Synopsis
Winfield gets a radio message from a friend and goes to a crater mountain to find him. He finds a lot more than just his friend. There is a lost civilization of humans terrorized by creatures with advanced science.
History
First publication: Science Wonder Stories, serialized July to August 1929
Review
This is a remarkable example of early science fiction in the pulp magazines. On the surface a standard lost world and alien invasion story that is likely inspired by the work of A. Merritt. What Williamson did best though was to take these stories and weave a color and imagination and sense of wonder that is what made the genre great. The writing is pretty good though the characters are stock adventurers and beautiful native woman. The science is wobbly, but writers in the 30s, while inspired by scientific reality, were aiming more to create a scientific fantasy. They include enough plausible sounding explanation to keep it scientific, but much of it was far from accurate science, even for the time. Williamson was one of the best at it. This story is as good as the earliest science fiction pulps ever got. If you treat it as science fantasy like Star Wars, then it is entirely readable today. Recommended.
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
The Metal Man and Others, hardcover, Haffner Press, 1999-05-00
