If you missed the last one…
The 1930s saw invisibility become one of the major themes in Science Fiction Pulps. The last post covered an entiredecade. Here, only one year. Invisibility wasn’t new but now common with even more Science Fiction Pulps on the market. Astounding Stories of Super-Science, Clayton’s SF mag edited by Harry Bates joins Hugo Gernsback’s and T. O’Conor Sloane’s usual fare. Bates liked the idea so much he had two invisibility stories in the first issue with many to follow.
“The Cave of Terror” (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, January 1930) by S. P. Meek. This story is part of the Doctor Bird series. Mammoth Cave is haunted by a monster nobody can see. Dr. Bird uses Science to trap it. For more on all the Bird stories, go here.
“Invisible Death” (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, January 1930) by Anthony Pelcher has a scientist and his invention disappear. Later mysterious events suggest an invisible man is at large. He tries to extort money from wealthy men. The villain is an old stage magician with triplet daughters.
“The Thief of Time” (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, February 1930) by S. P. Meek has a bank robber that is invisible but not by the usual method. He moves so fast you can’t see him. He’s more like The Flash than Wells’s Invisible Man. The idea was actually done by Wells long ago in “The New Accelerator” (The Strand, December 1901). The innovation here is that Meek uses it for crime. Also part of the Dr. Bird series.
“The Red Ray” (Amazing Stories Quarterly, Spring 1930) by Dan Fabers has New York City bombed by invisible aircraft. These belong to the ruler of Mars. Saunders is given a sample of the new invisible metal and discovers it can be detected with infrared. Humanity is saved! This one reminds me of Star Trek where detecting cloaking devices is often a plot point.
“The Invisible Master” (Scientific Detective Monthly, April 1930) by Edmond Hamilton is another Wellsian invasion story by Hamilton. This tale of a rogue scientist using invisibility for evil is unusual for where it appeared, Scientific Detective Monthly. Which was Gernsback’s failed attempt to cash in on characters like Craig Kennedy, a scientific-oriented sleuth created by Arthur B. Reeve in 1915. The magazine failed because fans didn’t know if it was SF or Mystery.
“The Invisible Destroyer” (Air Wonder Stories, May 1930) by Lloyd A. Eschbach has a secret island protected by a ray that makes things invisible. This is only one element in a much bigger story that involves other dimensions and giant headed pygmies.
“Piracy Preferred” (Amazing Stories, June 1930) by John W. Campbell was written by a man destined to be the greatest editor in Science Fiction. But these are early days and Campbell wrote with a lot of flash and bang. He has space pirates using invisible ships to terrorize the planets. As with most Campbell fiction, it becomes a puzzle how to counteract the menace.
“Jetta of the Lowlands” (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, September October November 1930) by Ray Cummings was a serialized novel. The plot is the usual gang of foreigners trying to hurt America. They have an invisible plane, too.
“The Attack From Space” (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, September 1930) by S. P. Meek is the sequel to “Beyond the Heaviside Layer” but that story does not involve invisibility. In this sequel, the hole that is punched in the Heaviside Layer has not been fixed and new perils come through. This time it is space insects who are stealing children. When they are abducted they are jerked into invisibility, disappearing completely. Our two heroes go into space to defeat the aliens from Mercury who are stealing the children for their slave pens.
“The Invisible Death” (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October 1930) by Victor Rousseau has another madman threatening the USA. He calls himself the Invisible Emperor and he has a secret island hidden by invisibility. This is done by a chemical that bends light. As with most stories of this type, one of the good guys has to find the machinery and destroy it.
“Empire in the Sun” (Wonder Stories, October 1930) by Ralph Wilkins has a flier discover an invisible city in the sky, where the last remnants of Atlantis are dying out. Beautiful girl and dangerous foes follow. Our pilot helps with a coup of the evil overlords and wins the girl. Sounds routine but E. F. Bleiler called it “An entertaining story with an amount of charm” (Science Fiction: The Gernsback Years, 1998).
“Solarite” (Amazing Stories, November 1930) by John W. Campbell continues the adventures from “Piracy Preferred” this time on Venus. The invisibility is part of the set-up but not as important as in the first tale.
Conclusion
As we can see from these tales, the invisibility theme hasn’t really changed much from the previous decade. Invisible airplanes or spaceships aren’t new. Nor are invisible monsters. What we do see is a more general use of the idea without a lot of extra explanation. Before the writer may have had the invisible be the entire point of the tale. Now Pulpsters can throw in an invisible plane and keep on going. This will lead to such comic book use as Wonder Woman’s invisible plane in its first appearance in Sensation Comics #1, January 1942. Like robots, spaceships and aliens, the ideas of older decades are becoming standard props that will continue on to today.
