"The Callistan Menace" by Isaac Asimov

First Publication:  April 1940
Cover Artist:  Binder

Challenges:
Deal Me In Short Story Challenge
42 Challenge 2015
The 2015 Sci-Fi Experience
Vintage Sci-Fi Challenge

First Line:  "Damn Jupiter!" growled Ambrose Whitefield viciously, and I nodded agreement.

The Story Behind the Story

The first story written by the "Good Doctor" (Asimov's nickname) was named "Cosmic Corkscrew".  It was rejected, put in a drawer, and lost during one of the times he cleaned up his desk.  By the time it was rejected, he had already written a second story that he called "Stowaway".  He personally took the story to John W. Campbell's office on July 18, 1938.  According to his diary he received the rejection letter on July 22.  But something was different with this one.  "...it was he nicest possible rejection letter you could imagine."  Campbell told him that the idea was good and the plot was decent.  The dialog and handling were professional but it had an air of amateurishness.  Asimov was told that he just needed some more experience.  This fired up the author.  While "Astounding" was the king of the market, he decided to go to the next best markets ("Amazing Stories" and "Thrilling Wonder Stories").  It was promptly rejected.  Asimov had meanwhile moved on to writing a third story that would quickly go to publication.  The story received a couple of more rejections and it would have died except the science fiction magazine market experienced a boom time.  

New magazines started to appear.  One such magazine, "Astonishing Stories", was edited by a young 20 year old fan who happened to be a friend of Asimov's.  That young fan's name was Frederik Pohl.  On November 17, 1939 Pohl accepted "Stowaway" for the second issue.  Pohl was famous for changing names of stories so "Stowaway" became "The Callistan Menace".  Other famous authors who appeared in this issue are Clifford D. Simak and C. M. Kornbluth.

One of the main characters was named after Isaac's brother Stanley.

The Story

"The Callistan Menace" is a well told tale.  It has what is considered a staple of the field.  Multiple missions have been sent to Callisto.  None have returned.  The latest group is put together and are in transit when they discover a stowaway.  A young boy named Stanley hid on the ship so he could go on an adventure in space.  

The crew lands near one of the previous missions.  Exploratory missions are sent out and disaster strikes.  I don't want to spoil the story for anyone who wants to read "The Callistan Menace" so I will not reveal what happens.  All I will say is that the crew's salvation rests on the shoulders of the young stowaway.

I cannot argue with Campbell's assessment.  It is a professional story that seems to be missing something but is worth reading.  The easiest way to buy it is to pick up the collection "The Early Asimov, or, Eleven Years of Trying".  

If you are a fan of Asimov's work, I would definitely recommend hunting down a copy of this collection.  It is interesting to see him develop as a writer.

Short Story Sunday - Jan. 16, 2011

1. "Dismal Light" by Roger Zelazny

First Printing:  Worlds of IF, May 1968

When I was researching bibliographies for my Roger Zelazny Reading Project, I somehow missed this one. A later search listed this story as the first episode in his “Francis Sandow” series. The series consists of four stories.

1.  Dismal Light (1968) – short fiction

2.  Isle of the Dead (1969) – novel

3.  To Die in Italbar (1973) – novel

4.  Sandow’s Shadow (2009) – outline

I wonder if anyone will take the outline and develop it into a story?

Francis Sandow is in the background for most of this story. As is typical in much of his fiction, Zelazny mixes science fiction and mythological/magical elements.  He takes to heart the Arthur C. Clarke statement that sufficiently advanced science will appear as magic. I like his work because of the way he manages to keep the mystery in his tales of the future. Instead of straight science fiction, I consider much of his work to fall into the science fantasy category. This one contains a person with the power to remold worlds. Is this hard science? No. But this is the background for the story. It is not the main plot. The story is focused on the people and the effects this world creation has on others. The author’s strengths have always been in creating mythological type situations, exploring fantastic worlds, and the characters he has created. The other author who explores lonely characters, similar to Zelazny, is George R. R. Martin.  Martin and Zelazny are very similar in their short fiction writing.

Sandow has created a new world that is being used as a prison. When something appears that is not supposed to be there, humanity has to evacuate the planet. Our protagonist is someone who served their sentence, decided to stay on the planet, and now refuses to leave when the rest of the personnel are taken. He is staying to the end to finish an experiment he is working on. Of course, it turns out that this is not the real reason.

Zelazny does an excellent job of exploring the relationships between the various characters. I do not want to give away any of the surprises so I will not go into a detailed discussion of what the relationships are. Trust me that the author does his usual great job with the story.

Condensing it down to a bullet point list would show the following items.

• A habitable planet created from an inhabitable world

• A person with god-like powers

• The end of a world

• An unexplainable mystery

• The psychology of prisoners

• The politics of blame when things go wrong.

• What a person is willing to risk to meet the person they most need to talk

to.

“Dismal Light” definitely has me interested in reading the rest of the “Francis

Sandow” series.

2.  "The Naked Matador" by Roger Zelazny

First Printing:  Amazing Stories, July 1981

The author explores his non-science fiction influence in this story. If you

changed the final revelation, this story would seem at home along side of the stories of Raymond Chandler. At first, I thought it was a mystery noir tale. The characters are straight from the standard pulp pages of stories like the Hard Case Crime books being published today. A woman helps out a down on his luck drifter who is being pursued by criminals. People die. The mystery is how they are dying. This would make a perfect Twilight Zone episode.

Highly recommended if you enjoy Zelazny’s use of mythology. If you want to read only Zelazny’s science fiction stories, skip this one. “The Naked Matador” is a nice blend of crime noir and mythology.

"The Stainless Steel Leech" by Roger Zelazny

First Printing:  Amazing Stories, April 1963

From looking at this cover you would never know that it contains a Roger Zelazny story.  Later in his career they would put his name on it if he wrote a letter to the editor.  The reason for this was probably because it appeared under the pen name "Harrison Denmark".  His early stories for Amazing appeared under this name.  At the time, readers speculated that "Harrison Denmark" was really Harry Harrison who was living in Denmark at the time.  The name of this story added fuel to this rumor since Harrison was writing the "Stainless Steel Rat" stories.

Zelazny liked working in the science fantasy field.  In this story he combines the traditional end of humanity and robots who inherit our legacy with the fantasy element of vampires.  This is common for the author.  One example would be the combination of alternate worlds with magic in his Amber series.

The mixture works in this story.  The robots inheriting the world from humanity as been done before.  The twist with the vampires is what makes this story different.  When Zelazny does something like this, I don't find myself questioning him. He somehow makes it work.  Part of the success of this endeavor is the way he focus' on the loneliness and friendship experienced by a robot who is an outcast and a vampire who lives in a world where humanity has dies out.

This is another in the long line of recommended Zelazny short stories.