Madmen and Moon Cities

Read/Watch 'em In Order #93

Thrilling Wonder Stories (August 1939) finishes off its fiction for this issue with a wonderfully entertaining Space Opera tale titled "Race Around the Moon," written by Otis Adelbert Kline.

A scientific organization holds a contest, offering a million dollar prize to whatever privately owned space ship can be the first to circle around the moon and find out what's on the dark side.  Where a scientific organization gets that sort of money is not discussed. Maybe science is just better funded in the future. Besides, it probably saves money by getting private citizens to make the flight rather than getting government contracters to build them their own ship.

Anyway, Jerry Lee owns the Streak, one of four ships that will take part in the race. This number is quickly reduced to four when the ship piloted by the lovely Risa Gordon stalls out on its launch pad. Not wanting to miss the race, she quickly stows away on the Streak.

What follows is Space Opera done right. Unlike "The Dweller in Outer Darkness," an earlier story in the issue, Kline introduces super-scientific elements without adding unnecessary technobabble to explain or justify it. He trusts his readers to know the genre and simply accept the advanced technology for what it is. Give it a name; siccinctly explain what it does; then move on.

The race gets dangerous when one of the other participants shows he's willing to simply blow his opponents up in order to win. So a race around the moon quickly becomes a race to avoid horrible death.

That by itself would probably make an interesting story. But Kline then throws in another wild element. There's an alien city on the dark side of the moon, exisiting in a crater that holds in a breathable atmosphere. The city is surrounded by a bunch of big volcanos. Except the volcanos aren't volcanos. They are rocket exhaut pipes. The moon is actually a really big space ship.




The Streak lands at the city. Lee and his crew explore, learning that the city was once inhabited by a sort of giant spider-people who died out from a fungal infection they picked up on Earth.

Then the bad guy shows up, takes everyone prisoner and gains control of the big moon rockets. He then declares himself Emperor of the Earth, since he can cause mass destruction just be moving the Moon a little closer or a little farther away.

Lee has to put a stop to this. Fortunately, he has several elements working in his favor. Risa Gordon is playing up to the villain but really working as an inside agent to stop him AND there's a surviving member of the alien spider-people who isn't overly pleased with his home being used as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.

Kline does a nice job of tying all these elements together in an exciting climax, mixing together the science fiction elements and likeable protagonists to give us a lively and boisterious Space Opera.  It's a great ending to a fun issue that reminds us why so many people consider the Pulp Era to be a true Golden Age of storytelling.

You can still access this issue online HERE.

As of writing this (about six weeks before it posts), I'm not sure what I'll pick next for the In Order series. I'll figure out something soon, though.