BLOOD AND IRON (7)
By:
December 23, 2023
“Blood and Iron: A Play in One Act,” A Radium Age proto-sf ancestor of The Six Million Dollar Man and RoboCop, was first published in the December 1917 issue of The Strand. (Note that the play predates Karel Čapek’s “R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots” by four years.) HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize it here for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8.
241: “Blessed — are — the — meek — for — they — shall — inherit — the — earth.”
(SCIENTIST turns to EMPEROR and bows, the book still open in his hands.)
EMPEROR: He is right. I am familiar with Matthew. Turn to another page.
(SCIENTIST opens the Bible elsewhere. Holds it up.)
SCIENTIST (To 241.) Attention! Read.
241: Isaiah — Third — Chapter — fifteenth — verse. “What — mean — ye — that — ye — beat — my — people — to — pieces — and — grind — the — faces — of — the — poor — saith — the —Lord — God — of — Hosts.”
SCIENTIST: STOP!
(EMPEROR leans back in his chair under stress of great emotion, his hand sweeping his brow repeatedly. SCIENTIST closes the book, bows again with greater humility and returns the book to EMPEROR.)
EMPEROR (Takes book and thrusts it in his bosom.): His powers are diabolical. I wish to experiment with him alone. (Relaxes and gazes vaguely into the distance. SCIENTIST drops portfolio and coat on settee.) Hasten! I will summon you with that bell. (241 remains stolidly at attention, an expression of awakening purpose in his eyes.)
SCIENTIST: Your Majesty commands.
(Bows elaborately. Exit Left. EMPEROR with Imperial dignity stares 241 down after a duel of the eyes, imposing his will upon the soldier. Follows a moment of inspection in which wonderment is the dominant note. Rises from the throne and walks slowly halfway around the impassive soldier, studying him critically. EMPEROR’s expression changes to bewilderment tinged with fear. The situation is uncanny.)
EMPEROR: Where were you born?
241: In — the — South — Majesty.
EMPEROR: Your trade?
241 (With a helpless, involuntary gesture, extending his hands.) I — was — a — florist. (EMPEROR stares at the metal hands, 241 observing the expression.) I — made — bouquets. Not — with — these — (EMPEROR averts his face) but — with — my — absent — hands.
EMPEROR (Reseating himself.) War is not a festival of flowers.
241: Majesty — a wreath — I could make — slowly — for the dead.
(He leans toward the EMPEROR.)
EMPEROR (Observing the somewhat cynical note of the soldier, becomes grave.): Are you not grateful to Science for these wonders performed? (241 salutes.) Speak!
241: What — shall — I — say?
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague | Rudyard Kipling’s With the Night Mail (and “As Easy as A.B.C.”) | Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt | H. Rider Haggard’s When the World Shook | Edward Shanks’ The People of the Ruins | William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land | J.D. Beresford’s Goslings | E.V. Odle’s The Clockwork Man | Cicely Hamilton’s Theodore Savage | Muriel Jaeger’s The Man With Six Senses | Jack London’s “The Red One” | Philip Francis Nowlan’s Armageddon 2419 A.D. | Homer Eon Flint’s The Devolutionist | W.E.B. DuBois’s “The Comet” | Edgar Rice Burroughs’s The Moon Men | Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland | Sax Rohmer’s “The Zayat Kiss” | Eimar O’Duffy’s King Goshawk and the Birds | Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Lost Prince | Morley Roberts’s The Fugitives | Helen MacInnes’s The Unconquerable | Geoffrey Household’s Watcher in the Shadows | William Haggard’s The High Wire | Hammond Innes’s Air Bridge | James Branch Cabell’s Jurgen | John Buchan’s “No Man’s Land” | John Russell’s “The Fourth Man” | E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” | John Buchan’s Huntingtower | Arthur Conan Doyle’s When the World Screamed | Victor Bridges’ A Rogue By Compulsion | Jack London’s The Iron Heel | H. De Vere Stacpoole’s The Man Who Lost Himself | P.G. Wodehouse’s Leave It to Psmith | Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” | Houdini and Lovecraft’s “Imprisoned with the Pharaohs” | Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Sussex Vampire” | Francis Stevens’s “Friend Island” | George C. Wallis’s “The Last Days of Earth” | Frank L. Pollock’s “Finis” | A. Merritt’s The Moon Pool | E. Nesbit’s “The Third Drug” | George Allan England’s “The Thing from — ‘Outside'” | Booth Tarkington’s “The Veiled Feminists of Atlantis” | H.G. Wells’s “The Land Ironclads” | J.D. Beresford’s The Hampdenshire Wonder | Valery Bryusov’s “The Republic of the Southern Cross” | Algernon Blackwood’s “A Victim of Higher Space” | A. Merritt’s “The People of the Pit” | Max Brand’s The Untamed | Julian Huxley’s “The Tissue-Culture King” | Clare Winger Harris’s “A Runaway World” | Francis Stevens’s “Thomas Dunbar” | George Gurdjieff’s “Beelzebub’s Tales” | Robert W. Chambers’s “The Harbor-Master” | Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s “The Hall Bedroom” | Clare Winger Harris’s “The Fifth Dimension” | Francis Stevens’s “Behind the Curtain” | more to come.