Уильям Макгиверн: Collected Fiction: 1940-1963

The secret of the power of the Saturnian weapon which Dirk and Jan have found so invincible, might lie in an adaptation of ether waves, which would “short circuit” the brains of the robots which are actually nothing more than receiving sets designed to pick up the thought waves of the master Martians.

It might seem incredible that a grenade would not lose its effectiveness in a hundred and fifty years, were it not for the fact that they had obviously been hermetically sealed under glass. This protection would render them as potent as the day they left the factory.

Leeka Juice: A berry native to Venus and possessing highly narcotic qualities. It was widely used by many of the degenerate tramps and human derelicts of the universe.

See “Tink Takes a Hand,” October ’41 FANTASTIC ADVENTURES. In this story, Tink and Nastee make a wager, selecting a bystander, and proceed to discover which of them is most capable — Tink in making the victim happy; Nastee in making him miserable. Tink finally won the bet by locking Nastee in a wall safe, where Nastee had gone to steal a jewel in a rather underhanded trick.

Of the many legends that abound in Irish mythology, one of the most charming is the folktale of the little people who are believed to be spirit or soul of music. These creatures, usually feminine in gender, are reputedly embodied in all great works of music, and it is their presence that lends magnificence to the compositions.

Although this story is presented purely as fiction, author William P. McGivern displayed a strangely fervent eagerness that it be presented to the public at the earliest possible moment. “This story must be published!” he said forcefully. We, as editors, smiled, read the story, agreed that it was a good story. And we publish it here. But the other day we were introduced to a man who spoke with an accent. Later we discovered that this man had “sought out” McGivern. Now we wonder...

The young man’s peculiar physical condition is not as fantastic and unprecedented as one might at first believe. Everyone has had the experience of meeting a person who makes almost no impression whatsoever on them. People with such anemia of the personality are constantly being forgotten, overlooked even by friends who know them well. Their presence in a room will be unobserved for several minutes and, frequently, such people will be completely ignored, even when they are sitting or standing in plain view. In nature, the chameleon has similar properties but for a definite reason, namely that of defense against its stronger enemies. The chameleon blends perfectly into the brown and green foliage of its native habitat and even the marvelously keen eyes of its natural enemies are unable to detect its presence. It is not impossible to conceive that the same camouflaging property could develop in a human being. Nature might appreciate the difficulty of a retiring, sensitive person to mingle with his more vivid fellow creatures, and so clothe him with a defensive armor of practical invisibility to insulate him against the attacks of those with stronger personalities. Readers of Fantastic Adventures will remember John York Cabot’s classic, “The Man the World Forgot,” as an exposition of this theme. Unexplained instances of men and women “disappearing” from normal environments might be simply cases of submerged personalities which did not “disappear” but were simply and tragically forgotten.

In the final months of 1943, after the successful establishment of a second front in Europe by the United Nations, a concentrated combined offensive, in the eastern theater of operations, on the Japs in Burma, Malaya, and the Philippines (which move was foretold by the initial recapture of Gona in the Solomons in December of 1942) and an overwhelming drive through Tripolitania and other Nazi-Italian held African territory, the Axis powers seemed to be on the verge of military collapse.

The tremendous American-British air offensive over Germany, which resulted in the collapse of the German attack on Russia just two months after the Japanese ill-timed thrust into Siberia, left the Red armies free to press in through Poland and drive deeply into Manchuko and other Jap-held territories in China.

The bloody uprisings against the Nazi government by the people of half-starved, downtrodden France, enabled them, in overthrowing the betrayers among them, to aid greatly in the Allied drive which liberated more than eighty-percent of their native soil from Axis control.

And in these final months of 1943 the Axis powers pressed into a last ditch fight for survival, suddenly brought to the battlefields the crude but effective weapons of radium warfare. These weapons, still in an experimental stage, were nevertheless so deadly that the tide of Allied victory was stemmed, then pushed inexorably backward as the supposedly beaten Axis hordes began a steady reconquering of territories previously seized by them.

Allied scientists, in possession of some of the captured radium weapons, knew well the secrets of their use and make, but this knowledge was of little use, inasmuch as the radium supply on Earth seemed impossibly scanty to supply even a fraction of the radium being used by the Axis. The United Nations were faced with the grim fact that somehow, from some unknown source, the Axis had tapped a seemingly inexhaustible fount of radium.

And even more grim was the realization that each passing day brought improvements in the now less and less crude version of radium weapons being sent to their fronts by the Axis. In spite of the fact that the greatest scientific minds on the side of the Allies were pooled in exhaustive research of every known natural element from which radium might be tapped, nothing had yet been accomplished in the frantic search.

Because of this, the Allied Nations — who had but a few months before considered themselves nearing inevitable victory — now faced the seemingly unshakable fact that chaotic defeat would soon engulf them.

Judas-goat. A packing house terra for the ram that leads a Sock of sheep to slaughter. Hence, one who betrays another under the guise of friendship.

“Enchanted Bookshelf”, Fantastic Adventures , March, 1943. In the bookshelf which Phillip Poincare purchased was an original manuscript of The Three Musketeers, by Dumas, containing the ectoplasmic residue of the actual musketeers and D’Artagnan, from whom Dumas had drawn his immortal characters. Philip Poincare unwittingly broke the spell of their entombment and they returned to life. Their entombment had been accomplished by Cardinal Richlieu to save them from hanging. They became adjusted to the Twentieth Century quickly, and by their skill and courage saved a beautiful agent of General de Gaulle from the hands of Major Lanser, a Nazi, who was apprehended by D’Artagnan and eventually slain by Athos in a duel.

To eliminate the physical hazards produced by the tremendous acceleration necessary for such speeds, an inertia nullifier had been perfected by Keating in 2017, and which was standard equipment on all space ships.