Saturday, September 14, 2013

Henry Kuttner "Doom World" (novelette, adventure, free): A precursor to Jurassic Park!

This is a sequel to author's "Hollywood on the Moon", & is completely set on moon.

There is too much similarity to Jurassic Park that was still many decades into future. Artificially engineered dangerous beasts at a place that is not their natural habitat. Nature takes over, safeguards break down, & mayhem results.

Story summary.

The story happens on the sets of a movie named "Doom World". Set is in the caverns under the city of "Hollywood on the Moon" on the far side of moon. Set is supposed to model the jungles of radioactive Pluto, with its many dangers!

Beasts on the set are biologically engineered, with radio-controlled electronic implants in their brains to control them. Story calls them robots, but they're not like any robots you've read about.

In the course of the story, nature takes over & the electronic implants serve little more than to irritate the animals. Hell breaks loose in the artificial jungle of the set, & the heroes & the film crew will have to face it...

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1938.
Read online at UNZ.
Note: I read it on an Android tablet with Firefox, & the document was a rather badly behaved one. Each page would allow only partial reading... until I move tablet to landscape orientation, & then back to portrait! On PC, it seems to display ok.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

0 comments: