The Thousandth Raid
| Original Fiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Thousandth Raid |
| Author(s): | William S. Sykora |
| Date(s): | Printed March-April 1938 |
| Length: | 2 pages |
| Genre: | Science Fiction; Fannish RPF |
| External Links: | In Fantascience Digest #3, pp. 5-6 (March-April 1938) |
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The Thousandth Raid was a science fiction story by William S. Sykora. It was a very thinly veiled retelling of his own 1935 battle with the Science Fiction League, aided by Donald A. Wollheim, John B. Michel, and Herb Goudket.
By 1938 Sykora was feuding intensely with Wollheim, Michel and the other Futurians, and Wollheim had personally dissolved the International Scientific Association after Sykora stepped down as director. Since none of this is referenced in The Thousandth Raid, it may have been written before 1937.
Featuring
- Sykora, former president of the International Scientific Association, as William Brain, leader of the Interstellar Association
- Donald A. Wollheim as Don Magong, right-hand man to William Brain
- John B. Michel as John the Silent
- Herb Goudket as Herb the Good, the group's torturer
- Julius Schwartz as Jules Black and Charles Hornig as Carl Horn, leaders of the Interplanetary League
- Hugo Gernsback as mad scientist Hugh Grend
- A thousand members of the Science Fiction League "mercifully" reduced to "roasted flesh and bone charcoal" covering the floor and smearing the walls
- Sykora's own opinion that science fiction fandom was being steered away from a focus on practical science itself; his resignation from the International Scientific Association cited this as one of his reasons
- While Charles D. Hornig had expelled Sykora, Wollheim and Michel from the Science Fiction League with a public statement that they'd joined to sabotage the organization, Sykora seems to imply (perhaps without basis) that Herb Goudket was the actual mole leaking information about its meetings and internal workings
Excerpts
William Brain was the leader of these "Fighting Four," as they were called by the awe-inspired worshipful throng which inhabited the neo-universe. Chief of the Interstellar Association, Billy, the Brain, was known and loved by his associates as the intrepid leader of a thousand expeditions against the insidious Inter-planetary League, whose rotten aristocratic government had all but ruined the super scientific progress of the new era. Don Magong, Billy's right-hand man, was a ruthless killer, son of the great Rongong Magong, whose slogan song began, "Let us crush the evil serpent with our heel. "Might is right, for Right makes Might," was Don's brave boast, which he never failed to put into telling effect in every clash with the evil machinations of that foul agglomeration known as the Interplanetary League. John the Silent, and Herb the Good, completed the Awful Foursome in which the Silent was the cold-blooded, impassionate destroyer of evil, while the Good’s horrendous tortures served the Interstellar Association well by supplying information concerning the meeting-orgies of the base I. L.
The Silent One merely stood there, carefully playing his beam into every nook and cranny of his quarter of the auditorium, smiling every now and then as some cowering form shrivilled and blackened under his beam's deadly glow.Only Herb the Good seemed to be really enjoying the spectacle, as he laughed horribly every scream of the unfortunate ones that were caught in the way of his ray. His laugh rose from a chill bubbling giggle to a high pitched scream of complete merriment, the while hr played his beam to and fro to rapturous ecstasy.
A creature with bat-like ears and a sharp pointed nose cowered behind the huge rostrum."O! Supreme Creator! Ruler of the Universe! They're here again!" he screamed shrilly to a formless monster sitting obscurely revealed in the gloom behind him. The monster's cloak of gleaming black metallic fibre billowed and heaved as it scuttled behind a huge screen cleverly concealed amidst the gorgeous hangings on the walls. A warning sound bubbled from the place where its lips might be, and the first creature hurriedly left the rostrum and joined his awful companion behind the protective areas.
Carl Horn and Jules Black, the oily leaders of the League, had again done that which the Association’s Fighting Four had learned to despise, fear and dread. Leaving their debased followers defenceless, they sprang behind a secret reflecto-fract screen from behind which they begin to operate the awful Grend Ray, concerning whose mode of operation and details of whose construction even the Good's exquisite entertainment was never able to elicit from the frothing lips of his unwilling guests.
The Fighting Four were wearing prismofuse armor, the latest thing in portable fortresses. Roasted flesh and bone charcoal covered the floor and smeared the walls of the auditorium. A thousand hopelessly lost souls had again mercifully been released by the searing blast of the Gorong Guns.
Responses
After the customary editorial is William S. Sykora's "The Thousandth Raid", a story we didn’t like overmuch.Dick Wilson: The Catapult. Science Fiction News Letter #22 pg. 2 (April 1938)
"The Thousandth Raid" could have been better, but was interesting, none the less. I wonder how many readers spotted a similarity between the characters in the story and certain science fiction notables? William Brain was (unblushingly) the auhtor, Wm. S. Sykora. Herb the Good, Herbert Goudket. John the Silent, probably John B. Michel. Don the Terrible--who else but Wollheim? Carl Horn and Jules Black are obviously Hornig and Gernsback. (I should think that Jules Black is Julius Schwartz. You know, "schwartz" means "black" in German-- RAM)Willis Conover: Letter printed in Fantascience Digest #5 pg. 14 (July 1938)