The Old Solar System

[Tom Hering]

... the list of cute outdated concepts ...

The author of Submicroscopic was S.P. Meeks. Yes, I'm all for a revival of the hollow world tale! Vulcan and a habitable Sun are new to me. And the only time I've run across flame beings they were, if I remember correctly, Venusians - in a Space Kingsley Annual I used to own. (It was filled with wonderful artwork. I wish I still had it.) One source for old concepts might be Brian Stableford's Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia (2006).

 

[Zendexor]

The author of Submicroscopic was S.P. Meeks. Yes, I'm all for a revival of the hollow world tale! Vulcan and a habitable Sun are new to me. And the only time I've run across flame beings they were, if I remember correctly, Venusians - in a Space Kingsley Annual I used to own. (It was filled with wonderful artwork. I wish I still had it.) One source for old concepts might be Brian Stableford's Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia (2006).

Edmond Hamilton wrote a story about solar flame beings visiting Mercury, but I have forgotten its title, and forgotten which anthology it's in. Some time I must take a few weeks off and index the stories in my anthologies...
You mention the artwork in the book you used to have. It would be great to have a collection of OSS depictions. The character of such pictures seems to be unrecapturable now. Not exactly naive art but innocent art, if I may coin such a phrase - art that sincerely expresses what used to be thought of as real. Some pictures in the old Arthur Mee Children's Encyclopaedia were like that, but I suppose it can't be done now; the ingredient of belief is no longer there. I remember a lunar scene with jutting jagged mountains, unlike the rounded ones we now know exist on the Moon. The picture expressed an utter desolation and differentness. And my 1958 Pictorial Encyclopaedia has a lunar scene bathed in blue Earthlight as seen through the oval window of a spaceship: a beautiful picture which probably on its own was enough to enrapture my six-year-old self and determine the development of my imagination.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Jerome Bixby's short story, The Holes Around Mars (1954)

I've read it now.
I think I must have read it years ago in an Anthology. Seems familiar.
Also appears to violate physics. Perhaps not meant to be taken too seriously.

EE 'Doc' Smith in early books has Iron as fuel. Must be least likely thing unless you have Anti-iron too! I can't believe he didn't know it and like Jerome Bixby was having fun.
All earlier elements can give up energy via fusion to become Iron. All later elements can become Iron via fission.

 

[Tom Hering]

Also appears to violate physics. Perhaps not meant to be taken too seriously.

Well, it's a story by Bixby, who wasn't exactly a hard SF writer, and it appeared in Galaxy, which wasn't exactly a hard SF magazine. (Bixby was also editor of Planet Stories for a couple of years.)

 

[Extollager]

It would be great to have a collection of OSS depictions. The character of such pictures seems to be unrecapturable now. Not exactly naive art but innocent art, if I may coin such a phrase - art that sincerely expresses what used to be thought of as real. Some pictures in the old Arthur Mee Children's Encyclopaedia were like that, but I suppose it can't be done now; the ingredient of belief is no longer there. I remember a lunar scene with jutting jagged mountains, unlike the rounded ones we now know exist on the Moon. The picture expressed an utter desolation and differentness. And my 1958 Pictorial Encyclopaedia has a lunar scene bathed in blue Earthlight as seen through the oval window of a spaceship: a beautiful picture which probably on its own was enough to enrapture my six-year-old self and determine the development of my imagination.

Oh, yes, yes. For me, the book was Roy Gallant's Exploring the Planets from the early 1960s (a copy of which I acquired, many years later, as a library discard). There's a picture of Saturn as seen from Titan that's probably borrowed from Chesley Bonestell -- fascinating imagery for a young boy. This book plus the book(s) with illustrations taken from the Zallinger dinosaur mural at the Peabody Museum would do much to turn the susceptible youngster into a proto-sf fan.

 

[Zendexor]

Oh, yes, yes. For me, the book was Roy Gallant's Exploring the Planets from the early 1960s (a copy of which I acquired, many years later, as a library discard). There's a picture of Saturn as seen from Titan that's probably borrowed from Chesley Bonestell -- fascinating imagery for a young boy. This book plus the book(s) with illustrations taken from the Zallinger dinosaur mural at the Peabody Museum would do much to turn the susceptible youngster into a proto-sf fan.

Wow what pics. Thanks for showing them. Do you have anything on the traditional Twilight-Belt Mercury? In my opinion, the demise of that idea provides the saddest contrast between the OSS and the New Solar System (NSS).

 

[Extollager]

Seems to be no twilight-belt Mercury illustration in Gallant's book...

 

[Zendexor]

I love the Lewis space trilogy -- suffused with sense of wonder and poetic feeling; I've returned to them for over 40 years.

And I like this Old Solar System thread well. I was initiated into the genre as a boy by books such as Donald Wollheim's planetary-tour thriller for youngsters, The Secret of the Ninth Planet, an entry in the Winston sf juveniles series.

On the subject boyhood reading - did you encounter the Hugh Walters books? Starting with Blast Off At Woomera in 1957. Quite realistic for the time. Some (like Operation Columbus, about the first Moon voyage) are a lot better than others. The comparatively realistic tone makes the series a kind of bridge between the OSS and the NSS. Walters portrays life on Mars and Venus (plus something inimical on the Moon, a form of life whose origin is left unexplained) but it is all far from the science fantasy feel of Bradbury / Burroughts / Brackett.

 

[Zendexor]

While I appreciate it's not really what you are driving at, there are a number of good solar system exploration and settlement books being written, and I think some of these manage to carry on the charm and wonder that the OSS books perhaps had (at least partially). I'm thinking particularly of Ben Bova's Grand Tour novels. Have you read any of these and how do they stack up in comparison with the Bracket/Burroughs style of OSS exploration? My feeling is that, in examples like Jupiter, there may be similarities, given Bova basically made stuff up about life in the thick gases on the planet, and made it an entertaining, if not entirely plausible ride.

I plan to read the Kim Stanley Robinson Mars trilogy as soon as I can get hold of the first volume (I have the 2nd and 3rd). And I suppose that once day reality may be nudged to converge with the OSS, if for example entrepreneurs create Barsoomland as a tourist attraction, with genetically engineered thoats, green men, etc. Of course unless the past can be changed retrospectively, it won't be as genuine as the 'real' thing. But who knows? It might get out of control, like Jurassic Park. Now there's a plot...

 

[Extollager]

Hugh Walters' name sounds familiar, but I didn't read his books. The sf books that I read as a boy, before 1969 or so, might include Wollheim's Secret of the Ninth Planet and perhaps another, Del Rey's Outpost of Jupiter, Silverberg's Conquerors from the Darkness and Time of the Great Freeze, Paul Capon's Lost: A Moon, perhaps Wyndham's Day of the Triffids and Kraken Wakes, Wells's War of the Worlds, etc.

 

[Extollager]

The Winston sf books for juveniles sometimes featured an endpaper by Emshwiller that must be added to the Polgreen space art (in Roy Gallant's Exploring the Planets) and the Zallinger dinosaur mural, mentioned above, as traumatically fascinating imagery:

 

[Extollager]

Does anyone else remember this dust jacket for Silverberg's Time of the great freeze?

 

[Extollager]

Dust jacket for Outpost of Jupiter:

 

[JoanDrake]

S. M. Stirling wrote 2 books set in old school Venus (The Sky People) and Mars (In the Court of the Crimson Kings) with fairly modern people and concepts otherwise. I only read the Venus one, it was interesting especially in how Venus' oxygen rich atmosphere affected things.

I read one years ago where Jupiter had the same gravity as Earth due to it's fast rotation, don't know if that would work or not. The idea of the Red Spot being a volcanic caldera which could fit two earths is fascinating

 

[JoanDrake]

In these times, "outdated" is the kiss of death for anyone and anything.

It's not good anytime, but I hope not really so. I read lots of Gutenberg for ideas

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Jupiter had the same gravity as Earth due to it's fast rotation, don't know if that would work or not.

I'm pretty sure that doesn't work!

Lester Del Ray, Robert Silverberg ...

Old covers ...

All yummy.

 

[Tom Hering]

Published in 1951, Kenneth Heuer's Men of Other Planets argued for life throughout our solar system, including Venusians and Martians, of course - but also Lunarians! The book was well received by some scientists, despite its wild speculations about extraterrestrial life, which included thinking and talking trees! (Sadly, I had to sell my copy - along with other SF collectibles - years ago, at a time when I was in need of money.) Review here: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1951PA.....59..284R

Speaking of extraterrestrial life, I had always remembered a picture of aliens that I saw in 1964, in a book that I ran across while participating in my school's Summer reading program at the public library. Just a few years ago, I was finally able to identify the book I remembered, and so was finally able see the picture again for the first time in almost 50 years. It's a Virgil Finlay illustration from Albro Gaul's Complete Book of Space Travel, published in 1956.

 

[Extollager]

The Heuer dust jacket art reminds me of the opening sequence in Out of the Silent Planet.

 

[Zendexor]

S. M. Stirling wrote 2 books set in old school Venus (The Sky People) and Mars (In the Court of the Crimson Kings) with fairly modern people and concepts otherwise. I only read the Venus one, it was interesting especially in how Venus' oxygen rich atmosphere affected things.

I read one years ago where Jupiter had the same gravity as Earth due to it's fast rotation, don't know if that would work or not. The idea of the Red Spot being a volcanic caldera which could fit two earths is fascinating

Jupiter's fast rotation gives an OSS style writer an excuse to lower its surface gravity, and Burroughs used this excuse in "Skeleton Men of Jupiter", but of course you'd have to have a planet spinning really fast for this to make a real difference: the rotation period would have to be in minutes, I should think (like the bizarre giant world in Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity), rather than the 8 or 9 hours for Jupiter. But in OSS style science fantasy, an excuse is fair enough.

 

[Zendexor]

Dust jacket for Outpost of Jupiter:

This Jupiter pic bears some resemblance to the November 1938 cover of Astounding, illustrating a Simak story, "Reunion on Ganymede". I have the picture in my copy of Anthony Frewin's 100 Years of Science Fiction Illustration. I wonder what the Del Rey book is like. Science fiction or fantasy?