Leinster, Murray - The Best of Murray Leinster

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A Del Rey Book - Published by Ballantine Books

Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of

Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Ballantine Books

of Canada, Ltd., Toronto, Canada.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 78-52210

ISBN 0-345-25800-2

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: April 1978

Cover art by H. R. Van Dongen

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

for Astounding Stories, June 1934.

Inc., for Astounding Stories, March 1935. -

Publications, Inc., for Astounding Stories, December 1935.

Astounding Science Fiction, May 1945.

Inc., for Astounding Science Fiction, June 1945.

for Astounding Science Fiction, August 1945.

Astounding Science Fiction, September 1945.

for Astounding Science Fiction, March 1946.

Publications, Inc., for Astounding Science Fiction, May 1948.

Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1949.

Wonder Stories, December 1951.

Inc., for Astounding Science Fiction, July 1956.

Contents

Introduction: The Dean of Science Fiction J.J. Pierce

Sidewise in Time

Proxima Centauri

The Fourth-dimensional Demonstrator

First Contact

The Ethical Equations

Pipeline to Pluto

The Power

A Logic Named Joe

Symbiosis

The Strange Case of John Kingman

The Lonely Planet

Keyhole

Critical Difference

The Dean of Science Fiction

"There were giantS in the earth in those days.

mighty men which were of old; men of renown."

-Genesis 6:4

SUBCULTURES; TOO, HAVE their lengendary figures, and in the world of science

fiction, Murray Lemster was one.

In his later years, Leinster came to be known as the Dean of Science

Fiction. His career in the field spanned nearly fifty years-remarkable enough

in itself. More remarkable is that he remained a top-ranked writer for all of

those years.

Leinster, in real life an unassuming Virginian named William Fitzgerald

Jenkins (1896-1975), would have been amused at the Biblical parallel. But like

that of the patriarchs of old, his longevity seemed unbelievable. Dozens of

writers vanished into obscurity; entire schools of writing rose, flourished,

and died-but Leinster carried on.

That took rare ability, but it also took rare dedication. Nowadays, when

science fiction is taught in colleges, and a single, good sf movie bids fair

to gross $100 million, it is hard to appreciate the dedication required of

writers like Leinster to make of a marginal and despised genre something in

which they, and their readers; could take legitimate pride.

A fellow pioneer of those early days once remarked that writing science

fiction took more work and paid less, than bricklaying-he'd tried both and

knew. Bricklaying pays a lot more these days, and so does science' fiction-but

there were and are easier ways of making a living than sf.

It is important to remember that. The pioneers of science fiction were,

by and large, commercial writers. They never talked of Art and Literature;

rather, of "craftsmanship" and "professional" standards. But that didn't mean,

as some of today's less-informed critics seem to think, that they didn't care

about their work. Science fiction might be better off today, if some of these

critics, and their favorite authors, loved sf as much as Leinster and some of

his colleagues did.

When Leinster began writing science fiction, it wasn't even called

science fiction. There weren't any sf magazines-what were called "scientific

romances" or "different stories" appeared mostly in adventure pulps, mixed in

with Westerns, spy thrillers, detective stories, horror tales and the like.

Science fiction had no distinct identity, or any generally recognized

standards.

Leinster's own first story, "The Runaway Skyscraper" (1919), was typical

of what was called for by a market that demanded exciting stories but as yet

had no real appreciation of scientific logic or scientific imagination. A New

York skyscraper suddenly plunges backward in time-never mind how or why-and

its occupants have to rough it in the wilderness.

But even in his early works, Leinster brought a new kind of imagination

to pulp literature. "The Mad Planet" (1920), too long to include, here, was in

the tradition of the "scientific romances" and pitted men reduced to savagery

against a world of giant insects and fungi. Yet the story still somehow seems

fresh today. Leinster was fascinated by the world of insects, and he makes the

reader fascinated-not merely frightened.

When the market called for stories about mad scientists who threatened

the world with their mad inventions, Leinster could supply them-but his always

had a distinct logic behind them. In "The City of the Blind" (1929), a

scientific criminal's invention darkens New York to cover a wave of robberies.

Only to Leinster would it have occurred to consider what such a device would

do to the weather.

But Murray Leinster did more than improve on existing models; he wrote

new kinds of stories. "Sidewise in Time," which opens this collection, is a

classic case in point. One of the most influential sf stories ever written, it

developed a concept of "parallel worlds"-worlds that exist in the same time as

ours, but in which natural or human history has taken a different course. That

idea has since been drawn on by H. Beam Piper, Keith Laumer, and a host of

other writers. Some physicists are even reported to be taking the idea

seriously-not the specific details, of course, but the concept that our

universe may not be the only one in this space-time continuum. Leinster wasn't

a dour theoretician, by any means- he was a man who could have fun with ideas

and share that fun with his readers. "The Fourth-dimensional Demonstrator"

takes on the old dream of making money easily, but it never occurred to others

who wrote parables of greed that a device producing money out of thin air

would do the same for other things, including girl friends, or take "A Logic

Named Joe," one of his funniest stories and one of his most prophetic. Most

people weren't aware of computers back then, and nobody realized there might

one day be computer information terminais all over the place-with their

attendant problems. It's still fun (and sobering, on reflection) to read about

the people who order computer data on how to rob banks or cure their neighbors

of concupiscence, but it's also fun because we know Leinster thought out ideas

that hadn't even occurred to others.

The same kind of disciplined imagination could be turned to a really

nasty story like "Pipeline to Pluto." It's an uncharacteristically gritty tale

of some unpleasant people who meet their comeuppance. But Leinster could

create a whole new kind of. comeuppance to satisfy morality and scientific

logic at' once, and he did.

Leinster's type of imagination was not a mere literary affectation, but

was a basic part of the man. When he wasn't writing, he was inventing. He had

a laboratory in his home, and some of his inventions seem the very stuff of

science fiction.

Jenkins Systems, widely used in television and the movies, is a device

that allows background scenes to be projected on a special screen, without

showing-up on' the actors standing in front of the screen. As described by its

inventor (under the double byline of Will F. Jenkins-Murray Leinster) in

"Applied Science Fiction," the system depends on a precise knowledge of the

different ways light can be reflected. But it also depends on a certain

psychology-the psychology of a man who can see how to make use of such natural

phenomena.

Invention is a matter of problem-solving, and one of Leinster's favorite

forms, especially in his later years, was what is usually called the

scientific problem story. "Critical Difference" is one of a series he wrote in

the 195 Os., and• his own experience in solving scientific problems is,

reflected in the manner in which his hero, comes to grips with a natural

crisis that threatens the existence of human life in the planetary system of

an unexpectedly variable star. The same kind of insighit was, however, shown

even early in his career with the story of Burl, the primitive who discovers

how to use his mind to cope with a savage environment in "The Mad Planet."

Leinster was a rationalist, a term which often seems to be in disfavor-

perhaps through association with the dismal utilitarianism of the Gradgrind

School in Dickens' Hard Times. Anything but a Grandgrind, Leinster saw reason

as a normal part of humanity, and his stories are always human dramas, not

mere classroom exercises.

An admirer of Thomas Aquinas, Leinster believed that there is a natural

order in the universe. In "The Ethical Equations," for instance, he even

suggests the possibility of a natural moral order in the imagined

"mathematical proof that certain patterns of conduct increase the probability

of certain kinds of coincidences."

But he was never heavy-handed about presenting his philosophy in

fiction. One of, his Med Service stories, concerning a doctor who deals with

medical emergencies on far planets, quoted witty aphorisms from an imaginary

book called The Practice of Thinking, by Fitzgerald. Intrigued readers

pestered him for years afterward with inquiries about where they could obtain

the book.

Nor did he ever forget ordinary human touches. On his interstellar

ships, there are recorded sounds: "the sound of rain, and of traffic, and of

wind in treetops and voices too faint for the words to be distinguished, and

almost inaudible music-and sometimes laughter. The background tape carried no

information; only the assurance that there were still worlds with clouds and

people and creatures moving about on them."

Leinster saw no necessary conflict between reason and human emotional

needs, but he was fully aware of the irrational in man and the evil men do.

"Keyhole" is an emotional story, in which it is very fortunate for Butch and

his kind that they are able to offer men a "reason" for, leaving them in

peace. A convert to Catholicism, Leinster never mentioned religion in his sf,

never sought to preach-but the idea of sin is certainly there.

"First Contact" is the most famous of Leinster's stories of encounters

between men and aliens. Here he sees them sharing the same weaknesses-fear,

greed, and mistrust-but also the same strength of intelligent life everywhere:

the ability to use reason to overcome their own weaknesses as -well as the

problems of their environment. The story earned Leinster a place in The

Science Fiction Hall of Fame, a volume of stories voted the classics of all

time by the Science Fiction Writers of America.

"First Contact" also occasioned a minor ideological flap in 1959, when

Soviet sf writer Ivan Yefremov published "The Heart of the Serpent," a story

in which humans and aliens make friendly contact and don't have any problems

because they're all good Communists. A character in Yefremov's story speaks

disparagingly of "First Contact," and sees in its author "the heart of a

poisonous' snake." Characteristically modest and gentlemanly, Leinster refused

to be drawn into a debate, and on one occasion expressed more disturbance over

Yetremov's apparent prejudice against snakes than over any criticism of

himself.

It would take a very casua1 reader to suspect Leinster of xenophobia.

"Proxima Centauri" was as close as be came to the BEM (Bug-Eyed Monster) story

in which innocent humans are threatened by the monsters. And even in this

case, the aliens have a very specific-~and logical-reason for being a threat

to their human visitors. One might almost view the conflict as the unfortunate

by-product of a local environmental crisis.

In "The Lonely Planet," by contrast, the grim moments are all caused by

the ignorance, malice, greed, and downright stupidity of humans. Leinster's

sympathy for the world-brain of Alyx is characteristic of him-and of science

fiction generally for the last forty years. There are those, not too well

informed, who imagine this attitude to have been developed only within the

last decade, usually by themselves.

Perhaps the most unusual of Leinster's contact stories, "The Strange

Case of John Kingman," never moves off the Earth at all. There is a subtle

irony to the story: the being in the mental hospital who has been classed as a

lunatic' for nearly two hundred years really is insane-but not for the reasons

human doctors have imagined.

In the 1930s, Leinster wrote several realistic stories of- future

warfare, like "Tanks" and "Politics." In "Symbiosis," he returned to the

future-war theme, but in a much subtler manner. Kantolia seems defenseless: no

planes, tanks, or heavy guns, no fanciful death rays. But it has a truly

deadly weapon-invaders are helpless against it. The fact that a man with a

troubled conscience must wield that weapon makes this, too, a very human

story.

"The Power" is a science-fiction story set in a period when science

fiction would have been impossible. Before you can have either science or

science fiction, you have to have the kind of imagination that makes both

possible. Poor Carolus-he sees, but cannot observe, still less understand!

One collection could not possibly include all the best stories of a man

who was a regular contributor to science-fiction markets for five decades-

there are even important types of fiction Leinster wrote, which could not be

represented, here because of space limitations. And there are, of course,

novels like The Forgotten Planet, based on "The Mad Planet" and its sequels.

Readers haven't always had a chance to see Leinster at his best. After

quitting an insurance company at age twenty-one--his boss wanted him to do

something unethical, so he told the boss that he could do with the job-

Leinster made his living as a writer, in other fields' as well as in science

fiction. Unfortunately, it seems that some publishers would rather reprint his

potboilers than his classics. Then too, some publishers couldn't tell the

difference between them even when he was alive.

One of his novels, serialized in a magazine, dealt with space piracy. An

old and hackneyed theme, but Leinster redeemed it with a climax in which the

hero uses his knowledge of the hijacked ship's communications system to drive

the pirates insane. When a paperback publisher picked up the novel, however,

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ADelReyBook-PublishedbyBallantineBooksCopyright(c)1978byRandomHouse,Inc.Introduction:"TheDeanofScienceFiction"Copyright(c)1978byJ.J.PierceAllrightsreservedunderInternationalandPan-AmericanCopyrightConventions.PublishedintheUnitedStatesbyBallantineBooks,adivisionofRandomHouse,Inc.,NewYork,andsimultan...

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