Thea von Harbou (1888–1954)

The rocket to the moon : from the novel The girl in the moon by Thea von Harbou ; translated by Baroness von Hutten. The Baroness (Freifrau von Hutten zum Stolzenberg) was an Anerican born ex-pat, Bettina Riddle who under her pen name Betsey Riddle, published more than twenty novels of her own in her lifetime.

This translation from the original German Frau im Mond, into English was published in America in several edition by World Wide Publishing Co. One edition contains just The Rocket to the Moon, a second one contained The Rocket to the moon and The spoilers by Rex Beach, and Slightly Scarlet by Percy Heath as part of World Wide Publishing’s “triple deck series” with a dust jacket proclaiming “ADVENTURE” in bold letters. A third was published with just The Rocket to the moon and Slightly Scarlet, but this time the dust jacket for the two novels read “MYSTERY” as part of the publishers’ “double deck” series. All three novels had been made into motion pictures by 1930. It would appear that the marketing department at World Wide was planning to sell to as many segments of the reading audience as possible, and possibly at different price points.

Since then the translation has been reprinted in both paperback and hardcover editions. This review is based on the text in the World Wide Publishing triple deck series.

Industrialist Wolf Helius goes to visit the impoverished Professor Manfeldt, and narrowly escapes a collision with a man that Manfeldt has just thrown out of his apartment. Helius has come to tell Manfeldt that inspired by his theories, Helius is determined to attempt a trip to the moon in a rocket that his firm has designed and manufactured. Knowing that this trip might end in failure and his own death he plans to go alone, but Manfeldt begs to go along and Helius relents and promises to take Manfelt along. In gratitude he presents Helius with the original manuscript of his research.

On the journey home Helius is waylaid, drugged, and the manuscript stolen. When he arrives home in a stupor, the members of his household staff bring him back to consciousness, and he discovers that the manuscript is gone. He soon confronted by the thief, a man with “an olive complexion,” who introduces himself as Walt Turner. He says he represents a group that are aware of Manfeldt’s theories about the moon including the gold found in its mountains. He demands that in exchange for the manuscript and the plans that he has just stolen from Helius’s safe, he will be included on the journey to the moon. Helius asks for twenty-four hours to think it over. Turner says that he will return in exactly twenty-four hours sure that his offer will be accepted.

When Turner returns he is confronted by not only Helius but also his business partner rocket engineer Hans Windegger and Windegger’s fiancé Friede Velten. After some tense conversations, threats of violence and protests all around, the official crew of the Space-Ship has grown from one to five: Helius, Manfelt, Turner, Windegger and Velten. Friede Velten insists that she will not be left behind despite the protests of both Helius and Windegger. Thus she will become the Woman in the Moon of the German title Frau im Mond.

The launch, scheduled for the evening to occur as a full moon is visible in the sky, is described in the following breathless prose starting with the revelation of the spacecraft as the doors of its assembly hall open and it rolls out to its launch site by the shore of a lake, flooded by spotlights:

"It appeared rising from the end of the hall, a dark heaving monster, the airship which was to take out the Space-ship.

The crowd became suddenly silent.

In spite of everything, they had not seemed to really expect that the monster ship would go up. They were, as it were, seized by the throat by the reality of what was unbelievable. The very air around seemed to stand still with expectation.

Then whispers passed round.

“The people who are to go up—where are they?”

Indistinct faces appeared at the windows, but they seemed to be phantoms from another world, with no kinship with the watching crowd. They were already being who did not belong to this world.

The photographers and pressmen who had swarmed the out of the open hall thronged round the great ship like a crowd of gnats. They were all pale and had a feverish expression in their eyes.

Still they must wait … wait for what had to come!

Why did they wait, with all nerves strung to breaking point. And the loud-speakers all gave out out the same word at the same moment:

“CAREFUL!”

A man in airman’s costume stood motionless as a block of stone at the cone of the bluish white searchlight. He was to give the signal to start. He only raised his arm, held it for a second, and then let it fall.

The aircraft began to move. And it went out in the night with a rush and a noise grater that that which a hundred sirens on the ocean could not have made. A blow, as though the earth would open, and fire shot forth from a score of burning mouths—shrieking, roaring fire. The aircraft slid on, ran, flew upwards.

The human sea round the lake moved about in waves, and broke into noise as the waves themselves break at the end of their course. Noise without words as the vast mass watched the marvelous thing which was happening.

With a rush like that of a wild beast from its lair, the airship, which bore the Space-Ship aloft with it left the rails whilst the fire raged round it, sprang into the air and appeared like a meteor flying towards the moon, outlined against the sky in its upward flight."

For the crew of the Space-Ship now comes the most grueling part of their expedition the stress of accelerating to eleven thousand two hundred meters per second. For eight minutes they must endure the the crushing weight of acceleration that will allow them to escape earth’s gravitational pull. A few pass out from the strain. This was the strain that Helius feared might be fatal, so there are some anxious moments until the unconscious members of the crew are brought back to consciousness. Suddenly the great weight they have experienced dissolves into weightlessness and they are able to stare out the windows in awe at the earth, sun, and approaching moon.

The next tense scene is avoiding a crash landing on the dark side of the moon, which they accomplish and survive to find their ship half buried in sand, but a breathable atmosphere and lots of mountains filled with gold.

This is the point in the book in which science fiction turns into a fantasy adventure with the discovery of a temple of gold built by ancient civilization and the nefarious Turner attempts to steal the Space-Ship and return to Earth alone. While it proves his undoing, his parting shot does deplete the spacecraft’s oxygen supply for the return journey and the tale concludes with Wolf Helius left behind on the moon, until to his delighted surprise he is greeted by Friede Velten.

As is evident in the above excerpt above, this is a book filled with similes, metaphors, and few noun or verbs that escape being modified by adjectives or adverbs. It is, nevertheless, effective.

The plot of the original German novel Frau im Mond published in 1928 differs in a number of places from the script written by the author for her husband at the time Fitiz Lang for his 1929 silent film of the same title.… (more)

Bought this illustrated edition to replace my text-only ed. Highly enjoyable story for which the stills from the film and posters and other artwork enhanced. B&W throughout. The introduction by Forrest Ackerman was excellent, a partial fiction in itself. Mentions of comparisons between Metropolis with RUR, Erewhon, The Time Machine, When the Sleeper Wakes, Land Under England, Looking Backward, Summer in 3000; and he ranks the book alongside The World Below, The House on the Borderland, The Demolished Man, The Forever War, Childhood's End, Last Men in London, Stranger in a Strange Land, and 1984… (more)