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The best of Edmond Hamilton

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Edmond Hamilton isn't as well-known as he deserves to be, and that's a shame. From the earliest days of the Golden Age, to the dawn of more complex & literate science fiction, his was always a name & imagination to be reckoned with, a guarantee of good reading.

The stories from his first decades are raw & wild, bursting with ideas & spectacular images. If the science was wrong even then, it really doesn't matter. Like his contemporaries, Hamilton was playing with Ideas & Archetypes, giving them a space-age makeover. The phrase "sense of wonder" rightfully applies to those years! Just consider the chilling "Fessenden's Worlds," for example.

Yet even in those early stories, with the emphasis on the immense, he was already casting a dubious eye on the image of the triumphant, conquering spacemen. Earth doesn't always come off so well, and he makes the reader aware of the dark side of the heroic, colonizing human, as in "A Conquest of Two Worlds."

As the years continued, he developed greater depth & sensitivity, as demonstrated the elegiac "Requiem," the somber "Day of Judgment," and especially in his lovely, lyrical tale, "He That Hath Wings." This is still one of the finest parables about the fate of the non-conforming outsider in modern society that I've ever read, retaining all of its bittersweet emotional power to this day.

In his later years, he intertwined stellar adventure with astute psychological character study, giving us stories such as "What's It Like Out There?" that were not only gripping, but philosophical as well. Yet he never lost his ability to create powerful, stunning images. He had all the virtues of the pulp writer, without any of the flaws; as a result, his work remains strong & worth reading to this day, and definitely in need of reprinting!

Hamilton mastered the "pulp" thrust of science fiction, and its virtues, almost before that term for the genre was coined. He could put more drama into a short story than many writers at greater length would manage in a full-length novel. And all of these stories, originally published in "Analog" and other SF magazines, retain that punch.

The science is far from perfect, and occasionally diverges from what was known even in the 1930s and 1940s. "Thundering Worlds" is full of passion and plot, but the physics of planetary bodies is inaccurate enough to be distracting to an informed reader ... yet, still, it's one helluva story.

The Del Rey mass-market paperback edition (also available, and different from what's currently pictured) has a striking illustration on its cover of the best story of the lot, "He That Hath Wings." You'll shed a tear for the fate of the protagonist even if you don't envy him his mutation, as I do.

This collection is an excellent look at the development of one of the old writers of the Golden Age. The stories begin weak, and then become progressively stronger througout the book, until at the end the stories are highly literate. On the other hand, some of the earlier stories are so entertaining (yet corny) that one will overlook the weak writing because the stories are just flat-out entertaining. About two-thirds of the way through the book, there is a story called "Easy Money" that is the most hilarious comedy I've ever seen in science fiction.

When science fiction magazines first began polling their readers in the early 1930s, Edmond Hamilton was always the fans' favorite author. But, like most writers who made a living from the pulp magazines, Hamilton wrote too much and too fast, and many of his stories suffered from cardboard characters and routine plots. He was one of the pioneers of the "gee whiz" school of SF, which further hurt his reputation when science fiction matured in the 1940s and 50s. Hamilton continued to write SF in later decades--and got better as a writer-- but never reclaimed his early popularity or prestige.

This collection gathers short fiction published by Hamilton between 1926 and 1968; it was edited by Leigh Brackett, who was Hamilton's wife (and, if truth be told, a better prose stylist than Hamilton). Brackett's choices show that Hamilton, from his earliest days, wrote stories with interesting and innovative ideas along with his routine space operas, and that he could write genuinely sensitive and affecting pieces when he had the time and inclination. The collection includes a good introduction by Brackett, a valuable afterword by Hamilton, and bibliographic data on the date and place of publication of each story. It does NOT, unfortunately, have a working table of contents.

The collection starts with Hamilton's first published story, "The Monster-God of Marmuth" (which appeared in Weird Tales in 1926). An effective piece of pulp horror, the story reminds me of early H.P. Lovecraft, although Hamilton says his inspiration was A. Merritt. "The Man Who Evolved" (Wonder Stories, 1931) is another exciting pulp story, albeit based on a ludicrous scientific idea.

Early on, Hamilton occasionally began using his stories to explore fascinating SF ideas. "Fessenden's Worlds" (Weird Tales, 1937) was one of the first stories to wonder if our universe might not be the result of a malignant alien super being's science project gone awry, rather than the work of a benificent Creator. (Clifford Simak had written a story with a similar idea two years earlier, but had trouble finding a publisher for it; this was still a controversial concept in 1937). The novelette "A Conquest of Two Worlds" (Wonder Stories, 1932) is not a terribly well-written piece of prose, but was way ahead of its time in speculating that Earthmen finding inhabited planets might not treat the aliens any better than the European settlers treated the Native Americans. "The Accursed Galaxy" (Astounding Stories, 1935) takes the then newly-discovered concept of an expanding universe and gives it a wonderfully sardonic twist.

By the mid-30s, Hamilton was mixing sensitive, poetic stories in with his space adventures. "He That Hath Wings" (Weird Tales, 1936) is a genuine classic of fantastic fiction; the story of a mutant boy born with wings, it is a powerful commentary on how our society treats anyone "different." "In the World's Dusk" (Weird Tales, 1938) was not the first end-of-the-world story (Wells used the idea at the end of "The Time Machine"), but was a moody and atmospheric treatment of the concept. "The Man Who Returned" (Weird Tales, 1935) is a truly disturbing story, which starts with the the protagonist being buried alive-- and his fate only gets worse and worse from there.

Hamilton's work continued to mature in the 1950s and 60s, but probably nothing that he ever wrote has the power of "What's It Like Out There?" (Thrilling Wonder, 1952). Many SF writers in the 1950s wrote stories about psychologically wounded spacemen (probably reflecting the guilt and torment of servicemen who survived the horrors of World War II), but this is the best of the bunch.

Not every story in this collection has aged as well, but this is a good assortment of works from a science fiction writer who is no longer as well-remembered as he should be. (Another Hamilton collection available for the Kindle, not quite as good as this but nonetheless worthwhile, and with only one story in common with this one, is Monsters of Mars and Other Works by Edmond Hamilton (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics) .

The Best of Edmond Hamilton is a return to the good old days of Science Fiction when all concepts were still fresh and original. No complicated plots here, no reading the stories on 3 different levels, just the kind of straight forward scifi that got me interested in the genre in the first place. As a long time fan of hero, horror and scifi pulps of the 30s and 40s, I had previously read one of Hamilton's Captain Future stories and found it to be fun and original. Same can be said for this collection. I especially like "A Conquest of Two Worlds", "Thundering Worlds", "Child of the Winds" and "The Seeds from Outside". There were 3 stories that I could easily picture as Twilight Zone episodes: "Castaway", "What's it like out there?" and "The Man Who Evolved". I would not place Hamilton on the top tier of science fiction writers, but above many other pulp writers. He does not engage in purple prose, and his style still fits with modern readers. If you have any interest in the early days of science fiction, this should be on your reading list.

_The Best of Edmond Hamilton_ (1977), edited by Leigh Brackett is a collection of 21 stories by Hamilton, along with an author's afterward that, I believe, displays Hamilton at his best. The arrangement is chronological, from Hamilton's first published story ("The Monster-God of Marmuth") to one of his most recent ("Castaway"). The first is an imitation of A. Merritt's _The People of the Pit_, while the last is about the man who believed he was Poe. There are several of Hamilton's early, energetic space operas ("A Conquest of Two Worlds," "Thundering Worlds") and some of his more recent character-driven tales ("Requiem," "After a Judgement Day," and "The Pro"). And Brackett provides evidence that Hamilton was writing such stories much earlier in his career ("The Man Who Returned," "The Accursed Galaxy," "Child of the Winds," and "He That Hath Wings"). Readers may be forgiven for not recognizing these stories by Hamilton right away, however, since many of them first appeared under pseudonymns.

One of Hamilton's most famous tales, "What's It Like Out There?", was hailed as evidence of the "new" Edmond Hamilton when it was first published in 1952. But in fact, Hamilton had actually written the story years earlier. It had been routinely rejected as too downbeat. Hamilton finally ran it through the typewriter one more time and sold it.

"Fessendun's Worlds" was written at a time when the Bohrian model of the atom was still widely accepted. The atom was seen as a kind of miniature solar system. Could there be yet smaller systems within it? And what of our own solar system? Might it be someone else's atom? Writers as varied as Ray Cummings, Henry Hasse, and Frank Belknap Long had fun playing with this idea. So did Hamilton, using a thoroughly obnoxious scientist only too willing to play God.

"Exile" is a minor story, but is of some interest for the central character modeled on Henry Kuttner. "Day of Judgement" is a somewhat poetic encounter between man and mutant on a far future Earth. "Alien Earth" has a great opening hook: "The dead man was standing in a little moonlit clearing in the jungle when Farris found him" (272). What follows should not disappoint the reader. "In the World's Dusk" is about the last man on Earth who has one last plan for salvation of the race. But it turns out that there is a catch...

Many science fiction writers of the thirties did not survive well into the forties and fifties. But a few writers did: Jack Williamson, Murray Leinster, Clifford D. Simak, and Edmond Hamilton. What was the secret of Hamilton's success? He continued to write space opera. But it was space opera with better science, a smoother style, and more well-rounded characters. And he continued to write more emotional character studies like "Requiem" and "After a Judgement Day".

There are, I would say, about six or seven small classics in this collection and a great many well-crafted entertainments. I highly recommend it.

Hamilton started out writing pulp stories for early sci-fi, but through the decades grew into a serious portrayer of lore. His stories in this anthology, assembled by his wife/editor, range across the spectrum. The collection shows his diversity, and awakens the reader to perspectives no other writer has ever delivered.

One early story tells of an alien intelligence which brings a man's clocks, typewriters, vacuum, and other machinery "to life." It is an alien experiment testing how humankind might defend itself against our own machinery turned traitor. The hapless home owner is an ordinary man, who tackles it the way any ordinary man would.

A truly remarkable tale (Alien Earth) draws us into the plant world, slowing down human senses to the pace of trees and grass growing. We are witness to the unsuspected world of plants struggling for resources, attacking one another, sharing information. It is a fascinating look at life on Earth at a new pace.

The story of Earth's ending ... I was exhausted the night I read that, but couldn't put the story down.

Hamilton has been given the nickname World Wrecker and World Saver. He wrote of things on a galactic scale, of the creation of life on Earth, the end of life everywhere, and cities hurled through time. No one before or since has explored so deeply into the fantastic. Collect any story of his you can. I sure intend to.

Ron Carpenter

I had not heard of Edmond Hamilton until I read The Space Opera Renaissance, an anthology of Sci-Fi short stories dating from 1929 up through the present. One of the more interesting stories was titled the Death of Captain Future. It was based on a character created by Edmond Hamilton in 1940. The character conjured up images of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. In other words when science fiction dealt almost exclusively with far out adventure. I liked the simple appeal of those stories and thus sought out The Best of Edmond Hamilton. The book was good but not exactly what I was expecting. There was a goodly amount of moral dilemmas and angst as well as naivete about science and its possiblities. Not enough heroic adventure. It did portray one thing that always interests me, however, and that is a peek into yesteryear's perception of the future. The movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a great example of that.

Apologies to Hamilton fans, but as a collector and longtime reader of Golden Age and classic SF, I found this collection dull, predictable and stale.

These stories felt like amateur imitations of Lovecraft or Burroughs rather than classics in their own right. I returned the book.