Ralph Milne Farley (1887–1963)

Wow, this is one of those books that's somewhat difficult to review with a straight face nearly 100 years after it was first published. Yes, the original copyright was 1924. That's pretty close to the dawn of the radio age, in the immediate aftermath of World War One. Keep that in mind.

I actually read the Project Gutenberg EPUB edition, PG #52167.

The premise of the book is that the protagonist, an inventor named Myles Cabot, goes missing. Turns out, he accidentally transported himself to the show more planet Venus while doing experiments with 3D "television". He was working on a prototype matter-transmission machine using radio because, you know, that was the whiz-bang technology of the day.

OK, fine, we'll check our incredulity at the door and go with it. On Venus, Cabot finds giant insect life, mainly ants called Formians, who have flying cars and communicate via short-range radio waves. Unrealistically, while being held captive (for purposes of study) he learns their written language in just a few days, then bootstraps that knowledge into obtaining a laboratory where he invents a headset that can turn radio waves into sound and vice-versa, so thereafter he can communicate with his hosts.

OK, meanwhile, there is another intelligent "race" on the planet, called the Cupians. They likewise communicate via radio, and they're humanoid with antennae and little vestigial fairy wings. Uh huh. Oh, and the first Cupian that Cabot meets is a captive princess named Lilla who faints at the initial sight of him and then haughtily snubs him, of course, because he's pretty ugly with "ears" and only five fingers per hand and a beard and no antennae and stuff like that. (But hold onto your hats, kiddies: Lilla is a knock-out blonde babe who's going to be the love interest in a few chapters.)

These two "races" are in an uneasy peace, the giant ant-people Formians having long ago conquered the beautiful humanoid Cupians. And they have a sort of Great Wall between their countries. (Part of the border is a deep canyon full of radioactive rocks some of which, at one point, our hero gathers up and carries around for analysis later. WTF? Oh, right this was 1924.)

So this book has all the usual ingredients: warring races, beautiful babes (one plucky and forward brunette who's hot for Cabot; and one winsome but not overly intelligent blonde for whom he is of course very hot; just by the way). It has whiz-bang vacuum-tube technology and an adventurous inventor ready to take on anything.

Some of the scenery, technology, and cultural descriptions are interesting, with a heavy dose of what in our time I'd call "naïve charm". It's a book squarely intended for bashful nerd boys of the era, I guess. Female readers of the 21st century would probably want to just skip it: there are no interesting female roles to see here.

Now... The last few chapters utterly horrified me, but I don't want to spoil it for you... Unless you don't plan on reading the book, in which case you can read the spoiler below.

OK, remember that uneasy peace? Well, basically some of the incidents surrounding Cabot and the capture of that princess Lilla propel these two races into open antagonism, pretty much without very good reasons. Our dude Cabot invents guns for the humanoid Cupians, teaches them to shoot for target practice, and ends up making vicious war upon the ants, which results in re-setting the border. Then pretty much everyone lives happily ever after, except for all the ant people that got slaughtered.

Side note for budding biologists: these people have absolutely no concepts of DNA or speciation, so they all, including the protagonist, are kind of expecting viable offspring from a hook-up between Lilla and Cabot. We don't get any details, but some form of sexual activity is vaguely hinted by the end of the book with the marriage of Cabot and Lilla. Oh, and the plucky brunette ends up with the other nice guy.

In this book, Cabot doesn't get "home" to earth. Instead, with a team of scientists and engineers, he makes a gigantic gun that's large enough to propel a big metallic capsule to earth, by means of which he sends his manuscript back here, and that's where the book started: with the guy who finds and opens the capsule that streaked into Earth's atmosphere like a meteor.
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