Seekers of Tomorrow by Sam Moskowitz Read Free Book Online Page B

about it and couldn't get it into print fast enough. Twilight, rushed into the November, 1934, issue, a month before The Mightiest Machine, could not be published under Campbell's own name for two reasons. First, most obviously it would destroy the build-up in progress for The Mightiest Machine. Secondly, it was so different in approach that it would disorient the readers accustomed to a certain style of story from Campbell. The problem was solved with a pen name, Don A. Stuart, derived from the maiden name of Campbell's wife, Dona Stuart.
    "A new writer," Tremaine blurbed, "a profoundly different and beautiful treatment of an always fascinating idea— Twilight by Don A. Stuart. A story of the far, faint future, of the fabulous cities and machines of man—and of his slow decline into eternal sleep."
    H. G. Wells' Time Machine possessed, in its description of the decadent civilization of the Eloi, certain elements of Twilight. The concept of automatic, near-perfect cities, func-tioning long after man has forgotten how to repair them, was superbly delineated in The Machine Stops (1928) by E. M. Forster. Similarly, the lonely, magnificent, nearly eternal, but deserted cities of Bronson Beta are described movingly by Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie in After Worlds Collide (blue book, 1933). Yet mood had never been the primary purpose in the presentations of the civilizations and cities of these other authors. Nor had anyone so completely attempted to canonize the machine. Over and over again, Campbell's message remained clear: The machine is not the enemy and ruination of man; it is his friend and protector. Don A. Stuart bid fair to eclipse Campbell in popularity as a result of this single story, Twilight. Its appearance was to alter the pattern of science-fiction writing. Warner Van Lorne's immensely popular Strange City (astounding sto-ries, December, 1935) and World of Purple Light (astound-ing stories, December, 1936) were unquestionably inspired by it. Arthur C. Clarke, in both Rescue Party (astounding science-fiction, May, 1946) and Against the Fall of Night (startling stories, November, 1948), displays his debt to Twilight. Lester del Rey's inspiration for intelligent dogs in The Faithful may derive from a brief section in Twilight.
    Stuart appeared again with Atomic Power in the Decem-ber, 1934, astounding stories, a story in which men pre-vent the structure of our solar system from being blown up by atomcrackers in the macrocosmos. The lead story of the issue was the first installment of The Mightiest Machine, and a third story by Campbell in the same issue, The Irrelevant, resulted in months of debate in the readers' column, since he presented a theoretical evasion of the law of conservation of energy. This was published under the pseudonym Karl van Kampen, the name of a Dutch great-grandfather on his father's side. Blindness (astounding stories, March, 1935), by Stuart, was a poignant sketch of a scientist who loses his sight in space to bring the world the blessings of atomic energy, only to learn that inadvertently another discovery of his provides a cheaper power source. He dies embittered because the world does not want his atomic energy.
    One of the most remarkable and underrated performances under the Stuart name was The Escape (astounding stories, May, 1935), written as the result of an argument with a would-be writer as to whether or not it is impossible to write a successful love story in the framework of science fiction. A girl who runs off with a boy she loves to escape marrying the selection of the Genetics Board is finally captured and brought back and psychologically reconditioned to "love" the "right" man. This remains one of the finest love stories science fiction has yet produced.
    With The Mightiest Machine receiving reader accolades, Campbell thought sequels were in order. He wrote three, continuing the adventures of Aarn Munro and his compan-ions. The first, a 15,000-word novelette, The Incredible