Hand-Held Thunder: The History of the Blaster [Guest Post]

It's always a pleasure when G.W. Thomas sends in a guest post, not only because I get to share it with you, but also because I always learn something new. Thanks again to G.W. for this history of ray guns and blasters in scifi literature and film. -- Michael

Martian Heat Ray

It made sense when Science Fiction went to the stars that the brave men and women who plumbed the depths of space would need weapons suited to their new environment. A firearm requiring oxygen or air pressure would not work in the vacuum of space, nor could an adventurer lost on a distant planet find ammunition for a conventional gun. As with so many of Science Fiction's standard props, it fell to H. G. Wells to arm the enemies of Man with such a weapon in The War of the Worlds (1898):

It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute non-conductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic mirror of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse projects a beam of light. But no one has absolutely proved these details. However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat is the essence of the matter. Heat, and invisible, instead of visible, light. Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch, lead runs like water, it softens iron, cracks and melts glass, and when it falls upon water, incontinently that explodes into steam.

Garrett P. Serviss can take credit for inventing "The Distintegrator" in his "Thomas Edison's Conquest of Mars" (1898), America's answer to H. G. Wells:

Another soft whirr in the instrument, a momentary flash of light close around it, and, behold, the crow had turned from black to white! 

"Its feathers are gone," said the inventor; "they have been dissipated into their constituent atoms. Now, we will finish the crow." 

Instantly there was another adjustment of the index, another outshooting of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone—vanished in empty space! There was the bare twig on which a moment before it had stood. Behind, in the sky, was the white cloud against which its black form had been sharply outlined, but there was no more crow.

Barsoomian Radium Gun

While Serviss and Wells slugged it out in fiction, in the real world, Nikola Tesla was working on the idea of actual direct-energy weapons as early as 1900. In his The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media he discourses on charged particle beams. Still, fiction was slow to follow.

The first big writer to consider what a personal sized space weapon might be was Edgar Rice Burroughs in his maiden flight as a writer, "Under the Moons of Mars" (All-Story, serialization beginning February 1912). ERB realized that Martians would not necessarily have the same weaponry as Earthmen and came up with the "Radium" rifle:

These rifles were of a white metal stocked with wood, which I learned later was a very light and intensely hard growth much prized on Mars, and entirely unknown to us denizens of Earth. The metal of the barrel is an alloy composed principally of aluminum and steel which they have learned to temper to a hardness far exceeding that of the steel with which we are familiar. The weight of these rifles is comparatively little, and with the small caliber, explosive, radium projectiles which they use, and the great length of the barrel, they are deadly in the extreme and at ranges which would be unthinkable on Earth. The theoretic effective radius of this rifle is three hundred miles, but the best they can do in actual service when equipped with their wireless finders and sighters is but a trifle over two hundred miles.

Despite the range, most of the fighting on Mars takes place with swords. So much for logic. Still, it paved the way for other writers to think outside the box.

Buck Rogers

The term "blaster" was coined in April 1925 in Weird Tales (Amazing Stories and Astounding did not yet exist!) in "When the Green Star Waned" by the obscure Nictzin Dyalhis:

"Well, it was for me that, in obedience to Hul Jok's imperative command, I was holding my Blastor pointing ahead of me..." 

Another Weird Tales alumnus was Edmond Hamilton who wrote most the SF in the magazine. He had the Blue Ray of Death in "Across Space" (Weird Tales, September 1926) and the Cold Ray in "The Atomic Conquerors" (Weird Tales, February 1927) and the De-Atomizing Ray in "Crashing Suns" (Weird Tales, August 1928).

Buck Rogers, who was still Anthony Rogers when he appeared in "Armageddon 2419" (Amazing Stories, August 1928) by Philip Francis Nowlan, found the future Americans at war with invading Asians and using rocket launchers called Rocket guns and the following:

I took the weapon from his grasp and examined it hurriedly. It was not unlike the automatic pistol to which I was accustomed, except that it apparently fired with a button instead of a trigger. I inserted several fresh rounds of ammunition into its magazine from my companion's belt, as rapidly as I could, for I soon heard, near us, the suppressed conversation of his pursuers.

In the same issue, in an equally monumental tale, The Skylark of Space by E. E. Doc Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby goes back to the Burroughs' method:

They found that the X-plosive came fully up to expectations. The smallest charge they had prepared, fired by Crane at a great stump a full hundred yards away from the bare, flat-topped knoll that had afforded them a landing-place, tore it bodily from the ground and reduced it to splinters, while the force of the explosion made the two men stagger...The pistol cracked, and when the bullet reached its destination the great stone was obliterated in a vast ball of flame.

"The Girl from Mars"

Hugo Gernsback published "The Girl From Mars" by Jack Williamson and Miles J. Breuer in a pamphlet in 1929. This was the one thing he published in between owning Amazing Stories and his new set of magazines which included Wonder Stories. This tale features three Martians raised on Earth, children sent in capsules like Superman would be in the comics four years later. The two males fight a super-hero proportioned battle for the female using an array of weird weaponry most the size of a coin:

The ultramundane man thrust a hand into his pocket and pulled out one of Worrell's little instruments. I did not see the shape of the thing, but as he clasped it in his hand, a vague green fire flowed out of it and flashed across to Fred. What that force was, I do not know - some form of electric energy, or of ions, perhaps. The green radiance condensed about my son. His brave advance was abruptly checked. An expression of agony came over his face. He tottered and began a scream that ended in a rattling sob. For a moment his body was outlined sharply in the curdling green incandescence. Mason relaxed his grip of the tiny device and calmly returned it to his pocket as my son, burned and distorted, fell heavily to the floor.

"The Crystal Ray" by Raymond Z. Gallun (Air Wonder Stories, November 1929) features another racist war between America and the Yellow Menace. America survives with a final desperate weapon, the Blue Ray:

From the bow of one of America's ships a faint beam of bluish light stabbed out and struck an enemy craft, sweeping it from stem to stern! It passed through the vessel as though she had been made of glass, instead of thousands of tons of metal. Immediately the dreadnaught began to blunder oddly as though completely out of control. What had happened to her occupants? A grim smile passed over Pelton's lips, for he knew!

Brigands of the Moon

In Amazing Stories, November 1930, it was John W. Campbell, still writer, not yet all-important editor, who really figured out how such a weapon would actually work in "Solarite":

“Imagine what would happen if we directed this against the side of a mountain—the entire mass of rock would at once fly off at unimaginable speed, crashing ahead with terrific power, as all the molecules suddenly moved in the same direction. Nothing in all the Universe could hold together against it! It's a disintegration ray of a sort—a ray that will tear, or crush, for we can either make one half move away from the other—or we can reverse the power, and make one half drive toward the other with all the terrific power of its molecules! It is omnipotent—hmmm—” Arcot paused, narrowing his eyes in thought. It has one limitation. Will it reach far in the air? In vacuum it should have an infinite range—in the atmosphere all the molecules of the air will be affected, and it will cause a terrific blast of icy wind, a gale at temperatures far below zero! This will be even more effective here on Venus!

1931 seems to be an important year for ray guns. At Teck's Amazing Stories, April 1931 Nat Schachner and Arthur Leo Zagat came up with the Disruptor in "The Emperor of the Stars". That same month in Hugo Gernsback's Wonder Stories, The Annihilation Beam appeared in Leslie F. Stone's in "The Conquest of Gola," and Clark Ashton Smith had his Zero Ray in "An Adventure in Futurity". Jack Williamson offers another form of weapon, the Matter Annihilation Ray in "Twelve Hours to Live" (Wonder Stories, August 1931).

In wasn't any different over at the Clayton Astounding. Ray Cummings must have had Wells in mind when he created the pencil heat ray in Brigands of the Moon (Astounding, March 1931) :

My pencil ray was in my hand and I pressed its switch. The tiny heat ray stabbed through the air, but I missed. The figure stumbled but did not fall. I saw a bare gray arm come from the cloak, flung up to maintain its balance. Or perhaps my pencil ray had seared his arm...

Flash. Ah-ahhh.

Of all the spacemen to appear in the Clayton Astounding, Hawk Carse was certainly the most famous. In "Hawk Carse" (Astounding, November 1931) he is described as "... Hawk Carse the adventurer, he of the spitting ray-gun and the phenomenal draw, of the reckless space ship maneuverings..." In the story there is little or no explanation of how a ray gun works for by this time none was necessary. The Hawk Carse stories were modeled on the Western and how the gun worked was no longer important, only that the hero was lightning fast. The ray gun had arrived.

C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith in his first appearance "Shambleau" (Weird Tales, November 1933) shows he knows his way around a weapon in the opening scene:

"Smith, lounging negligently against the wall, arms folded and gun-hand draped over his left forearm, looked incapable of swift motion, but at the leader’s first forward step the pistol swept in a practiced half-circle and the dazzle of blue-white heat leaping from its muzzle seared an arc in the slag pavement at his feet..."

By 1934 in Triplanetary (Amazing Stories, January-April 1934), E. E. Doc Smith replaced his X-Plosive with the "Standish", a beam weapon of immense power. Smith would later coined the word "Super-Weapon" in "What a Course!" (Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1939:

Going up to a blank wall, he manipulated an almost invisible dial set flush with it surface, swung a heavy door aside, and lifted out the Standish - a fearsome weapon. Squat, huge, and heavy, it resembled somewhat an overgrown machine rifle, but one possessing a thick, short telescope, with several opaque condensing lenses and parabolic reflectors...He set his peculiar weapon down, unfolded its three massive legs, crouched down behind it, and threw in a switch. Dull red beams of frightful intensity shot from the reflectors and sparks, almost of lightening proportions, leaped from the shielding screen under their impact.

Pew! Pew!

Disappointing as Buck Roger's initial weaponry in the Pulps, he didn't really get going until he became a comic strip character in January 1929, leaving Earth for outer space. Once out there, Buck's futuristic weapon inspired the generations that followed. The XZ-31 Rocket Pistol appeared at the February 1934 American Toy Fair and sold for 50 cents.

And of course, right on Buck's tracks came Flash Gordon in January 7, 1934. With Buster Crabbe playing him in the serials in 1936, everyone now knew what a space gun was supposed to look like.

The events of 1945 and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki mark the end of fun, futuristic weapons. The real thing had arrived and they weren't so fun. For a while Science Fiction focused on bombardments as everyone worried that the Russians would fill the skies with death. But TV gave us new men in silver underwear and the ray gun became the province of Children's entertainment or the stuff of jokes such as Chuck Jones's brilliant "Duck Dodgers in the 24 and 1/2 century" (Warner Bros., 1953). Daffy whips out his Disintegrator Pistol and pulls the trigger. The gun, of course, disintegrates. But eventually TV shows like Lost in Space, Star Trek, Space 1999, and of course Star Wars would bring these glittering hand-held weapons back into our consciousness. Call it a ray gun, call it a blaster, it doesn't matter. As Han Solo says, perhaps erroneously: "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

Additional resources:
Kurogawa's Virtual Ray Gun Exhibition
Technovelgy's Weapons in Science Fiction

 G. W. Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

100 Things I Love About TV

It's taken me a while, but I've finally compiled a list a la Siskoid's.



1. Andy Griffith and Don Knotts: Greatest Comedy Team of All Time
2. Falling in love with Elinor Donahue on Father Knows Best (then realizing she’d also dated Andy Taylor).
3. The comfort of watching any family in a ‘60s sitcom (eg Hazel, My Three Sons, etc.)
4. The opening credits to I Dream of Jeannie.
5. Fred Sanford vs. Aunt Esther.
6. Vincent Price’s terrorizing the Brady boys in Hawaii.
7. The “Ring My Bell” skit on The Carol Burnett Show.
8. The Ministry of Silly Walks.
9. The Fonz.
10. Alex P Keaton



11. Bill Cosby’s finally getting the perfect showcase for his comedy in The Cosby Show.
12. Bob Newhart doing anything.
13. Lilith on Cheers.
14. “This is the theme to Garry’s show, the theme to Garry’s show. Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song.”
15. David Schwimmer’s complete willingness to make a jackass of himself on Friends. And Ross isn't even my favorite character from that show.
16. “Chicken pot, chicken pot, chicken pot pie!”
17. “No, Matthew. I can definitively state that I am not Doobie Keebler.”
18. Anthony Clark as Boyd Pritchett in Boston Common.
19. Mr. Frickin’ Bean.
20. “Yo-Yo Ma!” “Boutros Boutros-Ghali!”



21. Lt. Jim Dangle.
22. JD and Turk’s bromance.
23. The Legen - wait for it - dary Barney Stinson.
24. Jim’s pranks on Dwight.
25. Knock knock. “Penny.” Knock knock. “Penny.” Knock knock. “Penny.”
26. Watching the credits of The Love Boat to see who the guest-stars were.
27. Noel Crane’s crush on Felicity Porter.
28. Lorelai and Rory Gilmore.
29. That Sandra Oh makes me cry every time her character does.
30. The design of the submarine in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.



31. Ron Ely’s intelligent Tarzan.
32. That the most faithful adaptation of Tarzan ever was a Filmation cartoon.
33. The world-building in Land of the Lost.
34. “Daniel Boone was a man. He was a biiiiig man!”
35. “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, there was never a leatherneck braver; a Daring Dragoon is he. He’ll halt the bold advance of Napoleon’s attack! There ain’t a French or pirate rogue who don’t…know Jack!”
36. The inventive abandon of Brisco County, Jr.
37. Learning about history from Young Indiana Jones.
38. Adam West’s deadpan.
39. Luke Skywalker as the Joker.
40. The whole DC Timmiverse.



41. The theme to Legion of Super Heroes.
42. The theme to Teen Titans.
43. The General Lee’s jumping creeks and blowing that horn.
44. Boy George’s guest-starring on The A-Team.
45. Adam Ant’s guest-starring on The Equalizer.
46. Noel Crane’s becoming the badass Cool Breeze on The Unit.
47. Jack Bristow’s brutally relentless protection of his daughter in Alias.
48. The DVD cover for Season One of Nikita.
49. The theme to Mission: Impossible.
50. The theme to Hawaii Five-0.



51. Alfred Hitchcock’s opening and closing comments on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
52. The theme to Perry Mason.
53. Robert Ironside’s fighting crime from a wheelchair.
54. The Barnaby Jones announcer. “Tonight’s episode: ‘To Catch a Dead Man’!”
55. Feeling smugly alternative because I liked Jaclyn Smith better than Farrah Fawcett.
56. Columbo’s turning around at the door and saying, “Oh, just one more thing…”
57. How Magnum PI was totally an homage to film noir.
58. Lee Horseley as both Archie Goodwin on Nero Wolfe and the titular Matt Houston.
59. The way Avery Brooks pronounced “Spenser” in Spenser: For Hire.
60. Rick and AJ Simon. But mainly Rick.



61. Shawn Spencer’s love of The Mentalist.
62. Patrick Jane’s smirk.
63. Daphne and Fred’s relationship in Scooby Doo: Mystery, Inc.
64. That Friday the 13th: The Series was way better than the movies it got its name from.
65. Mulder and Scully’s calling each other by their last names.
66. John Astin as Gomez Addams.
67. Just knowing that Dark Shadows existed.
68. Getting arsonphobia from an episode of Ghost Story. I eventually grew out of it, but that’s some powerful TV. I was freaked out by campfires and birthday candles for a couple of years.
69. The very idea that Aaron Spelling did a show based on Vampire: The Masquerade.
70. Sun and Jin. Also Sawyer.



71. Elizabeth Montgomery’s twinkle.
72. Everything about Lynda Carter.
73. Xena’s battle cry.
74. “Oh, Mighty Isis!”
75. The animal-appliances in The Flintstones.
76. Teen Pebbles.
77. Sid and Marty Krofft’s costumes.
78. Mr. Hooper’s having to constantly correct Big Bird’s pronunciation of his name.
79. “It’s The Muppet Show, everybody! Yaaaaay!”
80. “Of course you realize: this means war.”



81. The sound the Six Million Dollar Man made when he used his powers.
82. The heartbreak of Jamie Sommers’ amnesia.
83. David Banner walking down the road to that piano tune at the end of every episode of The Incredible Hulk.
84. Being introduced to “Land of a Thousand Dances” by Misfits of Science.
85. George Reeves’ Clark Kent. An unconvincing disguise, but a hero in his own right.
86. Teri Hatcher’s Lois Lane.
87. Smallville’s using Remy Zero’s “Save Me” as it’s theme song.
88. Roswell’s using Dido’s “Here With Me” as it’s theme song.
89. Seeing Mystery Science Theatre live at Minneapolis’ Uptown Theater in 1992.
90. The vehicles of Ark II (including the jet pack).



91. “Five hundred years into the future she will enter a world where machines rule the earth. Mankind has been driven underground.”
92. Tom Baker’s running around the universe offering everyone Jelly Babies.
93. The Clone Wars’ heroic rescue of the entire Star Wars franchise.
94. Hawk from Buck Rogers.
95. Original Cylons
96. Kirk’s libido.
97. Picard’s voice.
98. Worf’s scowl.
99. The concept of Star Trek: Enterprise.
100. “Our love for him now ain’t hard to explain. The Hero of Canton, the man they call Jayne.”

Guest Post: GW Thomas on Buck Rogers: The First Space Hero

I've never had a guest post before, but GW Thomas runs the very excellent Adventure! blog and not only are our blog's names similar, but our interests are so close that I was thrilled when he agreed to write a series of articles about classic Space Pulp heroes for me. And even more thrilled when he decided to cover them in chronological order, because my particular brand of OCD is all about chronological order. Thanks again, GW, and I can't wait to read the rest of the series.



People often forget where things begin. Take Buck Rogers for instance. If you asked anyone about Buck you’d probably hear about the new comic book or the old TV show with Gil Gerard or if you were lucky the old newspaper comic strip. But these and other incarnations of Buck were not the first. Buck Rogers began in the Pulps and is really the first true Space Hero. He was the first and because of that, for many years Science Fiction was known as “That Buck Rogers stuff.” (Said with a sneer usually.)

Buck started out in the world as Anthony Rogers. He was featured in two connected stories, “Armageddon 2419” (Amazing Stories, August 1928) and its sequel “Airlords of Han” (Amazing Stories, March 1929) by Philip Francis Nowlan. The magazine these stories ran in was the first all-Science Fiction Pulp, created by Hugo Gernsback in 1926. It shouldn’t really be surprising that the first Space Hero appeared in the first Space magazine. Gernsback was a crusader for Science, believing technology would change the world into a paradise. His background was radio and electronics and his magazines appealed to these kinds of readers, with lots of gadgets and pseudo-scientific speeches about them.



The plot of “Armageddon 2419” concerns the evil Han (yes, this was the era of Yellow Peril and racism is found in these stories) who take over the World. Anthony Rogers is a man from our time who is put to sleep by a mysterious gas in a mine and wakes to find his beloved America under the Han’s cruel thumbs. He joins a group of resistance fighters, who armed with their flying belts, take on the Han and begin to win back their homeland. Wilma Deering is one of these plucky rebels and the two eventually fall in love. In the sequel the rebels win the world back from their oppressors and all is well. Sounds clunky and just a little silly, doesn’t it? But Nowlan’s style was straight forward and the action scenes with flying men fighting the nasty Han ships are exciting and colorful. We all like to cheer for the underdogs.



At this point, Anthony Rogers is not yet Buck. On January 7, 1929, the National Newspaper Syndicate began a comic based on Nowlan’s story and Anthony became Buck, named after the 1920’s cowboy actor, Buck Jones. The strip was written by Nowlan and drawn by Dick Calkins. Beginning as an adaptation of the stories, the comic changed into tales of space and other fantastic adventures. It was in the comics that characters such as Black Barney, Killer Kane and Dr. Huer were added. The sign that Buck was influential far beyond those two original stories was that he was imitated. Flash Gordon began as a comic strip on January 7, 1934. Ironically, the man who played Flash in 1936, Buster Crabbe, would don the silver underwear to play Buck in 1939.



“That Buck Rogers Stuff” was here to stay. Radio, television, comic books, movie serials. All popular signs that Buck Rogers had gone from fighting the Han to becoming an SF icon, a fate some SF writers lamented. Adventure Science Fiction had begun and the pages of the Pulps, from Amazing Stories to Astounding Science Fiction to Thrilling Wonder Stories, would feature brash heroes who fight against fantastic enemies and win. Space adventurers would appeal to fans for generations to come. George Lucas, when he created his Star Wars franchise in the 1970s was thinking back to those Buster Crabbe serials and longing for the color and excitement they had. And all thanks to “That Buck Rogers stuff” and the first hero of space.

Movie News: Welcome Back, Xander.

Immortals



Hot on the heels of Percy Jackson and Clash of the Times comes a third Greek mythology film called Immortals. It'll star Henry Cavill (The Tudors) as Theseus, who joins the Greek gods to fight the Titans. Kellan Lutz (Twilight) will play Poseidon, John Hurt is Zeus, Mickey Rourke will be King Hyperion, and Isabel Lucas (Transformers 2, Daybreakers) plays Athena. It'll be directed by Tarsem Singh (The Cell) who plans to shoot it "in Renaissance painting style." [/Film]

Three Musketeers director



There are a couple of Three Musketeers movies in the works. One by Paul WS Anderson (Resident Evil) and one by the guy who produced Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. The second of those has a director now: Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith). [/Film]

National Treasure 3 writers



I suppose that one day I could tired of these, but not yet. In fact, they're about the only Nicholas Cage movies I trust anymore. This third one's being written by the guys who wrote the Prince of Persia film. [/Film]

Xander Cage, Black Widow, Alfred Hitchcock, Resident Evil, Buck Rogers, Godzilla, and the real Runaways after the break.

Friday Night Art Show: Achtung, Squiddie!

Excuse me, Madame



By Jeremy Vanhoozer.

Squiddie



By Kyle Hunter. [Sketchy Business]

Triton



By Monsterpocalypse.

First in the Future



By Frank Frazetta [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Marrina



By Jesse Hamm. Lots more Alpha Flight art in that link. I especially dig his Heather Hudson and Sasquatch.

The Sea Girl



I don't recognize that signature. Anyone know? [Galactic Central]

Aquaman, Anyone?



By Jesus Saiz. [DC Universe: The Source]

Aquaman vs. Nazi Fish



By DC Stuelpner.

Spawn of Space



Artist Unknown [American Pulps & Magazines]

First Wave



By Rags Morales [DC Universe: The Source]

Catwoman



By Alex Ross. This will always be Catwoman's costume to me.

Golem



By Patri Balanovsky. [Sketchy Business]

Play Time



By Sam Hiti. Check this one out too. It's sort of a sequel.

Don't Feed the Bears



By Mel Milton.

Wooden Ninja



By Eric Zermeno.

Odin



By Pere Pérez. [Victor Santos]

Ride of the Valkyrie



By Tony Mayoh. [Sketchy Business]

Zoom Quilt



By lots of people. You have to click through and watch this. It's a Flash animation that zooms inward, taking you deeper and deeper through a continuous series of paintings and eventually looping on itself. Amazing.

Space Lion



By Jeremy Vanhoozer.

Teeth



By Scott Burroughs.

Space Squadron



By Sol Brodsky (maybe). [Collectors Assemble]