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Scrimshaw
Scrimshaw
26 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1955
About the author
Murray Leinster
910 books125 followerssee also:
Will F. Jenkins
William Fitzgerald Jenkins
Murray Leinster was a nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history. He wrote and published over 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays.
An author whose career spanned the first six decades of the 20th Century. From mystery and adventure stories in the earliest years to science fiction in his later years, he worked steadily and at a highly professional level of craftsmanship longer than most writers of his generation. He won a Hugo Award in 1956 for his novelet “Exploration Team,” and in 1995 the Sidewise Award for Alternate History took its name from his classic story, “Sidewise in Time.” His last original work appeared in 1967.
Will F. Jenkins
William Fitzgerald Jenkins
Murray Leinster was a nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history. He wrote and published over 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays.
An author whose career spanned the first six decades of the 20th Century. From mystery and adventure stories in the earliest years to science fiction in his later years, he worked steadily and at a highly professional level of craftsmanship longer than most writers of his generation. He won a Hugo Award in 1956 for his novelet “Exploration Team,” and in 1995 the Sidewise Award for Alternate History took its name from his classic story, “Sidewise in Time.” His last original work appeared in 1967.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 13, 2015
The space travel is dated but human nature does not change.
From the award-winning author who was the first or among the first to write of universal translators, computers, the internet, parallel universes, and more we have a story which does not hold up as well as most of his work. Appearing in the September 1955 issue of ASTOUNDING science fiction magazine, this story contains speculations on things ranging from the psychological reactions of humans to space travel to the economics of moon mining which do not match current realities. For science fiction fans however, this well written story is still worth reading for its plot and an interesting look at the 1955 speculations about the future.
From the award-winning author who was the first or among the first to write of universal translators, computers, the internet, parallel universes, and more we have a story which does not hold up as well as most of his work. Appearing in the September 1955 issue of ASTOUNDING science fiction magazine, this story contains speculations on things ranging from the psychological reactions of humans to space travel to the economics of moon mining which do not match current realities. For science fiction fans however, this well written story is still worth reading for its plot and an interesting look at the 1955 speculations about the future.
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October 15, 2022I happened across this story while randomly browsing the classics at my library and I mistook it for something else (Captain Scrimshaw? Captain Ahab? who knows). The story itself is nothing particularly memorable but the plot is dynamic and flows well.
What always strikes me about science-fiction is how it knows humanity so well. Describing the maiden voyage of a pleasure cruise to the moon: "Passengers who paid so highly expected to be pleasantly thrilled and shielded from all reasons for alarm. And they couldn't be. Something happens when a self-centered and complacent individual unsuspectingly looks out of a spaceship port and sees the cosmos unshielded by mists or clouds or other aids to blindness against reality. It is shattering. A millionaire cut his throat when he saw Earth dwindled to a mere blue green ball in vastness. He could not endure his own smallness in the face of immensity."
This feeling is called "the overview effect" and was first coined by author Frank White in 1987. The first person to physically experience and describe it was Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Scrimshaw was originally published in a sci-fi magazine in 1955.
I suppose it's not impossibly hard to imagine how it would feel when you leave Earth. I would probably imagine going to space might feel something like when I hiked to the peak of a mountain or dove down to 40 meters underwater and could only see the immensity of the open ocean in all directions. It's exhilarating to realize the problems of daily life, of relationships and work and bills, are minute and fleeting. The shift in perspective is an instant mood-lifter.
What surprised me, then, is that's not how Leinster describes it. The main character, Pop Young, is able to do his job on the surface of the moon so well because he isn't driven to existential madness like everyone else. Because he doesn't have memories to compare his lunar perspective to. Leinster describes being in space as an existential dystopia, and daily life on the moon a literal "medieval notion of physical appearance of hell."
William Shatner makes an interesting comparison between the imagined view us optimistic dreamers have of space versus his own experience: "I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness."
Though Jeff Bezos did not describe his own trip as anything but wholly positive (let us not forget his vested interest in suppressing any bothersome doubts about his venture), both he and Shatner walked away from the experience describing a stronger and more pressing need to care for our unique planet and environment. "This is the only good planet in this solar system, and we have to take care of it. And when you go into space and see how fragile it is, you'll want to take care of it even more. And that's what this is about," Bezos said. And Shatner: "Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral."
I've been trying not to retweet negative news bites on Twitter for the past few months, but it's honestly a challenge and I couldn't resist spreading the news about these things this week:
1. "The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has, for the first time in state history, canceled the winter snow crab season in the Bering Sea due to their falling numbers...An estimated 1 billion crabs [90% of the population] have mysteriously disappeared in 2 years." source
2. "FUN FACT: turtles, crocodiles, and alligators' sex is determined not by chromosomes but by the temperature the eggs incubate at. NOT FUN FACT: they may all go extinct soon because a temperature difference of a couple degrees will make them 100% female/male, depending on species. In 2018, more than *99%* of young green sea turtles examined in a study were females." Source. Tweet.
3. "I got arrested today in downtown St.louis, cause it's illegal to feed the homeless!! This was my 5th time getting warned about the new law. I really don't care. When ppl are hungry, please feed them. It was cold! Also so I gave out scarfs gloves, chili etc. Y would u lock me up?" Tweet.
4. Insects, the backbone of the entire ecosystem, are experiencing a "rate of extinction [that] is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century." Source.
You know, it's just crazy to me that we are determined to make literally everything, even fellow humans, go extinct. To kill off the source of true, profound, existential human joy in the known universe. I'm talking about: forget being able to live on Mars physically (and a big F.U. to you, Elon), psychologically I don't know if we could survive that. Just this morning I was trying to remember the last time I saw a housefly. It's been... years? Imagine a life without other life. Imagine that.
What always strikes me about science-fiction is how it knows humanity so well. Describing the maiden voyage of a pleasure cruise to the moon: "Passengers who paid so highly expected to be pleasantly thrilled and shielded from all reasons for alarm. And they couldn't be. Something happens when a self-centered and complacent individual unsuspectingly looks out of a spaceship port and sees the cosmos unshielded by mists or clouds or other aids to blindness against reality. It is shattering. A millionaire cut his throat when he saw Earth dwindled to a mere blue green ball in vastness. He could not endure his own smallness in the face of immensity."
This feeling is called "the overview effect" and was first coined by author Frank White in 1987. The first person to physically experience and describe it was Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Scrimshaw was originally published in a sci-fi magazine in 1955.
I suppose it's not impossibly hard to imagine how it would feel when you leave Earth. I would probably imagine going to space might feel something like when I hiked to the peak of a mountain or dove down to 40 meters underwater and could only see the immensity of the open ocean in all directions. It's exhilarating to realize the problems of daily life, of relationships and work and bills, are minute and fleeting. The shift in perspective is an instant mood-lifter.
What surprised me, then, is that's not how Leinster describes it. The main character, Pop Young, is able to do his job on the surface of the moon so well because he isn't driven to existential madness like everyone else. Because he doesn't have memories to compare his lunar perspective to. Leinster describes being in space as an existential dystopia, and daily life on the moon a literal "medieval notion of physical appearance of hell."
William Shatner makes an interesting comparison between the imagined view us optimistic dreamers have of space versus his own experience: "I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness."
Though Jeff Bezos did not describe his own trip as anything but wholly positive (let us not forget his vested interest in suppressing any bothersome doubts about his venture), both he and Shatner walked away from the experience describing a stronger and more pressing need to care for our unique planet and environment. "This is the only good planet in this solar system, and we have to take care of it. And when you go into space and see how fragile it is, you'll want to take care of it even more. And that's what this is about," Bezos said. And Shatner: "Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral."
I've been trying not to retweet negative news bites on Twitter for the past few months, but it's honestly a challenge and I couldn't resist spreading the news about these things this week:
1. "The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has, for the first time in state history, canceled the winter snow crab season in the Bering Sea due to their falling numbers...An estimated 1 billion crabs [90% of the population] have mysteriously disappeared in 2 years." source
2. "FUN FACT: turtles, crocodiles, and alligators' sex is determined not by chromosomes but by the temperature the eggs incubate at. NOT FUN FACT: they may all go extinct soon because a temperature difference of a couple degrees will make them 100% female/male, depending on species. In 2018, more than *99%* of young green sea turtles examined in a study were females." Source. Tweet.
3. "I got arrested today in downtown St.louis, cause it's illegal to feed the homeless!! This was my 5th time getting warned about the new law. I really don't care. When ppl are hungry, please feed them. It was cold! Also so I gave out scarfs gloves, chili etc. Y would u lock me up?" Tweet.
4. Insects, the backbone of the entire ecosystem, are experiencing a "rate of extinction [that] is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century." Source.
You know, it's just crazy to me that we are determined to make literally everything, even fellow humans, go extinct. To kill off the source of true, profound, existential human joy in the known universe. I'm talking about: forget being able to live on Mars physically (and a big F.U. to you, Elon), psychologically I don't know if we could survive that. Just this morning I was trying to remember the last time I saw a housefly. It's been... years? Imagine a life without other life. Imagine that.
April 19, 2021
Fantasy reading 📚
Due to eye issues Alexa reads to me, a will written fantasy space Sci-Fi thriller novella. The character is interesting and will developed. The story line is about a man 🚹with little memory of his past life now on the moon 🌙. I would recommend this novella to readers of fantasy Sci-Fi. Enjoy reading 🔰2021 ⌚😯
Due to eye issues Alexa reads to me, a will written fantasy space Sci-Fi thriller novella. The character is interesting and will developed. The story line is about a man 🚹with little memory of his past life now on the moon 🌙. I would recommend this novella to readers of fantasy Sci-Fi. Enjoy reading 🔰2021 ⌚😯
November 18, 2025
Pop Young lived on the dark side of the moon, but he was there for a reason. After he sustained a head injury during an attack that claimed his wife and child, Pop was following the only man who might have knowledge of what happened-because the man might have been the perpetrator.
June 18, 2023
Published in Astounding Stories, September 1955.
Pop Young was the one known man who could stand life on the surface of the Moon's far side . . .
Pop Young was an older man, and somehow, he lost all memory of his past. How did this happen? Who or what was to blame? Sattell surely knew about him – and knew him well. And with the means that Pop had to work at recapturing his past memories, Pop also got to know Sattell well. Very well, indeed.
The writing style of this short story is memorable for me, in that the words and sentence construction flow so smoothly and effortlessly that I clearly saw and felt myself being there, on the moonscape, the vast universe, the abject desolation—
The sun rose very, very slowly in what by convention was called the east. It took nearly two hours to urge its disk above the horizon, and it burned terribly in emptiness for fourteen times twenty-four hours before sunset. Then there was night, and for three hundred and thirty-six consecutive hours there were only stars overhead and the sky was a hole so terrible . . .
🪐 🚀 Recommended.
Pop Young was the one known man who could stand life on the surface of the Moon's far side . . .
Pop Young was an older man, and somehow, he lost all memory of his past. How did this happen? Who or what was to blame? Sattell surely knew about him – and knew him well. And with the means that Pop had to work at recapturing his past memories, Pop also got to know Sattell well. Very well, indeed.
The writing style of this short story is memorable for me, in that the words and sentence construction flow so smoothly and effortlessly that I clearly saw and felt myself being there, on the moonscape, the vast universe, the abject desolation—
The sun rose very, very slowly in what by convention was called the east. It took nearly two hours to urge its disk above the horizon, and it burned terribly in emptiness for fourteen times twenty-four hours before sunset. Then there was night, and for three hundred and thirty-six consecutive hours there were only stars overhead and the sky was a hole so terrible . . .
🪐 🚀 Recommended.
December 22, 2018
A short story from a master scifi writer. In a few pages a dramatic story is painted from extreme lonelyness, both in his own head as where he lives, experienced by a man who lost his memory after an attack in which he also lost his wife and children.
But it is not a sad story, it is about accepting a situation and doing everything possible to gain back those lost memories. And revenge, in a very chilling way.
It always amazes me when i see when Leinster lived an wrote these stories. Not only was he in many fields a groundbreaker but this story for instance didn't age a bit, it could be written yesterday and compete with the living legends of today - and in many cases probably win too.
But it is not a sad story, it is about accepting a situation and doing everything possible to gain back those lost memories. And revenge, in a very chilling way.
It always amazes me when i see when Leinster lived an wrote these stories. Not only was he in many fields a groundbreaker but this story for instance didn't age a bit, it could be written yesterday and compete with the living legends of today - and in many cases probably win too.
February 16, 2012
A interesting short story, with with a satisfying ending.
The story is told in a narrative style.
The narrator is well spoken, his voice is clear and easy to listen to.
The recording good is clean with out any background noises. There plenty of volume. The editing is seamless.
The story is told in a narrative style.
The narrator is well spoken, his voice is clear and easy to listen to.
The recording good is clean with out any background noises. There plenty of volume. The editing is seamless.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews