrive, while Hammond himself, as a being 10,000 years old, has the potential to permanently alter the balance of power.

Star of Life has some big concepts and it’s spread over a galactic backdrop, but like a lot of science fiction, it’s written at basically a junior high level. We had to laugh when one of the characters dropped the nugget: “We made an hypothetical reconstruction.” Here’s an helpful hint for Hamilton and his editors. Don’t teach your impressionable young readers to talk like knobs. It’s not good for them. Still, the book is entertaining—utterly weightless, mind you, but fun in an awkward, haven’t-gotten-laid yet sort of way. This Crest edition is from 1959 and the psychedelic cover art is by Richard Powers. Now back to our regularly scheduled grown people fiction.

Fawcett Publications, Crest Books, Edmond Hamilton, Richard Powers, cover art, literature, sci-fi

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

September 19

1934—Arrest Made in Lindbergh Baby Case

Bruno Hauptmann is arrested for the kidnap and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr., son of the famous American aviator. The infant child had been abducted from the Lindbergh home in March 1932, and found decomposed two months later in the woods nearby. He had suffered a fatal skull fracture. Hauptmann was tried, convicted, sentenced to death, and finally executed by electric chair in April 1936. He proclaimed his innocence to the end

September 18

1919—Pollard Breaks the Color Barrier

Fritz Pollard becomes the first African-American to play professional football for a major team, the Akron Pros. Though Pollard is forgotten today, famed sportswriter Walter Camp ranked him as “one of the greatest runners these eyes have ever seen.” In another barrier-breaking historical achievement, Pollard later became the co-head coach of the Pros, while still maintaining his roster position as running back.

September 18

1932—Entwistle Leaps from Hollywood Sign

Actress Peg Entwistle commits suicide by jumping from the letter “H” in the Hollywood sign. Her body lay in the ravine below for two days, until it was found by a detective and two radio car officers. She remained unidentified until her uncle connected the description and the initials “P.E.” on the suicide note in the newspapers with his niece’s two-day absence.

September 17

1908—First Airplane Fatality Occurs

The plane built by Wilbur and Orville Wright, The Wright Flyer, crashes with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge aboard as a passenger. The accident kills Selfridge, and he becomes the first airplane fatality in history.

September 17

1983—First Black Miss America Crowned

Vanessa Williams becomes the first African American Miss America. She later loses her crown when lesbian-themed nude photographs of her are published by Penthouse magazine.

September 16

1920—Terrorists Bomb Wall Street

At 12:01 p.m. a bomb loaded into a horse-drawn wagon explodes in front of the J.P.Morgan building in New York City. 38 people are killed and 400 injured. Italian anarchists are thought to be the perpetrators, but after years of investigation no one is ever brought to justice.