[OtherEric]

So, I was asked to provide a guest entry for the Reading Group this time around, and to mix things up a bit I thought I would try presenting a pulp rather than a comic.  The book for this week is the August 1928 issue of AMAZING STORIES.  Because of the size of the book and specific story I've chosen, I'm limiting it to just one book.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96311

I'm not sure why the preview has the cover and inside front cover reversed, it looks normal in my reader program.

I want to start by calling your attention to the classic cover by Frank R. Paul, illustrating the first part of THE SKYLARK OF SPACE, the first published story by E. E. "Doc" Smith.  The story has been described as one of the most important and influential science fiction stories ever written by no less an authority than Isaac Asimov, who has identified it as one of the three times in science fiction history when a new writer appeared and almost instantly every other SF writer was trying to catch up with them.  (The other two, incidentally, were Stanley G. Weinbaum with "A Martian Odyssey" and Robert Heinlein, starting with "Life-Line" but more generally everything he produced his first year as a professional.)  Just this story and cover are enough to make this one of the most famous and important SF pulps ever published.

Anyway, that's the bonus reading for this issue, if you feel like it, but nobody actually cares about it compared to the importance of the story we'll be focusing on:  Armageddon- 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan.

Armageddon- 2419 A.D. features the introduction of Anthony Rogers, a man from 1927 who finds himself thrown into suspended animation and wakes up 492 years later.  He only featured in two pulp stories, this one and "The Airlords of Han", in the March 1929 issue of Amazing Stories.  But in between those two stories somebody suggested it might make a good comic strip, so they gave him a nickname and, as Buck Rogers, the rest is history.

I look forward to seeing what people think of the story!

[The Australian Panther]

I look forward to seeing what people think of the story!

So am I! Looking forward to it.
I also see we have an 'Amazing stories' comic book on CB+. All 6 issues
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=1346 

cheers!

[Quirky Quokka]

Thanks OtherEric - I’ve been meaning to read some of these, so this gives me an excuse. Looking forward to getting into it.

Cheers

Quirky Quokka

[OtherEric]

I look forward to seeing what people think of the story!

So am I! Looking forward to it.
I also see we have an 'Amazing stories' comic book on CB+. All 6 issues
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=1346 

cheers!

The comic is actually Amazing Adventures, which mixes the titles of the two SF pulps Ziff-Davis was publishing at the time, Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures.  Ziff-Davis took over Amazing Stories in the late 30's and was publishing it at the time the Amazing Adventures series ran.  A few years after the comic ended, Amazing Stories switched from being a full sized pulp to a digest sized magazine, and the logo on the early digest issues was actually quite similar to the logo on the comic.

And I hadn't made the connection between the comic and the magazine until you pointed it out!

[Robb_K]

So, I was asked to provide a guest entry for the Reading Group this time around, and to mix things up a bit I thought I would try presenting a pulp rather than a comic. The book for this week is the August 1928 issue of AMAZING STORIES. Because of the size of the book and specific story I've chosen, I'm limiting it to just one book.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96311

I'm not sure why the preview has the cover and inside front cover reversed, it looks normal in my reader program.

I want to start by calling your attention to the classic cover by Frank R. Paul, illustrating the first part of THE SKYLARK OF SPACE, the first published story by E. E. "Doc" Smith.  The story has been described as one of the most important and influential science fiction stories ever written by no less an authority than Isaac Asimov, who has identified it as one of the three times in science fiction history when a new writer appeared and almost instantly every other SF writer was trying to catch up with them.  (The other two, incidentally, were Stanley G. Weinbaum with "A Martian Odyssey" and Robert Heinlein, starting with "Life-Line" but more generally everything he produced his first year as a professional.)  Just this story and cover are enough to make this one of the most famous and important SF pulps ever published.

Anyway, that's the bonus reading for this issue, if you feel like it, but nobody actually cares about it compared to the importance of the story we'll be focusing on:  Armageddon- 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan.

Armageddon- 2419 A.D. features the introduction of Anthony Rogers, a man from 1927 who finds himself thrown into suspended animation and wakes up 492 years later.  He only featured in two pulp stories, this one and "The Airlords of Han", in the May 1929 issue of Amazing Stories.  But in between those two stories somebody suggested it might make a good comic strip, so they gave him a nickname and, as Buck Rogers, the rest is history.

I look forward to seeing what people think of the story!

Thanks for guest hosting for us, Eric!  And especially choosing this pulp Sci-Fi story that spawned the Buck Rogers series!  I really enjoy primitive Science Fiction from the genre's early days.  I look forward to reading it.

[Morgus]

Nice to have you back in town, ‘Eric. And it’s great of you to draw our attention to other areas of the site we otherwise probably wouldn’t have got to. I’ve read the LENSMEN series but never got around to SKYLARK, so this was a good intro.

Couldn’t help myself. Had to do the optional SKYLARK first. “Doc” Smith’s work SHOULD have been made into serials, and comics. Armageddon 2419 AD DIRECTLY became what we know as Buck Rogers...complete with Wilma Deering and Rogers sleeping for 500 years. “Lensmen’ got to be an anime feature from Japan in the 80’s, and that’s about it.

Doc had a set style; the heroes were all square jawed big guys who had red headed girl friends and used the slang of the day. This dialogue was seen as authentic for its time. About the only thing not said is ’23 Ski  Doo’ He also was ingenious in coming up with loopholes to excuse his end runs around science. Swashbuckling space opera at its finest. You'll forget this was done a century ago when movies didn’t even have sound yet and guys still sometimes wore top hats and tails. This was the template for a self contained and timeless universe.

SKYLARK’s pace and plot reminds me A LOT of a silent French serial, LES VAMPIRES about a reporter going after a gang of sophisticated crooks. One doggone thing after another. Doc follows Al Capp’s advice of keeping the reader worried and runs the plot well.

Great mindless escape that almost made me look up the next part.

[Quirky Quokka]

Hi everyone

I'm still reading the story, but I was finding the print a bit small. So I went to the Amazon store and got a Kindle copy. I paid the princely sum of less than $1.75 AUD, but I see it is also available for free. So if you have a Kindle, you can get it for free. You can probably do the same for other e-readers, but I only have a Kindle:

https://www.amazon.com/Armageddon-2419-D-Philip-Francis-Nowlan-ebook/dp/B004TS183W/

It will probably take me til next week to finish reading it, but will put some comments up then.

But I thought the box from the editor on the first page was interesting, because it was speculating about how much of this story would turn out to be prophetc. Interesting to ask that question as we're reading.

Cheers

QQ

[Morgus]

Armageddon 2419 A.D., (here after referred to as 2419) comes across to me the same way that the original Tarzan novels do. Everything is so different from what both works evolved into that they have to be taken as separate entities.
2419 reminds me a lot of THINGS TO COME (the movie) with the same kind of social collapse. It veers off into its own storyline and I frankly miss the space opera of what I’m used to BUCK ROGERS being. The dialogue isn’t as ripe as Doc Smiths, and Nowlan has a no-nonsense style that to my mind mimics what a ex military man would write like. It’s a lot bloodier than the comic strip, naturally.
But it moves along at a pretty brisk pace and does make you involved in the inter-gang and inter Army conflicts.
Being a guy who dug Erin Gray in the TV adaptation, this Wilma is a bit of a come down.

Now, I had an advantage...I found the PAPERBACK version of 2419 when I was a kid...its a blend of the original story here and a later story from Amazing in 1929...which reminds me, Q.Q.; the story in SKYLARK is a bit different from the novel than from the magazine. Doc Smith could NOT resist putting in more details at a better pay cheque rate when the publishers came calling.

For me, FLASH GORDON was superior in both comic book and movie form to Buck. Buster Crabbe played both but you had Alex Raymond doing the art for the FLASH strip, and Universal did a better job of doing the most with their budget.

Thanks for the ride in the time machine, ‘Eric.

[The Australian Panther]

Morgus said,

  “Lensmen’ got to be an anime feature from Japan in the 80’s, and that’s about it.   

“Doc” Smith’s work SHOULD have been made into serials, and comics. 

Doc's wife was persuaded to give the rights to Lensmen by a Japanese outfit. She loathed the results and consequently withdrew and locked up all of Doc's work. That's where it remains as far as I know - so no Doc Smith until it goes PD!
See for yourself!
Lensman - Secret of the Lens - 1984 - Full Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2I2P1uNSGU
Lensman: Power of The Lens (1987)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-td8Jp0hJVA
It needs be said that Lensmen is considered to be the primary influence on the 60's and current Green Lanterns. Maybe DC's other Space Police, the Darkstars are closer to the original.       

[OtherEric]

Doc had a set style; the heroes were all square jawed big guys who had red headed girl friends and used the slang of the day. This dialogue was seen as authentic for its time. About the only thing not said is ’23 Ski  Doo’ He also was ingenious in coming up with loopholes to excuse his end runs around science. Swashbuckling space opera at its finest. You'll forget this was done a century ago when movies didn’t even have sound yet and guys still sometimes wore top hats and tails. This was the template for a self contained and timeless universe.

One thing that isn't entirely apparent in Skylark, since it's the beginning of the career, is just how good Doc was at topping himself with more and more advanced tech.  If you get to reading Lensman it's a lot of the fun... the Death Star was Lucas trying to come up with a Doc Smith super weapon. It's a good try but doesn't even come close.  The one everybody seems to remember from the Lensman books is the nutcracker... destroy a planet by teleporting two more planets, both with proper orbital direction, in on either side of a third.

[OtherEric]

Hi everyone

I'm still reading the story, but I was finding the print a bit small. So I went to the Amazon store and got a Kindle copy. I paid the princely sum of less than $1.75 AUD, but I see it is also available for free.

While I recommend reading the scan to get the full effect, if you need the text version Project Gutenberg has you covered right here:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32530

[Morgus]

‘Panther, it’s funny; that Japanese anime is one of my son’s faves. Had to transfer it from VHS to DVD for him. Guess you never know what people are going to think. The VHS still sells briskly on the ‘Bay as there is no DVD that I know of...
I’d heard the thing about Green Lantern before, but still don’t see it. But then again I don’t see Captain Marvel as a rip off of Superman either.
Now if Mrs. Smith wanted to do something REALLY interesting, she should have thought about George Lucas. Frank Herbert was good natured about the duplications between Dune and Star Wars and said Lucas ‘owed him lunch’ for all the similarities to his stuff. I think the wife would have had a strong case too. Lucas might even have to fork over a good wine and dessert.

‘Eric, they used to tell me that Star Wars got made because Lucas was denied rights to Flash Gordon. I always wondered what it would have been like if he had just switched to Lensman. And you’re right. Doc’s doo-dads made the death star look like tinker toys.

[SuperScrounge]

Armageddon - 2419 A.D

Funny how much Wilma calls him "Tony". I read the 1970s book collection of this story and the sequel many years ago and don't remember her ever using his first name. Gonna have to dig out that book and see if it was edited or just my bad memory.
Although mentally imagining her saying 'Buck' instead sounded much more natural. 

I would guess the writer was not familiar with the bends, but as I understand it, Rogers and company should have suffered the effects when they went from the Han building in Nu-Yok to the Swooper five miles up.

The ending seemed a bit rushed with dismissing how easily the Hans weapons will be overcome, while the author presents his thesis on rocket power as Roger's speech, and just a touch of Yellow Peril as they mention wiping the Yellow Blight from the face of the Earth.
So what did happen to the Japanese and Chinese people who were in America before the Han takeover? Did none of them take to the forests and hide like the rest of the Americans? Hmmm...

When reading the book collection years ago I thought the Airlords of Han section was a bit dull what with Rogers being a captive of the Han for a large portion of the story, but rereading the first story I realized that it wasn't really action-packed as a lot of it was about the world of 2419 and how different things were from the world of 1928. So I'm now wondering if I just didn't find the 'world' of the Han as interesting as the 'world' of 25th century Americans?

[OtherEric]

Armageddon - 2419 A.D

Funny how much Wilma calls him "Tony". I read the 1970s book collection of this story and the sequel many years ago and don't remember her ever using his first name. Gonna have to dig out that book and see if it was edited or just my bad memory.
Although mentally imagining her saying 'Buck' instead sounded much more natural. 

As I understand it, the two stories were first released as a single book in 1962, which was slightly edited for formatting but didn't have any actual changes to the writing, this version was reprinted several times through 1976.  After "Star Wars" came out, Ace books hired Spider Robinson to do a revised version of the story, I believe the major changes were to reduce the Yellow Peril elements.  This came out in 1978 and was the version I first read a few years later when I was around 10.  I lost that copy and later got an earlier paperback edition, so I don't know if that version changes the name to Buck.  I'm pretty sure all the 20th century paperbacks do refer to Buck Rogers on the cover.

Once it became clear the story was never renewed, there have been quite a few reprints of the story.  But, since the name "Buck Rogers" came from the comic strip, which was both renewed and still under trademark, I think most of those later reprints haven't mentioned Buck on the cover.

[SuperScrounge]

The Skylark of Space Part 1

The opening of this story reminded me of a number of early comic book stories, but then early comics had a number of sci-fi fans turned writers so this story was probably an inspiration to the writers of those stories.

The explanation of the inter-atomic energy in this story reminded me of the zero-point energy that the ZPMs on Stargate Atlantis used so much. Not sure if the 2 ideas are based on the same ideas, but my eyes glazed over the same way as I tried to make sense of both explanations. (Empty space + hidden energy + ? = power!!!)

Blackie DuQuesne certainly seems like a template for future comic book supervillains. 

I liked the cynicism of Chambers and Schravendyk. Nice to see minions get a personality rather than just do what they're told without question.

"There isn't even a gap in the Periodic System in which it belongs."
Interesting statement as there were several gaps in the system at the time the story was written. Technetium (43) filled in 1937, Francium (87) in 1939, Astatine (85) in 1940, and Promethium (61) in 1945.

Interesting, although weak in parts. I would hope part of his rewriting for book publication was to tighten up some of the weaker parts of the story.

[SuperScrounge]

Once it became clear the story was never renewed, there have been quite a few reprints of the story.  But, since the name "Buck Rogers" came from the comic strip, which was both renewed and still under trademark, I think most of those later reprints haven't mentioned Buck on the cover.

I think it was Flint Dille who renamed him Buck and his estate owned the trademark and the comic strip.

[SuperScrounge]

The Head

Odd story. Some potentially interesting ideas addressed, but not really dealt with. The plot point of the daughter, nothing done with it, she doesn't even appear, completely wasted. The legal issues, talked about, but ultimately shuffled offstage with nothing much done about it. Centuries going by and people regarding the head as a religious-like thing, but not much done with it.
I wonder if this was a filler buy. Hugo had some space in this issue before the deadline and this story just filled it.


Hick's Inventions With A Kick

Cute. Not laugh out loud funny, but lightly amusing.


The Moth

Hadn't heard of this Wells' story before, so was curious to read it.

Interesting. I wondered if Hapley and Pawkins were inspired by any specific scientific feuds or just the more general idea that such feuds did exist. I was also amused that Hapley seemed to want to find a new person to feud with. I've encountered people like that.

[gregjh]

I read "The Head" and my goodness, this is like a prototype of how not to write. It's awful. The writer clearly couldn't decide what style, moral, response or length he was going for. However it was still interesting because I fact-checked the claim that  german scientist performed head transplants on insects in the 30s and it turned out to be true! 
Kudos to the OP for suggesting pulp instead of comics for a nice change. Even when the story is bad, I still enjoy reading it.

[Quirky Quokka]

Armageddon 2419 A.D.

Firstly, thank you OtherEric for bringing this to our attention. I’ve been meaning to read some of the pulp stories and this was a good excuse. I’ve heard of Buck Rogers, of course, but I’d never read any of the comics or seen the movies or TV show, so I really didn’t know anything about him. I thought he was pretty similar to Flash Gordon, but now I can see that they’re quite different, though I’m sure he was changed somewhat when ‘Tony’ became ‘Buck’.

I was interested in the editor’s box on the first page, which included the following: ‘We prophecy that this story will become more valuable as the years go by. It certainly holds a number of interesting prophecies, of which no doubt, many will come true.’

Published as it was between the two world wars, it’s interesting to see that China was predicted to be the main enemy of the future, rather than Russia. China certainly has become one of the world powers, along with Russia and the U.S. Some of the predictions are beyond anything we have, and maybe never will, such as the amazing properties of Inertron and Ultron. But then, new elements with new properties are being discovered all the time, so who knows! But other predictions didn’t go far enough. For example, communication in the 25th century was more advanced than it was in 1928 when this story was published, but doesn’t seem as advanced as our current iPhones.

I also thought it was funny that new names were thought of for the elements, equipment etc; but that people in the 25th century were still called solid 20th century names like Tony, Wilma, Ned, Bill, Bert, Alan and Mort!

Like any sci-fi story, you have to suspend disbelief to enjoy it, and there were some bits that were certainly stretched (e.g., the trails of good guys hanging from the American ships on their way to fight the Han). However, I was amazed at the level of world-building. Nowlan had certainly spent a lot of time working out all the details of his world. It’s really a complete novella rather than a short story.

Now some comments on each chapter. (Includes spoilers)

Foreword

It was an interesting premise that he was transported into the 25th century, not by time travel, but as a result of being in a state of suspended animation for hundreds of years following a cave-in. Therefore, there is no chance of him returning to his own time and he has to make the most of it.
I must admit, I did pause over the line, ‘I awoke to find the America I knew a total wreck’, but I’ll just let that one go through to the keeper (Australian slang that means you’ll just let something sit there and not discuss it). 

Ch 1 – Floating Men

Interesting that the author took into account how the nuances of language would have changed (e.g., ‘exchange’).
The full-page illustration on p. 423 made me smile. Are the little figures up in the clouds meant to be the floating men, or have they just been shot out of that rocket gun?

Ch 2 – The Forest Gangs

Interesting speculation that there was another war after WWI and that ‘nearly all of the European nations had banded together to break the financial and industrial power of America’.
Illustration on p. 427 – Where can I buy an inertron belt and a rocket gun? Great for ComicCons.

Ch 3 – Life in the 25th Century

Love the title ‘Psycho Bosses’. I’m sure a few people could testify to already having those in the 20th and 21st centuries. 

Ch 4 – A Han Air Raid

I thought they had a pretty ingenious solution to bringing down the Han ship. And my goodness, didn’t Tony and Wilma have a whirlwind romance, with Tony lamenting that, ‘In the morning, we found little time for love making’. Though I know from all those good ol’ Andy Hardy movies with Mickey Rooney, that the term ‘making love’ used to just mean flirting or wooing.

Ch 5 – Setting the Trap

Tony says that the Han ‘were physically far inferior to the Americans, for they lived lives of degenerative physical inertia, having machinery of every description for the performance of all labor, and convenient conveyances for any movement of more than a few steps’. Nowlan died in 1940. I wonder what he would have thought if he’d lived to see what we have now? He didn’t have to wait until the 25th century.

Ch 6 – The ‘Wyoming Massacre’

It did slow down a bit with all the retelling of what was in the Han report. Probably not necessary to go into that detail when we already knew more or less what had happened, though I guess we’re getting it from the other perspective.

Ch 7 – Incredible Treason

How did Tony and Wilma find time to marry and have a honeymoon in amongst everything else that was happening? And good for Wilma in knowing she was the real boss at home regardless of what the Big Boss’s records said. Tony doesn’t seem to raise any objection, so good for him too.

Ch 8 – The Han City

How did Wilma survive for hours in a supply case while they were in the air? Would the Han really not light the top of the central tower? What if one of their own ships ran into it?
Favourite quote – ‘Closely bunched and treading as lightly as only inertron-belted people could, we made our way …’ 

Ch 9 – The Fight in the Tower

I’m not sure that I quite followed it all, but good action, and lucky that Wilma brought those Dope cans.
And of course it would be easy to overcome the Han. It had taken them 500 years to develop what amounted to a sophisticated telegraph operation, yet they still hadn’t discovered the internet!

Ch 10 – The Walls of Hell

Exciting chase.

Ch 11 – The New Boss

‘… the issue was now hopelessly beclouded with clever lies that were being broadcast in an unceasing stream.’ Fake news, anyone? What would Nowlan think of today’s social media?
After Tony was put in charge and lots of roles were reassigned, Wilma was still only his personal assistant. I guess five centuries hadn’t done much for women in leadership.
They must have done away with air sickness in the 25th century, in order for all of those people to happily swing from the swoopers on lines at high altitude and for miles on end. Or did the inertron belts take care of that?
It was pretty unbelievable that they completely restructured their organisation and equipped everyone with all the gear they’d need by that night, not to mention have them all trained in their new roles. But it does keep the story moving along.

Ch 12 – The Finger of Doom

It finishes on the ominous note of America blasting ‘the Yellow Blight from the face of the Earth’. Uncomfortable reading it in our time, but interesting to think about from the perspective of someone writing in 1928.

It leaves itself open for a sequel, so I guess it was easy to adapt to a comic strip. Though I got to the end and wasn’t sure that ‘Armageddon’ had been a suitable title, except in the sense of a fight between good and evil.

Overall

I did enjoy reading this classic sci-fi story. Thanks for choosing it, OtherEric.

Cheers

QQ

[SuperScrounge]

I’ve heard of Buck Rogers, of course, but I’d never read any of the comics or seen the movies or TV show, so I really didn’t know anything about him. I thought he was pretty similar to Flash Gordon, but now I can see that they’re quite different, though I’m sure he was changed somewhat when ‘Tony’ became ‘Buck’.

Became more cowboy-esque thanks to the artwork of Dick Calkins who was a bit of a cowboy himself.

The first year more or less followed the Han plot, then they wrapped it up and I don't we ever heard of the Han afterward. In 1930 the Tiger Men of Mars were introduced and once Buck and company went into space the 25th Century of Nowlan was more or less left behind.

It was an interesting premise that he was transported into the 25th century, not by time travel, but as a result of being in a state of suspended animation for hundreds of years following a cave-in. Therefore, there is no chance of him returning to his own time and he has to make the most of it.

Stan Lee & Jack Kirby "borrowed" the suspended animation aspect when they brought back Captain America in the 1960s.

Interesting speculation that there was another war after WWI and that ‘nearly all of the European nations had banded together to break the financial and industrial power of America’.

I believe this story was published just before the Wall Street crash that put America into the Great Depression. Guess we didn't need Europe to destroy us after all. 

Although your post did remind me of a throwaway bit at the beginning of an anime (Super Dimension Fortress Macross?) where the UN decided that the world would be under one government and all independent governments had to be eliminated so a world army destroyed the United States. (Aside from that disturbing bit of backstory it's an otherwise entertaining story.)

Illustration on p. 427 – Where can I buy an inertron belt and a rocket gun? Great for ComicCons.

A simple Google search? 

Tony says that the Han ‘were physically far inferior to the Americans, for they lived lives of degenerative physical inertia, having machinery of every description for the performance of all labor, and convenient conveyances for any movement of more than a few steps’. Nowlan died in 1940. I wonder what he would have thought if he’d lived to see what we have now? He didn’t have to wait until the 25th century.

The dangers of not getting enough exercise was known about since before Nowlan was born.

I suspect he'd be horrified at Generative AI.

How did Tony and Wilma find time to marry and have a honeymoon in amongst everything else that was happening?

Yes, we really needed a sequence of Tony meeting Wilma's parents, booking a church, and heading off for Niagara. 

And good for Wilma in knowing she was the real boss at home regardless of what the Big Boss’s records said. Tony doesn’t seem to raise any objection, so good for him too.

In Medieval society a Churl was the lowest of the low in society. It was also a nickname for a married man. The idea that women rule the roost is a very old human understanding.

It had taken them 500 years to develop what amounted to a sophisticated telegraph operation, yet they still hadn’t discovered the internet!

Well, to create the internet we needed computers that could connect with each other. There may have been early computers at the time this story is written, but nothing like what was to come.

‘… the issue was now hopelessly beclouded with clever lies that were being broadcast in an unceasing stream.’ Fake news, anyone? What would Nowlan think of today’s social media?

Probably be amazed. I have little idea what the state of computers was in 1928 when he wrote this story so that would be one paradigm shift he'd have to deal with. Also society has moved from the Mass Society (information controlled by the few who decide what's important) to the Network Society (where the internet and cell phones allow anyone to network with others and information flows much more freely).

[Quirky Quokka]

Hi SuperScrounge

Thanks for all of your comments on my comments. I read the extra info with much interest.

Re changes to Buck over the years, you said:

Became more cowboy-esque thanks to the artwork of Dick Calkins who was a bit of a cowboy himself.

The first year more or less followed the Han plot, then they wrapped it up and I don't we ever heard of the Han afterward. In 1930 the Tiger Men of Mars were introduced and once Buck and company went into space the 25th Century of Nowlan was more or less left behind.

Even though I hadn't seen the comic strip, that was the image I had in mind. I thought he travelled through space like Flash Gordon.

Re what Nowlan would think of our advances today, you said:

The dangers of not getting enough exercise was known about since before Nowlan was born.

I suspect he'd be horrified at Generative AI.

Yes, with Generative AI, he wouldn't even have had to write his story. [Me shuddering] It has advantages, but it's also having negative impacts among writers and artists.

Re advances in technology and communication, you said:

Probably be amazed. I have little idea what the state of computers was in 1928 when he wrote this story so that would be one paradigm shift he'd have to deal with. Also society has moved from the Mass Society (information controlled by the few who decide what's important) to the Network Society (where the internet and cell phones allow anyone to network with others and information flows much more freely).

Well, I had to look that up myself. They had computing type machines that could work with numbers, but nothing like we have today. I found this handy timeline via Dr Google:

https://www.livescience.com/20718-computer-history.html

Thanks a bunch

QQ

[crashryan]

Armageddon--2419 A.D.

I confess this was a bit of a slog for me. I had to read it in chunks to make it through. While I have a high tolerance for antique fiction (heaven knows I've read enough of it), early "scientifiction" stories insist on tedious descriptions of future technology with lengthy explanations of how it works--although the technology itself was nonsense in 1929 and remains nonsense today. I offer the process of making cloth literally out of thin air as one example.

I'm not objecting to Nowlan's world-building. Once he lays out the rules by which his Upsydasium functions, he generally plays fair and doesn't ring in new properties halfway through the story to make things come out right. What annoys me is how the technobabble keeps grinding the narrative to a halt. Many explanations could have been covered in dialogue. Many more could have been left out altogether...whether by Buck (oops, Tony) admitting he doesn't know how something works, or by having the entire cast treat it as an everyday thing that doesn't need analyzing.

Between the expository sections are some decent action scenes. The raid on the Han tower is exciting. The detail-heavy war story at the end, not so much. All those decades reading Buck Rogers comic strips conditioned me to think of Buck as a space opera hero, not a military commander.

Nowlan wasn't shy about setting up a sequel, was he?

I really dug Nowlan's description of the effects of the disintegrator beam. The idea that the cylindrical beam would disintegrate the air in its path, creating a strong downdraft, is brilliant. I don't recall any other author addressing that issue.

The virulent racism is par for the course, but it strikes me as odd that Nowlan uses national origin as a determiner of race. Instead of the traditional "white race" the Hans are out to destroy the "American race." Do you suppose there's also a "Canadian race" or a "Chilean race"? Come to think of it, I do remember seeing in old books expressions like, "the Italians are an excitable race." However I don't remember the construct being applied to nationals of predominantly Anglo-Saxon countries.

[OtherEric]

A huge thank you to everybody who took a chance on my rather eccentric choice of subject for the reading group.  I actually chose this one in part because it actually had a couple stories that are at least somewhat still known.  Most pulp fiction of this era is forgotten, with the Golden Age of Science Fiction generally considered to have started several years later in 1939, when three successive issues of Astounding Stories featured the debuts A. E. Von Vogt, Robert Heinlein, and Theodore Sturgeon; with Issac Asimov's first story for Astounding thrown in the first of the three issues for good measure.  The other choice I considered, incidentally, would have been the February 1928 issue of Weird Tales, which had the first publication of "The Call of Cthulhu".  (Side note:  I love that spell checkers actually know the word "Cthulhu".  The geeks have won.)

In regards to the discussion of computers:  it's generally agreed that computers and the internet are the big development that science fiction missed... you can find plenty of stories that have items you can squint at and sort of see, but it was never something that was really developed back then. 

This issue is, incidentally, the most valuable SF pulp, with a high grade copy selling on Heritage a few months ago for over $100,000.  But it's also relatively common as 97 year old books go; I know several people beside myself who own a copy.  (I got crazy lucky finding a lower grade copy cheap several years ago.)

[The Australian Panther]

OtherEric said,

In regards to the discussion of computers:  it's generally agreed that computers and the internet are the big development that science fiction missed... you can find plenty of stories that have items you can squint at and sort of see, but it was never something that was really developed back then.
 

Yeah, No! Thank you for giving me that opening!
There were so many ideas in early science fiction that many were not taken much notice of at the time.
It so happens that in the last fortnight I got a copy of the Isaac Asimov edited 'The great SF stores 8 -1946'
This contains the story, 'A Logic named Joe' by Will F Jenkins. What he calls a Logic, we would call a PC. And he predicts AI! The story deals with the idea, what do you do with an artificial mind that becomes totally independent and how dangerous would it be? Yeah, you are right, this could have been written yesterday! But 1946?!
But there was another story that predicted the PC/Ipad/Smartphone that was written by  Fritz Leiber. Can't remember the name. In this one, humanity becomes addicted to the technology, which they carry everywhere with them on their bodies until the technology becomes independent, comes to see humanity as a parasite, detaches itself and by the thousands fly off into  the sunset. To colonize mars?
While I'm at it, '1946' also contains the story 'Memorial' by Theodore Sturgeon. Been trying to find this one again for decades. Literally.
Alan Moore is a favorite of mine, but. He is a 'post-modern' writer, in that nothing he writes is truly original, He takes things that already exist and works with them in contemporary, surprising and controversial ways. "Watchmen' is a masterpiece in many ways, but I believe that Sturgeon's 'Memorial' is the template for the basic plot device. So I was glad to find it again.
I will comment on the selections before Monday, when there is a change-over and Robb will be with us.
Cheers!       
  .       

[Quirky Quokka]

Crashryan said:

While I have a high tolerance for antique fiction (heaven knows I've read enough of it), early "scientifiction" stories insist on tedious descriptions of future technology with lengthy explanations of how it works--although the technology itself was nonsense in 1929 and remains nonsense today. I offer the process of making cloth literally out of thin air as one example.

I'm not objecting to Nowlan's world-building. Once he lays out the rules by which his Upsydasium functions, he generally plays fair and doesn't ring in new properties halfway through the story to make things come out right. What annoys me is how the technobabble keeps grinding the narrative to a halt. Many explanations could have been covered in dialogue. Many more could have been left out altogether...whether by Buck (oops, Tony) admitting he doesn't know how something works, or by having the entire cast treat it as an everyday thing that doesn't need analyzing.

Crash, I didn't mind it too much in this story, as I expect older books in any genre to have more descriptive passages, though I also liked the action sequences better. However, I know what you mean about getting bogged down in description. I picked up a copy of 'War of the Worlds' in a second-hand shop and enjoyed it in the beginning, but I ended up abandoning it because there were too many boring descriptive passages of what was happening in the English countryside. But maybe if you lived in the UK at the time of publication, it would have been interesting to hear what happened in those different areas. I 'should' pick it up and try again because it's a classic. I have also stopped and started 'The Invisible Man' a few times because it gets bogged down. On the other hand, I really enjoyed 'The Time Machine', so it really depends on the story.

The virulent racism is par for the course, but it strikes me as odd that Nowlan uses national origin as a determiner of race. Instead of the traditional "white race" the Hans are out to destroy the "American race." Do you suppose there's also a "Canadian race" or a "Chilean race"? Come to think of it, I do remember seeing in old books expressions like, "the Italians are an excitable race." However I don't remember the construct being applied to nationals of predominantly Anglo-Saxon countries.

Yes, some of those passages were hard to read with modern eyes, but I guess it fit with the times. Australia had a period in the 1800s when there was fear of the 'Yellow Peril', as Chinese immigrants arrived to try their luck on the goldfields. Then in the 1900s, there was the dubious 'White Australia Policy'. We like to think we're an egalitarian society, but there are still unfortunately plenty of examples of racism. The following timeline from the Australian Human Rights Commission is interesting.

https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-10/02_ahrc_framework_anti-asian_racism_timeline_final.pdf

Cheers

QQ