Revolt in the Ice Empire

By Ray Cummings and Karl Wurf

Frozen little Zura was a stellar Utopia, until the Earthmen came to topple the rule of its gentle queen with the cankerous weapons of revolt. Classic pulp science fiction!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Jul 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667640693

Ray Cummings

Ray Cummings (born Raymond King Cummings) (August 30, 1887 – January 23, 1957) was an American author of science fiction literature and comic books. Cummings is identified as one of the "founding fathers" of the science fiction genre. His most highly regarded fictional work was the novel The Girl in the Golden Atom published in 1922, which was a consolidation of a short story by the same name published in 1919 (where Cummings combined the idea of Fitz James O'Brien's The Diamond Lens with H. G. Wells's The Time Machine) and a sequel, The People of the Golden Atom, published in 1920. Before taking book form, several of Cummings's stories appeared serialized in pulp magazines. The first eight chapters of his The Girl in the Golden Atom appeared in All-Story Magazine on March 15, 1919. Ray Cummings wrote in "The Girl in the Golden Atom": "Time . . . is what keeps everything from happening at once", a sentence repeated by scientists such as C. J. Overbeck, and John Archibald Wheeler, and often misattributed to the likes of Einstein or Feynman. Cummings repeated this sentence in several of his novellas. Sources focus on his earlier work, The Time Professor, published in 1921, as its earliest documented usage.

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Table of Contents

REVOLT IN THE ICE EMPIRE, by Ray Cummings

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION, by Karl Wurf

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

REVOLT IN THE ICE EMPIRE,

by Ray Cummings

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2023 by Wildside Press LLC.

Originally published in Planet Stories, Fall 1940.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

INTRODUCTION,

by Karl Wurf

Ray Cummings was a prolific science fiction writer whose career spanned more than four decades, from the early 1900s to the late 1950s. He was born on August 30, 1887, in New York City and died on January 23, 1957, in Mount Vernon, New York.

During his long and prolific career, Cummings wrote hundreds of short stories and novels, many of which were published in pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories, Astounding Science Fiction, and Weird Tales. He was also a prolific writer for the fledgling comic book industry.

Cummings was a master of pulp science fiction, a genre characterized by fast-paced action, exciting plots, and imaginative ideas. He was particularly adept at creating vivid and colorful descriptions of futuristic technology, exotic settings, and bizarre creatures. His stories often explored themes such as time travel, parallel universes, alien invasions, and artificial intelligence.

One of Cummings’ most famous works is the novel The Girl in the Golden Atom, first published in 1922. The story revolves around a scientist named Victor who discovers a method for shrinking matter down to the atomic level. In the course of his experiments, he discovers a tiny world inside an atom inhabited by miniature humans. Victor becomes involved in the struggles of these tiny people and falls in love with a woman named Lora.

Another of Cummings’ popular works is the novel Brigands of the Moon, published in 1930. The story takes place in the 22nd century and follows the adventures of Gregg Haljan, a smuggler who becomes embroiled in a conflict between Earth and the moon. The moon has been colonized by a group of rebels who have declared independence from Earth, and Haljan finds himself caught in the middle of a war between the two factions.

Cummings worked at a time when science fiction was still a relatively new and unexplored genre. Indeed, his first science fiction stories appeared in general fiction magazines before the term science fiction had even been coined. He was able to create stories that were exciting and imaginative while also exploring complex scientific and philosophical concepts. His influence can still be seen in modern science fiction, where ideas and themes he first explored continue to inspire modern writers and filmmakers.

Ray Cummings was an important figure in the development of science fiction as a genre. Whether exploring the mysteries of the universe, the limits of technology, or the nature of humanity itself, Cummings’ work remains relevant and engaging.

CHAPTER 1

So much has been written into the permanent chronologies of science concerning our pioneer voyage to the little asteroid of Zura—facts and figures and sociological deductions, most of which are, of actuality, erroneous—that even now after these many years, I feel constrained to set down, as simply as I can, exactly what occurred. All my life I have shunned publicity; my wife has shunned it. Zura, weird little wandering world, has never returned. Why, after coming in from the realms of outer space at least twice and rounding our Sun upon an elliptic orbit, it should now have failed to reappear—I will leave that to the astronomers to imagine. But no one from Earth, quite obviously, will ever go to Zura again. Tara and I, so to speak, are sole survivors.

So at least I think I am qualified to tell what happened; to correct the Official Chronolograph in its implications that Zura was a model little world, from which our Earth might learn much. As my grandfather might have quoted his grandfather saying, that is the bunk. When you put humans on a planet, you will get love—but also hate; honesty, but dishonesty; peace, but also war. The weird people of Zura were weird to us only because their environment had made them outwardly different from us. Like us they were human—and there could never have been Utopia evolved from them.

I am no philosopher, but at least I must have my say on this. Tara was misguided. She admits it now. Indeed, at heart she is more opposed than most of you who read this, to those crusaders here on earth who talk of revolutions and bloodshed so that some new Social Order may evolve and bring the world Utopia. The ideals are often sound, but always impossible of fulfillment. And those who sponsor them usually are intelligent enough to know it, advancing themselves upon the pitiful hopes of the ignorant, who think they