World Without Chance Read online

  BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY JOHN RUSSELL FEARN

  1,000-Year Voyage: A Science Fiction Novel * Anjani the Mighty: A Lost Race Novel (Anjani #2) * Black Maria, M.A.: A Classic Crime Novel (Black Maria #1) * A Case for Brutus Lloyd * The Crimson Rambler: A Crime Novel * Death in Silhouette (Black Maria #5) * Don’t Touch Me: A Crime Novel * Dynasty of the Small: Classic Science Fiction Stories * The Empty Coffins: A Mystery of Horror * The Fourth Door: A Mystery Novel * From Afar: A Science Fiction Mystery * Fugitive of Time: A Classic Science Fiction Novel * The G-Bomb: A Science Fiction Novel * The Genial Dinosaur (Herbert the Dinosaur #2) * The Gold of Akada: A Jungle Adventure Novel (Anjani #1) * Here and Now: A Science Fiction Novel * Into the Unknown: A Science Fiction Tale * Last Conflict: Classic Science Fiction Stories * Legacy from Sirius: A Classic Science Fiction Novel * The Man from Hell: Classic Science Fiction Stories * The Man Who Was Not: A Crime Novel * Manton’s World: A Classic Science Fiction Novel * Moon Magic: A Novel of Romance (as Elizabeth Rutland) * The Murdered Schoolgirl: A Classic Crime Novel (Black Maria #2) * One Remained Seated: A Classic Crime Novel (Black Maria #3) * One Way Out: A Crime Novel (with Philip Harbottle) * Pattern of Murder: A Classic Crime Novel * Reflected Glory: A Dr. Castle Classic Crime Novel * Robbery Without Violence: Two Science Fiction Crime Stories * Rule of the Brains: Classic Science Fiction Stories * Shattering Glass: A Crime Novel * The Silvered Cage: A Scientific Murder Mystery * Slaves of Ijax: A Science Fiction Novel * Something from Mercury: Classic Science Fiction Stories * The Space Warp: A Science Fiction Novel * A Thing of the Past (Herbert the Dinosaur #1) * Thy Arm Alone: A Classic Crime Novel (Black Maria #4) * The Time Trap: A Science Fiction Novel * Vision Sinister: A Scientific Detective Thriller * Voice of the Conqueror: A Classic Science Fiction Novel * What Happened to Hammond? A Scientific Mystery * Within That Room!: A Classic Crime Novel * World Without Chance

  THE GOLDEN AMAZON SAGA

  1. World Beneath Ice * 2. Lord of Atlantis * 3. Triangle of Power * 4. The Amethyst City * 5. Daughter of the Amazon * 6. Quorne Returns * 7. The Central Intelligence * 8. The Cosmic Crusaders * 9. Parasite Planet * 10. World Out of Step * 11. The Shadow People * 12. Kingpin Planet * 13. World in Reverse * 14. Dwellers in Darkness * 15. World in Duplicate * 16. Lords of Creation * 17. Duel with Colossus * 18. Standstill Planet * 19. Ghost World * 20. Earth Divided * 21. Chameleon Planet (with Philip Harbottle)

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940 by John Russell Fearn; Copyright © 2013 by Philip Harbottle

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  DEDICATION

  To the memory of Stanley G. Weinbaum

  INTRODUCTION

  by Philip Harbottle

  The two best-known early science fiction magazine pseudonyms of English writer John Russell Fearn were ‘Thornton Ayre’ and ‘Polton Cross’. The perceived wisdom amongst SF commentators is that both pseudonyms were conceived by Fearn more or less simultaneously in 1937 in order to increase his chances of selling to the American pulp magazines. And further, that initially stories under these names were written in an imitation of the style of the late Stanley G. Weinbaum. Then, when the ‘fad’ for Weinbaum imitations began to die out in the magazines—led by John W. Campbell at Astounding—Fearn changed his style and thereafter wrote under both pseudonyms in his own original style (or rather, two styles.)

  Whilst such a summation is broadly correct, it is actually grossly simplified, and barely hints at the full, quite complicated background story. The full story of Fearn’s Weinbaum imitations is rather fascinating, and has never been fully documented. The present two-volume Borgo Press original set, World Without Chance and Valley of Pretenders, which collects these stories for the first time, is the result of many years of research. It uses primary sources that, collectively, are simply unavailable to other commentators. Most valuably, I been able to draw on information contained in Fearn’s personal prewar and early wartime letters to British SF magazine editor Walter Gillings, and to his friend and fellow author William F. Temple. Additionally, I have complete runs of the early magazines during the period Fearn contributed to them, and I myself have conducted further correspondence with Fearn’s agent at the time, the late Julius Schwartz, and with Geoffrey H. Medley. Medley, who lived near Fearn in Blackpool, was one of Fearn’s closest prewar friends. In his letters to magazine editors, Fearn had claimed that ‘Thornton Ayre’ was actually one Frank Jones, who was initially resident in the same house as Medley!

  In October 1952, some five years after the last Thornton Ayre story had appeared, Fearn gave a speech as Guest of Honour at a Manchester SF Convention. He was then questioned about his pseudonyms and asked directly as to whether he was ‘Polton Cross’ and ‘Thornton Ayre’. He readily confirmed he was Cross, but had apparently replied that he was not Ayre, and that the name belonged to a friend of his, Frank Jones! His talk was reported in a couple of UK fanzines, the most detailed account appearing in Camber No. 1 (1953), written by attendee H. P. ‘Sandy’ Sanderson. Speaking about the Ayre byline, Sanderson wrote:

  “Reverting back to pen names, he does insist that Thornton Ayre is not one of his. Apparently it belongs to a friend of his, Frank Jones. Mr. Jones does a lot of travelling, and he leaves his MSS with JRF. Publisher’s sending cheques to JRF’s house must have assumed he was Thornton Ayre.”

  We can’t know if Sanderson’s account was entirely accurate, but the salient fact was certainly confirmed in a concurrent report in another fanzine by the Liverpool fan Group that stated: “Polton Cross is one of his pseudos, but Thornton Ayre, it seems, is not.”

  But if Fearn’s remarks were correctly reported, it seems clear that he was speaking with his tongue very firmly in his cheek, and was just pulling the legs of his audience, for he most assuredly was Thornton Ayre! It would seem that Fearn could never quite get over the fact that his secret authorship could have been exposed when the Thornton Ayre byline had in fact been invented and used by someone else!

  But who was this Frank Jones? Did he really exist? Hitherto, no SF historian or commentator has ever troubled to find out. The assumption has been that he did not exist.

  In point of fact, Temple’s correspondence in the late 1930s contained many letters actually signed ‘Frank Jones’, and claiming to be that separate person, By then Jones was no longer living at the same house as Geoff Medley, and the letters to Temple gave his address as that of Fearn—Jones was now allegedly lodging at Fearn’s home!

  Recalling these letters from Thornton Ayre (which he generously allowed me to copy), Temple told me: “…Jack kept trying to kid me he was really another person. I didn’t believe it…but I played along with him for the fun of it.”

  In his first letter to Fearn’s alter ego Frank Jones (Thornton Ayre) in December of 1939, Temple touched briefly on the personal side:

  “Re you being Jack—Jack has told me you are not, and I’m quite willing to believe him. In fact, I’m sure that Thornton Ayre and JRF are too different personalities. I do not pursue inquiries as to whether Jack is schizophrenic or not; his business is his business and not mine, or anyone’s. All I know is that he is a decent chap himself, generous and helpful to those who cannot be helpful to him; and an unfairly maligned author. I hope you won’t think it is flattery if I say that your letter shows traces of this same unasked-for generosity too. To continue this psycho-analysis, I’d say that this generosity is not a weak point because you both have hard business heads (which I definitely have not) and have it well under control.”

  And to add to the mystery, Walter Gillings’ earlier 1936-1938 editorial correspondence details separate story submissions from a Frank Jones, sent from a different addr
ess than Fearn’s!

  So how to reconcile the above with the fact that all of the published Thornton Ayre stories were all quite definitely written entirely by Fearn? My own careful analysis of the style of the Ayre stories—and much more significantly, the fact that years later Fearn would “mine” many of these stories and incorporate them, in adapted form, into his own novels, not to mention his reprinting several of them in the British Science Fiction Magazine in 1954-55, after he became its editor, have established Fearn’s sole authorship beyond all reasonable doubt. And the only story actually published under the name Frank Jones (“Arctic God”, Amazing Stories, May 1942) was also definitely 100% by Fearn. So…was there really anyone called Frank Jones? And what was his connection with ‘Thornton Ayre’? I have now uncovered the answer to that question.…

  Around 1935, Fearn had become a member of the Blackpool Writers’ Circle, one of the many regional writers’ club support groups which flourished in England, and who were the target audience for Hutchinson’s national monthly magazine The Writer, which gave them publicity and regularly printed the addresses of their Secretaries. The first Secretary and founder of the Blackpool group was Miss Margaret Dulling, who was later to become a very successful romantic novelist, writing as Margaret St. John Bathe. Two young sisters, Doris and Muriel Howe, also became prolific romantic novelists. Yet another successful romantic novelist to emerge from the Circle was Iris Weigh. Iris became a particularly close friend of Fearn’s, and when he founded a rival Circle, the Fylde Writing Society, after the war, she moved to join him there.

  Because of his rapid success in the American pulps, Fearn soon became a leading light in the Blackpool Circle, and he would have been friendly with one Frank Jones, who took over the Circle’s Secretarial duties in January 1937. The evidence for this can be found in the contemporaneous issues of the magazine The Writer, which announced that Frank Jones was now the Secretary, and gave his address as 51 Cheltenham Road, Blackpool—totally separate from Fearn’s address at 164 Abbey Road, Blackpool. So Frank Jones was a real person, and a writer.

  On 7th September 1936 Gillings had informed Fearn that he had been secretly given the go-ahead by the World’s Work publishers to prepare a trial issue of a new British science fiction magazine, Tales of Wonder. Secretly, because a rival publisher, Newnes, was also preparing a new SF magazine, Fantasy. Jones had then been encouraged by Fearn to try his hand at writing science fiction short stories, with Fearn subbing and revising his mss.

  Frank Jones’ first story was submitted to Gillings on 18th September 1936 on his behalf by Fearn. His covering letter to Gillings read:

  “Herewith is Frank Jones’ ‘Mr. Podmore Does It,’ written under the name of ‘Briggs Mendel’. I’ve read it through and made one or two minor pen corrections. Personally I don’t think it half bad. If you can give him a break any way it will encourage him a lot. He has other Podmore stories, which he intends to work on. I feel, and maybe you will too after you’ve read it, that a series of this quaint little gentleman will interest British readers quite a lot. Enclosed also is one of mine which I came across. ‘Planet X,’ refused recently by Thrilling Wonder Stories as not quite convincing enough, but would, I feel make a good English one.”

  Gillings was told to reply to Jones direct concerning his story. Gillings, however, had very rigid editorial criteria—he was reluctant to use anything that was too imaginative or took SF tropes for granted, in the style of the US pulps, He rejected and returned Jones’ first story.

  On 27th January 1937, Fearn sent the following ‘Flash’ to Gillings:

  “Thrilling Wonder Stories have accepted my ‘Lords of 9016.’ Frank Jones, whom you met in London, is writing science fiction under the name of ‘Thornton Ayre’ (and this name only must be used in publications, not his own.) Julie [Schwartz] thinks he has promise. He tells me that he’s just done ‘Little God’, after his first, ‘Composite Man’, failed. Oddly enough, Julie believes he might click. Will send you his address when he gets it fixed. Like me he is in removal at the moment.”

  On 22nd February 1937, Fearn again told Gillings:

  “Now here’s something else. I spent Saturday evening with Frank Jones—or, as he calls himself for fiction—Thornton Ayre. So his name won’t leak out and perhaps queer his pension for an accident of long ago, I suspect. Anyway, I do believe I had that guy all wrong! He can write SF! His latest story, ‘Dark World’, is in my opinion a corker with real thought-variant slants. Can it be that a rival grows on my own doorstep? Anyway, I’ve suggested that he write to you so perhaps he did so over the weekend. In any case—confidentially—though he seems a bit odd on the surface, he certainly knows how to slap words together. I’m very surprised to find he really knows his stuff. Unless I’m mistaken he will click before long.”

  On 4th March 1937 Gillings told Fearn that Frank Jones had indeed contacted him direct, and he was intending to give him a write-up in the next edition of his printed fanzine Scientifiction. Sure enough, there was an announcement in the magazine’s second, April 1937 issue:

  “Another newcomer to fantasy field is Thornton Ayre, Blackpool protégé of John Russell Fearn, who predicts he will burst into print shortly with thought variant, ‘Dark World’, following inevitable rejections of first efforts.”

  On 24th April 1937, Fearn told Gillings in another letter:

  “Here’s another secret—for you ALONE and not for any publication. Schwartz has suggested, in view of my turning out work so fast as Fearn, that I become somebody else with a totally different style, different typewriter, different paper and what not. So I have become Polton Cross (a village two miles out of Blackpool) and have turned out two yarns on the Weinbaum style, namely ‘World Without Chance’ (10,000 words) and ‘Outpost’ (6,000). If these yarns do click, I defy you to tell it’s me, so totally new is the arrangement of the ideas. The idea being, of course, that Fearn and Cross can click simultaneously and double my chances all round.

  “I’ve only told Frank Jones about World’s Work—and your secret is safe with him. He wants to know if you’d like to see some of his work? Carbons, I suppose. Maybe he’ll write you himself, but if not perhaps you’ll tell me and I’ll relay it. He’s rather a dilatory letter writer. He’s down in the mouth too because he hasn’t clicked over the ocean so far.”

  In the ensuing months, from time to time, Jones tried Gillings again, but without success. In order to try and help his friend, Fearn’s revisions to his mss. became more and more extensive, so much so that Gillings actually doubted whether Frank Jones actually existed; he suspected that the prolific Fearn (who was himself submitting stories unsuccessfully to Gillings under his own name) was using a pseudonym to increase his chances of success.

  In this Gillings was initially quite mistaken. Frank Jones was a member of the Blackpool Writers Circle. But the overly-suspicious Gillings remained intractable. He remained equally so when Fearn began to submit mss. by his other friends in the Blackpool Circle, Edgar Spencer and Geoffrey Medley.

  On 26th May 1937 Fearn wrote Gillings again:

  “You’ll find an MS herewith from Geoff Medley. He lives at the same house as Frank Jones, and, to my mind, has turned out a fairly decent English or Amazing type sf yarn. I suggested he might try you before Amazing and see if you could find room anywhere in a future edition of Tales of Wonder for him. I’ve enclosed a stamped envelope for him. Please write to him direct. Don’t be too hard on the guy. He spent all his Whit Weekend typing on this machine (which he borrowed) in order to complete the yarn. If you think anything of it, OK. No business of mine.”

  But Gillings would reject this story, plus Medley’s follow-up effort, “Carcinoma Menace”.

  On June 10th 1937 Fearn reported to Gillings:

  “Julie thinks that ‘World Without Chance,’ Cross’ first effort, is a first class effort and remarkably like Weinbaum. Same applies to ‘Chameleon Planet,’ which I’ve just completed. If Cross should prove more of a hit than Fearn I’ll
be tickled to death!”

  Fearn wrote to Gillings again on 19th June 1937:

  “I saw Frank Jones the other day and so far his yarns haven’t clicked in the US, because they’re too simple. I’ve read them through and I think they’re pretty good for England. I’m attaching their synopses also. If you think them worthy I’ll get him to send them on.”

  I managed to trace and contact Geoffrey Medley a number of years ago, and he told me how he had come to know Fearn:

  “Fresh from school at the age of fourteen, I reported to 15, Birley Street, Blackpool, to take up the duties of junior office boy to the pompous Mr. John W. Roberts, Solicitor, Town Councillor and drunkard.…”

  Geoff went on to identify the other staff members, including the senior office boy, the common law clerk, the secretary and cashier. He continued:

  “…During my five years at Birley Street (we moved from No.15 to No.16, across the road) other junior office boys came and went.… It was some time before I came to know the part-time typist. Full-time there was Marjorie Nixon, plus another girl whose name I forget. But this man was of another world. He showed no knowledge of law, no interest in the clients at the practice, and he seldom spoke to anybody. At irregular intervals he just was there, hawk-nosed, smouldering-eyed, apparently unaware of his surroundings. Usually a cigarette dangled from one corner of his mouth, and one eye was half-closed against its rising smoke, as two fingers of each hand pounded the keys of the big, brief-carriage typewriter, churning out abstracts of Title—long, rambling documents—faster than the girls could type with five fingers, and faster than I have ever heard a man type.

  “This was John Francis Russell Fearn.

  “Gradually 1 came to know that he did our typing jobs just to eke out, and that his main occupation was writing magazine stories. This was exciting news to a boy who had always been top of his classes in English and who vaguely felt that his own best hope of success was to be a writer. And when Jack learned this he was more than helpful. I came to know Amazing Stories and Astounding Stories, and his contributions to them.…