Jack Williamson Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Publishers Weekly

Critical Essay by Publishers Weekly

Williamson wrote [the 11 stories in "The Early Williamson"] between 1928 and 1933, back when Amazing Stories and Astounding Stories were bringing a new category to the pulps—what Williamson called "scientifiction" in 1928 and Hugo Gernsback refined to "science-fiction" a year later. The lethal powers of radiation are vividly described in "The Metal Man," in which the hero discovers a rich source of radium dust but becomes metallicized in the process. In "The Girl from Mars," the red planet is destroyed by atomic disintegration but not before the inhabitants manage to perpetuate their race on earth by way of ingenious artificial-insemination kits dispatched here in meteors. By today's standards the stories are rather naive and quaint, but they do demonstrate how the genre has grown up.

A review of "Early Williamson," in Publishers Weekly (reprinted from the June 16, 1975 issue of Publishers Weekly, published by R. R. Bowker...
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