As I continued reading through the science fiction anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 2 (1940), I encountered three intriguing tales...one with a metaphysical tilt, one with a surprise paradigm-shifting ending, and one of the best all-time horror stories. So without further ado, let's take a look at them...
INTO THE DARKNESS by Ross Rocklynne
This is a story about self-discovery, set on the grandest scale possible, as a sentient life form bigger than stars roams through the universe along with others of its kind. It is merely a child among several, although their games often consist of smashing stars to bits and wreaking other kinds of havoc through the cosmos. But there is a darkness beyond the stars and galaxies, and Darkness, the name given this entity by its mother, yearns to venture there even though several others have tried but never returned...Darkness feels that the mysteries of life will be revealed there. Eventually, as the story's title suggests, our protagonist makes the bold decision to go into that vast darkness, all warnings from others put aside. Darkness does get an answer to his questions...it is an answer that we can see around us in our own lives but usually choose to ignore. And then he does something right at the end for which I applaud the author...
DARK MISSION by Lester del Rey
A genius scientist/engineer is about to launch a rocket carrying him to Mars: the first manned mission there! But not so far from the secret launch site an entirely different spaceship crash-lands...the surviving passenger finds himself personally driven toward the Mars rocket and seems to be a preprogrammed agent sent to sabotage it...he also has a peculiar revulsion to physically touching anyone. Could Mars be our enemy and trying to ruin our space ambitions? The questions roll through the reader's mind until the final surprise ending: of course, it all makes sense now...
IT by Theodore Sturgeon
Out in an American forest somewhere, location unnamed, a monster forms out of the mold and gains self-awareness. A farming family lives nearby and they often go hunting into the forest. As the creature encounters life it is unwittingly savage, crushing and tearing animals and plants apart to try to better understand them. Poor hunting dog...and the poor people who are about to encounter It! It is also the name of a famous Stephen King novel...in both stories an explanation for the source of the horror is eventually revealed. But whereas King's clown/monster Pennywise is fully intelligent and knowledgeable, Sturgeon's "It" has no axe to grind with anyone...its violence is more like that of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein monster, although much more terrible. This is one of the best horror short stories I've read...
More short science fiction from 1940 next week...
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