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Special Flight
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About the author
John Berryman
22 booksScience fiction writer John Berryman, not to be confused with the poet John Berryman.
John Berryman was a US writer and economist who was chief executive officer of a hardware wholesale company; author of some two dozen stories, beginning with "Special Flight" for Astounding in May 1939 and ending with "The Big Dish" (November 1986 Analog). His most anthologized story is "BEROM" (January 1951 Astounding), in which initially incomprehensible visiting Aliens prove to be speaking in a UK commercial telegraph code of the 1920s that they picked up via radio (> Linguistics). "The Trouble with Telstar" (June 1963 Analog) centres on an engineer who travels into space to repair an elusive fault in the indicated Communications satellite (the first experimental AT&T Telstar satellite had been launched into orbit by NASA in July 1962). As Walter Bupp, Berryman also wrote a series of linked Telekinesis tales for Analog in the early 1960s, beginning with "Vigorish" (June 1960 Astounding/Analog). Other short-story pseudonyms under which he appeared were William C. Bailey, used 1951-1953, and Joseph Tinker, used for a single story: "Tinker's Dam" (July 1961 Analog).
John Berryman was a US writer and economist who was chief executive officer of a hardware wholesale company; author of some two dozen stories, beginning with "Special Flight" for Astounding in May 1939 and ending with "The Big Dish" (November 1986 Analog). His most anthologized story is "BEROM" (January 1951 Astounding), in which initially incomprehensible visiting Aliens prove to be speaking in a UK commercial telegraph code of the 1920s that they picked up via radio (> Linguistics). "The Trouble with Telstar" (June 1963 Analog) centres on an engineer who travels into space to repair an elusive fault in the indicated Communications satellite (the first experimental AT&T Telstar satellite had been launched into orbit by NASA in July 1962). As Walter Bupp, Berryman also wrote a series of linked Telekinesis tales for Analog in the early 1960s, beginning with "Vigorish" (June 1960 Astounding/Analog). Other short-story pseudonyms under which he appeared were William C. Bailey, used 1951-1953, and Joseph Tinker, used for a single story: "Tinker's Dam" (July 1961 Analog).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 12, 2026
“Special Flight” was first published in the May 1939 issue of ”Astounding”, just months before the July issue (which many consider to be the first issue of the Golden Age of Science Fiction). John Berryman seems to be a virtually forgotten author, who only published 21 science fiction stories in total.
In the story set in the far future, rockets are just like any other ships or aircraft carrying cargo. To give you an idea of just how early 1939 was in technological advancement, a “computer” in this story is a person! Thus a team of spacemen are routinely mining the Moon for minerals. However, their commanding officer receives a call to say that an emergency rocket needs to be sent back to the Moon, to save the lives of over a hundred miners. There is one problem: the meteor belt.
This story is a bit ho-hum, with flat writing and little to distinguish it. I read it in “Spectrum I: An Anthology of Science Fiction Stories”, and am puzzled at its inclusion here, as most of the others are far better. Possibly it seemed more exciting at the time.
In the story set in the far future, rockets are just like any other ships or aircraft carrying cargo. To give you an idea of just how early 1939 was in technological advancement, a “computer” in this story is a person! Thus a team of spacemen are routinely mining the Moon for minerals. However, their commanding officer receives a call to say that an emergency rocket needs to be sent back to the Moon, to save the lives of over a hundred miners. There is one problem: the meteor belt.
This story is a bit ho-hum, with flat writing and little to distinguish it. I read it in “Spectrum I: An Anthology of Science Fiction Stories”, and am puzzled at its inclusion here, as most of the others are far better. Possibly it seemed more exciting at the time.
January 25, 2023
The words 'I'm giving her all she's got captain!' are never uttered in this story, but they're not far off - but it's 1939 so the cloning actually runs in the opposite direction. An international crew led by a fearless, undoubtedly square-jawed captain set a strong standard. Also, this story somehow captures a realistic part of the difficulty of travelling through space, with the high accelerations wracking the human body, written nearly ten years before the sound barrier was broken and decades before any man left the atmosphere: it's been done so much since it's hard to appreciate how forward-looking this story is. Before things are done, there are always naysayers: in the 19th century some authorities declared that man would 'surely perish' if a locomotive went too fast (at speeds we would find luxurious now), and Berryman was not one of these. You just might get covered in white stuff past 10 gees though, so strap in.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews