The Key West citizen., 1952-08-07
Key Books

ELS c0mplled Dy Martm UIeen-
berg, published by Gnone Press,
Inc, New York City, 1872 pages
Plaques have always fascinated
the story teller. Bubonic plague
and the red death have ravaged
cities and threatened fictional he
roes and heroines since man be-
gan to invent tales of the imagin.
alton. Diaries and memoirs have
featured plague epidemics. And
today as the human race is in re-
ality conquering disease with sui
ia drugs and radium, it shudders
in its fiction at tales of tomorrow's
plaques.
Three of the novels in this vol
ume feature strange diseases OF
so years from now.
The first is the blue death traced
to electric currents on the loose,
and described in "But Without
Horns" by Norvell w. Page. The
disease is combined with a super
man, John Miller, who came In
to the world as a mutation from
couple, generations of average
men exposed potent radiation. BY
simply willing it, the fellow can
appear as an angel bathed in gold
en- light, and can drive men in
sane or inflict them with the blue
death - all of which he does in
the course of 100 fine print pages.
Jack Williamson's "The Crucible
Of Power begins with the great
pandemic of failing sickness which
first attacked workers in Green
land radium mine in 1898.
g. the disease attacked all
nerve tissue. Commonly the gang
lions and plexuses Of the ear were
first affected. The victims were
deafened, deprived of sense of. bal
ance, usually terrified with a SEN
sation of endless headlong falling
hence the malady's popular name
the falling sickness struck with
out warning. People fell suddenly,
at work or in the streets. shrieking
in fear. clutching wildly at objects
about them. The infection spread
swiftly from the auditory nerve,
causing blindness, agonized par
xysms, nightmarish hallucinations,
coma, paralysis, often stoppage of
the heart. and death. :"
The hero is remarkable fellow
named Garth Hammond, horn in
210. the last year OF the Black
Century. His son tells the story of
Hammond's success story from
bootblack to owner of a vast cor
poration transporting power from
the sun to the earth. With genius
for rocket making and space prowl-
ing, he ships off Of planets as if
they were Milwaukee or Miami.
In another story. "The Chron-
icle," van Vogt shows three
eyed men in the decadent future
city of Maze. afflicted with a blood
sucking disease.
The story Is told thru an elab-
Grafton of the testimony of various
people who have known Michael
Slade. This man had no indication
of abnormality until he was in an
automobile accident, and the torn
bleeding skin in his forehead re-
vealed a third eye.
From that time on a new world
Is intermittently revealed to Mr..
Slade. And as it is revealed he is
bothered with attendant embarrass-
ment in the world of two eyed men.
His wife Miriam cannot bear to
look across the breakfast table at
three eyes glued to a newspaper
instead Of two, and she leaves him.
His friends avoid him and when
In his presence are under a marked
strain because of the abnormality.
Thru the visin in that third eye
Michael finds himself in
the strange city Of Maze. And it
Is in that place of horror that he
finds three-eyed men and women
afflicted with the vampire disease
of blood sucking. It becomes
nightmare of a yarn as he tangles
with the city's inhabitants. For
Michael has rich, red bloodl
All Of these tales fall short Of
Aldous Husley's masterful attempt
in Brave New World" to see the
tomorrows of the human race.
None Of them are as perfectly
imagined world. as did Mr.. Huxley.
Nevertheless the stories are in
teresting projections Of the human
imagination as it explores tomor-
row. And the plots move with suf-
ficient rapidity and the events are
startling enough to keep the read
er reading.
DON'T CRY FOR NE by win-
lam Campbell Gault - mystery
novel published by E. P. Dutton
Publishing CO., New York City.
10 pages.)
In the long ago days Of Edwin
brood and the Bride Of Lar~>.er-
moor, one corpse or even the sus-
picion that one might be lurking in
= moldy chest or vault, was suf-
ficient for . thriller. Today two
IL a