Plot
The story, divided into short, numbered "episodes" rather than chapters, is presented as a "story about Nikola Tesla" recounted by Richard Feynman to a group of other Manhattan Project scientists in the wake of World War II. It involves the efforts of a similar think-tank, the Kamikaze Group, to uncover the secret of a rumored "super-weapon" Tesla had developed before his death, one supposedly responsible for the mysterious Tunguska explosion of 1908. Feynman makes no claims for the tale's veracity, a caution warranted at the end of the book when his informant is revealed to have been pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard, a participant in the novel's events portrayed as a self-promoting, delusional narcissist.
Malmont bases the Kamikaze Group on the trio of science fiction writers, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp and Isaac Asimov, who in actual history spent most of the war doing aeronautical engineering research for the U.S. Navy at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard's Naval Air Experimental Station. He portrays them as engaged in a joint project there to develop super-scientific weapons to help the U.S. win the war, though in reality they worked separately on technical improvements to airplanes and weapons systems. Heinlein leads the fictional project, which also draws on the assistance of other pulp authors of his acquaintance, most notably Hubbard, Walter B. Gibson, and Lester Dent, with cameo roles by John W. Campbell, Norvell Page, Hugh B. Cave, Frederik Pohl, Cleve Cartmill, Kurt Vonnegut, Judith Merril, and Ray Bradbury. Additional historical luminaries such as Jack Parsons, Albert Einstein and Jimmy Stewart also put in appearances.
After Tesla's mysterious death the military raids his apartment and confiscates his papers, spurred by apparent German interest in his discoveries. Heinlein is charged with investigating the supposed "wonder weapon" referred to in the papers. Together with de Camp, Asimov, Hubbard and Gibson he explores a sub-basement of the Empire State Building where Tesla had left some of his equipment, and is almost trapped there by an unknown adversary. Further inquiries take the core group to the former site of Wardenclyffe Tower, the inventor's wireless transmission facility in Shoreham, New York, which apparently doubled as the "sending" component of the weapon. Afterwards Hubbard is sent first to the Aleutian Islands and then the South Pacific to retrieve the receiver, while Asimov is put in charge of securing the capacitors needed to make the transmitter work.
Meanwhile, government goons are investigating the group itself, alarmed by the publication of Cartmill's story "Deadline," with its all-too accurate description of a nuclear weapon similar to that being developed by the Manhattan Project. Their brutal interrogation of Heinlein is interrupted by a deadly phone call via which they are somehow electrocuted in the same fashion as Tesla. Matters come to a head as the Kamikaze Group seemingly makes good a promise to "make a ship disappear" (a nod to the "Philadelphia Experiment" urban legend), while Heinlein, convinced that time is running out, works with Tesla's ex-assistant at a duplicate of Wardencyffe Tower to make the wonder weapon functional. Once it is activated the assistant reveals himself as the group's prime adversary, and nearly succeeds in killing the group members before falling to his death in the pits beneath the tower.
After the villain's defeat the military shuts down the Kamikaze Group. Heinlein is disheartened to discover that his group was conceived and regarded as a mere blind to distract the Axis powers from the U.S.'s real super weapon effort—the Manhattan Project. His assertions of the reality of Tesla's weapon fall on deaf ears.
Much later, Hubbard, returning to the U.S. after the war, learns what has become of his former compatriots, encounters Feynman, and tells him the story.
Reception
Michael Dirda, writing for The Washington Post , feels the novel "never quite lives up to its title. It opens slowly, breaks up its narrative among too many different characters and plot lines, and is unpersuasively framed as a story related by physicist Richard Feynman. Frequent comic episodes, some verging on slapstick, don't wholly come off. Nor are the big scenes - involving secret tunnels underneath the Empire State Building or the final showdown at Tesla's Tower - altogether fresh. I couldn't follow much of the science, and Hubbard's feverish dreams reminded me of accounts of bad LSD trips." He concludes, however, that "if you're already a fan of any of the writer-heroes of this novel, you'll probably be irresistibly drawn to The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown. And the book does have some good moments. It's almost worth reading just to arrive at the pronouncement: 'Oh my God! . . . You've vaporized Isaac Asimov!'" [2]
Rege Behe in the Pittsburgh Tribune calls the book "humorous and clever, . . . an opus waiting for Hollywood to call." In reference to the book's title he notes that it "is all of those things, a joyous romp grounded in the golden age of science and pulp fiction in the 1940s. The author's cast . . . are wonderfully realized." [3]
Paul Di Filippo in The Speculator "applaud[s] its vigorous storytelling and historical acumen," calling the book's style "by turns analytical, journalistic, affectionate, elegiac, philosophical, and, well, pulpish. [Malmont] reconstructs his characters and their era with historical fidelity and empathy without feeling chained to total textbook accuracy . . . [blending] verisimilitude with outlandish blood-and-thunder action" in a "seething scrum of high-minded conversation and low-down deeds . . . Malmont plainly has a blast recreating this dangerous, promising era and putting its inhabitants through their larger-than-life paces." Di Filippo does twit the author for his anachronistic use of the term "sci-fi," not coined until the late 1950s, but feels that "[t]aken all in all, the book delivers both thrills and meditative reflections on the writerly condition." [4]
The book was also reviewed by Amy Goldschlager in Locus , no. 612, January 2012.
John Wood Campbell Jr. was an American science fiction writer and editor. He was editor of Astounding Science Fiction from late 1937 until his death and was part of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Campbell wrote super-science space opera under his own name and stories under his primary pseudonym, Don A. Stuart. Campbell also used the pen names Karl Van Kampen and Arthur McCann. His novella Who Goes There? was adapted as the films The Thing from Another World (1951), The Thing (1982), and The Thing (2011).
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction. His published works, both fiction and non-fiction, express admiration for competence and emphasize the value of critical thinking. His plots often posed provocative situations which challenged conventional social mores. His work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre, and on modern culture more generally.
Lester Dent was an American pulp-fiction writer, best known as the creator and main writer of the series of novels about the scientist and adventurer Doc Savage. The 159 Doc Savage novels that Dent wrote over 16 years were credited to the house name Kenneth Robeson.
John Stewart Williamson, who wrote as Jack Williamson, was an American science fiction writer, one of several called the "Dean of Science Fiction". He is also credited with one of the first uses of the term genetic engineering. Early in his career he sometimes used the pseudonyms Will Stewart and Nils O. Sonderlund.
In American science fiction of the 1950s and 1960s, psionics was a proposed discipline that applied principles of engineering to the study of paranormal or psychic phenomena, such as extrasensory perception, telepathy and psychokinesis. The term is a blend word of psi and the -onics from electronics. The word "psionics" began as, and always remained, a term of art within the science fiction community and—despite the promotional efforts of editor John W. Campbell, Jr.—it never achieved general currency, even among academic parapsychologists. In the years after the term was coined in 1951, it became increasingly evident that no scientific evidence supports the existence of "psionic" abilities.
Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was Weird Tales, which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, about aliens who own the human race. Unknown's first issue appeared in March 1939; in addition to Sinister Barrier, it included H. L. Gold's "Trouble With Water", a humorous fantasy about a New Yorker who meets a water gnome. Gold's story was the first of many in Unknown to combine commonplace reality with the fantastic.
A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard-copy periodical format or on the Internet. Science fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, novella or novel form, a format that continues into the present day. Many also contain editorials, book reviews or articles, and some also include stories in the fantasy and horror genres.
The Golden Age of Science Fiction, often identified in the United States as the years 1938–1946, was a period in which a number of foundational works of science fiction literature appeared. In the history of science fiction, the Golden Age follows the "pulp era" of the 1920s and 1930s, and precedes New Wave science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s. The 1950s are, in this scheme, a transitional period. Robert Silverberg, who came of age in the 1950s, saw that decade as the true Golden Age.
Cleve Cartmill was an American writer of science fiction and fantasy short stories. He is best remembered for what is sometimes referred to as "the Cleve Cartmill affair", when his 1944 story "Deadline" attracted the attention of the FBI by reason of its detailed description of a nuclear weapon similar to that being developed by the highly classified Manhattan Project.
The Mañana Literary Society was an informal meeting of science fiction writers in Los Angeles, California. Hosted by Robert A. Heinlein and his second wife Leslyn at their Laurel Canyon home, the membership included authors such as Anthony Boucher, Arthur K. Barnes, Edmond Hamilton, L. Ron Hubbard, Henry Kuttner, C.L. Moore, L. Sprague de Camp, Cleve Cartmill, Leigh Brackett, Roby Wentz, and Jack Williamson. The young Ray Bradbury, who had not yet made his first story sale, was a guest at one or two meetings. The weekly meetings took place in 1940 and 1941, until the Pearl Harbor attack resulting in the U.S. entering World War II.
Jess Nevins is an American author and research librarian best known for annotated guides and encyclopedias covering Victoriana, comic books, genre fiction and pulp fiction. Among Nevin's books are Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana,Horror Fiction in the 20th Century and Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes. He has been a recipient and finalist for a number of honors, including the World Fantasy, Sidewise, and Locus Awards.
Adventures in Time and Space is an American anthology of science fiction stories edited by Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas and published in 1946 by Random House. A second edition was also published in 1946 that eliminated the last five stories. A Modern Library edition was issued in 1957. When it was re-released in 1975 by Ballantine Books, Analog book reviewer Lester del Rey referred to it as a book he often gave to people in order to turn them onto the genre. It is now once again out of print.
"Deadline" is a 1944 science fiction short story by American writer Cleve Cartmill, first published in Astounding Science Fiction. The story described the then-secret atomic bomb in some detail. At that time the bomb was still under development and top secret, which prompted a visit by the FBI.
Journey to Infinity is a 1951 anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Martin Greenberg. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Astounding SF, Amazing Stories and Future Science Fiction.
Sinister Barrier is an English-language science fiction novel by British writer Eric Frank Russell. The novel originally appeared in the magazine Unknown in 1939, the first novel to appear in its pages. It was first published in book form in 1943 by The World's Work, Ltd. Russell revised and expanded the book for its first US publication by Fantasy Press in 1948. Most subsequent editions were based on the Fantasy Press version.
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, better known as L. Ron Hubbard, was an American pulp fiction author. He wrote in a wide variety of genres, including science fiction, fantasy, adventure fiction, aviation, travel, mystery, western, and romance. His United States publisher and distributor is Galaxy Press. He is perhaps best known for his self-help book, the #1 New York Times bestseller Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, and as the founder of the Church of Scientology.
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled Astounding Stories of Super-Science, the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William Clayton, and edited by Harry Bates. Clayton went bankrupt in 1933 and the magazine was sold to Street & Smith. The new editor was F. Orlin Tremaine, who soon made Astounding the leading magazine in the nascent pulp science fiction field, publishing well-regarded stories such as Jack Williamson's Legion of Space and John W. Campbell's "Twilight". At the end of 1937, Campbell took over editorial duties under Tremaine's supervision, and the following year Tremaine was let go, giving Campbell more independence. Over the next few years Campbell published many stories that became classics in the field, including Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, A. E. van Vogt's Slan, and several novels and stories by Robert A. Heinlein. The period beginning with Campbell's editorship is often referred to as the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Paul Malmont is an American author who has specialized in books considering the style and tropes of popular fiction of the past, making the writers of that popular fiction the heroes and protagonists of his own work.
Science-fiction and fantasy magazines began to be published in the United States in the 1920s. Stories with science-fiction themes had been appearing for decades in pulp magazines such as Argosy, but there were no magazines that specialized in a single genre until 1915, when Street & Smith, one of the major pulp publishers, brought out Detective Story Magazine. The first magazine to focus solely on fantasy and horror was Weird Tales, which was launched in 1923, and established itself as the leading weird fiction magazine over the next two decades; writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard became regular contributors. In 1926 Weird Tales was joined by Amazing Stories, published by Hugo Gernsback; Amazing printed only science fiction, and no fantasy. Gernsback included a letter column in Amazing Stories, and this led to the creation of organized science-fiction fandom, as fans contacted each other using the addresses published with the letters. Gernsback wanted the fiction he printed to be scientifically accurate, and educational, as well as entertaining, but found it difficult to obtain stories that met his goals; he printed "The Moon Pool" by Abraham Merritt in 1927, despite it being completely unscientific. Gernsback lost control of Amazing Stories in 1929, but quickly started several new magazines. Wonder Stories, one of Gernsback's titles, was edited by David Lasser, who worked to improve the quality of the fiction he received. Another early competitor was Astounding Stories of Super-Science, which appeared in 1930, edited by Harry Bates, but Bates printed only the most basic adventure stories with minimal scientific content, and little of the material from his era is now remembered.
Alec Nevala-Lee is an American biographer, novelist, and science fiction writer. He was a Hugo and Locus Award finalist for the group biography Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction. His most recent book is Inventor of the Future, a biography of the architectural designer and futurist Buckminster Fuller, which was selected by Esquire as one of the fifty best biographies of all time. He is currently at work on a biography of the physicist Luis W. Alvarez.
