Saturday, January 9, 2010

Sunday Scientifiction: The Hawkinspiral

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To be honest, I'm not sure this counts as science fiction. It's about an unlikely invention, sure, and the resolution hinges on the working of a bit of technology. But I have the feeling that if the author had submitted it to Our Founder, Hugo Gernsback, it would have come back by return post.

Gernsback, especially in the pre-Amazing Stories days that are Sunday Scientifiction's bailiwick, preferred his fiction to demonstrate a scientific idea, or speculate on future technology, sometimes to the near-exclusion of plot. Even when it's a more conventional story, like "The 'Loaded' Line" from a while back, it's definitely the science and technology that's the point of the thing.

I can't even call this story science fiction by virtue of the magazine it appeared in, as I could if it came from one of Gernsback's magazines like Science and Invention. This one is from The Argosy, a general fiction magazine, which only had the occasional story with fantastic content.

But whether it's proper science fiction, or just a vaguely technological tall tale, I found it amusing, and that's good enough for me.

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