Weekly Short Stories: 1942 Science Fiction, Part 4

I'm concluding a look back at the best in short science fiction in 1942, at least from the viewpoint of the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 4 (1942).  This is one of my favorite volumes from the series, which spans the years 1939-1963.  Here are the final stories...

THE TWONKY by Lewis Padgett
Lots of writers use pseudonyms for an assortment of reasons...Lewis Padgett was special because "he" was actually the wife and husband writing team of Catherine Moore and Henry Kuttner, who collaborated on many stories during this era.   The Twonky, in my opinion, was an inferior precursor to their following year's masterpiece Mimsy Were the Borogroves, which I hold high as my all-time favorite science fiction short story.  In The Twonky a "person" from a technologically advanced time accidentally slips through time-space-dimensional barriers and finds himself in a radio factory (TV hadn't taken off yet in 1942). Told to go to work by a foreman who thinks he is an employee, he uses what skills he has and constructs what looks on the outside like an ordinary radio console but after delivery to the eager customer turns out to be something pretty scary...

QRM-INTERPLANETARY by George O. Smith
The term "QRM" is used in amateur radio to ask the question "Do you have interference?"  And interference is the focus of this story as an ignorant supervisor takes charge of a very complex communications relay station positioned in the orbit of Venus.  This guy comes in with all his authority but very little knowledge...his arrogance and micromanagement remind me of...well, never mind.  This is a story that teaches quite a bit about science, both in terms of radio propagation and astronomy.  And it's also clearly a lesson about misplaced authority and the folly of misapplying business models to science and technology.  Nowadays I'd say the same about insurance folks...also elevating the financial bottom line over anything else...and who act as if they know more about medical care than the physicians...

THE WEAPONS SHOP  by A.E. van Vogt
I have a problem with the premise of this story, which if I reveal it might involve spoiling it for the reader...maybe you should stop here if you plan to read it!  Well, let's just say that during one of those common sci-fi scenarios of a dictatorial and corrupt future empire, a small town wakes up to find a "Weapons Shop" suddenly standing there in an empty lot...ready for business.  Only problem is that the door won't open for anyone with harmful intentions.  But Fara, a local repairman who blindly follows the empress, gets through although he is suspicious of this place of defiance, which promotes freedom through the possession of very advanced arms...sounds like the NRA's pitch in today's world, doesn't it?  The problem I had with the premise is that although by buying and "appropriately" using one or more of these weapons one can assert their freedom and independence, this all hinges on the behind-the-scenes support of a very powerful, secret organization much more technologically advanced than the oppressive government being resisted...and that's the contradiction I see here.  The Weapons Shop is a sequel to last year's story See-Saw and was expanded into a series by van Vogt.  As a story it is well-written, but I much prefer his Asylum, also from 1942...

MIMIC by Donald A. Wollheim
Although many of my favorite stories from this anthology were pretty lengthy, Wollheim proved with this five-page tale that you don't have stretch out a story to come up with a quality product.  Mimic is about the concepts of mimicry and camouflage as different species have evolved to use them to escape predators...but what about today's world when humanity itself stands as the biggest predator of all?  One of the greatest endings I've ever read...Wollheim, by the way, was the publisher of this anthology series...

Next week I begin the book on short science fiction from 1943...