Synopsis
Chicago is cut off from the rest of the world under an energy dome created by a mob boss who captured a physicist.
History
First publication: Wonder Stories September 1930
Review
This story calls to mind later stories like The City At World’s End by Edmond Hamilton and Under the Dome by Stephen King. In fact this may likely be the first instance of the energy dome over a city trope. Like Starzl’s other stories, this is a simple pulp adventure story, but the writing isn’t awful and the idea is pretty good. The adventure is quite fun. The main issue I have with this is the missed opportunity to make it a longer, more fleshed out story. I think it could be a novel or at least a novella easily and would then have room to develop this a lot more, showing how the closed off society ruled by a Chicago mob boss would change, probably becoming something like the planet in Star Trek that based it’s society on a book about Chicago mobs. That might have made this story a classic.
