The Incredible Shrinking Pulps

The Pulp era played with many older ideas from Science Fiction’s earliest days. The concept of shrinking so small to pass into other worlds was popular after 1919. Today you will say, oh yah, I saw that on Ant-Man. (Some may say, no, that’s, Ray Palmer, the Atom, over at DC.) Long before Marvel or DC Comics existed the idea of looking into the atom was found in fiction.

The very first tale of this sort was written by Fitz-James O’Brien. It was called “The Diamond Lens” (The Atlantic Monthly, January 1858). Ant-Man’s first appearance was January 1962. That one hundred and five years later. Hugo Gernsback reprinted it in Amazing Stories, December 1926. The tale is about a mad scientist, Linley, who develops an obsession with microscopic things. He goes to a medium so he can speak to the ghost of Leeuwenhoek. (This was 1858 and Spiritualism was at its height.) He discovers the method for making the perfect diamond lens. Unfortunately he needs a diamond of rare size and fineness. To get a stone, he murders an acquaintance, a Jew named Jules Simon. He has no compunction about the deed, setting it up to look like suicide.

Armed with his new diamond, Linley creates a lens that allows him to see past the microbes in a drop of water to a wonderland beyond the atom with strange trees and a sylph-like woman. He names her Animula. He falls madly in love with her, becoming more obsessed, watching her, wishing he could contact her. To curb himself of his affliction, Linley goes to a nightclub to see a dancer reported to be the most beautiful woman in the world. He sees a hideous and ungainly creature. He returns to Animula, only to find her dying. The droplet of water has dried out and her entire universe is gone. Linley is headed for the madhouse.

There is much here that later writers will crib: the glorious land beyond the atom, the obsessive scientist and the beautiful girl. O’Brien could not think of any way to get his hero to the sub-world so it became an exercise in voyeurism. Later Pulpsters would have no problem here. After any number of new time and dimensional machines, in the H. G. Wells mode, they knew exactly how to get their heroes to the miniature world.

The Girl in the Golden Atom (All-Story Weekly, 1919) by Ray Cummings tells the story of a character known only as the Chemist. In a club setting right out of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine, the Chemist invites the other club members to witness his attempt to go into a micro-universe he saw through his telescope. Borrowing from O’Brien, the Chemist sees a beautiful girl in that universe before the microscope explodes. He creates pills that allow him (and his clothes and anything else held close to the body) to shrink and then return to normal size. He returns from his first expedition covered in blood. Like the Time Traveller, he bathes and eats then relates his adventures.

Inside the atom, the Chemist finds and falls in love with Lylda, the woman he saw in the cave. He helps her against her enemies by making himself a giant and smashing their army (rather Gulliver-esque). His friends, known as the Big Business Man, The Doctor and the Very Young Man follow him into the atom when he doesn’t return. They too must fight in a revolution that has sprung up, using shrinking to hide and giantism to smash. The action is reminiscent of Edgar Rice Burroughs at times. The novel was reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, September-October 1939.

The People of the Golden Atom (All-Story Weekly, January 24- February 28, 1920) by Ray Cummings returns to the golden atom world five years later. The Chemist finds his wife then meets his son, now ten because time moves faster in the micro-world. There is another revolt, this one led by the traitor Targo. Not much new in this sequel. More stomping. Reprinted in Fantastic Novels, September 1940.

Tarzan and the Ant Men (1922)  by Edgar Rice Burroughs was inspired by Gullivers’ Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift but the method for shrinking and enlarging people is more like something from these mad scientist stories. Tarzan discovers the land of Minuni, where people are four times smaller than regular folk. As with most Tarzan novels there are two warring factions that Tarzan sides with one of them. The bad guys have a scientist named Zoanthrohago. He captures Tarzan and then expounds on his theories involving glands in the body. He creates a pill that changes a person’s size. This allows Tarzan to shrink for the second half of the novel. ERB is using Swift’s ideas almost two hundred years later.

“The Man From the Atom” (Science and Invention, August 1923) by G. Peyton Wertenbaker has Kirby using the size tech to grow large rather than small. He grows to a colossal size, exploring the universe, then returns to normal. Time has passed more rapidly on Earth and he is treated like a caveman by the new human race. The story was reprinted in Amazing Stories, April 1926.

“The Man From the Atom (Sequel)” (Amazing Stories, May 1926) by G. Peyton Wertenbaker continues Kirk’s story, with the man finding a way to use the size tech to return to his own time. Once he does, he realizes that he was in love with Vinda, a future woman. Never happy that Kirk! Henry Hasse would use ideas from this early tale in his classic shrink tale. For more on Wertenbaker and these stories, go here.

“Out of the Sub-Universe” (Amazing Stories Quarterly, Summer 1928) by R. F. Starzl. One of the shortest stories ever to get a cover, Professor Halley sends his daughter and fiance into a sub-universe for half an hour. When he goes to retrieve them, he finds thousands of years have gone by in that universe. The people he retrieves are worshipers of Halley’s descendants. Starzl has re-used the time dilation idea of Wertenbaker. Julius Schwartz would later name the miniature city Starzl in the Superman comics in his honor.

“Into Two Worlds” (Science Wonder Stories, October 1929) by Edward E. Chappelow has Ted Nelson invent helmets that allow you to see within the atom. Of course, he and his pal, Tom, see a beautiful girl. The next day Tom finds the garage and the equipment burned. Ted left a letter telling how he wants to shrink and join the girl. He dies in the attempt. Tom hopes the two meet in another life. Ray Cummings retread.

“Beyond the Vanishing Point” (Astounding Stories, March 1931) by Ray Cummings is another trip into the golden atom, a third voyage that offers little of novelty. Polter, the shrink scientist, kidnaps Babs, the sister of Alan, the narrator’s best friend. The two men get shrunk and pursue the kidnaper to the micro-city of Orena. The usual back and forth with chases ends with Polter dead and the narrator, Georg and Babs together in love. The best part is when the shrink drug is spilled and bugs and germs become gigantic and deadly in the best Food of the Gods style.. The big people leave Orena in ruins when they return to our size. The novella was selected by Donald A. Wollheim for an The ACE Double version.

“Submicroscopic” (Amazing Stories, August 1931) by S. P. Meek has Courtney Edwards continue the work of Professor Hanson and goes submicro to find a world where any Edgar Rice Burroughs character would be at home. Edwards rescues a woman from a cyclops-eyed gorilla man. They can speak because the language is similar to Hawaiian. (Meeks lived in Hawaii at the time and Edgar Rice Burroughs would ten years later.) The woman is named Awlo and she lives in a city called Ulm. Edwards goes with her and becomes part of the people who are in danger from the ape-like Mena (who remind me of Burroughs’ lunar Ve-Gas). Awlo picks Edwards for her mate, causing problems with her old suitor, Lamu, the usual stuff. Edwards plans to help the beleagued  humans by going back to the normal world for guns. Lamu runs off with Awlo. Bring on the sequel!

“Awlo in Ulm” (Amazing Stories, September 1931) by S. P. Meek has Edwards return but he gets captured by the Men of Kau, a race of super-scientists. Armed with new weapons, Edwards rescues the people of Ulm from their enemies. Nothing really new for Burroughs’ fans but Meek writes it well. These two tales were included in Isaac Asimov’s Before the Golden Age (1974) and were fondly remembered by that author for good reason.

“The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds” (Astounding Stories, January 1932) by Francis Flagg is an invasion story with weird birds dropping killer plants on the people of Tucson. Unlike most tales, the birds don’t come from space but from a micro-universe. For more on Flagg and this story, go here.

“The Cosmic Pantograph” (Wonder Stories, October 1935) by Edmond Hamilton has Professor Robine and his old student, Gregg Felton, look at a micro model of the universe and watch it accelerate in time to see the future. The Earth grows old and man dies there. Felton suggests looking else where in space and finds humans on many planets. They also see, before the machine blows up, that humans will crash suns together for energy (only as World Wrecker Hamilton can!) then cross into our macroverse to survive.

“A World Unseen” (Wonder Stories, February March 1936) by Joseph W. Skidmore is a sequel to another story that doesn’t involve size but speed. Millionaire Donald Millstein invents an atomic reductor. When a sniper shoots his daughter Joane, Millstein and a surgeon, Mado, decide to shrink to the size of germs, to enter her body and save her life. They must fight typhus germs long enough to get to the bullet. They finish the surgery but are swept away in the bloodstream. They exit Joane’s body through her mouth. Unfortunately, the sniper, a man called the Falcon, sets off a bomb but is shrunk and caught. Millstein and Mado return to normal size and all is well. Obviously the inspiration for the film, Fantastic Voyage (1966), later novelized by Isaac Asimov.

“He Who Shrank” (Amazing Stories, August 1936) by Henry Hasse. Remember when Scott Lang was falling into the microverse, getting smaller and smaller in Ant-Man 3? Hasse wrote that story eighty-two years earlier. An unethical Professor injects his assistant with shrink drug. The man grows small enough to pass into solar system after solar system, seeing worlds inhabited by gas beings, killer robots, winged men, and finally, Earth. This is the big surprise: the humans of the original world were not Earthlings. The story is open-ended with the man going smaller into infinity. Richard Matheson would choose the same non-ending for The Shrinking Man (1956) Hasse puts the micro-universe story to bed with this tale of ever shrinking universes. Despite that, there will be later tales.

Dr. Cyclops (Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1940) by Henry Kuttner based on the screenplay by Tom Kilpatrick. Kuttner was a Californian by birth and had a hand in Hollywood. That was why he was selected to write one of the first novelization ever. The story has a mad scientist in the Peruvian jungle to do his experiments in shrinking matter. He invites a group of experts to witness his work, mostly because his eye sight is failing, then decides to get rid of them when they become difficult. The scientists are shrunk and get to live out the old myth of Polyphemus, with Dr. Cyclops living up to his name.

Conclusion

There are shrinking classics that follow Dr. Cyclops like Richard Matheson’s The Shrinking Man (1956) that was filmed as The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). Matheson got the idea from the ending of the film, Let’s Do It Again, not the stories listed here. His tale of a man getting smaller and smaller because of accidental exposure to radiation ends with a more mystical ending. Isaac Asimov’s adaptation of Fantastic Voyage (1966) is another. (Ike later wrote a sequel with better Science.) A ship full of doctors are miniaturized so they can be injected into a an important man’s body. But with the entry of Hollywood into the mix, as well as the comics, the later subatomic adventures morph into something else, mostly superhero fare. The man who can change size has a distinct advantage over crooks and super villains.