Murray Leinster (1896–1975)

Murray Leinster (William Fitzgerald Jenkins) is one of the great names in early Science Fiction, but he also tried his hand at westerns and mysteries, eventually writing hundreds of radio scripts and more than a dozen movie screenplays. He goes so far back that a few of his great stories, such as The Runaway Skyscraper, didn’t even appear in the pulp magazines — because they hadn’t yet been invented!

The Other Now is a later story from the great Leinster, first appearing in Galaxy show more Magazine in 1951. It’s less that twenty pages, but it will absolutely blow you away. It’s enthralling from the first sentence, and once you realize what may be happening, it’s even more compelling. You have to remember that it wasn’t until 1952 in Dublin that Erwin Schrödinger joked with an audience that his Nobel equations actually were describing alternative realities happening simultaneously. And it wasn’t until 1957 that American Hugh Everett III put forth what would become known as the many worlds theory. Leinster had, of course, dealt with similar themes much earlier, in Sidewise, but here, it was right on the cutting edge of quantum physics.

Jimmy and Jane Patterson loved each other very much, and then tragedy struck, and she was taken from him. Three months later, still lamenting the tragedy, he comes home and something strange happens. Didn’t he already open the door, and shut the door? Finally, he takes a photo, and it shows two doors. But it isn’t until he finds Jane’s diary, and is shocked to discover an entry dated after her death, and the sorrow filled within the entry as she laments his death in the car accident, that he begins to believe.

He tells his friend Haynes, an attorney, what has been happening. Haynes feels for Jimmy, but believes his friend may be going mad — at first. To reveal more would ruin this wonderful experience. Anyone with a romantic bone in their body will love this story, as will anyone who loves the genre, or just a well-written and enthralling short story. I consider this a minor masterpiece. It might seem too sentimental for the harsh world in which we find ourselves trapped nowadays, making it all the more wonderful. Though I picked this up on Kindle, it is available for FREE on Gutenberg, and I highly recommend you rush - don't dawdle - over there as quickly as your fingertips can carry you and download it. You’ll never think of the next drop of rain in quite the same way. show less

One of the best of Murray Leinster in my opinion. It's got the classic Leinster hero who's a very smart engineer, turns out to be surprisingly good at manipulating people, takes bold and clever action, but can be a bit clueless about people at times. (And those are the times you are snickering at him.)

This book has some of Leinster's best social satire--at times approaching even the Retief books by Keith Laumer, but with a much lighter touch. It also has a pretty good plot: a brilliant show more engineer finds society not receptive to his world-changing inventions, so he goes off to change another world. Along the way, he saves several other worlds.

I think this book is enjoyable for a wide range of ages. My boys (7 and 10) loved it, and so did I.

The very light and fluffy romance feels dated and stereotypical for early science fiction (i.e., its stereotypes would be offensive if released today), so you have to appreciate it as a piece of period fiction. That's not really an integral part of the story, though.

By the way, this story is also known as "The Pirates of Zan", and you can buy it under that name too. I have no idea why he called it the Pirates of Ersatz originally, because (unless I missed it) that name does not appear in the book, but Zan does. show less

The Pirates of Ersatz, a.k.a. The Pirates of Zan, first published in Astounding, was nominated for a Hugo in 1960. Leinster was up against some tough competition, including Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan, and Dickson’s Dorsai!

Leinster knew his market, and Pirates is a novel designed to appeal to Astounding’s editor, John W. Campbell. Campbell liked engineer protagonists who could use their creativity to respond heroically to any challenge. Bron Hoddan show more is exactly that kind of guy, though he doesn’t know it. An electrical engineer who grew up on a hardscrabble planet whose principal industry was piracy, he is thrust back into the family business when he is falsely accused of inventing a death ray. He is living on the conservative middle-class planet of Walden—whose name is perhaps an ironic tribute to Henry David Thoreau, the author of “Civil Disobedience.” Hoddan seems the perfect citizen whose goals are simple: “(a) to achieve splendid things as an electronic engineer, (b) to grow satisfactorily rich, (c) to marry a delightful girl, and (d) end his life a great man.” Leinster’s droll humor shows us that conformity and creativity are not a good match. Hoddan turns out to be a creative nonconformist, even among pirates. show less

What an odd stew. Published in 1960, the plot and male characters would have fit right in a 1930s pulp. Like other early SF, there's an undeniable draw to the initial mystery set forth -- what is this signal from space and why has it been a part of Burke's dreams since childhood? How does he know how to invent a "negative inductance" space drive in his garage? Leinster plays fair and answers those questions, along with a trip to an asteroid long abandoned by some alien race, a lot of show more speculation about what happened and invading fleet of aliens bent on destroying our solar sytem. Short though the novel is, it would have been better even shorter, as Leinster hammers every plot point home several times.

A few ingredients make this forgotten novel interesting, not counting that it was filmed by Hammer, from a script by John Brunner, that changed at least half of the story.

First, there is the care with which Leinster develops the engineering of the space drive, and an impressively prescient passage where Burke describes to his crew mates the kinds of information useful for creating a private code to communicate with the US government. Unfortunately, this level of care is dropped when a techno-babble is needed to save the solar system at the end.

Second is the portrayal of the two female characters. The social roles and conventions are solidly pre-1950s: hey are "the girls" and referred to by first name, Sandy and Pam, while the other three crew members are "the men" and referred to by their last names, Burke, Holmes, and Keller. Sandy's arc begins when Burke is about to propose to her at the beginning of the book, and completes when she gets her man at the end. Yuck. And yet, throughout the book Sandy, and to a lesser extent Pam, are presented as clearly intelligent, and often far more observant and deductively astute than the men.

The third interesting and oddest element is the opening pages of Chapter 7. Earlier in the book, in classic Space Race fashion, the Russians launch a manned probe to the asteroid. Little more is said about this, until Chapter 7 describes the lone astronaut aboard that craft, as he flies from one refueling station to the next, on a mission that clearly is taking him nowhere but into the emptiness of space. Then it's back to our heroes. An odd but moving sidebar.

Recommended for those interested in the evolution of SF. show less