Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Visionaries of Tomorrow Edmond Hamilton and the Legion...

That Lal'lor character only appeared two or three times, and didn't really do anything.

I'd really like to read that Interstellar Patrol collection, since that sounds like an early Legion.

There are a few audio versions of Hamilton stories at
Librivox .

Interstellar Patrol not really like the legion, but you can have a look at Baen webscriptions for a taste.

Two years later, I've finally ordered the first Hamilton collection!

Re-read "The Monster God of Mamurth", which still seems to me like the setup for a much longer story.

Currently reading "Across Space", which features scientists racing to Easter Island to find a way to stop Mars, which has left its orbit and is on a collision course with Earth!

"The Metal Giants" totally reads like an early version of "Computo the Conqueror!"

"The Atomic Conquerors" is apparently one of the earliest stories about the inhabitants of microscopic universe invading our world!

You know, the more I think about it, the more I'm shocked that something like that wasn't used for Shrinking Violet's origin.

A lot of Edmond Hamilton's books were reprinted in paperback in the 50s & 60s. City at World's End was one of the first SF books I ever read.

Cool things from Evolution Island: Plant Men, futuristic humanoids that are giant heads with tentacles, and lots of stuff (including a chicken) turned to protoplasmic slime!

"The Moon Menace" features a scientist perfecting the amazing new technology of television, only to discover messages being broadcast from people from the Hollow Inside of the Moon, who, after teaching him how to build a matter transmitter so they can come to Earth, quickly proceed to plunge the entire planet into darkness (since they can't survive in direct sunlight) and to conquer it for themselves!

While the basic idea of beings who live in near complete darkness broadcasting tv signals seems implausible at best, the coolest bit of this story was the description of the effects of the plunge into total darkness upon human civilization (which apparently collapses pretty quickly once we can't see).

You've inspired me. Since I have no money right now, I just grabbed the free books for my Kindle. I'll report back after reading.

Yay! I hadn't even thought about looking for free Hamilton stuff for the Kindle. Hope you enjoy!

Currently reading "The Time Raider", mentioned by Glen back on page one of the thread. Only four chapters in, and my impression thus far is that the Time Trapper can only wish that he'd ever had a story this cool.

So, the Time Raider is more of a Lovecraftian monster than anything recognizably a precursor to the Time Trapper (though it now occurs to me a Lovecraftian take on the purple-robed one might be interesting...), but the story is pretty much awesome! It's one of those things you read and thing, "Man, how has this never been made into a movie"! It's got science fiction, fantasy, swash-buckling with characters from a bunch of different time periods thrown in, it's just incredibly cool!

"The Comet Doom" features a race that's evolved into brains in robot bodies trying to steal our planet for it's resources after depleting their own. Their plot involves changing the orbit of Earth, Brain Globes of Rambat style, until it revolves around their comet homeworld!

Also features two scientists on a Brokeback Mountain-style "camping trip"!

"And in the same way, granted the existence of a fifth dimension, two worlds might occupy the same space, four-dimensionally, but lie at different places along the fifth dimension; lie next to each other along that dimension-- two worlds, both occupying the same space at the same time, but each separated from the other by the unknown fifth dimension, if that dimension exists."

Jeepers! I find this "The Dimension Terror" story really confusing! I wish there were some sort of Crisis or something that would straighten it all out!

Anyway, apparently the fifth dimension is inhabited by beetle-men, who want to invade our planet because they're overcrowded in their own dimension. And they've mastered transmutation enough so that they can destroy our civilization by turning all the iron to hydrogen!

In "The Polar Doom" scientists exploring ruins near the North Pole inadvertently revive prehistoric Frog-men from suspended animation! The Frogmen then proceed to wipe out humanity with their matter-compressor rays!

^^Forgot to mention the coolest scientist name yet: Angus McQuirk!

An ancient civilization of slug-people at the bottom of the ocean threaten to flood the surface world in "The Sea-Horror"! Fortunately the plot is uncovered by a scientific expedition that just happens to stumble on the civilization right before they unleash their plans!

Okay, so the premise of "Locked Worlds" is that for each atom in our universe, there is another atom whose electrons circle the nucleus in the opposite direction, thus "locking" the two atoms together by their common nucleus. Then there's a whole reality formed by these atoms, invisible to us, but connected to our world. By reversing the flow of the electrons that make us up, we can change places with the equivalent lump of matter in the other world. And meet the evil spider-people who live there and the heroic bird-people.

Even though I'm pretty sure the pseudo-science doesn't hold up if you think about it too much, it's kind of a fun story.

And the last story pf the collection is "The Abysmal Invaders". This time, we have prehistoric lizard men who ride dinosaurs and are armed with heat rays who try to destroy humanity when their own underground home is threatened by lava. Fortunately, there's a heroic scientist on the scene at the Illinois swamp where the entrance to their underground kingdom is located!

Summary review to follow tomorrow!

Summary Review of The Metal Giants and Other Stories!

Okay, so let's begin with the fact that the stories in this volume are incredibly formulaic. Most of them follow pretty much the same basic pattern. The narration begins by talking about the great cataclysm that almost destroyed humanity, and that the story will be reconstructed as well as possible. There's pretty much always a scientist who is exploring some unknown field/area. Often the scientist mysteriously vanishes. There's usually a young assistant or colleague of the scientist, who either goes looking for them or at least becomes the POV character until they show up again. Mysterious destruction begins to rain down on civilization. Then the cause of the destruction is revealed, usually by the scientist who often is responsible for it in the first place. Then there's a desperate attempt to defeat the invaders who are usually the cause of the destruction. Often, at the last minute the scientist sacrifices himself in order to stop the invasion (getting shot as he pulls the switch that destroys the invasion force, for example). The young assistant is often left alone as the only source for the tale.

Vary it by changing the exact nature of the threat and the exact details of the plot structure, and you get almost every story in the volume, the notable exceptions being the "Monster God of Mamurth" and "The Time Raider". Interestingly, "Locked Worlds" combines the standard pattern with some of the plot elements of "The Time Raider".

The characters are pretty much stock, and largely interchangeable from one story to the next. I don't believe there's a single named female character in the volume. The variety of tales that I praised in the "Best of Edmund Hamilton" is pretty much absent here.

Having said all that, the stories are quite a bit of fun, and it's pretty interesting seeing what zany idea Hamilton will come up with to put the entire world in danger next! And his descriptions of humanity facing destructive forces which they can't understand are often pretty powerful. I'd have to pick "The Time Raider" as easily the strongest story of the lot, however, and I'm hoping future volumes will quickly get to more stories that break the pattern established in these early tales. I'm assuming that since the next volume features The Interstellar Patrol, it will pretty have to.

Volume Two is currently in my hands!

"Crashing Suns" takes place in a time in which Earth has colonized the solar system, but not yet moved beyond the orbit of the sun. Fortunately, the tech needed for interstellar travel is invented just in time for Jan Tor* of the Interplanetary Patrol to investigate the strange phenomenon of a sun that has changed direction until it is on a collision course with our own! You can bet there's creepy aliens behind it!

Random cool outdated scientific concept: Ether Holes! Strange holes in the fabric of the ether permeating space in which light can't pass!

*Legion fans will note the similarity of the name to Jan Jor, aka False Pretences Lad!

"The Star Stealers" features the threat of a giant "dark star" that's traveled across the space between galaxies and whose course threatens to take it close enough to our sun to "kidnap" it with it's greater gravitational force. To deal with the emergency, Earth calls home Starship Captain Ran Rarak of the Interstellar Patrol, where he has been hanging out with the diverse members of the Federation of Stars, such as the strange brain-men of Algol and the bird-men of Sirius. Anyway, he has to go investigate the dark star and to figure out what to do about it.

This story also features the introduction of a bizarre new thing in Hamilton stories, a named female character! Dal Nara, the second-in-command of the Starship, is totally a woman! Well, apparently she was a man until the editor changed her sex in order for "cover design purposes", basically so they could put a "damsel-in-distress" on the cover. The result, however, is that she's written basically the same as a man, up until the end of the story, where we discover that she "after the manner of her sex throughout the ages, sought a beauty parlor" after returning from the mission!

So, in the far-flung future of the Federation of Suns, one of the greatest dangers in space are nebulae, such as the Orion Nebula! Nebulae are basically vast regions of intense fire in space, hotter than most suns, and ship lanes have to be routed to avoid them. Well, in "Within the Nebula" the Orion Nebula starts spinning wildly, threatening to break up and release its super-heated flame in random bursts throughout the galaxy, potentially destroying all planets and solar systems in their paths!

And so the Interstellar Patrol sends Sar Than (a bulbous tentacled man from Arcturus), Jor Dahat (a plant-man from Capella), and Ker Kal (a human from Earth) in an experimental starship that can withstand great heat to investigate. Soon they discover by accident that the Nebula is in fact hollow and that there is a whole universe (well, at least a planet) inside the nebula!

And who should live on this planet but creepy protean blobs who change their shape in order to communicate!