Many years ago, my oldest brother told me about a strange event in his life. After a job interview in Boston, he returned home on a taxi flight to New York City. At the time, these flights were offered between several East Coast cities. You did not need reservations; you simply boarded the flight that left at specific hours and still had room for passengers. In the arrival terminal, my brother made several calls home. In each case, he was told the number did not exist. He was now a bit flummoxed. What was going on? It was like his reality was in doubt. Then my brother finally realized that he had taken the wrong plane. Tired because of a long day in Boston, he had boarded the taxi flight for Washington D.C. instead of for New York. He suddenly recalled seeing the lit-up Washington Monument as the plane came in for its landing.
Determining what reality is can sometimes be very confusing. This problem also provides for some intriguing science fiction stories. Two of my favorites from the 1950s are by Raymond F. Jones. One of the stories was made into a typical 1950s science fiction film. Both involved interpreting the story's reality.
Jones’ book Renaissance presents a truly different reality. It follows the principle of showing rather than telling the reader what is happening. I personally enjoy the task of figuring out what is going on from the clues given by the author. Jones is a master at this and of constructing interesting yet plausible environments. Thus consider the leading line of the novel, "The first globe had set, and the lengthening shadows cast by the second sun were darkening the great hall of the Karildex." We are not in our everyday environment as there are two suns in the sky. Also, we have no idea what the Karildex may be. As we proceed, we get more information about fire bursts that light the sky from Fire Land and that the Karildex is a computing machine and the place is called Kronweld. The main character, Keton, believes he inhabits the only world. How he and you, the reader, find out otherwise which provides a surprising story.
Cal Meacham, the main character of This Island Earth, is an engineer at the Rydberg Instrument Corporation. He has ordered some electronic parts for his current project. He is surprised to receive a package containing what seem to be impossible components. These items far exceed the possibilities he believes normal. To make matters stranger, Cal also gets a catalog of many extraordinary items with similar exceptional properties. Testing some of these, he finds that they do what is claimed. Why has he not heard about the significant scientific breakthroughs that would be needed to produce such components? He also discovers that a colleague has been sent what appears to be frictionless gears. Again something, in reality, seems wrong. Thus begins an intriguing tale.
This Island Earth was made into what I would call a science fiction horror film. While it took a few ideas and some character names from the book, it pretty much removed everything else. Since I really enjoyed the story, watching it was a major disappointment. It is available on YouTube for those who would like some instruction on how to make an awful incoherent movie.
Both these novels are available as ebooks from Amazon. In a future newsletter, I will discuss obtaining copies of golden age science fiction books and magazines. You can subscribe to my newsletter at:
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where you can find copies of all the previous newsletters.