THE METAL GIANTS (9)
By:
July 25, 2026
Edmond Hamilton’s The Metal Giants, which features an atom-powered metal brain that constructs a rampaging army of 300-foot-tall robots, first appeared in the December 1926 issue of Weird Tales. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize the story for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9.
The face of Detmold was very peaceful when Lanier found him, huddled at the foot of a great tree. It was as if, at the very moment of death, he had known his victory and had seen in that victory atonement for the evil done by his creature. With a shattered piece of metal Lanier dug a deep grave beneath the tree, and placed his friend in it, rolling a great stone to its head when he had filled it.
“Good-bye, Detmold,” he whispered. “I think — I hope — that you have found some peace, now. Goodbye!”
There was no answer from the cold mound of earth, that lay like a brown sear on the bright carpet of grass. But it seemed that the wind was answering, sighing through the trees like a released spirit; that the pines were answering, pointing like lofty, dark-green spears to the blue depths above, where was an infinite freedom, a calm, eternal silence.
Wearily, Lanier walked away, an ache in his heart, a choking tightness in his throat. Very soon he stood again on the hills above the valley, contemplating the ruins of Stockton. The morning sunlight there was brilliant, and over the broken city lay a quietness, a tranquillity, that was like a protecting cloak. There was no smoke or sign of life.
But the people would return, Lanier thought. Word of the collapse of the outside metal giants would have spread swiftly, and already the cautious soldiers would be advancing, slowly, doubtfully. And later, others, single, adventuring spirits, small groups, crowds of hundreds. They would drift back to the ruined city and there would be puffing of steam-shovels and clatter of riveters and sawing and hammering and all sounds of building. They would come back…
Away to the east, far up the valley, there was a crying of bugles.
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: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.