Neil R. Jones’s Zorome series is one of the longest running in SF history. The series began in Amazing Stories (July 1931-April 1938) under T. O’Conor Sloane then moved to Astonishing Stories (August 1940-October 1942) when Ray Palmer took over Amazing. (Jones would write a different series for him.) The last stories appeared in Super Science Stories (September 1949-August 1951) before fading off into obscurity. Several stories remained unpublished. The tales of the Zoromes and Professor Jameson were an early favorite of authors like Isaac Asimov.
Asimov wrote in Before the Golden Age: “It is from the Zoromes, beginning with their first appearance in ‘The Jameson Satellite’, that I got my own feeling for benevolent robots who could serve man with decency, as these had served Professor jameson. It was the Zoromes, then, who were the spiritual ancestors of my own ‘positronic robots’, all of them, from Robbie to R. Daneel.”
Zoromes are mechanical men who originally came from Zor, but have enlisted others from distant planets to join them in their machine race. The original Zoromes begin as organic beings. Now they are cyborgs, deathless as long as they do not damage their brains. They replace or augment their metal bodies as required with new tentacles or flying wings. They do not eat or sleep. They do not need air either so they can walk in space unprotected. One requirement they do have is heat but they are able to withstand temperatures far above and below humans.
Zoromes communicate by telepathy though they can hear sounds. This allows them to talk with new species they encounter without having to learn their language. They can sometimes use their telepathy as a mild form of mind-control. Because of their telepathy, the Zoromes of Zor are susceptible to the brain-control of the Emkls of Trulfk, becoming homicidal or suicidal under their control.
Professor Jameson was a human who died and placed his body in a space coffin. Long after the Earth was no longer a living planet, Jameson becomes one of the Zoromes by having his brain transferred into a metal body after death. He is very much the same as the People of Zor but has some differences such as his resistance to the Emkls and his unique outlook.
Later in the series, Jones weakened the over-all idea by introducing sexes to the Zoromes and the character of Zora:
“Zora’s large eyes with their long underlashes stared inquisitively at the professor. Her six tentacles undulated gracefully as she shifted herself to a more comfortable position…From four pronounced callosities, two on each side of her upper body, four of Zora’s tentacles grew long and tapered to tiny tips. Two more, one in front and another in back, at right angles to the flanked tentacles, completed the six upper appendages. Below this upper area her body assumed vase-like proportions, then tapered to four short legs, unjointed, which curved outward from the base of her body to terminate in three-pointed feet. Zora’s head was large and stately, though not out of proportion to the size of her body. A high fringe of membranous tissue grew from cheek to cheek across her head like a thin, waving coiffure. Beneath and in front of this, below a well fashioned forehead, deep, dark eyes sparkled with curiosity. Long, lower lashes drooped over several inches of her face, devoid of what the professor would have described as a nose…A diamond-shaped mouth opened in amazement from time to time as the professor told his tale…Zora possessed no external ears. Her faculty of distinguishing sound was located in the back of her head, behind the waving membrane whose thin points arose star-like from the deep-pink fringe. Her respiration process was accomplished through tiny, valve openings at the base of her fore tentacle.” (“Zora of the Zoromes” by Neil R. Jones)
The organic Zoromes, those who have not yet been placed in their mechanical bodies, live on five worlds around the star of Zor. These planets are Poth (a dead world), Trach (a hot world), Grutet (an encased world), Zor (the original planet), Dompt (a heavy world used as a massive museum) and Ipmats (an ice world, used for interstellar travel and military purposes).
The original Zoromes are tentacled creatures with some differences between the male and female. Females possess long eye lashes and vase-shape figures while males do not and their head crests are red to purple instead of pink. The organic Zoromes live their lives, engaging in art and learning, until they become old or injured, then have their brains placed inside mechanical bodies. They believe in ideas like beauty and love (while their machine counterparts are less so, and more logical). In such matters, the mechanical Zoromes bow to the wishes of their organic brothers and sisters. The Zoromes have allowed other races to join their league of mechanical men, such as humans (Professor Jameson) and the Tripeds. This usually works but in the case of the Mumes of Mumed it resulted in a space war.
1. “The Jameson Satellite” (Amazing Stories, July 1931) begins with Professor Jameson successfully placing his space coffin in orbit around the Earth. Millions of years pass. The sun becomes red and much closer when the Zoromes discover the body and save the brain, reviving it. Jameson awakes inside a Zorome mechanical body and goes down to the planet to see what became of humankind. Nothing much remains, all human traces being removed in 50,000 years. The new Zorome falls into a pit and has time to contempt an eternity of lying in a hole, unable to die. Fortunately he is rescued and joins the team in exploring the galaxy. He receives the name 21MM392.
2. “The Planet of the Double Sun” (Amazing Stories, February 1932)
3. “The Return of the Tripeds” (Amazing Stories, May 1932)
4. “Into the Hydrosphere” (Amazing Stories, October 1933)
5. “Time’s Mausoleum” (Amazing Stories, December 1933)
6. “The Sunless World” (Amazing Stories, December 1934)
7. “Zora of the Zoromes” (Amazing,Stories, March 1935)
8. “Space War” (Amazing Stories, July 1935)
9. “Labyrinth” (Amazing Stories, April 1936)
10. “Twin Worlds” (Amazing Stories, April 1937)
11. “On the Planet Fragment” (Amazing Stories, October 1937)
12. “The Music-Monsters” (Amazing Stories, April 1938)
13. “The Cat-Men of Aemt” (Astonishing Stories, August 1940)
14. “Cosmic Derelict” (Astonishing Stories, February 1941)
15. “Slaves of the Unknown” (Astonishing Stories, March 1942)
16. “Doomsday of Ajiat” (Astonishing Stories, October 1942)
17. “The Metal Moon” (Super Science Stories, September 1949)
18. “Parasite Planet” (Super Science Stories, November 1949)
19. “World without Darkness” (Super Science Stories, March 1950)
20. “The Mind Masters” (Super Science Stories, September 1950)
21. “The Star Killers” (Super Science Stories, August 1951)
22. “In the Meteoric Cloud” (Ace Books collection #5, 1968)
23. “The Accelerated World” (Ace Books collection #5, 1968)
24. “The Voice Across Space” (unpublished)
25. “Battle Moon” (unpublished)
26. “The Lost Nation” (unpublished)
27. “Exiles from Below” (Astro-Adventures Number 7, April 1989)
28. “The Satellite Sun” (unpublished)
29. “Hidden World” (unpublished)
30. “The Sun Dwellers” (unpublished)
Books
1. The Planet of the Double Sun (1967)
2. The Sunless World (1967)
3. Space War (1967)
4. Twin Worlds (1967)
5. Doomsday on Ajiat (1968)
Jones was an important early writer of SF and maybe the first to use the word “astronaut”, while exploring ideas later writers would use in more detail. Some critics find the stories tedious or repetitive, while I find them charming and fun. Personally I wish someone would contact the heirs to Neil Jones and arrange to publish the entire canon since the old Ace Books were by no means complete.
