If you missed the last one…Castaways of Space…
Derelicts of Space is one of my favorite themes in Science Fiction. Those abandoned old ships could have anything hiding inside them. Many of these old Pulp tales, like “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell involve ships crash landed on Earth. I am not concerned with these (that’s another post) but with the ships that are still out there, hanging like the Mary Celeste of space.
And mentioning a nautical mystery is apropros because all space derelict stories owe their origins (at least in part) to sea stories. The most famous of these are the Sargasso Sea stories of William Hope Hodgson. Hodgson’s hulks and wrecks are filled with killer squid, devilfish and mold. Move your abandoned ship to space and the killer squids become aliens or mutants.
Another sub-variant I am not looking at is the Super-Structure, a found environment of immense size. Most famously, Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, Ringworld by Larry Niven and Orbitsville by Bob Shaw (and all their sequels). Again, these are more than the idea I am chasing here. While related, it is hard to think of a gigantic alien-made world as a derelict.
This list is not every derelict story in SF but those that have the word in its title.
“The Derelict of Space” by William Thurmond and Ray Cummings (Wonder Stories Quarterly, Fall 1931) was a contest story for Hugo Gernsback’s Interplanetary Contest. Thurmond came up with the idea while pro writer Cummings produced the prose. It won first place and the $50 prize. It was reprinted in Wonder Story Annual, 1950 and Famous Science Fiction, Spring 1969.
“The Derelicts of Ganymede” by John W. Campbell (Wonder Stories, January 1932)
“Derelict” by Raymond Z. Gallun (Astounding Stories, October 1935)
“Derelict of Space” by John Benyon (John Wyndham) (Fantasy #3, 1939)
“Cosmic Derelict” by Neil R. Jones (Astonishing Stories, February 1941) is one of the Zorome tales featuring Professor Jameson.
“The Cosmic Derelict” by John Russell Fearn (Planet Stories, Spring 1941)
“Derelicts of Uranus” by J. Harvey Haggard (Comet Stories, May 1941)
“The Cosmic Derelict” by John Broome (Planet Stories, Summer 1942)
“Treasure Derelict” by Guy Archette (Chester S. Geier) (Amazing Stories, July 1947)
“Death’s Derelict” by Chester S. Geier (Amazing Stories, October 1951)
“Derelict” by Alan E. Nourse (IF, May 1953)
“Derelict of Space” by Randall Garrett (American Science Fiction, September 1954)
Galactic Derelict (1959) by Andre Norton
“Derelict” by Stuart Palmer (Fantastic Universe, March 1959)
“Derelict Space” by Dale Columbo (Keith Monroe) (Boys’ Life, January February 1968)
Conclusion
The post Star Wars era gave us a couple of classic derelicts. Ridley Scott’s Alien spawned a lengthy franchise. Today if you said weird creatures from an abandoned spaceship you would get either Alien or The Thing. Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) is a great flick but again isn’t in space but on Earth.
Colin Wilson’s The Space Vampires (1976) was made into a film by Tobe Hooper. Less successful, Lifeforce (1985) didn’t have any sequels. It amazes me that Wilson was able to breathe new life into such an old idea, energy vampires from a passing comet. Edmond Hamilton was writing that for Weird Tales in the 1920s.
Next time…The Exiles of Space….
