Cosmic Cube

Read/Watch 'em In Order #89

We continue our trip through the August 1939 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories with "Cosmic Cube," a story written by a fan as part of a contest. The author is Graph Waldeyer, who went on to write 4 other published SF short stories during the 1940s. I have no information on how he ended up being named Graph.

"Cosmic Cube" is a neat little story. The protagonist is a scientific genius named Herbert Monroe, who is directly compared to Sherlock Holmes. Monroe is a scientific detective who's "field was the cosmic scene, rather than mundane crime."  So he won't solve your murder, but he will figure out how to save the planet if the need arise. He even has his Watson, a friend named Rob Gilton.

The story is set in a space opera future, in which Earth has waged a successful war against the Venusians. But now there's a bigger threat threatening the planet. A giant cube--as large as a sun--is tumbling towards Earth.

Monroe is the only person who knows how to destroy the cube before the Earth collides with it. But his solution is based on a theory so fantastic that Monroe knows there's a good chance that he'll be dismissed as a madman.

His theory proves to be true, but I don't think I'll even hint at it. The story has a really fun twist to it that I don't want to spoil. You can find the magazine online HERE, so you can read it yourself.

After "Cosmic Cube," there's a surprisingly difficult science quiz. For example:

People living in New York partake of the following velocities:

___ mile per second, due to the diurnal revolution of the Earth.

___ miles per second, due to the annual revolution of the Earth around the sun.

___ miles per second, due to the translation of the Solar System toward Vega.

___ miles per second, due to the rotation of the galaxy.

Gee whiz, the science fiction pulps might have occasionally run silly stories, but no one can say they didn't think their readers were reasonably smart.