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The Human Zero: The Science Fiction Stories of Erle Stanley Gardner

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Here is a collection of seven science fiction novellas by Erle Stanley Gardner, published in _Argosy_ between 1928 and 1932. Two of the stories,"Monkey's Eyes," and "The Sky's the Limit," were two-part serials in 1929. The first published story was "Rain Magic," while the last was "New Worlds." When the last story was published, the first two Perry Mason novels appeared. Thereafter, Gardner devoted most of his energy to writing mystery novels.

Two stories in the collection, "The Human Zero" and "New Worlds," were reprinted in _Fantastic_ in 1962 (in the January and September issues, respectively) with critical introductions by Sam Moskowitz. It was there that I read these tales for the first time.
All of the stories are fairly standard action oriented pulp stories, with many of the stock plots and stereotyped characters of the day. But they contain a fair amount of snappy dialogue. And the action sequences are crisp and clear:

But Phil had superior speed. He jerked the throttle open, zoomed, banked, twisted, seemed to be sideslipping into the jagged tops of moonlit trees, swung, scudded along over the tree tops like a frightened fowl, then zoomed again.
Murasingh was outmaneuvered, left behind by the superior power and speed of the faster plane. The machine gun spat a spiteful farewell... (92)

From where they stood they could see the older towers of the lofty buildings of the downtown section, and they were falling like trees before a giant gale. Here and there were buildings cocked over at a dangerous angle, yet apparently motionless. But even as they looked, their eyes beheld two buidings toppling over simultaneously. (154)

I'd heard they never struck at a man while he was strugglin'. Maybe it's true. I kept movin', hands and feet goin'. The raft was only an inch or two outa water, an' it was narrow. The sharks cut through the water like hissin' shadows. (218)

The street was frozen into arrested activity... A horse was trotting, and but one foot was on the ground. On his back was a mounted policeman. He had evidently been swinging his club. Now he was like a mounted statue. A taxicab was cutting over on the turn, and the tires on the outside were flattened by the weight of the car. There was not the slightest motion in either wheels or tires. (308)

Before his question could be answered an arched tip appeared over the western circle of the earth, grew in size and became a flaming ball of fire. Yet around it was no glow of blue heaven. There was a ribbon of radiance, then black sky. And the ball of fire speedily welled to white, eye-blistering heat.
The sun was rising in the west! (405)

My favorite story, by a wide margin, is "New Worlds" -- a disaster story involving the flooding of New York and the collapse of civilization. As Sam Moskowitz pointed out in his introduction to the story, part of its appeal is the fantasy it conveys of throwing off the shackles of civilization in favor of complete freedom and a life of rugged individualism.

Passable pieces are "The Human Zero" and "A Year in a Day," two locked room mysteries with science fictional solutions; "Monkey's Eyes," an account of Dirty Doings in India; and "The Sky's the Limit," a nonstop action adventure that takes the hero to Venus by an antigravity bell. Much more minor pieces are "Rain Magic" and "The Man with Pin-Point Eyes."

All of the stories in this collection may be considered journeyman work by Gardner. But it is possible to see in these stories qualities that he would display in his later writing.