Aftermath

by John Russell Fearn

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Space Opera

Synopsis

"Suppose the war took a sudden turn for the worse from the scientific point of view? Suppose some bright scientist on the enemy side found a truly terrible weapon?" This was John Russell Fearn's main premise for Aftermath, written two years before the end of the second World War.

Release date: August 27, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 134

Sample

IN the early 1930’s, there were only a very few outlets for science fiction writing, the main one being the American pulp magazines. In one sense, this had a restricting effect, since the stories had to conform to certain pulp conventions, i.e. the need to contain plenty of action, and to be very easy to read. The “literary” side tended to suffer (though there were of course exceptions achieved by a few talented authors and innovative editors). But whatever its literary shortcomings, what was undeniable about the pulp period was that it acted as a hothouse for ideas, and many stories exhibited a real ‘sense of wonder’; there was an agreeable frisson experienced by both author and reader when they realised that they were experiencing something new and innovative.

John Russell Fearn was an English writer, born in 1908. In the 1930’s, he was the only full-time writer of science fiction in the U.K. He wrote most of his many stories for the U.S. pulps, and pioneered many sf ideas and concepts. By 1939 he was so well established in the American pulps that he authored several “how to” non-fiction articles for the UK magazine The Writer. In an article entitled “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Field” (October 1939) he touched on the market for science fiction novels, which was then largely still restricted to magazines. The main market was Startling Stories published by Standard Magazines in New York. A novel written for this magazine “… must have the following ingredients: a brand new scientific idea, logical development, intrigue, thrills, and alive characters. You may go into space, time, or eternity so long as you build a really gripping suspense and remember the thrill-a-second formula.”

Fearn had followed his own advice, and in late summer 1939 he had submitted to Startling Stories three synopses for sf novels, including in particular a novel outline entitled Brief Gods. But by the time editor Mort Weisinger had given Fearn the green light, the second world war had broken out. As a full-time writer, Fearn was initially classified as a “journalist,” which was a reserved occupation, and so he was able to continue with his writing. But in the fraught conditions, he was obliged to concentrate on short stories or novelettes. Brief Gods – the novel chosen by Weisinger – had to be set aside. Before long, as the war intensified, there was a national conscription, but Fearn was exempted on medical grounds, and assigned to “essential war work.” He took a job in an aircraft factory, which inhibited his writing still further. But the situation changed in December 1941 when Fearn received the offer of a job as a cinema projectionist at a local cinema, which he was delighted to accept (the cinema, and actual film projection, had been a lifelong hobby). In a letter to his Canadian friend Leslie Croutch Fearn wrote at the time, “I love this work, and as the reels run – once I’ve seen a show through – I’ve ample time for writing, and the hours are such that I get in 5,000 typed words a day as well.”

As the war developed, Fearn saw that the best prospects for an author would be in the book market, which would be bound to boom after the war, during which time people were starved of reading matter because of paper and other restrictions. He decided to concentrate on novels, and diversified into other literary genres besides sf, including in particular detective fiction. Fearn revised Brief Gods as Aftermath, having rejigged the action to take place immediately following the real-life world war. Writing for Startling’s “Meet the Author” department, Fearn confided: “… Today my activities are somewhat cramped by the grim necessities of war, but I still manage to put something out in the hope that it will entertain. My ambition for many years has been to land a long story in Startling, but somehow I never seemed to get around to it. Yet now, with time limited and the war in full swing, I accomplish it. Which only goes to show that you never can tell! The idea for Aftermath was born first out of a remark by one of our Members of Parliament. Asked about post-war conditions he said in effect that the aftermath of the war was going to be terrible indeed. Then, immediately afterwards, the super-optimists began their publicity about the glorious world we will have after the war, about the Utopian dream garden it will become, how we will kiss our enemies and create a brotherhood of man. Well, that had me puzzled. Bluntly, I didn’t believe it.” That had been written in 1943, after his novel had been accepted by Oscar J. Friend, Weisinger’s editorial successor at Standard Magazines.

That same year (1943) Fearn succeeded in launching his career as a novelist on two fronts in England. World’s Work accepted a number of science fiction novels, with a request for more, and he created two new fictional detectives for Rich and Cowan and Stanley Paul, both imprints of the giant Hutchinson group. All of Fearn’s previously magazine-published sf novels were accepted by World’s Work, together with new novels – including The Golden Amazon (recently a classic reprint from Gryphon Books) which was published in 1944. In June 1944, before Aftermath had appeared in Startling, he revised it slightly by increasing its length, and sold it to World’s Work.

The Golden Amazon was an immediate success (reprint rights quickly being sold to the prestigious Toronto Star Weekly) so World’s Work – still operating under a paper shortage, which persisted until 1953 – concentrated on publishing further “Golden Amazon” novels, and never got around to publishing the two non-Amazon sf novels they had bought. One was Aftermath, and the other was Nine Years Wonder (which Fearn had based on his 1938 Amazing Stories novelette, Secret of the Ring.)

Meanwhile, there was another editorial change at Startling, Sam Merwin succeeding Oscar Friend towards the end of 1944. During the later years of the war, Startling’s frequency had dropped from bi-monthly to quarterly, and the editorial backlog in the novels inventory had built up accordingly. Aftermath did not appear in Startling until the Fall 1945 issue – more than two years after it had been written.

The timing was unfortunate, as the real life war had just ended, invalidating the main premise of Fearn’s novel. Fearn’s comments in Startling’s author department must have read oddly to the magazine’s readers: “Suppose the war took a sudden turn for the worse from the scientific point of view? Suppose some bright scientist on the enemy side found a truly terrible weapon? It could happen – and on this premise I built the idea of Aftermath, imagining the war dragging on through the years because an enemy scientist had happened to find the way to release the overwhelming might of atomic force.

“From that foundation the story developed along the line of pure logic. This or that would be bound to occur, and so gradually I found myself with an interesting problem on my hands … I hope, then, that in Aftermath I have given something new.”

Fearn had assuredly given something new, but the ending of the war and the instant “dating” of his novel meant that it failed to make any real impact.

Editor Sam Merwin gave the novel an impressive introduction: “Have any of you (readers) thought about what the world might become if the war were to continue until 1952? This is the theme of John Russell Fearn in his great novel Aftermath, which holds down the lead spot in the Fall issue of Startling Stories.

“The sudden cessation of a war which had been prolonged and intensified by the discovery and release of atomic power seemed more like the intercession of a divine hand rather than the work of men themselves Lincoln Bax, leader of the world’s democratic forces, could not understand it.

“But great scientist Jan Eberhart and his brilliant assistant, Freida Manhoff, began to realise the truth – that atomic explosions of the war had destroyed a part of the Heaviside layer, causing a new influx of cosmic rays which had stepped up the pace of evolution amazingly.

“To learn the exciting results of this needling of nature and of the ultimate disaster, caused primarily by the revolt of the domestic animals once their intelligence had reached that of pre-stepped-up man and secondarily by some men’s continued thirst for power, you’ll want to read Aftermath. It is John Russell Fearn’s most important story to date.”

Despite this assessment by Merwin (one of the best and most astute editors of his day) the delay in the novel’s publication consigned it to relative oblivion. World’s Work never did publish the novel, and in fact by 1954 they had ceased to publish any fiction at all (although they continued to successfully publish non-fiction for many years). However, as World’s Work had purchased the book rights, Fearn was unable to publish the novel elsewhere (the publisher eventually reverted the rights to Fearn in 1958, but there was no market for it, at least as it stood). In point of fact, Fearn rewrote the novel as a short novelette, changing all of the characters but retaining the basic plot. The contemporary setting was changed to ancient Atlantis. This version appeared under his ‘Vargo Statten’ byline in the February 1954 issue of The Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine, as “Before Atlantis” where it attracted little attention.

The central ideas of Aftermath are especially interesting today because they anticipated by more than 50 years the potential dangers to Earth stemming from mankind’s interference with the balances of nature. The ozone layer absorbs most of the sun’s ultra-violet radiation, acting as a shield. Aerosol sprays and refrigerants, aircraft, and nuclear weapons are now recognised as having yielded chemical agents that are decomposing the ozone in the upper atmosphere, leading to an increase in the destructive ultra-violent radiations reaching the Earth’s surface. Scientists are discovering, more and more, the interdependence and interlocking relationships between even the smallest forms of life and mankind. The risks of ecological disaster are now clearly perceived – which was far from being the case when Fearn wrote his story.

Fearn’s vision of a general increase in the intelligence of all living things, and its consequences based on Darwinian logic, was an influential one. In his detailed analysis of all of the fiction appearing in the magazine, The Annotated Guide to Startling Stories (1986), US fan critic Leon Gammell wrote of Aftermath that it “… is especially interesting as it is a sort of precursor to Poul Anderson’s Brainwave, where a cosmic disaster raises the level of intelligence of every living organism on Earth, even to the lowest amoeba and bacterium. However, Anderson’s novel was mainly philosophical in tone, whereas Aftermath is strictly a wild and woolly thriller, like most of Fearn’s work, ending in a world-wide cataclysm that virtually wipes out all unprotected life on the planet.” I had previously pointed out the parallels with Anderson’s classic in an article in Vector in 1963.

Aftermath was a seminal novel, teeming with ideas. That those ideas are not fully developed in favour of fast action, and that the characters are merely types instead of fully rounded individuals, is a matter of regret. But such was the nature of the pulp novel, containing both strengths and weaknesses.

Also included in this special Gryphon edition is another of Fearn’s contributions to Startling Stories (his final one). “After the Atom” was a short story originally written and sold in 1946, not long after the dropping of the atomic bomb. The lingering after-effects of radiation created by atomic fall-out had not been properly envisaged in science fiction prior to the actual advent of the bomb. Mutated humans were already a stock device of sf writers by 1945, but they had usually been engendered in the laboratory of a mad scientist. After 1945 writers were able to visualise mutations occurring on a global scale as a result of atomic war. Fearn was again in the vanguard and his short story was clearly a re-thinking of the basic theme of Aftermath – the aftermath of atomic war. Fearn’s story did not appear in print until two years after its acceptance, by which time his theme had been anticipated by several authors mostly writing in Astounding Science Fiction. Most notable of these was “Tomorrow’s Children” (1947), Poul Anderson’s first story. But Fearn’s story had an additional speculation which makes it of great interest today.

In “After the Atom” the aftermath of an atomic war is to turn the Earth into a virtual hydrosphere. Oxygen and hydrogen have combined during the radiation onslaught and formed water, burying the continents. Two men, Dr. Salsback and his colleague (the narrator) are caught up in an explosion and blasted through hyper-space to materialise 5,000 years into the future. They are captured by a race of aquatic beings who turn out to be a race of mutated humans. Earlier, Salsback had theorised, then proven, that a certain group of genes was responsible for Man’s atavistic war-like tendencies, and that a combination of radiations, selectively applied, might eliminate the trait. The latest scientific researches into genes, DNA, and RNA are centering on the idea that emotional and behavioural characteristics could be carried in the genes – just as Fearn predicted 50 years ago.

This book is confidently offered for your enjoyment as part of Gryphon Books’ ongoing programme of science fiction rediscoveries, and has again been illustrated by master artist Ron Turner, who is unsurpassed in visualising classic sf themes.

Philip Harbottle

Wallsend

March 1996

The devouring flame of war, kindled first in 1939, seemed inextinguishable. Sweeping first across Poland, then back over Europe itself to engulf the whole continent in ruin and destruction, it was not long before it assumed global dimensions with every nation sacrificed on its evil altar. Gradually, however, defense gave way to aggression and onslaught. The tables were turned, and towards the end of 1944 there was real promise of victory. Then Klenheiner of Europe discovered the fearful po. . .