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Matter, Space, and Time
A Brand New World
The new planet Caem out of the infinite deeps of insterstellar space, moved in towards the sunlike a comet, and stayed - a new member of the Solar System, between Earth and Venus. Xenephrene it was named and it made a pretty vision in the evening sky ... until other things began to appear in the heavens. flying things, strange visitants, myterious lights - and people knew then that they were no longer alone. Xenephrene was inhabited, and its inhabitants were discovering the Earth. But were they coming as friends or as invaders? For trade or for conquest? Ray Cummings was an American author of science fiction, rated one of the "founding fathers of the science fiction pulp genre." Cummings worked with Thomas Edison as a personal assistant and technical writer from 1914 to 1919. His most highly regarded work was the novel The Girl in the Golden Atom, which was a consolidation of a short story by the same name (where Cummings combined the idea of Fitz James O'Brien's The Diamond Lens with H. G. Wells's The Time Machine) and a sequel, The People of the Golden Atom. His career resulted in some 750 novels and short stories, using also the pen names Ray King, Gabrielle Cummings, and Gabriel Wilson.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1942
About the author
Ray Cummings
344 books23 followersRaymond King Cummings. His career resulted in some 750 novels and short stories, using also the pen names Ray King, Gabrielle Cummings, and Gabriel Wilson.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 29, 2023
This is the sort of book that gave early science fiction such a bad literary reputation. Its premise is that a new planet, which is soon named Xenephrene, enters the solar system and settles into an orbit around the sun. Its arrival causes catastrophic climate change on Earth, leading to the deaths of millions. As humanity copes with these changes, a large silver sphere lands, from which emerges a beautiful humanoid girl named Zetta. No sooner does she establish contact with one of the world’s leading scientists, though, then the two of them are kidnapped. Now the scientist’s two sons scramble to make use of their father’s clues and resolve the mystery of Xenephrene before it is too late for Earth and the people on it.
Ray Cummings enjoys a reputation today for having contributed to the “scientification” of science fiction, and the science of his premise is indeed at the center of his story. Unfortunately, the orbital mechanics of his scenario feel a little implausible, while the rest of the plot is annoyingly formulaic. The protagonists are all your fairly standard square-jawed heroes, whose motivated amateurism is more than enough to carry the day against a planetary threat. There’s virtually no character development or narrative tension, with the story’s outcome predictable after the first few chapters. Because of this, Cummings’s novel is best read as an artifact of science fiction’s pulp era, when the novelty of the concept often distracted from the shallowness of the rest of the story.
Ray Cummings enjoys a reputation today for having contributed to the “scientification” of science fiction, and the science of his premise is indeed at the center of his story. Unfortunately, the orbital mechanics of his scenario feel a little implausible, while the rest of the plot is annoyingly formulaic. The protagonists are all your fairly standard square-jawed heroes, whose motivated amateurism is more than enough to carry the day against a planetary threat. There’s virtually no character development or narrative tension, with the story’s outcome predictable after the first few chapters. Because of this, Cummings’s novel is best read as an artifact of science fiction’s pulp era, when the novelty of the concept often distracted from the shallowness of the rest of the story.
October 15, 2017
There are a lot of half-cooked ideas in here. It's an ecological catastrophe story, except when it's an alien invasion story, except when it's a fantastic-new-planet story, except when it suddenly turns badass as it returns to the alien invasion part.
I wish that Cummings had stuck to one plan or a small number of them, as each layer gets undercut by the needs of the others. The ecological catastrophe is dramatic and drawn-out, but settles into a relatively normal steady-state once all humans move to equatorial regions (despite all bad disaster movies to the contrary). The alien invasion builds spooky portent as their motives and means are unclear, including one invisible antagonist whose unique abilities are never used or referred to again. The travel to Xenephrene is what it is. Xenephrene itself, after massive buildup, never gels as a place, and the protagonists don't experience enough conflict there. And then back on Earth, Cumming decides to drop the hammer and end things.
And then Xenephrene the planet moves on, and Earth returns to normal.
Cumming portrays an alternate view of "the infrared" and "the ultraviolet" as dimensional/planar effects, with "the infrared" filled with weird and evil entities impinging on our reality, and the infrared ray guns work by exposing the targets to these inimical forces. It's an utterly weird and non-physics concept that takes your breath away for its sheer audacity.
I wish that Cummings had stuck to one plan or a small number of them, as each layer gets undercut by the needs of the others. The ecological catastrophe is dramatic and drawn-out, but settles into a relatively normal steady-state once all humans move to equatorial regions (despite all bad disaster movies to the contrary). The alien invasion builds spooky portent as their motives and means are unclear, including one invisible antagonist whose unique abilities are never used or referred to again. The travel to Xenephrene is what it is. Xenephrene itself, after massive buildup, never gels as a place, and the protagonists don't experience enough conflict there. And then back on Earth, Cumming decides to drop the hammer and end things.
And then Xenephrene the planet moves on, and Earth returns to normal.
Cumming portrays an alternate view of "the infrared" and "the ultraviolet" as dimensional/planar effects, with "the infrared" filled with weird and evil entities impinging on our reality, and the infrared ray guns work by exposing the targets to these inimical forces. It's an utterly weird and non-physics concept that takes your breath away for its sheer audacity.
November 12, 2014
I think it would have been fun writing in the early part of the last century. At least, if you were writing for the pulps. It was a time, after all, when a guy like Ray Cummings could churn out roughly 750 novels and short stories in a 35-year career, with about 350 of them coming in the 7-year period from 1935 to 1942 (which, if you're curious, works out to an average of one per week -- for five years!). And Cummings is a man whose best-regarded work, The Girl in the Golden Atom, was his first published story. Well, I don't know about that, not having read Atom, but, if true, what a whip!: having to read that prodigious output only to find out that the best thing he ever wrote was the first thing he ever wrote.
A Brand New World is from 1964, according to the disingenuous copyright notice in my edition. In fact, it was first published as a six-part serial in Argosy in 1928. It appears to have made its first appearance as a novel in 1942, but I have no idea whether any updates were made to it at that time or later. I'm left wondering about that because on more than one occasion Cummings mentions a human weapon too terrible to use against the story's alien invaders; too terrible because of what it would also do to the remaining human population. Which sounds a lot like the atomic bomb. And if Cummings predicted that in 1928, that's not half bad.
Much better than his idea of a planet wandering through space for millennia, complete with a living population of humanoids.
This planet, dubbed Xenephrene, enters into an orbit around our Sun, passing fairly close to Earth every 17 months. Close enough that its initial passage causes Earth to tilt on its axis, disrupting weather patterns and making much of the planet uninhabitable. If that isn't bad enough, while humankind scrambles toward the relatively hospitable climes of the equatorial regions, the aliens, armed with their superior "infrared" weaponry, begin an invasion against which Earth appears all but defenseless.
Meanwhile, our hero, Peter Vanderstuyft, falls in love with an alien girl named Zetta.
Metaphorically, the aliens are the Enemy du jour, and this is one of those funky utopian novels in which millions must die in order for human beings to see that they really aren't so different, after all. If people are that stupid, though, then "utopia" isn't oneness and peace, it is war and wasted lives. Peter may see hope in the way the world's nationalities unite to fight the invaders, but I see only an ad hoc coalition destined to crumble the first time someone screams "democracy" or "God."
Literally, the aliens are rather disappointing, being chiefly different from humans in their weight. They look just like us, but for some reason they weigh much less. Zetta, if I remember correctly, appears to be a normal woman, but weighs only 18 pounds. (Well, at least she and Peter can effortlessly enjoy the Clasp.) Otherwise, they are, like us, ruled by greed, jealousy, and the lust for power.
It wasn't always that way. The aliens used to be a peace-loving race. But, writes Cummings -- in another of those remarkable statements for 1928 (if indeed that's when it was written) -- one man changed all that, through the eloquence of his oratory. "It is a frightening thing," Peter's father says, "what one evil man can do."
That the problems of the world are only temporarily forgotten is evident in the novel's one real claim to "alienness": man-sized multi-legged insects that the aliens use as guards and cannon fodder. Combine the two worlds and the insects are second in intelligence only to men. Yet Peter isn't fascinated by them; he is repulsed by them. So much for tolerance and equality.
Cummings is by no means an exceptional writer and A Brand New World is by no means a good book. But it is competent, on the level of pulp. And I doubt many people read old science fiction for the quality of the writing. Personally, I was hooked by the blurb: "Xenephrene...made a pretty vision in the evening sky -- until flying things and strange visitants appeared. Xenephrene was inhabited...and its inhabitants had discovered Earth." I was half hoping for an atmospheric first act full of mystery and menace. Of course, at the time, I'd forgotten the story had started its life as a serial and that there was clearly no time for that.
Still and all, I suppose it isn't too bad for a week's work.
A Brand New World is from 1964, according to the disingenuous copyright notice in my edition. In fact, it was first published as a six-part serial in Argosy in 1928. It appears to have made its first appearance as a novel in 1942, but I have no idea whether any updates were made to it at that time or later. I'm left wondering about that because on more than one occasion Cummings mentions a human weapon too terrible to use against the story's alien invaders; too terrible because of what it would also do to the remaining human population. Which sounds a lot like the atomic bomb. And if Cummings predicted that in 1928, that's not half bad.
Much better than his idea of a planet wandering through space for millennia, complete with a living population of humanoids.
This planet, dubbed Xenephrene, enters into an orbit around our Sun, passing fairly close to Earth every 17 months. Close enough that its initial passage causes Earth to tilt on its axis, disrupting weather patterns and making much of the planet uninhabitable. If that isn't bad enough, while humankind scrambles toward the relatively hospitable climes of the equatorial regions, the aliens, armed with their superior "infrared" weaponry, begin an invasion against which Earth appears all but defenseless.
Meanwhile, our hero, Peter Vanderstuyft, falls in love with an alien girl named Zetta.
Metaphorically, the aliens are the Enemy du jour, and this is one of those funky utopian novels in which millions must die in order for human beings to see that they really aren't so different, after all. If people are that stupid, though, then "utopia" isn't oneness and peace, it is war and wasted lives. Peter may see hope in the way the world's nationalities unite to fight the invaders, but I see only an ad hoc coalition destined to crumble the first time someone screams "democracy" or "God."
Literally, the aliens are rather disappointing, being chiefly different from humans in their weight. They look just like us, but for some reason they weigh much less. Zetta, if I remember correctly, appears to be a normal woman, but weighs only 18 pounds. (Well, at least she and Peter can effortlessly enjoy the Clasp.) Otherwise, they are, like us, ruled by greed, jealousy, and the lust for power.
It wasn't always that way. The aliens used to be a peace-loving race. But, writes Cummings -- in another of those remarkable statements for 1928 (if indeed that's when it was written) -- one man changed all that, through the eloquence of his oratory. "It is a frightening thing," Peter's father says, "what one evil man can do."
That the problems of the world are only temporarily forgotten is evident in the novel's one real claim to "alienness": man-sized multi-legged insects that the aliens use as guards and cannon fodder. Combine the two worlds and the insects are second in intelligence only to men. Yet Peter isn't fascinated by them; he is repulsed by them. So much for tolerance and equality.
Cummings is by no means an exceptional writer and A Brand New World is by no means a good book. But it is competent, on the level of pulp. And I doubt many people read old science fiction for the quality of the writing. Personally, I was hooked by the blurb: "Xenephrene...made a pretty vision in the evening sky -- until flying things and strange visitants appeared. Xenephrene was inhabited...and its inhabitants had discovered Earth." I was half hoping for an atmospheric first act full of mystery and menace. Of course, at the time, I'd forgotten the story had started its life as a serial and that there was clearly no time for that.
Still and all, I suppose it isn't too bad for a week's work.
August 24, 2025
Dieses Buch (Heft) gehört in die Kategorie: so blöd, beinahe schon wieder gut.
Ein neuer Planet taucht 1966 im Sonnensystem auf, den der Vater des Helden Xenephrene nennt. Das führt zu einem Klimawandel. Die Tage sind jetzt ein halbes Jahr lang, es herrscht dann entweder Sommer oder Winter. Zu diesem Übel hinzu kommt, dass die Bewohner dieses Planeten uns erobern wollen. Vermutlich. Und dann taucht auch noch eine schöne Dame dieses Planeten auf, in die sich unser Held schnell verliebt. Die aber verschwindet wieder zusammen mit der Schwester, und dem Vater. Dem allerdings gelingt es eine geheime Nachricht an den Sohn zu schicken, der daraufhin mit ein paar Genossen ein Raumschiff in der Lage ist zu bauen, mit dem sie den Planeten erreichen. Dort gibt es Böse und Gute. Die Bösen werden angeführt von einem Diktator, der selbst in die schöne junge Frau verliebt ist, die übrigens nur 18 Pfund wiegt. Der Diktator wiederum wird von einer anderen geliebt. Alle zusammen reisen wieder zur Erde, wo der Rote Wahnsinn ausgelöst wird. Aber am Ende wird alles wieder gut. Der Planet verschwindet, auf der Erde herrschen wieder anständige Temperaturen, und der Held und die Alien-Frau leben glücklich und zufrieden auf einer nunmehr befriedeten Erde.
Und warum habe ich das gelesen? Weil Cummings diesen schönen Spruch, vonwegen Zeit sei dafür da, damit nicht alles auf einmal passiert, erfunden hat. Wer so genial ist, muss doch auch gute Bücher geschrieben haben? Irgendwie schon.
5/10
Ein neuer Planet taucht 1966 im Sonnensystem auf, den der Vater des Helden Xenephrene nennt. Das führt zu einem Klimawandel. Die Tage sind jetzt ein halbes Jahr lang, es herrscht dann entweder Sommer oder Winter. Zu diesem Übel hinzu kommt, dass die Bewohner dieses Planeten uns erobern wollen. Vermutlich. Und dann taucht auch noch eine schöne Dame dieses Planeten auf, in die sich unser Held schnell verliebt. Die aber verschwindet wieder zusammen mit der Schwester, und dem Vater. Dem allerdings gelingt es eine geheime Nachricht an den Sohn zu schicken, der daraufhin mit ein paar Genossen ein Raumschiff in der Lage ist zu bauen, mit dem sie den Planeten erreichen. Dort gibt es Böse und Gute. Die Bösen werden angeführt von einem Diktator, der selbst in die schöne junge Frau verliebt ist, die übrigens nur 18 Pfund wiegt. Der Diktator wiederum wird von einer anderen geliebt. Alle zusammen reisen wieder zur Erde, wo der Rote Wahnsinn ausgelöst wird. Aber am Ende wird alles wieder gut. Der Planet verschwindet, auf der Erde herrschen wieder anständige Temperaturen, und der Held und die Alien-Frau leben glücklich und zufrieden auf einer nunmehr befriedeten Erde.
Und warum habe ich das gelesen? Weil Cummings diesen schönen Spruch, vonwegen Zeit sei dafür da, damit nicht alles auf einmal passiert, erfunden hat. Wer so genial ist, muss doch auch gute Bücher geschrieben haben? Irgendwie schon.
5/10
December 30, 2023
Discovered this fun to read pulp sci-fi novel at a vintage store where I also bought a pair of cowboy boots and a teapot. Merry Christmas to me.
February 8, 2019
Enjoyable for fans of vintage sci fi.
December 1, 2023
One of the worst things I have ever read.
August 24, 2011
Amazing, scarey, loved it
April 12, 2015
A very early example of Sci fi and it's definitely noticeable. The book can be fairly slow going at times but was ultimately enjoyable and certainly worth a read.
August 4, 2014
You have to judge it by the time when it was released, but even by that standard it isn't very imaginative or interesting.
April 30, 2025
As uneven a book as I’ve ever read, wasting a lot of the potential of its unique infrared vs ultraviolet alien premise.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews