Outside the Universe

Edmond Hamilton's "Outside the Universe" first appeared as a three-part serial in Farnsworth Wright's "Weird Tales" at the height of that magazine's popularity in 1929. It's one of Hamilton's first novels, and one of the earliest examples of the genre that would become known as space opera. As such

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it's an interesting read from a historical perspective. What's it like to read a science fiction story from the birth of the genre, decades before Star Wars, decades before Star Trek, before even the discovery of Pluto.

It turns out it's not altogether great. I've enjoyed several of Hamilton's later space operas and have great respect for his career and abilities, but "Outside the Universe" is extremely primitive Hamilton, and extremely primitive SF. In a tale that covers three completely universes, Hamilton goes to the trouble of naming only four characters: three members of the Interstellar Patrol, and the president of the universe.

The Interstellar Patrol, which features in a handful of early Hamilton sci-fi yarns, features countless races from all the worlds of our universe, but little of these multitudes is seen here in deference to the three main characters, the human Nur Dal, the claw-handed Spican engineer Jhul Din, and the metal-bodied Antarean pilot Korus Kan.

The two other universes involved in the tale are inhabited by only one race each. The evil aliens are serpentine ciphers, and the savior aliens are six-foot columns of green gas. Neither race has the ability to speak, so the book contains very little dialog that is not of the "Jhul Din, give us more power! Korus Kan, turn left" variety.

Still, the basic framework here is interesting, and I'm curious to see if Hamilton's other Interstellar Patrol stories delve a little deeper into their promising--but ultimately unrealized--subject matter.

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