Vintage Science Fiction from Australian Newspapers

Vintage Science Fiction from Australian Newspapers 1901-1939 (Australian)

Item Set

Items

• When the Southern Cross Shines Red
  Future War attack on Fremantle Western Australia by the Japanese. Both navies with advanced vessels yet the ship The Forth causes damage to the Japanese fleet by lighting its oil reserves and exploding into the air and crashing into the fleet. A second episode appeared a month later regarding the attack of the Japanese on Sydney. Looking at other stories by Patrick Vaux it seems he made a career of this as there are other short stories in a similar vein. Due to time constraints I have not yet had a chance to closely read more of his stories to see if there are any strong SF modes in use. Interesting that in 1917 Vaux published a book about gadgets featuring details of the latest technology and inventions at the time.
• Venus Calling
  Alvin Lister invents a spaceship called "The Venus" which uses his discovery of repelling gravity to push the ship into space. He takes on all his builders, mechanics and engineers, two female friends, one of them the investor, and a worldly adventurous friend called Ulysses, for a test run. On the trial run, four criminals stowaway on board and take over the ship, but Lister's security guard had also made it aboard at the last minute and, in the fighting, the controls are damaged and the trial run becomes the journey to Venus. Over the ensuring weeks the criminals are given limited freedom. The complement of 17 eventually make it to Venus, navigate the thick atmosphere and land on a mountain side, immediately believing that it is a dead world. While the rest explored, three of the antagonists take the opportunity to steal the ship with the intention of going back to Earth but Lister had expected that to happen so had locked all the exit cells (airlocks) open, so they could never leave Venus. The fourth antagonist had already shifted to their side and was helping the crew, earning respect from everyone. The crew then need to find food and shelter and soon find a hidden area where a venus-cavewoman riding a four-winged pteradactyl-like creature invites them for lunch. It turns out that her ulterior motive was to claim Ulysses as her husband-slave and an amusing scene ensures as Ulysses can't comprehend that her offer to give him a flight on the Plodja would end with him being taken to a village of women and beaten and dragged across the ground to a hut where he is trapped with his kidnapper who quickly disrobes. Various adventures ensue as Lister keeps the team together, Ulysses travels Venus, works out the system of the world and quickly breaks it by punching the queen in the face, who laughs and finally treats him as equal; and Ingerfeldt, the leading villain, attempts to kidnap Lister to get him to unlock the exits, even eventually capturing Ulysses and stringing him up for hanging if Lister didn't comply. Eventually, with the antagonists having given away much of the supplies to bribe the inhabitants to help capture Lister, when the protoganists finally win, not all of them can return to Earth.
• The World's Last Wonder
  Australia's First Space Opera. The inventor takes his friend and others on a journey to Mars in competition with someone who had stole his patent for his space car. The antagonist's car is called The Annexator and their plan is to claim Mars for themselves, and have even kidnapped the girlfriend of one of the passengers on the protagonist's ship. A tense nailbiting situation mid story as both ships link up and attempt exchanging documents in a vacuum, even though neither car had been designed with an air lock. Landing on Mars, the protagonists meet two intelligent species and detail the attempts to communicate. Unfortunately, the antagonists' prior landing had eventually caused the inhabitants to realise humanity is dangerous and force the protagonists off planet and determine Earth is now under quarantine. This summary does not do the huge amount of science and inventions in this story justice. A critical scholarly digital edition is available for download.
• The Whispering Death
  Inventor uses a gravity box to create planes without sound or engines or propellers – Third story in the Dr. Night trilogy
• The Unknown Terror
  Japanese scientist suspected of creating a chemical bomb and blowing people up as an experimentalist, with a plan to help Nippon take over the world.
• The Three Bushmen; or Australians in the Far East. A Thrilling Story of the Russo-Japanese War.
  Japan Russian War adventure with one character having a small invented submarine in a part of the story. Considering the war only started in February, this counts as future war fiction.
• The Star Germs
  An experimenter collects what he feels may be germs from the stars from the top of mountains and studies them in his laboratory. He attempts to cultivate them in six different test tubes. However, the first four tubes explode and the geometric creatures from a lower dimension begin attacking the members of the household. One rapidly develops into a Satyr creature that the scientist feels is the result of the shapes tapping into common thought forms. The fifth tube explodes with a stronger creature before the final sixth tube explodes exposing a bright creature that the others fear. The scientists proposes that the Satyr is evil from Saturn and the glowing creature must be from Venus. An engaging story replete with scientific explanations about biology, how cells work, concepts of different dimensions of existence, and more.
• The Space Raiders
  Airships are destroyed by space ships from another world manned by ape-like creatures who kidnap a scientist inventor. Basic space invasion story with a scientist damsel in distress, a suspicious inventor, and many inventions.
• The Silver Ball
  An invading fleet of gunboats await payment near Melbourne and a scientist scares them away with a device that separates the water around the ships into its 'chemical constituents'.
• The Siege of Sydney. The War of Tomorrow.
  Predicts Japan invasion with fighting in Hornsby junction with guns and cannons. Story ends with the communication cable being reconnected to Australia, and everyone finding out that the rest of the world had been at war, too.
• The Shades of Jupiter
  More of a crime story. Poorly written science fantasy with the influence of Gods and a maniacal scientist filling the protagonist with electricity with no explanations of how he might have moved with a field of electricity to his bed without setting fire to everything including himself. Various inventions peppered throughout the story with no reason besides they look good there.
• The Robot Age of the Future: A Glimpse of Hobart in 3,000 A. D.
  3000 A.D. A man from 1932 is resurrected and learns about the future through one of his physicians, finding out how science and invention has made the world a better place, until a bad actor takes control of the science and destroys everything.
• The Return from Mars
  After crashing on Mars and staying for 6 years, a scientist, a meteorologist have finished repairing their ship and say goodbye to the Martians they'd enjoyed their time with. On board, discussions of gravitation and magnetic fields, before approaching Earth. When they get there they find all of humanity has been wiped out. A war in 1940 had seen the development of a deadly gas that had killed all of humanity. They return to Mars.
• The Rejuvenation of Slogger Binns
  Mendax buys the father of his housekeeper from her for 50 pounds and experiments on him with the plan to rejuvenate him. Unfortunately the man goes crazy and tries to kill Mendax.
• The Red Terror [Prequel to The Space Raiders]
  A prequel story to the Space Raiders featuring a red light from space that captures people and a 4 propeller helicopter with torpedoes capable of reaching the stratosphere and destroying the creatures from another world.
• The Red Life. An Australian Story of Ambition, Invention and Romance
  Food out of the air. Atmosoup. The elixir of life. Reprinted as The Death Doctor in various mastheads in 1932. Invention creating a life saving soup but others think he is trying to fix his problem of being literally poison which seeps out of his skin. Some scientific explanations.
• The Raid. A Story of the Last Phase of the Great War.
  (Not to be confused with Captain H. G. Mackenzie) Attacks on Sydney and Melbourne!!! Started serialising before the war ended. Detailed plane / airship fights over Sydney. Over 26 chapters somewhere. This is not by 'Captain' H. G. Mackenzie who had died several years previously. Extensive searches of various databases around the world have not found this particular H. G. Mackenzie. As the story has reference to work in a newspaper office it is possibly written by a journalist under a pseudonym. Stylometric analysis might help, however the descriptions of the fight and the discussions between characters seem to be different styles of writing, and may be a collaborative effort.
• The Quest of the Costa Rica
  Invented airship and submarine. From the pages.Three young Australians in search for a sunken treasure ship aided by the marvellous inventions of a clever scientist who has learnt the secret of how to transmit power by wireless. A mysterious enemy who has also mastered the secret attempts to ruin the expedition with many thrilling consequences. Described as a Thrilling Scientific Adventure.
• The Professor's Experiment
  A professor has retrieved the body of a recently deceased street dweller and, with the help of his concerned medical friend, carefully place wires attached to batteries around the heart of the unfortunate, describing the exact placement to correctly stimulate the heart in the hope of restarting it. Just as the man begins to recover, and success looked likely, the laboratory is blown up by a freak lightning strike, destroying all occupants and evidence.
• The Phantom Enemy
  Simple 5 chapter narration of a burgler who worked with an inventor to be invisible. Not the same as Morris J Steeles.
• The Moonman
  Young boy Sonnie is awoken by a little green moonman on the edge of his bed who, with his friends, takes Sonnie up on a moon beam for an adventure. Sonnie soon finds that moonbeams are like trains and the southern cross is the station, and he can't visit Earth's moon just yet but he's welcome to visit the mechanical occupants of one of Mars' moons. Many of the characters are surprised whenever a female appears, and when Sonnie is offered a trip to one of Mars' moons by a beautiful moonmaiden he doesn't hesitate, leaving all the moonmen behind. A satirical story with a dig at Australian academic culture as a subtext.
• The Missing Dimension
  Scientist removes a dimension and can walk through the world with the appearance of being two dimensional while still existing as a whole.
• The Mendax Gold Saver
  Mendax creates a portable device that quickly extracts gold from sea-water. This is probably inspired by the Argyle 1905-1906 gold-from-seawater plant at Broken Head considering the story is set in the past. However as the the Argyle plant closed and no company has come up with a more efficient method Mendaxs invention is still science fiction.
• The Men of Mars
  Inventors build a rocket ship to take them to Mars. Some science. In instalments in the children’s pages up to instalment 26. Some are short so estimate 7000 words.
• The Man Who Stopped a War. A Tale of an Australian War Correspondent.
  A skirmish between British and Japanese naval forces in the Pacific with a pressman describing the vast battlefleets mines and reciprocal attacks. Future War fiction but a strange one in that it isn't fully explained how the Australian stopped the war. The British and the Japanese were allies between 1902 and 1923 so why a future war story? Evidence suggests it was published in the Pall Mall Magazine in 1901 due to a report in the Tasmanian news that they had received a copy of the magazine (19/07/1901) which featured a Naval Duel of the Future by Patrick Vaux. As the British navy fought the Japanese navy in 1942 in the Battle of the Coral Sea this is also a predictive story. Mention of a marconigram which also suggests it was written before telegram had become common or perhaps Vaux wished to point to an alternate future.
• The Luminous Ray
  Placeholder. Details coming soon.
• The Isle of Submarines A South Sea Terror
  An advanced electric submarine covered in different alloy scales described as being able to travel at greater than 60 mph (subs at the time had atop speed of around 14mph on the surface and 7mph below), and has continuous breathable air due to breaking water into hydrogen and oxygen, then liquifying them, and using the hydrogen for explosives.
• The Invisible Ray
  The town thinks the scientist escaped from an asylum and is working on a deathray. Actually he created his own kind of television. A satirical story. Also referenced in Death Rays and the Popular Media 1876-1939 A Study of Directed Energy Weapons in Fact, Fiction and Film By William J. Fanning, Jr. · 2015
• The Invisibility of Mendax
  Mendax is painted with a chemical that causes him to become mostly invisible leaving a beard and skeleton. The hot water and reagent to remove it turns him Prussian blue. Similar setup to the Disney movie The Invisible Kid (1988) where the chemical can be washed off with water though the pain is different.
• The Inventions of Mr Potty II. The Mechanical Rooster.
  A satirical story about a genius inventor's wooden and springs mechanical rooster that wins a cock fight. A distant sequel to "The Automatic Preacher."
• The Inventions of Mr Potty I. The Automatic Preacher.
  A satirical story told at Flannigan's pub about the genius inventor's failure of his mechanical minister which preached a sermon from its internal phonograph before its mechanics failed, causing it to leap into the congregation.
• The Invasion of Australia. A Forecast.
  World War in 1914. Quite detailed. Australian Politics. Massive new German Battleship. Electric launches. Massive fleet invades a defenceless Australia.
• The Inoculation of Ideas. Prof. Paff's First Peace Experiment
  Paff is accumulating the electric energy of positive human behaviour at musical and other events in specially made batteries. Paff tests this on the population to great success promising to release the electric energy of enthusiasm as the Prime Minister tours the country to sell his great scheme of country-wide irrigation.
• The Half God
  Scientists develop super-radium capable of curing all ills, but the gram is stolen. Crime, murder, court case. Also, radium was already in use as a cancer cures so this is only a slight advance.
• The Green Flame
  Placeholder. Detailed description coming soon.
• The Great Mendax Transmitter
  Mendax goes into his transmitter just as his dog breaks in. Hilarity ensues. Likely this is the first Mendax short story.
• The Fall of a Dictator
  Inventor for Cyrania working for the Cyranian military is developing a death ray and an electric torpedo.
• The Ether King. A Story of Mystery and Adventure.
  A futuristic airship by an inventor scientist. A location programmed death ray that can destroy any part of the world in seconds. An arch nemesis, a damsel in distress, and so many wireless inventions, make this the pulpiest entry into the Australian vintage science fiction stories from newspapers.
• The Eagle of Peace. A Tale of Love, Invention, and War.
  Advanced airship invention travels across the world fighting Germans. Basic story with only the airship being the science fiction part. More spyfi than scifi.
• The Drum Beat. A Story of the German Menace in Australia.
  Set in 1918, initially a love story, and a little spyfi with the Germans living in the town, introducing the main science fiction invention, an aeroplane that is silent and can rise to quite a height without the occupants feeling cold-with one of the Germans very interested in it. The story is quite slow and ponderous with many repeated situations and diversions before Germans launch their attacks on Sydney in August 1918 (after over twenty chapters of character development and aeroplane adventures). One of the highlights is that Gillian is a female pilot and fights against the Germans with her aeroplane. Eventually the Australians win against the Germans but at a high cost, with many an important character dead.
• The Dream Machine
  Late Professors invention discovered. Record plays the sound of his experiment on a vagrant to delve into the subconscious eliciting the story of how man first came to Earth.
• The Devolution of Man
  A satirical review of the Fortieth Century Review book written by Dr. Janet Fowler based on the recovered manuscripts from ancient Melbourne describing the male rebellion in 2350 and the liberal thinking in the treatment of men with it now being voluntary to have a male child whether men should be admitted to university and whether grown men should be allowed to be walking about the streets unescorted. Being a review of the 40th century (3900s) the book is probably copyright 4001.
• The Dark Planet
  The narrator finds an otherworldly orb. He climbs aboard and is suddenly taken to another planet where he begins to educate the medieval feathered men on science, falls in love, but has to escape in one of the craft back to Earth (and tell his story) Roughly! Summary to be updated when all sections can be read.
• The Cruise of the Golden Caterpillar
  A large long segmented train like bus created by a renowned professor starts a 3 month exploration of the Australian outback. Complete with everything you need for a long journey. Criminals try to steal the plans for the engine.
• The Coloured Conquest
  Set in June 1913 and printed from the book released in 1904. The last free Caucasian is suggested of his Japanese friend to write of his experiences of the last few years when all non-Causians joined together to enslave every White person. Slavery, Eugenics, and conditioning. A dystopian world, although the narrator writes from mostly understanding point of view that Caucasians brought it on themselves.
• The Blue Bolt
  A sequel to The Silver Ball (1908) similar in style. Professor uses electricity to erase invaders.
• The Blood of the Ghettos and the Red Trail of the Brigands: A Concise History of the Year 1957.
  Italians versus Jewish Russians in North Australia in 1957. Bored telephone operators, personal flying vehicles, and a civil war. Eventually they lose, and the Jewish Russians are deported to Palestine to set up New Jerusalem and the Italians are deported to savage islands. Predictions abound.
• The Automatic Pen. Guaranteed to Spell Correctly.
  A university student gives her physics and mathematics professor her science project, a pen that will write the right words as he writes, as he had trouble with spelling. This leads to a romance and marriage. A short story with more of a linguistic rather than science focus. A light, humorous story.
• The Automatic Killers
  Trigger warning. Some graphic body dismembering near the start. An evil half Chinese half Japanese genius has controlled the dead using 'Radcliffe' a liquid form of electricity and 10 times more powerful able to increase the strength and resistance of anything living or dead. He also has a giant rat!
• The Antarcticans. Being the Further and Still More Surprising Adventures of Captain Bjornvik in the Regions Around the South Pole.
  Bjornvik and crew are getting ready for another trip when their ship is suddenly captured by a mysterious electric force akin to the kind of electricity described by Nikolai Tesla. Bjornvik eventually meets his captor, a scientist who has created a vast advanced city with 3.5 million inhabitants. Soon Bjornvik warms to the king and the king takes him and his friends across the vast civilisation beyond the ice where, along with extensive explanations of scientific principles, we get to encounter a wide variety of futuristic inventions, some of which don't appear in our reality until 100 years later. Trigger warning: The punishment inventions for criminals are quite gruesome.
• The Air Devil
  A near future rivalry between two advanced airplane companies. While planes travelled at the normal speed for the 1930s (150mph) they are bigger able to take 40 passengers rather than the usual 21-32. Planes exploding every few chapters while preparations to launch a new advanced plane the X4 continues.
• South (not completed)
  Inventor builds a 600 feet long advanced submarine-airship with beam ice cutters and attempts to reach the south pole. Written by a child awarded a certificate and paragraphs of chapters split over several weeks but no further instalments in childrens pages after September that are available on Trove.
• Skirmish Posts of Earth
  A group of explorers plan to learn more about a mysterious tribe in the heart of Papua New Guinea and take their boat up the river to find them. They discover a statue made of a material currently unknown which activates, detects their party of 25 and sends a 'carrier wave' to the tribe, before encountering one-foot-tall natives carrying 'light' spears that give electric shocks and can shoot birds from trees. They're captured, taken to a city inside a crater, their revolvers are locked by some electromagnetic force, and they're trapped in a hut with a door of energy that flickers and sparks, and reflects any force given to it. Though it decends into an altar sacrifice of natives using gas bulb lights and vaporisation, an explosion destroying the natives energy, and the escape of the whites.
• Silence
  Scientist creates a device that causes silence for miles then attempts to use it along with a crime syndicate to rob all the banks in the world from Vesuvius. Vesuvius erupts.
• Secret of the Rays
  Set in 1950 with gyroscope planes that overcome the pull of gravitation and criminals who use a black ray to put everyone asleep testing and getting supplies while finding a protective ray that can prevent this particular cosmic ray. Ends abruptly on a romantic note.
• Sea Gold. The Romance of a Pirate Submarine
  Book printed in 1936. Advanced submarine is forgotten when the country experiences a coup and the crew travel the world finding a way to fight back. Article stating author is Australian https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205898639
• Out of the Silence
  Failed past utopian technosociety wants to rule again. Invention of a ray that only kills people with pigmented skin.
• Next Port Eldorado
  Barry escapes Count Musa in an amphibious vehicle of his own invention featuring other inventions but more of a spy vs spy story.
• Mystery at Maralinga
  Boys break into what they think is an empty house but find it full of inventions based on the infra-red ray. They are captured by their enemy who plans to cremate them with his new invention. Borderline science fiction as the science is not well explained but it features the main inventions of a ray-machine and explosive yellow powder.
• Mr. Austin's Airships and Professor Paff's Paralyser
  Sequel to The Silver Ball and The Blue Bolt. Similar in style. The professor creates another invention to fight off invaders.
• More Enduring than Bronze
  Inventor creates a new explosive powder that can destroy Melbourne. Tested on a hill with a great description of how it exploded and a later description of how the force of the explosion wrenched the air around it. Sells to the army. While predominantly a contemporary romance and sensation story science is mentioned with reverence throughout and the story ends with a speech about how science will help families and the future.
• Maureen's Mating
  Two women discuss their adventures with the conversation peppered with multiple instances of the casual use of futuristic inventions and expression of different social norms which leads to Maureen explaining that her intended husband is found to have breached private flight laws by driving under the influence of pills, over the flight speed limit, and failing to activate the infra-red alert system. He is to be tried on live broadcast and they tune in to watch on the television cabinet which doubles as a video phone.
• Love, and the Aeroplane. A Tale of Tomorrow.
  A town gets various new inventions using gyroscopes. Gyroscope car, gyroscope monorail but all inventions, apart from the aeroplane being used regularly, are a backdrop to the romance. Jump to the future where married couple's son is grown up driving an 'old car' and is recommended to get one of those new electric cars.
• Fool's Harvest
  Invasion of Australia by the Cambadians
• Eagles of Queensland
  The Bulyon brothers are Australian inventors serving in the British navy. The older brother develops an advanced airship able to destroy German airships discovered approaching British territory. The younger brother develops a wireless energy case that sits in a boat and is able to send out a powerful wave that disables the electronics in german airplane engines. [This could be interpreted as a machine that can generate an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)]
• Clarence the Camel
  A mechanical camel helps explorers explore the Outback and swims them across a river away from a crocodile.
• Captain Midnight
  Spy drama with a secret laboratory and a death ray set in Sydney and Tasmania
• Bunkentwaddle's Odicaster
  Inventor converts smells to electrical signals and back again but flower perfume becomes a putrid stench as the receiver is not as good as the transmitter.
• Breed of the ANZACS
  Invasion of the Karnos from Asia. Australian military scramble to fight battleships, planes and hundreds of troops. First mention of the White Australia Policy in vintage science fiction so far.
• Boys of 2036
  Boy wakes up in the future on a high speed road and a boy in a personal flying car helps him dodge a fast car being pursued by robot-like henchmen. Soon, Frank is caught up in a fight against a dictator politician who will do anything to obtain power. Thanks to his friend's father who developed a ray to defeat the evil politician, along with the help of a blind secret agent, Frank survives and is able to return to his own time.
• An Awkward Dilemma (Mendax)
  While no specific science was described Mendax had attempted to clone himself with multiple jars of progressing cell cultures and the housekeeper unknown to him just before he arrived at the laboratory had put her granddaughters baby in the final jar to his immense shock.
• An Aerial Adventure, or The Secret of a Scientist
  The story features an abduction into a new spaceship invention that will travel to a newly discovered planet. During the 5 year journey mature themes are discussed before they land on an alien planet with extraterrestrials. Biology and economy are discussed in detail yet it soon descends into a simple fight against the kingdom albeit with science-based weapons. Eventually losing one of their crew, the crazed inventor destroys the city in revenge and escapes with the narrator and others.
• Alarm
  From The Herald: Through the story runs a tangled skein of romance. The dramatic seizure of the north, air raids of Melbourne and Sydney. Invasion of Queensland, siege of Brisbane-these are dramatic incidents, graphically described, by which the writer points the moral of his visionary story. The forward to this rousing yarn has been written by Mr W. M. Hughes, former Prime Minister, who appreciates the motive of the writer - the awakening of Australia to the need for adequate defence. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/243622670
• A Visit to the Moon
  Several people visit temples and other places on the moon along with the aliens that live there. Need earlier chapters.
• A Trip to the Moon
  The narrator doesn't go into detail about how he finds himself on the far side of the moon but discovers a city of tall beings, befriends a family, and is taken on trips including mountain climbing, skating and other unlikely adventures. While this could easily have been dismissed as children's fantasy, while the writer doesn't go into too much detail about the science, it is written rationally (no magic) and includes comparison to Earth society at the time which makes it compelling reading. Narrative changes abruptly in the final chapter where the narrator wakes up beside his wife (someone who is not mentioned at all in the entire story) and finds it is all a dream. However, the newspaper closed shortly after so this might have been the act of a caring publisher before the end.
• A Mover of Mountains
  Inventor creates a machine that can shift sandhills using wind power written third person laconic style.
• A Modern Atlantis
  Set in an equality driven egalitarian society, explaining the social and work structure of all the a happy people in Atlantis. Advanced Culture. Electric Trams etc.
• A Courtship of the Future. A Provision of A. D. 2876.
  A satirical love poem