The (Death) Ray of Destiny: Conspiracy and Speculative Historiography in Early Silent Science Fiction

By Alex Harasymiw

Promotional poster for The Death Ray (1924)

Introduction

There, squatting beside a bush, projecting from the field, like a tilted spotlight precariously balanced atop a porcelain beehive, we behold the death ray, its tentacle-like power cables snaking across the English countryside to somewhere off-frame. Invented in 1923 during the interwar period as the ultimate deterrent to the enemies of England, Harry Grindell-Matthews’ device sits mercifully unused, mysteriously untested, a mere testament to the destructive potential of the modern scientific mind. From the surviving photographs and the rare newsreel footage of the death ray, we can see an eerily thin beam, sweeping across an assortment of objects, a motorcycle engine, a lump of gunpowder, a quivering mouse, like that of a handheld flashlight, only, instead of illuminating each of the objects, the beam slices them like a pair of scissors, severing them from the sense of continuity between one moment and the next. First, there is light and the object, a rupture, and then an explosion to splice the two parts together. In the end, Grindell-Matthews would destroy the device, along with all the related plans, notes, and records, leaving behind only anecdotes, rumours, and film strips as evidence of this great realization of science fiction in the past.

Apart from its strange imagery, like some untimely precursor to the independent exploitation films that would appear decades later, the death ray is fascinating for the way it lingers in the popular imaginary. Despite the lack of conclusive demonstrations of the device, the way descriptions of it change from one account to another, and Grindell-Matthews’ reticence about its materials and operation, there appears to have been a widespread faith in the real possibility of the invention’s existence, and even today something like a pious agnosticism surrounds the death ray. When we consider the efforts of early silent cinema scholars to confront the often irreparable degeneration or complete loss of the films of so many marginalized filmmakers, and the implications of such loss for our understanding of the history of silent cinema, the persistence of the death ray as the lost work of a modern inventor-genius seems especially questionable. Where the absence of marginalized films and filmmakers from the official canon of silent film history is often attributed to the real material loss of their films in the present, the death ray highlights one of the central ironies of historical writing about this period: namely, that if a narrative is compelling enough to be believed, there is no problem inventing evidence to suit its ends.

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Electricity as a Speculative Device: The Romanian Modern(ist) SF

By Amalia Cotoi

This article explores how Romanian science fiction novels written between 1899 and 1954 engage with modernity. I am particularly interested in examining how key texts that center around the protagonist’s exploration beyond the familiar realms intersect with a modern development that was a game changer in human history: electric energy. The analysis centers on three novels from the modernist era − Victor Anestin’s pioneering Romanian Sci-Fi novel, În anul 4000 sau o călătorie la Venus [In the Year 4000 or A Trip to Venus] (1899), Henri Stahl’s Un român în lună [A Romanian on the Moon] (1914), and Felix Aderca’s Orașe scufundate [The Submerged Cities] (1937) − and one written and published in the aftermath of WWII − Drum printre aștri [Path Among Stars] (1954), penned by I. M. Ștefan and Radu Nor. If the works written during the interwar period represent initial major forays into the Sci-Fi genre, it wasn’t until the postwar era that the first notable presence of Sci-Fi in Romanian literature, holding institutional significance and capturing general interest, emerged. By including a novel written in the 1950s in this inquiry, I aim to challenge the chronological convention of the modernist era ending with World War II. The emergence of the communist regime, influenced by the Soviet model, signaled an unparalleled drive toward industrial and technological advancement in a European nation that was among the least developed, with a rural population twice the continental average (Murgescu, 140). Such a transition is all the more justifiable in the case of electricity, as the pace of electrification accelerated after World War II, particularly between 1950 and 1970 (Murgescu, 344), witnessing the shift from electricity as a speculative concept to a democratically commodified resource.

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“Who do you think is powering that spotlight?”: Social mobility and resistance in Black Mirror‘s ‘Fifteen Million Merits’

By Ivy Roberts.

You live in a technological fishbowl. Your life is ruled by television screens. The walls of your room are painted in technicolor pixels. During the day, you pedal on your stationary bike while watching screens. At night, the screens watch over you as you sleep, simulating the sun setting and then rising on a new day to see you return to the bike, going nowhere.

If this doesn’t sound like the most asphyxiating future to you, then you have become too accustomed to the daily grind. Such a live-work environment is depicted in the second episode of the first season of the sci-fi television series, Black Mirror: ‘Fifteen Million Merits’ (2011). In this dystopian future, the class structure of society is strictly hierarchical. The three classes even wear clothing denoting their social rank. Social mobility is possible, but only via a strictly monitored ‘merit-based’ system. Everyone dreams of becoming famous. So, what’s at stake here? Nothing less than our individual autonomy.

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