Kuttner Quest: When the Earth Lived (1937)
The oldest Henry Kuttner story in my library is "When the Earth Lived," published in October 1938's Thrilling Wonder Stories, a month before "The Quest of the Starstone," his famous collaboration with C. L. Moore (whose own debut came in 1933). This is Kuttner before the creation of Elak of Atlantis, a year after the death of Robert E. Howard and seven months from the death of Kuttner's friend and through-the-mail mentor, H. P. Lovecraft.
Of the eleven published stories that preceded "When the Earth Lived," ten were published in Weird Tales. Ten of its predecessors were horror or overtly Lovecraft-inspired mythos tales (with five of those included in 1991's Book of Iod from Chaosium). Only one previous Kuttner story, "Raider of the Spaceways," appears to have been a science fiction story at all (I say "appears" because it has never been republished and I don't have a copy).
So we're dealing with early territory here, both with Kuttner as a writer and specifically with Kuttner trying his hand at science fiction.
Given his subsequent contribution to the genre, Kuttner's turn to science fiction represented a popular and effective transition. "When the Earth Lived" remained a fan-favorite story in the pulp era, resulting in its selection as the "Scientifiction Hall of Fame Classic Story" in the July 1948 issue of Startling Stories. Introducing the monthly feature in this instance, Startling editor Sam Merwin, Jr, says:
Some stories are forgotten almost as soon as they are printed. Others stand the test of time.
Because "When the Earth Lived," by Henry Kuttner, has stood this test, it has been nominated for SCIENTIFICTION'S HALL OF FAME and is reprinted here.
In each issue we will honor one of the most outstanding fantasy classics of all time as selected by our readers.
We hope in this way to bring a new permanence to the science fiction gems of yesterday and to perform a real service to the science fiction devotees of today and tomorrow.
The story has subsequently been reprinted in hardcover in 1949 and again in pulp form in 1971's Science Fiction Yearbook, Number 5, a magazine.
It has never been reprinted in my lifetime. I managed to track down a copy of "When the Earth Lived"'s 1948 appearance at this August's World Science Fiction convention, where I found about a dozen rare Kuttner pulp appearances.
Sam Moskowitz and others have suggested that one of Henry Kuttner's greatest strengths as a writer--the ability to adapt the popular styles of other authors as his own--makes it difficult to determine a core style of the author, since each story is so different. The implication, I think, is that Kuttner could only imitate other writers.
If that is so, "When the Earth Lived" is probably best classified an early Edmond Hamilton pastiche. The stock set-up--our hero races to the home of a scientist friend on the brink of a terrible scientific disaster--is common to many early Hamilton stories from Weird Tales, up to this point in his career Kuttner's most popular market. It's common to a few Ray Cummings stories, as well. It's an efficient way to assemble the stock characters in an early sci-fi yarn. Rather than this being evidence of a swipe from Hailton, I rather think it's evidence that Kuttner was more than happy to use a tried and true--read cliched if you'd like--opening to get to the heat of his story.
Here's how it opens:
When Jim Marden discovered that the Universe had apparently gone insane he was already on his way to the mountain home of Dr. Leon Kent, his uncle and sole living relative. An urgent, cryptic telegram from Kent had caused Marden hurriedly to pack a bag, throw it in the back of his roadster and start the long drive to Coon Mountain, where his uncle had his home and laboratory.
Snatching a hasty meal at a roadside stand, he glanced over a newspaper and saw the first warning of the disaster that was to become cosmic in its scope. If Marden hadn't been somewhat of a scientist, in his amateur way, he would scarcely have realized the tremendous potentialities behind the news item on Page 6.
It was brief enough, stating only that, according to a dispatch received from the Mount Wilson observatory, N. G. C. 385, a nebula in the Pegasus cluster had stopped its race away from the earth at a velocity of 2,400 miles per second and was darting with even greater speed at right angles to its former course.
The layman might have passed right over the item unperturbed--but Marden knew that, when a thing like that can happen, science loses its sanity and becomes an avocation for madmen.
While at the roadside cafe, a woman sitting nearby sees a spoon morph before her eyes, almost as if it were afraid to touch her hot coffee. The college-age girl, Lorna, and her "companion," Harrison, have missed the bus that will take them back to the city, and ominous occurrence given that the spoons and coffee maker are showing signs of life. Jim Marden offers to give them a ride in his roadster. On the way they spot the bus they're trying to catch up ahead on the road, and the world goes mad:
"Earthquake!" Harrison gasped.
But it wasn't. The asphalt road fell away from beneath the bus and the vehicle smashed down with a metallic crash. The tires blew out with a deafening report. From within the bus came screams-agonized, terrified.
For the bus was-collapsing! It was folding inward upon itself, as though it were being crushed in the grip of some giant hand. Glass shattered. The windows, instead of squares, became oblongs-became mere slits until they disappeared as the metal fused.
"Good lord!" whispered Marden. "Look at the road!"
Beneath the bus the asphalt was curling up and the vehicle was sinking slowly from sight. It was as though the road had suddenly turned into a sea of sucking mud, dragging the bus inexorably down. A pandemonium of shrieks came to Marden's ears. He saw a squat, bulky figure writhing into view from a window that narrowed as he watched.
The man squirmed frantically for a moment. Then he was free and the metal coalesced behind him. He came racing toward the roadster, his mouth open in a frenzied oval of terror.
The bus was now nothing but a long ovoid of smooth, glistening metal. It shrank, became a sphere a fifth of its former bulk. The screams stopped.
The screams stopped. That's probably my favorite passage in the entire story, what with the fat guy squeezing out of the bus at the very last second. The sole survivor of this catastrophe turns out to be a promoter named Stan Buford, who joins Jim, Harrison, and Lorna on their way to the compound of the scientist Dr. Leon Kent.
The drive to Kent's abode is a struggle, with Jim's roadster wrestling him ever step of the way. The car's sideboards melt to a strip of rubber. One of the doors melts away. Finally, the four make it to the ramshackle frame house and relative safety. For in passing near the house, the car transcends an "inexplicable flickering in the air" that seems to stave off the insanity of a world gone mad.
Once the four survivors are safe from the strangeness, Doctor Kent explains:
"I did not think it would come so quickly." he said. "I believe this is the only place on Earth where you are reasonably safe. The flickering in the air you noticed, Jim"-Marden had already mentioned this-"was due to a death ray I've adapted.
"It surrounds us, like a hollow globe of force. Or, rather, of annihilation. If I hadn't seen you coming and turned it off temporarily, you'd have been killed."
Lorna repressed a shudder.
"I didn't know death rays existed," she said.
"My dear girl, death rays are no longer pseudo-science-they're cold fact, as you'd know if you read the scientific journals-even the newspapers. I've simply adapted the ray to my own uses. It acts as a barrier to-to-"He hesitated.
"I think I have an idea of what's wrong," Marden said. "The nebula in Pegasus gave me the clue. It's something-cosmic-isn't it?"
"Yes-an experiment, Jim-um-a cosmic experiment in which we are the subjects-the guinea pigs. You know the atomic theory, of course?"
"That this universe is merely an atom in a larger universe and so on to infinity?" Marden asked. The doctor nodded.
"That's right. An old idea, of course. It's served as the basis for innumerable pseudo-scientific stories and actually it's generally taken for granted by the world of science. But you know what I've been working on for years, Jim, don't you?"
"Rays," Marden said. Yes. Especially the cosmic ray. You don't mean-"
"Exactly. The cosmic ray put me on the track of the truth-a truth so unbelievable, so strange, that I have dared not announce my discovery. I'd have been laughed at and worse-perhaps put in an asylum. And I needed my freedom to complete my work. Whether it will do any good now-"
"The closest guess scientists have made as to the nature of the cosmic ray," Kent went on "is-life. And that's just what it is. For ages men have tried to create artificial life in the laboratory."
"All the while, they have neglected the most important factor-the cosmic ray itself, which is the source of life. All through this universe the ray has spread. And very slowly, very gradually, it has increased in power."
And that, in a nutshell, is what's going on in "When the Earth Lived". Scientists from outside our universe, indeed from "Outside" our universe on an atomic level, are bombarding our universe with a life-creating cosmic ray. As the ray increases in frequency, inanimate objects on Earth (and indeed throughout the universe) are coming alive. Like that spoon, or the bus. Only Dr. Kent's death ray array (heh) is keeping the life-giving ray from reaching our heroes.
The scene quoted above is typical of "plot reveal" scenes from the pulp era, especially the type published in Amazing Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, or Startling Stories. It's no wonder that this story was the "Hall of Fame" classic in my 1948 issue of Startling-it's a near-perfect example of the scientificion of the day.
The story is hung loosely on a scientific premise (here the idea of an atomic universe), mixed with a crazy premise (everything is coming alive!), mixed with some technobabble (death rays, life-granting cosmic rays), and thrown together in a high-speed salad with a scientist, a narrator with enough scientific knowledge to explain what's happening without ever saying much about himself, and a pretty girl to add a little spice. Set up the premise and race to the end as quickly as possible. Repeat every month as long as the checks keep coming.
Given that this was Kuttner's second "scientifiction" story ever, he's shown a remarkable ability to pick up the standard framework of a story of this type and make it interesting and, most importantly, fun to read. That's probably the most important quality I'd ascribe to all of the Henry Kuttner stories I've read to date: they're fun to read. Kuttner obviously rode this ability to great success, refining and polishing it throughout the years.
"When the Earth Lived" is one of his earliest yarns. It includes numerous clichés, from the scientist saying "But you know what I've been working on for years, don't you, Jim?" to slip in more exposition, and I'm sorry to say that Lorna falls in love with the narrator to give the story a pat ending rather than for any aspect of his character shown in the story itself. And yet the story remains readable and enjoyable 70 years after it was first published, and that's no mean feat.
I've read dozens of pulps from this era with almost the exact same framework and character mix, and most of them are tedious beyond imagining. Even early in his career, Kuttner was capable of spinning a story well worth remembering.
But in 1937, his journey into scientifiction was just taking its first steps, and there are some signs he had trouble leaving the world of horror completely behind. The most vividly imagined, stirring passages in "When the Earth Lived" come almost at the end. As the story races to a conclusion, Kuttner illustrates the moments before the heroes disrupt the alien experiment and the ray reaches its full intensity with a series of seven vignettes in which the world's chaos reaches its crescendo.
A character dies in all but one of these scenes, even when it's played for comedy (such as when a matronly opera-goer falls dead of a heart attack after a performer's gown melts off her body and her own diamond jewelry turns to coal). The only "winner" in this series is a prisoner in Sing-Sing who decides to stay in his cell after a hole opens in the wall, showing him a glimpse of freedom.
The best of these could have easily come from one of Kuttner's earlier horror stories for Weird Tales.
In a New England cemetery the watchman was having a quiet smoke has he leaned against a tombstone, pondering over the curious events of the preceding hours. He felt an uneasy stir beneath his feet and got up quickly: He hoped it wasn't an earthquake.
It wasn't. Out of a crack in the grass-covered earth came something which the watchman knew very well he had seen buried there weeks before. It looked almost human for a moment and then became a horrific mass of monstrous flesh and bone that seethed and bubbled as it crept toward him. The watchman was frozen with horror. He thought it was merely a dead man coming to life.
He didn't know that it was the atoms in the dead body which had come to life. There was no intelligence-the original organic vitality had fled forever. This was something different-adaptation and growth.
The thing touched his feet, flowed up around his legs. He felt a sharp pain biting through his body as his flesh coalesced with horror-which was merely following its natural instinct of feeding so that it might grow, just as the two rocks has merged in Dr. Kent's garden. The watchman stared silently at the tide of horror creeping up his body and little flecks of foam appeared on his lips.
That's gross, and it makes me excited for the additional Kuttner stories to come.
Onward!
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