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beamjockeyI just realized something in a discussion with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seawasp over at James Nicoll's blog.
The earliest installments of Ralph 124c41+ appeared over 99 years ago, I think. Yup-- says here that it began in the April 1911 issue of Modern Electrics. Time to start baking a Ralph cake.
Anybody up for a centennial celebration next spring? Capricon? Minicon? Renovation?
It's not a real good science fiction novel, but it is an important science fiction novel.
You'd think, being out of copyright, this book would be online. But I can't find it. I do have a paper copy, or two.
Link to the University of Nebraska Press edition.
Maybe putting it online would be a suitable way to celebrate?
Do you have other suggestions?
Long ago, I wrote an essay for a Chicon VI progress report and program book in which Ralph figures heavily.
by Bill Higgins
The preface to Lester del Rey's 1953 novel _Rocket Jockey_ contains one of
science fiction's most astonishing predictions. Writing under the pseudonym
"Philip St. John," del Rey correctly predicted the name of the first man to
walk on the Moon! He also predicted the astronaut's first words:
"When Major Armstrong landed on the Moon in 1964 his first words over the
radar to Earth were `Who won the Indianapolis Classic?'"
Oh, well, even the best prophets can't be accurate 100% of the time.
As _Rocket Jockey_ illustrates, science fiction's record at predicting the
future is, at best, spotty. SF stories are not about what will happen,
they're about what might happen. You and I understand this, but it's not
always clear to the rest of the world. Nevertheless, I enjoy the guilty
pleasure of comparing the developments in SF stories to those in the
so-called real world.
Hugo Gernsback -- the guy who gave SF its name -- was as gadget-happy as
anyone who has ever written the stuff. In the early days of radio, he
published magazines for electrical hobbyists, and sometimes wrote fiction
for the amusement of his readers. His best-remembered novel, _Ralph
124C41+,_ is crammed with speculations about technology.
Hugo's most famous hit: The eponymous Ralph uses reflected radio waves to
learn the distance and location of the bad guy's spaceship, anticipating the
invention that warned British interceptors of Luftwaffe bomber attacks 28
years after the story's publication.
The book also describes restaurants which serve food exclusively in liquid
form, through hoses running to each patron's seat. Rocket ships have
runningboards. And commuters zoom through the metal streets of the Big Apple
on motorized roller skates powered by titanic radio transmitters. (Gernsback
had more uses for radio than George Washington Carver had for the peanut.)
Seems unlikely now.
But another success in _Ralph 124C41+_ appears as Ralph shows his girlfriend
what we would today call his "home entertainment center."
Theatregoers of the past, he explains, "if they did not happen to like the
production, had either to sit all through it or else go home. They probably
would have rejoiced at the ease of our Tele-Theaters, where we can switch
from one play to another in five seconds, until we find the one that suits
us best."
Hugo could have been describing my living room at the end of the 1990s.
Except that electronic wizardry allows me to switch from one play to another
in a fifth of a second, sometimes to the dismay of my wife. Fortunately, I
know better than to try this when _Xena_ is on.
Other stories have used certain inventions as props for so long that we're
all expecting them to appear any day now. For example, cities of the future
always seem to have swarms of flying cars. Some of those stories were
decades old when I read them as a kid. At some point I noticed that we had
advanced fairly far into the future, and there was a notable shortage of
flying cars.
I investigated this. The first Chicagoan to commute by air was Harold
McCormick, who used Lake Michigan as a handy runway for his 1913-model
seaplane, hopping the 28 miles from his Evanston home to the downtown
Chicago Yacht Club in minutes, then strolling to the office. This is way
better than radio-powered roller skates.
It turns out that the technology to make a flying car has been with us since
the first workable types were built in the 1930s. Some models folded their
wings, others detached the car and left the wings at the airport, others
used rotors to land vertically. Several were quite good. None of the
inventors was able to muster the money to go into mass production.
Maybe it's the costly maintenance, maybe it's the piloting skill they'd
require, maybe it's the compromises the designers must make between a good
car and a good aircraft. For whatever reasons, the "roadable aircraft" has
never become a commonplace. It may belong to the past, rather than the
future.
Ignoring these inconvenient facts, SF writers continue blithely to fill
their fictional skies with aircars. A tiny group of engineers and pilots
meets every year in Oshkosh to discuss their designs for future flying cars,
so there may yet be hope.
The SF prediction that's chilled me recently is Fritz Leiber's 1954 story
"The Creature from Cleveland Depths." The Tickler begins as a gadget for
playing back recorded sound-memos at pre-set times, to remind its user of
appointments and such. As subsequent models develop, Ticklers acquire more
features, and become so useful that sales grow explosively. Everybody needs
one.
More and more of my friends are buying Palm Pilot "personal digital
assistants." They're getting bleeped at just before appointments. They're
shooting data on infrared beams. They're modifying their own handwriting to
satisfy the device's word-recognition software. They're reading bedtime
stories to their kids from its electroluminescent screen.
As I watch this, I think of the glassy-eyed inhabitants of Leiber's
Cleveland Depths. Their Ticklers whisper upbeat motivational messages and
inject mood-altering drugs into users' bloodstreams to improve productivity.
They are zombies completely under the control of the machines they love.
Hope this is one prediction that doesn't prove accurate.
But some folks at MIT are saying that "wearable computing" is the next big
trend... hmmm.
Stay tuned.
seawasp over at James Nicoll's blog.The earliest installments of Ralph 124c41+ appeared over 99 years ago, I think. Yup-- says here that it began in the April 1911 issue of Modern Electrics. Time to start baking a Ralph cake.
Anybody up for a centennial celebration next spring? Capricon? Minicon? Renovation?
It's not a real good science fiction novel, but it is an important science fiction novel.
You'd think, being out of copyright, this book would be online. But I can't find it. I do have a paper copy, or two.
Link to the University of Nebraska Press edition.
Maybe putting it online would be a suitable way to celebrate?
Do you have other suggestions?
Long ago, I wrote an essay for a Chicon VI progress report and program book in which Ralph figures heavily.
Radio Skates, Teletheatres, and Rocket Jockeys
by Bill Higgins
The preface to Lester del Rey's 1953 novel _Rocket Jockey_ contains one of
science fiction's most astonishing predictions. Writing under the pseudonym
"Philip St. John," del Rey correctly predicted the name of the first man to
walk on the Moon! He also predicted the astronaut's first words:
"When Major Armstrong landed on the Moon in 1964 his first words over the
radar to Earth were `Who won the Indianapolis Classic?'"
Oh, well, even the best prophets can't be accurate 100% of the time.
As _Rocket Jockey_ illustrates, science fiction's record at predicting the
future is, at best, spotty. SF stories are not about what will happen,
they're about what might happen. You and I understand this, but it's not
always clear to the rest of the world. Nevertheless, I enjoy the guilty
pleasure of comparing the developments in SF stories to those in the
so-called real world.
Hugo Gernsback -- the guy who gave SF its name -- was as gadget-happy as
anyone who has ever written the stuff. In the early days of radio, he
published magazines for electrical hobbyists, and sometimes wrote fiction
for the amusement of his readers. His best-remembered novel, _Ralph
124C41+,_ is crammed with speculations about technology.
Hugo's most famous hit: The eponymous Ralph uses reflected radio waves to
learn the distance and location of the bad guy's spaceship, anticipating the
invention that warned British interceptors of Luftwaffe bomber attacks 28
years after the story's publication.
The book also describes restaurants which serve food exclusively in liquid
form, through hoses running to each patron's seat. Rocket ships have
runningboards. And commuters zoom through the metal streets of the Big Apple
on motorized roller skates powered by titanic radio transmitters. (Gernsback
had more uses for radio than George Washington Carver had for the peanut.)
Seems unlikely now.
But another success in _Ralph 124C41+_ appears as Ralph shows his girlfriend
what we would today call his "home entertainment center."
Theatregoers of the past, he explains, "if they did not happen to like the
production, had either to sit all through it or else go home. They probably
would have rejoiced at the ease of our Tele-Theaters, where we can switch
from one play to another in five seconds, until we find the one that suits
us best."
Hugo could have been describing my living room at the end of the 1990s.
Except that electronic wizardry allows me to switch from one play to another
in a fifth of a second, sometimes to the dismay of my wife. Fortunately, I
know better than to try this when _Xena_ is on.
Other stories have used certain inventions as props for so long that we're
all expecting them to appear any day now. For example, cities of the future
always seem to have swarms of flying cars. Some of those stories were
decades old when I read them as a kid. At some point I noticed that we had
advanced fairly far into the future, and there was a notable shortage of
flying cars.
I investigated this. The first Chicagoan to commute by air was Harold
McCormick, who used Lake Michigan as a handy runway for his 1913-model
seaplane, hopping the 28 miles from his Evanston home to the downtown
Chicago Yacht Club in minutes, then strolling to the office. This is way
better than radio-powered roller skates.
It turns out that the technology to make a flying car has been with us since
the first workable types were built in the 1930s. Some models folded their
wings, others detached the car and left the wings at the airport, others
used rotors to land vertically. Several were quite good. None of the
inventors was able to muster the money to go into mass production.
Maybe it's the costly maintenance, maybe it's the piloting skill they'd
require, maybe it's the compromises the designers must make between a good
car and a good aircraft. For whatever reasons, the "roadable aircraft" has
never become a commonplace. It may belong to the past, rather than the
future.
Ignoring these inconvenient facts, SF writers continue blithely to fill
their fictional skies with aircars. A tiny group of engineers and pilots
meets every year in Oshkosh to discuss their designs for future flying cars,
so there may yet be hope.
The SF prediction that's chilled me recently is Fritz Leiber's 1954 story
"The Creature from Cleveland Depths." The Tickler begins as a gadget for
playing back recorded sound-memos at pre-set times, to remind its user of
appointments and such. As subsequent models develop, Ticklers acquire more
features, and become so useful that sales grow explosively. Everybody needs
one.
More and more of my friends are buying Palm Pilot "personal digital
assistants." They're getting bleeped at just before appointments. They're
shooting data on infrared beams. They're modifying their own handwriting to
satisfy the device's word-recognition software. They're reading bedtime
stories to their kids from its electroluminescent screen.
As I watch this, I think of the glassy-eyed inhabitants of Leiber's
Cleveland Depths. Their Ticklers whisper upbeat motivational messages and
inject mood-altering drugs into users' bloodstreams to improve productivity.
They are zombies completely under the control of the machines they love.
Hope this is one prediction that doesn't prove accurate.
But some folks at MIT are saying that "wearable computing" is the next big
trend... hmmm.
Stay tuned.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 06:24 am (UTC)The more likely plan: Take turns reading it out loud at the giant Happy Birthday Ralph party you'll be hosting next April. Right?
Or ... wait, I see it now ... a series of room parties at cons throughout the year. 16 chapters, 8 conventions, Friday and Saturday nights, one chapter reading per night. A year-long collaborative performance art celebration culminating on New Years Eve someplace.
The 2011.124C41+ Project.
You can thank me later.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 07:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 08:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 01:54 pm (UTC)If I can corner a copy I'd be happy to do it.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 05:04 pm (UTC)That having been said, in the case of serials, frequently there are issues with the "put together" edition. Triplanetary is in Gutenberg, but it isn't the edition you got from Pyramid in the 1970s... That version is still under copyright.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-02 04:28 am (UTC)Disclaimer: IANAL
no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 07:37 pm (UTC)I'm pretty sure I even have a copy somewhere.
Hydroponic farming! Aluminum foil! UFOs! Not just TV, but cultural specials!
((Having the sourest of my high school English teachers immediately conceive an all-semester vendetta against me when I said this was the book I wanted to do my semester project on. When reading almost the complete works of Bernard Shaw in one semester wasn't enough for her and I had to do something more, she suggested I do a report on Faulkner's Sound and Fury . . . next Tuesday.))
no subject
Date: 2010-12-03 03:17 am (UTC)water hydrogen generator
Date: 2011-02-17 08:12 pm (UTC)