Frank J. Brueckel, Jr. (1910-1976) was a Hugo Gernsback writer in the early days of Pulp Science Fiction. When Hugo lost Amazing Stories, Brueckel went with him to his new line of magazine. (Many writers simply wrote for T. O’Conor Sloane, Hugo’s old assistant, who became Amazing‘s new editor.) He used the pseudonym Frank Bridge for half of his work. Little is known about his life other than he was originally from Milwaukee and moved to Los Angeles California. Brueckel only wrote for about three years. I suspect he grew out of the hobby of writing Science Fiction, though he never lost his love for the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. (The low to non-existent pay certainly was a factor for many of the young men who first found SF a fascinating new genre. Some like Brueckel moved onto other lines of work while others took up writing Westerns and detective stories.)
“The Moon Men” (Amazing Stories, November 1928) Lloyd learns to reverse gravity and builds the space-car, Space Waif. (The first story to uses the word “Space-car”.) On a test drive with friends, someone sabotages the controls and they end up on Ganymede. There are two races on that moon, the dark-skinned alien Ja-Vas and a race of white-skinned men. The Ja-Vas enslave the travelers but they escape back to their space-car. Only the Russian, Rosonoff, is killed, by a dinosaur. This story shows its obvious affection for Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Moon Maid. Bleiler refers to it as “A young man’s work.” Brueckel was eighteen when it was published.
“The Manuscript Found in the Desert” (Science Wonder Stories, March 1930) has a man discover a cave filled with future tech and an alien. He is the quicker draw and kills the owner. Looking in a television-like device he sees flying saucer absconding with the Eiffel Tower and the Woolworth’s Building. A man in the Woolworth’s Building kills the alien pilots and the spaceships all crash into each other. The television is destroyed along with all the stuff in the cave by remote. The aliens in this tale are brutish blue dwarves. This story was generated by one of Gernsback stories contests. It won the fifty dollar third prize.
“Professor Diel’s Ray” (Science Wonder Stories March 1930) and its sequel, “The Mechanical Bloodhound” both appeared in the same issue of Science Wonder Stories, thus the creation of the “Frank Bridge” pseudonym. The fact wasn’t hidden very well when the same picture of the author was used in both stories as well as featuring the same main character, Dr. Diel. The scientist and his assistant create a beam that allows you to see through walls. They use it to stop a bank robbery and receive a reward.
“The Mechanical Bloodhound” (Science Wonder Quarterly Spring 1930) as by Frank J. Bridge, has Dr. Diel invent a mechanical sniffer that he uses to trap another criminal, this time by smell.
“The War Lord of Venus” (Wonder Stories September October November 1930) as by Frank J. Bridge is another Edgar Rice Burroughs fest. Venusian jungles, beautiful princesses, cavemen,the whole she-bang. “The War Lord of Venus” was Brueckel’s longest work, a short novel.
“Via the Time Accelerator” (Amazing Stories January 1931) as by Frank J. Bridge is an H. G. Wells inspired tale of a time machine. Anton Brockhurst, the inventor, goes to the far end of time to see the last man. He tells how the world was wiped out by killer flying plants from Mars. He gets chased back to his own time by some of green monsters.
Frank wasn’t quite done with SF yet. In the years before his death in 1976, he published several articles on Edgar Rice Burroughs, including “Physiological Aspects of Homo Minuniensis” (Burroughs Bulletin #31, Fall 1973).
Conclusion
In the early Pulp years, not everybody was going to end up Isaac Asimov. Frank J. Brueckel Jr. is actually closer to the norm with other early writers like R. F. Starzl, Hal K. Wells, Edwin K. Sloat, D. D. Sharp, G. Peyton Wertenbaker, Abner J. Gelula, even the sons of Edgar Rice Burroughs, making small contributions before fading off into oblivion. I have to wonder if Frank was part of the Milwaukee Fictioneers of Robert Bloch fame? (Like many in that organization, Brueckel is an ERB fan.) Unfortunately we don’t know when he moved to LA.
You might be interested to know that Frank J. Brueckel wrote a two-page autobiography of his life in THE BURROUGHT BULLETIN #17, 1967. Although Brueckel wrote a lot about his love of Burroughs, he did include a lot about himself and his history. A photograph of Bruedckel sitting beside his Burroughs collection accompanies the piece.
I’d love to see that!
Further information regarding Frank J. Brueckel: THE GREIDLEY WAVE #68 features a Brueckel obituary written by his friend and fellow Burroughs enthusiast, John Harwood. As a matter of fact, the entire issue is about Brueckel, with letters from his wife and a complete bibliography of his writings — including those that had been written but not published.
Wow! I just needed to look harder.Thanks!