Skyport

by Curt Siodmak

1,075 miles above Earth
is skyport, an enormous revolving satellite in space.

To the brilliant young scientists who built it, skyport means the birth of a new world, where men can live in peace.

But to the giants of industry who finance it, skyport is a vast pawn in a ruthless power game for control of an empire whose boundary lines encompass Earth -- and outer space.

Genres: Science Fiction

159 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Curt Siodmak (August 10 1902–September 2 2000) was a novelist and screenwriter, author of the novel Donovan's Brain, which was made into a number of films. He also wrote the novels Hauser's Memory and Gabriel's Body.

Born Kurt Siodmak in Dresden, Germany, Curt Siodmak acquired a degree in mathematics before beginning to write novels. He invested early royalties earned by his first books in the movie Menschen am Sonntag (1929), a documentary-style chronicle of the lives of four Berliners on a Sunday based on their own lives. The movie was co-directed by Curt Siodmak's older brother Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer, with a script by Billy Wilder.

In the following years Curt Siodmak wrote many novels, screenplays and short stories including the novel F.P.1 Antwortet Nicht (F.P.1 Doesn't Answer) (1933) which became a popular movie starring Hans Albers and Peter Lorre.

Siodmak decided to emigrate after hearing an anti-semitic tirade by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and departed for England where he made a living as a screenwriter before travelling to the USA in 1937.

His big break came with the screenplay for The Wolf Man (1941) which established this fictional creature as the most popular movie monster after Dracula and Frankenstein's monster.

In The Wolf Man Siodmak made reference to many werewolf legends: being marked by a pentagram; being practically immortal apart from being struck/shot by silver implements/bullets; and the famous verse:

"Even a man who is pure in heart, And says his prayers by night May become a Wolf when the Wolfbane blooms And the autumn Moon is bright" (the last line was changed in the sequels to The Moon is full and bright).

Siodmak's science-fiction novel Donovan's Brain (1942) was a bestseller and was adapted for the cinema several times. Other notable films he wrote include Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, I Walked With a Zombie and The Beast With Five Fingers.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Science is the shiniest jewel in man's crown. It holds no terror for those who try to explore its mysteries. Science will save mankind, because science arrives at tangible results. The skyport--or better, let me call it 'the inhabited space satellite'--is man's first step up a ladder leading away from the cramped confines that drove him for thousands of years to intolerance, chauvinism, and war. Man cannot live on earth without friction. Space will supply the expansion which he needs physically and mentally.

With these rousing words, Dr. Lee F. Powers, the protagonist of Curt Siodmak's 1959 novel Skyport, announces his intention to build a space hotel because a space hotel is the first rung on a ladder to the stars. Siodmak describes the business ethics and intrigue which typically plague many large, visionary, cutting edge projects. The "science" of the novel fluctuates from believable to bewildering.

At one point, Dr. Powers and a crew take a jaunt into space to mark the "foundation" of the space station--I'm sorry: Skyport (because, naturally, it's a "port" in the "sky," though it is really, technically, a "Spaceport": a "port" in "space"). They suit up like medieval knights, get into their wasp-shaped "thermonuclear space orbit vehicle, the Lancet-4," buzz out Earth's atmosphere like a train leaving the station (thanks to the "reciprocal gravity pull in the cockpit" handily invented by Dr. Lee at some undisclosed time when he wasn't inventing the miracle structural material Rylane so critical to the success of the project), and, I shit you not, mark the area--in SPACE--with wire where the station will be located. In essence, they place wooden stakes outlining where the building is going to be in order to ensure their property boundaries and then return to Earth for dinner.

The thing, though, is that I really enjoyed this little novel despite these odd details. The term "rocket" is never used and, at times, Siodmak refers to manned spacecraft as "missiles," which, while technically accurate, have associations of vehicles we would rather not want to ride. Since NASA was not formed until 1958, the administration makes no appearance in the novel. Since Gagarin wouldn't make the actual trip until 1961, the plausibility of space exploration within the novel is stretched mighty thin at times. The spacewalk scenes have some verisimilitude complemented with strange moments.

Siodmak still weaves an adventurous romp which, for me at least, stirs the heart to strive for greater achievement. Sure, it's a sad day in Gotham when scientists have to climb in bed with a hotel chain to ensure proper funding to complete their project, but there's more than a ring of truth to the whole enterprise. It's a dated text, but it is still a fascinating one.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a science fiction novel first published in 1959 set in what was then the near future. The Soviets had already launched their Sputnik artificial satellite in 1957, and the United States would launch its first ones not long after. No one had walked in space and a man walking on the moon was years away. Lee F. Powers, PhD, is the leading character of this novel and he has the dream of creating a spaceport - a space station we might say today when we have had our Interational Space Station for many years now. Dr. Powers is a brilliant mathematician and scientist who has to work with strong-willed businessmen to finance his Project Sky. He manages to do it, with the backing of Cecil Kettner, the top executive and majority shareholder of Intercontinental and its subsidiary, Radical Power Company, and of Tom Wharton, the owner of the Wharton Hotel chain, and of their investors. Kettner and Wharton are ruthless businessmen who will not hesitate to backstab if it's in their interest. Wharton has a more personal interest in Project Sky. He has a bad heart and in building the spaceport, which they agree to name "Sky Wharton" and to be part of his chain of hotels, they will also include a hospital ward where the weightlessness will be good for heart patients such as himself. Kettner has a daughter named Monica - her mother died not long after she was born, and she has a yearning for Powers. Kettner assigns one of his secretaries, Angela Loring, to work with Powers and basically spy on him. Anyway, the project moves on, the Sky Wharton is coming along smoothly in its construction, it is on its way to completion when a disaster happens. One of the ferries used to transport materials up from Earth crashes into it and 38 men are killed. Dr. Powers and Monica and a bunch of company department heads had just previously gone up to inspect the work. They survive, but getting back to Earth takes some doing. So, what happened? Was it just an accident or was there something more sinister going on? The rest of the novel is how all that works out.

[Jordan Bethea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Intrigue and plotting around the first commercial space station, here called a space hotel. The sci-fi aspect of this is pretty dated, as it combines outlandishly advanced things like special alloys that are indestructible and light, antigravity, and rockets that can launch using nuclear engines and land them selves, along with some pretty quaint ones, like plotting calculations by hand and programming machines using magnetic tape, and the notion that humans might just all leave earth to go into space for some reason.

But the sci-fi part is not that important, really it's a book about corporate intrigue around a large project. The problem is that the plotting around this is fairly predictable and easy to read, leaving few surprises. The dialogue tends to be full of bizarre soliloquies from the characters where they just spew their innermost thoughts out for no reason, they are just too overwhelmed by emotion.

Ultimately it's not terrible, but is fairly predictable, and the characters feel more like caricatures than real people. It's like an attempt at shakespeare in space but without the charm.

[Edoardo Nicoletti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Di leggersi volentieri, si legge volentieri. Ma c'è qualcosa di incompiuto nei dettagli, nei personaggi, nell'azione. Ecco, sarebbe un buon soggetto per un film, da sviluppare e precisare in fase di sceneggiatura; sicuramente non è un caso dato che Curt Siodmak col cinema ci ha lavorato per tutta la vita.