Paul Ernst (1899-1983) was the consummate professional writer, one who understood exactly what an editor wanted and provided it. Getting his start in Weird Tales in October 1928, he wrote horror stories and adventures for WT’s sister magazine, Oriental Tales as well. Later when the Weird Menace markets threatened Weird Tales’ reign Ernst was chosen to write the Dr. Satan series to curb the competition. Later he would write for the very Shudder Pulps that had worried WT’s publishers in the first place, having learned the formula well with Dr. Satan.
Science Fiction was no different. When Harry Bates created Astounding Stories of Super-Science as an entertainment form of SF (now referred to as “The Clayton Astounding” after the publisher), Ernst was a natural to contribute. Ernst began with the ambitious cover novella “Marooned Under the Sea” (September 1930). In this tale three men venture to the bottom of the ocean in a new type of diving bell. When the bell is dropped to the sea floor they discover a sea-dwelling race called the Zyobor, who have enslaved regular humans. Of course the young narrator falls in love with one of the locals. It is up to Professor Berry and his two friends to free them. The formula was well-established in Astounding but Ernst writes it with color and humanity.
“The World Behind the Moon” (April 1931) seems even less probable with the planet Zeud discovered behind the moon. Joyce and his elderly scientist companion Wichter take a nuclear-powered ship to the new planet and find it inhabited by a jungle full of dinosaur-sized monsters. So far pretty standard stuff, but Ernst saves it from being completely hackneyed by inventing the hideous and reptilian Zeudians who paralyze the men with their long, snaky fangs. The inspiration for this tale is obviously Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
(About the same time Ernst sold “Hidden in Glass” over at Amazing Stories with T. O’Conor Sloane as editor. The fact that he chose to publish the rest of his SF for 1931-33 with the Clayton Astounding was because Clayton paid two cents a word, the highest rate in the field. Ernst did not sell Amazing another story.)
“The Red Hell of Jupiter” (October 1931) contains plenty of out-of-date science but does use the heavy gravity of Jupiter in an interesting way. Brand Bowen and his buddy Dex Harlow are sent to investigate the red spot of Jupiter, where three previous earthships have disappeared. They discover the Rogans, tall tube-legged aliens with bulbous heads who have built a city in a gravity well. Serving the villainous baddies is a slave race of humans that the Rogans enjoy torturing. Dex is subjected to the terrible torture of their captors but Brand escapes and shuts down the gravity generator. This allows Dex in turn to save him from a dinosaur-sized killing machine. Together with Grega, the beautiful slave princess, they defeat the Rogans and free the enslaved. Brand and Dex return to earth alone but promise to return soon. The plot is pretty standard for the Clayton Astounding but Ernst paces the story well and keeps you reading.
“The Planetoid of Peril” (November 1931) follows Harley 2Q14N20 to the remote asteroid Z-40 which he buys cheap. The only problem is a gigantic monster made of impenetrable rock. The creature destroys Harley’s ship, then plays a cat and mouse game with him until the sun rises. The creature sleeps during the three hour day but that is enough time for Harley to salvage one of the engines from his destroyed ship and he uses it to blow the creature out into space.
“The Radiant Shell” (January 1932) is another hackneyed idea, one of invisibility. Ernst finds new things to do with the old idea, having his scientist in invisible paint break into the Arnavian embassy to retrieve stolen plans. With the device and the plans the tiny foreign nation could take over the free world. The spy quickly runs into real obstacles that H. G. Wells and his early imitators never thought of, the first, opening doors when people are around and secondly, dogs with their sense of smell. Ernst makes the venture a nail-biter from the invisible man’s point-of-view.
“The Raid on the Termites” (June 1932) is without doubt Ernst’s science fiction masterpiece. It follows two men, who first must find a way to become miniaturized, then venture inside a termite mound. Once there, Denny and Jim become aware they are being herded toward an encounter with the brain that controls everything. In a desperate pitched battle they fight for their freedom only to find themselves trapped in the queen’s nesting chamber. More desperate action is required to escape and be returned to their true size. Ernst’s series of different termite mutations include workers, warriors, spit-shooters and the brain bug. These creatures who have been sculpted by the termites’ purpose are the ancestors to Robert A. Heinlein’s Klendathu aliens from Starship Troopers (1959), and by proxy, David Gerrold’s Cthorr, and the Zerg in Starcraft.
When the Clayton chain was sold off, Ernst had no problem continuing on with the new owners, writing four tales for F. Orline Tremaine and his new brand of SF and its divergent ideas. Ernst certainly wasn’t the kind of maverick that John W. Campbell wanted for his later day version of Astounding Science Fiction, so Ernst wrote for Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1937-38, but defied the odds and even placed “‘Nothing Happens on the Moon'” with Campbell in February 1939. He is amongst the short list of writers who were in all three incarnations of the magazine, along with Jack Williamson and Nat Schachner.
Ernst moved onto the more lucrative markets, such as the Shudder Pulps like Horror Stories and Dime Mystery Magazine before writing The Avenger novels for Street & Smith (as Kenneth Robeson). He finished where he started, with Weird Tales, penning his final WT tale in September 1945. With the death of the Pulps he moved onto magazine article writing and even novels such as the noir paperback The Bronze Mermaid (1956). Being a Jack-of-All-Trades, Ernst never wrote any innovative SF novels to secure his name in the Halls of SF greats but he was inventive with a good sense of what would logically come from monster invasions or new inventions, and best of all, he knew how to tell a good story well.
