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John Hanson #8
Vampires of Space
Commander John Hanson recounts his harrowing adventure with the Electites of space.
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First published March 1, 1932
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About the author
Sewell Peaslee Wright
67 books5 followersSewell Peaslee Wright (1897-1970) was an American science fiction writer. Sewell was a fan favorite of early pulp scifi magazines.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
May 31, 2023
Very short classic sci-fi story. This is not vampires as we know them though.
January 17, 2025
This one wasn't very good, but that may just be my opinion as a modern reader. It was an incomplete double frame narrative, and to me it felt like an improper use of the word vampire. These were aliens (very unique ones, I'll give him that!) that subsisted on metal, not vampires of any sort.
August 30, 2018
An interesting early "first contact" story. Typical of science fiction, the author projects his current cultural norms into the future. But if you can get beyond that detail the story is a good read.
September 14, 2020
Interesting fast read for someone tired of old plots
New topic is always good. Development of characters was swift and complete for story line. I enjoyed this story and the style of writing.
New topic is always good. Development of characters was swift and complete for story line. I enjoyed this story and the style of writing.
May 10, 2024
Listened to the audiobook of this, and wouldn't have finished it, if it wasn't that short.
I found it to be quite dull.
Afterwards I found out, it seems to be part of a series, so maybe if you start from #1 and work your way through, you might enjoy it more than I did.
I found it to be quite dull.
Afterwards I found out, it seems to be part of a series, so maybe if you start from #1 and work your way through, you might enjoy it more than I did.
March 17, 2020
A sci fi story of alien attack.
A little known sci fi writer described a quick and deadly encounter with space dwelling creatures. A mildly interesting defence.
A little known sci fi writer described a quick and deadly encounter with space dwelling creatures. A mildly interesting defence.
November 12, 2021
I like this short story, it has a classic sci-fi feel, although Vampires is not the most suitable term. but it was a good little story
March 15, 2022
Vampires shmampires
June 13, 2023
The vampires here are kinda unique. Interesting premise, but uninteresting plot.
July 5, 2023
The most boring book I’ve read in my life, such a waste of time. Uninteresting plot and characters, plus it has absolutely nothing to do with vampires.
June 29, 2015
So, this chapter in the John Hanson Chronicles or whatever we're calling it eighty years later lands purely in the "let me describe a thing that might exist" category. The story itself is double-insulated against any possibility of drama (and is one of the only places where I have criticism,) and is logical enough where actual science is concerned.
In brief: retired John Hanson is interrupted in his not-yet-senile musings by a young officer, who is all "they found something new! In space!" and then, when Hanson reveals that he met those things many years before, the young man promptly rushes back out again, leaving Hanson to mutter out loud, I guess, about the time he met the Electites. (Note: vampires or any close analogues do not appear in this story.)
So here's problem the first: I'm PRETTY SURE that the moral of this story is You Should Listen To Your Elders For They Are Wise. The kid comes rushing in, and then rushes right back out, without listening to the tale of the time His Elder met and defeated this strange menace. While that has no impact on the story, as everyone is now safe from the Electities thanks to John anyway, this is firstly a condescending attitude towards The Young (and confusing, given that the author would have been about 35 when he wrote this,) but also frames the story clumsily, twice. First, we now have our narrator alone in a room, apparently talking to himself. There's also now zero drama. The protagonist is in memoir mode, so we know they made it through.
Inside the framed story, the good ship "Ertak" is tasked with going to a part of space where ships are going missing, finding the problem, and eliminating it, all quietly, as mass space travel is new, and we don't want to go upsetting people with disclosure of the risks, now do we? It heads to that area, and is basically immediately beset by space creatures made of electricity, which attach themselves to the ship and start eating away at the hullmetal.
Oh, and the ship starts firing disrupter rays at the Electites on sight. Star Trek, this ain't. But the rays don't work, and they're forced to put down on a local planetoid, where they notice the Electities don't care for water, and kill them all with sprayers filled with acidulated water. So our first experience with extraterrestrial life is to open fire on it instantly, then ...short-circuit it to death? Real nice, guys.
Problem solved, the crew heads home, and their ship is repaired; the crew, sworn to secrecy because again, we're trying to get space travel universally accepted here, and that ain't gonna happen if people know there's even the slightest chance they could die out there. Ships are provided supplies of acidulated water to fend off not-vampires of space, and by the time the Electites are seen again, many years later, upgrades to the hull make the ships impervious to this type of harm, leaving Hanson to smug his way into the sunset.
I've got some issues with how the characters behave, and the double-drama-insulation is irritating to say the least, but the writing is solid, there are a few choice turns of phrase, "the Universal language has its obvious advantages, but the speech of one's fathers wings thought straightest to the mind," for one, and the science, both real and assumed, is intelligent and consistent, with the only exception being "why do creatures made of electricity consume metal?" That last is the tiniest bit unfair, because a nod is made to that very question in story as all creatures need fuel, and that fuel is "converting one form of energy to another."
Am I recommending it? I'm neutral. It's nice, for what it is, and it won't take long to read.
In brief: retired John Hanson is interrupted in his not-yet-senile musings by a young officer, who is all "they found something new! In space!" and then, when Hanson reveals that he met those things many years before, the young man promptly rushes back out again, leaving Hanson to mutter out loud, I guess, about the time he met the Electites. (Note: vampires or any close analogues do not appear in this story.)
So here's problem the first: I'm PRETTY SURE that the moral of this story is You Should Listen To Your Elders For They Are Wise. The kid comes rushing in, and then rushes right back out, without listening to the tale of the time His Elder met and defeated this strange menace. While that has no impact on the story, as everyone is now safe from the Electities thanks to John anyway, this is firstly a condescending attitude towards The Young (and confusing, given that the author would have been about 35 when he wrote this,) but also frames the story clumsily, twice. First, we now have our narrator alone in a room, apparently talking to himself. There's also now zero drama. The protagonist is in memoir mode, so we know they made it through.
Inside the framed story, the good ship "Ertak" is tasked with going to a part of space where ships are going missing, finding the problem, and eliminating it, all quietly, as mass space travel is new, and we don't want to go upsetting people with disclosure of the risks, now do we? It heads to that area, and is basically immediately beset by space creatures made of electricity, which attach themselves to the ship and start eating away at the hullmetal.
Oh, and the ship starts firing disrupter rays at the Electites on sight. Star Trek, this ain't. But the rays don't work, and they're forced to put down on a local planetoid, where they notice the Electities don't care for water, and kill them all with sprayers filled with acidulated water. So our first experience with extraterrestrial life is to open fire on it instantly, then ...short-circuit it to death? Real nice, guys.
Problem solved, the crew heads home, and their ship is repaired; the crew, sworn to secrecy because again, we're trying to get space travel universally accepted here, and that ain't gonna happen if people know there's even the slightest chance they could die out there. Ships are provided supplies of acidulated water to fend off not-vampires of space, and by the time the Electites are seen again, many years later, upgrades to the hull make the ships impervious to this type of harm, leaving Hanson to smug his way into the sunset.
I've got some issues with how the characters behave, and the double-drama-insulation is irritating to say the least, but the writing is solid, there are a few choice turns of phrase, "the Universal language has its obvious advantages, but the speech of one's fathers wings thought straightest to the mind," for one, and the science, both real and assumed, is intelligent and consistent, with the only exception being "why do creatures made of electricity consume metal?" That last is the tiniest bit unfair, because a nod is made to that very question in story as all creatures need fuel, and that fuel is "converting one form of energy to another."
Am I recommending it? I'm neutral. It's nice, for what it is, and it won't take long to read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 18, 2018
Originally I began reading this story because I discovered that Life Force was loosely based/inspired on it. Oh and loosely it was indeed. It has even less similarieties with the novel than I, Robot with Will Smith has with
Isaac Asimov
original story. It has John Hanson and some sort of creatures made of energy that they found in space and there the similarities stop.
The story is about Commander John Hanson who is told by a young associate that the scientist discovered a new species in the space. The commander laughs at this, telling the young officer that he already knows about it but doesn't explain further. Once he is out of his office Hanson begins writing the story of a most peculiar mission in search of two lost ships and that would take him to discover this "new species" twenty years before.
Besides being quite different from what I had expected (there are no bloodsuckers in this story), the story is quite good and entailing, but we must understand that it's a product of it's time. There is lot less technological knowledge about space ships (the Ertak is a ship within a ship due to an exterior hull and in most descriptions it reminds me a lot of submarines) and of the physics of space or the toxic levels of other worlds. There is the spirit of the beginning of the XX century and pulp to disregard the scientific knowledge and give great praise to the "man of action".
In summary is a nice, quick and quite enjoyable read of an old science fiction story.
The story is about Commander John Hanson who is told by a young associate that the scientist discovered a new species in the space. The commander laughs at this, telling the young officer that he already knows about it but doesn't explain further. Once he is out of his office Hanson begins writing the story of a most peculiar mission in search of two lost ships and that would take him to discover this "new species" twenty years before.
Besides being quite different from what I had expected (there are no bloodsuckers in this story), the story is quite good and entailing, but we must understand that it's a product of it's time. There is lot less technological knowledge about space ships (the Ertak is a ship within a ship due to an exterior hull and in most descriptions it reminds me a lot of submarines) and of the physics of space or the toxic levels of other worlds. There is the spirit of the beginning of the XX century and pulp to disregard the scientific knowledge and give great praise to the "man of action".
In summary is a nice, quick and quite enjoyable read of an old science fiction story.
June 20, 2020
Another story from the annals of John Hanson, retired officer from the Special Patrol Service.
This is number eight in a series of ten. In this one Hanson and the crew of the Ertak encounter a species of nebulous lifeforms which absorb metal, not what you want when you're in a spaceship! Conventional weapons won't work on them, what will?
Sewell Peaslee Wright was a dab hand at writing punchy, no frills sci-fi stories back in the 1930s.
This is number eight in a series of ten. In this one Hanson and the crew of the Ertak encounter a species of nebulous lifeforms which absorb metal, not what you want when you're in a spaceship! Conventional weapons won't work on them, what will?
Sewell Peaslee Wright was a dab hand at writing punchy, no frills sci-fi stories back in the 1930s.
August 10, 2014
Review:
I thought I was reading a story about vampire, but I was wrong. This is no vampire story, this is some kind of sci-fi that got attack by some weird creature that eat anything. I didn't finish story because I didn't like it.
I thought I was reading a story about vampire, but I was wrong. This is no vampire story, this is some kind of sci-fi that got attack by some weird creature that eat anything. I didn't finish story because I didn't like it.
April 24, 2016
I've read stories with this premise before, but--seeing as it's public domain--this one probably came first. There wasn't a whole lot to it, but I enjoyed it. Also, that's a pretty great title, even if it doesn't really fit.
June 27, 2013
For 1930's SF its pretty good. This one is for old-time, classical SF fans. Arguably this was 20 years ahead of its time.
August 3, 2023
I was expecting other thing but this was a entertainment book
November 15, 2018
In this short story published in 1932, our hero, John Hanson, a retired commander of the Special Patrol Service, recounts his experience with his harrowing adventure with the Electites of space.
The underlying theme of this work is, “What’s n
The underlying theme of this work is, “What’s n
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews