1767. STATION X. Amazing Stories, July-September 1926. 111. Paul (Previous book publication by Jenkins, London and Lippincott, Philadelphia, both 1919. It is possible that there was earlier unlocated periodical publication.) Novel. Time: shortly before World War I. Place: an island in the mid-Pacific and the United Kingdom. 

*  World peril arising out of a mental invasion from Mars. In the first part of the novel, Macrae, an operator in a secret radio relay station, is contacted by Venusians, who warn him that the Martians are planning to invade Earth. Ages previously, the Venusians say, the Martians lived on the Moon; when life became difficult, what with waning atmosphere, they transferred their minds en masse to Mars, taking over the bodies of the native Martians. Now they plan to repeat the same maneuver with Earth. 

*  As Macrae listens, the Martians interrupt, swamping the Venusian message. Macrae collapses, and the station no longer broadcasts. 

*  In the second part of the novel, an examination of Macrae's papers, combined with other information, reveals that the Martian invasion has already begun. Martian minds have taken over a destroyer, which they have armed with antigravity and fantastic weapons. The combined fleets of the world have difficulty in defeating this one Martian ship, but the peril is now over. 

*  The story has had admirers, but it is at best commercial fiction in the first half, and less in the second. 

1702. THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES Amazing Stories, July 1926. 111. F. S. Hynd. (First published in Illustrated London News, July 1898. Reprinted in Wells, Tales of Space and Time; Wells, The Country of the Blind; Wells, The Short Stories of H. G. Wells; Welis, The Best Science Fiction Stories; and elsewhere.) Short story. 

*  Fotheringay, in a pub conversation, discovers that he has the power to work miracles. At first bewildered by his new power, then gradually more and more enthusiastic, he explores his capabilities. He consults with his clergyman (Maydig), who encourages him. The miracles build up until Maydig thinks of Joshua—and Fotheringay stops the rotation of the Earth. 

*  Everything is destroyed, or on the point of destruction, until Fotheringay miracles away his miraculous power, and things are all as they were before he started in the pub. 

*  There is a possibility that Wells is setting up a cyclical situation, with recurrence of the miracles. 

*  An amusing story. 

1031. THE SCIENTIFIC ADVENTURES OF MR. FOSDICK. THE FELINE LIGHT AND POWER COMPANY IS ORGANIZED. Amazing Stories, July 1926. Unsigned ill. (First published in Modern Electrics, October 1912. Reprinted in Amazing Stories Annual, 1927.) Short story. 

*  Fosdick has decided to make use of the static electricity generated by cat fur. Capturing a group of cats, he places them in an apparatus he has devised. His idea works, but only too well, for Fosdick and his friend are so charged that they have to sit on insulated stools. 

1303. THE MOON METAL. Amazing Stories, July 1926. 111. Paul. (First published in book form by Harper, New York, 1900. A slightly earlier newspaper syndication has not been precisely located. Reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, November 1939.) A nouvelle or short novel "with a parable-like note on financial theory [free silver] and a spoofing of science." The more fantastic works of Jules Verne would seem to be prototypes. 

*  Time: the near future. 

*  The economy of the world is about to collapse because of the discovery of vast deposits of gold in Antarctica. There seems to be no other metal that can be used as a standard, until a mysterious stranger appears at a monetary conference and offers a strange iridescent metal (artemisium) of which he has the only supply. 

*  This is Dr. Syx, who as part of his presentation shows a motion picture depicting the destruction of humanoid life on another planet, undoubtedly our moon. 

*  Syx's offer is accepted, and the financial structure seems stable again. But a resourceful young engineer named Hall discovers that Syx is not mining artemisium as he claims, but is bringing it from the moon by matter transmission. Hall duplicates Syx's process, whereupon Syx destroys his own plant and, traveling about the world, sets up competitive groups, all of which collapse. Syx's intention is to further destroy the world's economy. The financial situation is where it was in the beginning. 

*  As Hall, most of his gains lost, happens to glance at the Moon, he sees Syx's features in the man in the moon. 

*  The interpretation of the story is obscure, since it links the monetary agitations surrounding the gold standard and free silver with supernaturalism (the work of the Devil) and science-fiction motifs. 

1333. THE EGGS FROM LAKE TANGANYIKA. Amazing Stories, July 1926. Unsigned ill. Although Gernsback claimed that this was an original story, it is a translation of an earlier German publication, "Die Eier von Tanganyika See" (ScherlMagazine, perhaps 1926). The translator is not identified with the story, but C. A. Brandt (in an interview in Fantasy Magazine #28) claimed responsibility. Short story. 

*  Place: Africa and Berlin. When Professor Meyer- Maier ignores the warnings of the natives and removes several gigantic eggs from the swamps around Lake Tanganyika, he sets off an unexpected peril. Taken to Germany, the eggs hatch into monstrous blood-sucking flies the size of horses. Escaping, the insects create a small reign of terror. Meyer-Maier fortunately loses consciousness during the worst of the peril, and when he recovers, learns that the danger was never as great as he thought. There were only a few insects, and because of their size they could not multiply as rapidly as smaller life-forms. 

*  In the school of H. G. Wells, but there is a parodic element. 

490. THE MAGNETIC STORM. Amazing Stories, July 1926. 111. Paul. (First published in the Electrical Experimenter, August 1918.) Short story. 

*  World War I fiction. 

*  Place: France. 

*  The great Tesla's lab manager, "Why" Sparks, has a brilliant idea for ending the war. The secret is not revealed until after the German collapse, but, inexplicably, German telephones, airplanes, and automobiles will not function. The German army is paralyzed, and the war is soon over. 

*  Explanation: "Why" set up an enormous magnetic field by stretching wires along the front, and electrical equipment, overloaded, burned out. A metal shield protected the French side of the line. 

*  The breakdown of internal combustion engines because of electrical overloading was a common enough motif in early science-fiction. 

1145. THE SPHINX. Amazing Stories, July 1926. Unsigned ill. (First published in Arthur's Lady's Magazine, January 1846. First published in book form in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, 1850-1856.) Short story. 

*  Proportion and perception. The narrator, taking refuge in the country from the cholera in New York City, depressed and dejected, upon looking out of the window sees a horrible monster descending a hill. Seemingly as large as a ship, it is equipped with wings, a long deadly proboscis, and tusks. To fit the narrator's association with death in the city, the monster has a death's-head on its breast. 

*  Upset by this vision, the narrator tells his friend, who sees nothing. On a later occasion, however, the narrator sees the horror again. His friend explains it: The narrator has placed his face too close to the window, and his eye is magnifying a death's head moth. 

417. DOCTOR HACKENSAW'S SECRETS. THE SECRET OF THE INVISIBLE GIRL. Amazing Stories, July 1926. Unsigned ill. Short story. 

*  The last of the stories about Dr. Hackensaw and Pep 

*  Hackensaw acquires a new assistant, Phessenden Keene, who becomes indispensable. On a trip to Africa Keene unwittingly photographs an invisible young woman, whose aura is recorded by the photographic process. 

*  Hackensaw, Pep, and Keene set out to capture the woman. They set out bundles of bananas as bait, then when she takes some, Hackensaw's special audion (radio tube) that magnifies odors enables them to track her; when she is treed, special ultraviolet-sensitive spectacles render her visible, and Keene ropes her. 

*  Hackensaw and his party bring her to New York, where they try to civilize her, but she cannot tolerate the climate and dies. Pep, who had been somewhat jealous of Aura, as she was called, eventually marries Keene. 

*  Unlike the other Hackensaw stories, which are humor of a rough sort, a heartless production.