If you missed the last one…
Condemned to the Prison Planet! Those words send a chill down anyone’s spine. Whether it is Chateau D’if, Rura Penthe or Salusa Secundus, Science Fiction writers have mined the classics like The Count of Monte Cristo, Papillion and Les Miserables. Science Fiction always makes it even harder. Just ask Captain Kirk!
The Sardaukar, the elite killers of the Emperor in Dune come from the prison planet of Salusa Secondus. These savage soldiers are bred in terrible conditions, making them super tough. I wise I could say this idea was all make-believe but the headlines of today says otherwise.
The Pulps offered many such prisons in space, sometimes on harsh planets like Venus, sometimes on massive spaceships. The first to use that specific title may have been “Prison Planet” by R. F. Starzl (Argosy, March 5, 1932). This wasn’t Starzl’s first try. He had written “Planet of Despair” in 1931.
The 1930s
“The Lord of Space” (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930) by Victor Rousseau has Eros used as a penal colony.
“Revolt on Inferno” (Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories, June-July 1931) by Victor Rousseau has fifty men and women sent to the doom planet, Inferno, for trying to overthrow a dictator.
“Planet of Despair” (Wonder Stories, July 1931) by R. F. Starzl has the I. F. P, Interplanetary Flying Police, using Pluto as a prison.
“The Space Rover” (Astounding Stories, February 1932) by Edwin K. Sloat is an escape story from the prison mine of Mercury.
“Vulcan’s Workshop” (Astounding Stories, June 1932) by Harl Vincent is set in the most frightful of Martian prisons.
“Penal World” (Astounding Stories, October 1937) by Thornton Ayres (John Russell Fearn) marks his penal planet as Jupiter.
The 1940s
“Prisoner’s Base” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, May 1940) by Nelson S. Bond places Penal Colony 1 on the frozen surface of Uranus. Is this where Star Trek got the idea?
The magician of Mars (Captain Future, Summer 1941) by Edmond Hamilton begins on a prison moon, Cerberus.
“A World Is Born” (Comet Stories, July 1941) by Leigh Brackett is set on Eros.
“Prisoners in Flatland” (Startling Stories, September 1941) by Frank Belknap Long has C562, Auriga Penal Colony in the Asteroid Belt.
“Outpost on Io” (Planet Stories, Winter 1942) by Leigh Brackett has this prison on Io. What happened to Mercury?
“Prison in Space” (Amazing Stories, August 1943) by Henry Norton has a ship named The Vigilant that takes convicts to the prison on Venus.
“The Disciplinary Circuit” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Winter 1946) by Murray Leinster has a chip planted in convicts to prevent them from escape. Think of an ankle bracket in your head. DC would use something similar in The Suicide Squad.
The 1950s
“No Place Like Earth” (New Worlds, Spring 1951) by John Beynon (aka John Wyndham) has prisoners on Venus. The harsh planet is a stand-in for Australia. This story appeared in America as “Tyrant and the Slave-Girl” (10 Story Fantasy, Spring 1951). The title was meant to pump up the sleaze. (For more on this Pulp, go here.) This story was filmed as the first episode of Out of the Unknown (October 4, 1965).
“Prison Trap”(New Worlds, Summer 1951) by F. G. Rayer has his prisoners go to Equarius.
“Scratch One Asteroid” (Amazing Stories, November 1952) is about penal ship, Verulin, headed for the prisons of Ceres. Brent escapes thanks to a book from the ship’s library.
“The Prison of the Stars” (Planet Stories, November 1953) by Stanley Mullen gives us Pelican, an asteroid that serves as Alcatraz Island.
“Prison Planet” (Super-Science Fiction, February 1958) by Robert Silverberg offers us Bardin’s Fall, a small planet where prisoners are dumped off.
Conclusion
These sixteen stories, whether they are set on planets, moons or asteroids, offer a glimpse into the world of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Science Fiction is set in the future but the tales always say something about the times they were written in. The history of incarceration, along with great tales of prisoners outside the genre, all influence how these writers saw the prisons of the 25h Century. Famous examples like Devil’s Island, Alcatraz and others lie behind these scenarios, perhaps even more so than any extrapolation of law enforcement. (The exception is Leinster’s “Disciplinary Circuit”. That invention allowed governments to not build prisons or find prison planets.)
Prisons offer the adventure-oriented author several exciting possibilities: brutality, exposure to dangerous environments and ultimately, escape! It was a natural for the Pulps. There should be no surprise that many of the earliest ones appeared in the Clayton Astounding. Harry Bates was very familiar with other kinds of Pulps, so the prison escape would be a natural for him to promote.
Next time…The Dead Planet!
Luc Besson’s “Escape from New York” outer space clone, Lockout and Riddick’s flash back scenes from his time in prison also come to mind.
An article I would suggest is the history of stories using coerced prisoners to undertake missions for the good guys. Dirty Dozen copies include Inglorious Bastards and Suicide Squad. The original Battlestar Galactica has “Guns of Ice Station Zero” was a sci fi mash up of Dirty Dozen and Guns of Navarone.