Stanton was convinced of the practicality of spaceflight and went further, supporting the encouragement of commercial ventures. Will’s matter-of-fact acceptance of space travel and the soundness of the science in some of his predictions brought them together.
In 1957 Will dedicated the book Colonial Survey to him.
To Austin Stanton, Esq.
Who believes that the things I write about should be accomplished right away;
Who believes that all men are potential geniuses; Who gives responsibility and opportunity to men while they are young; And thereby does his bit to make actual the things that I only write about.
Murray Leinster
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In an undated letter to Jo-an in 1956, Will tells of attending a meeting of the American Astronautical Society, “I think I told you Austin Stanton called up. Asked if I wanted to go to the awards of the Astronautic Society.
I said yes. There’re giving an award to Cmmdr. [ sic] Hoover. I got a folder, permitting me to buy tickets and discovered Stanton is getting an award, too.
He didn’t mention that.” [Stanton was elected a Fellow in the Society.]
In a later letter, Will added:
Last night I went to the annual award meeting of the American Astronautical Society, They gave an award to Cmmdr. [ sic] Hoover, a very handsome plaque, which puts my space-ship [the Hugo Award] in the shade, both in looks and in the achievement it signifies. His eighteen-year-old daughter was there. Goes to Maryland U. Envies you having been to Annapolis [while a student at Notre Dame College in Baltimore]. Met an admiral and a flock of four-stripers, swapped recipes for steamed crabs with one (the secret is use two parts beer and one part vinegar instead of all vinegar) argued about whether the tranquility produced by Milltown would increase combat-efficiency or whether the effect “it isn’t important” would be a hindrance. (They’re testing it.) ... Hoover really spilled the beans. Said when they want to find out if some new project is possible they put it up to three conservative-type civilians engineers. If the engineers say it is impossible, the satellite-project gang sighs with relief and sets to work on it. They know it can be done. Afterwards, the guy I swapped recipes with got impassioned, telling me of one incident after another in which exactly that thing had happened.
Everybody was from some impressive outfit. Met a Marine major (migosh, majors are young these days!— Actually I’m ancient) and we both felt horribly inferior. (Rosenberg [probably Major General Robert A. Rosenberg who later in 1959–1962 participated in the development of the Atlas and Agena satellite programs] came up to me and said who he was (I know, anyhow) and who he was with and peeked at my badge and said, “Who are you with?” and I said “Unem-ployed.”) But the major and I pooled our misery. He came up with an entirely mythical firm-or-project idea. I suggested initials. So thereafter when we were asked what we were we said nonchalantly, “N. I. P.” and people looked impressed and went away not knowing the initials stood for “Nothing in Particular.”
• NINE •
The 1960s
Will and Mary began to live almost full time at Clay Bank in the 1960s, and family visited often, keeping Will close to his dream of Ardudwy as the family seat. With the magazine market drying up, Will turned more and more to novels, and he was also able to continue his tinkering. This constant experimenting developed front projection, which had brought him his first patents in 1955, and in this decade, commercial and financial success for his invention.
His first novel of the decade was The Wailing Asteroid, published by Avon in 1960. Fifty years later, one fan remembered it well enough to send the following to Steven H. Silver, the science fiction fan, bibliographer and editor who started and maintains the Murray Leinster website.
I am sure that this may sound silly but Murray Leinster changed my life almost 50 years ago, and until last night I did not even know his name. When I was a child, I was an avid reader of Science Fiction. Having been spoonfed the best books by my grandfather who was an AeroSpace Engineer at Litton Industries there were a lot of stories and adventures buried in my mind. Still there was one story that I read in the mid 1960s that has haunted my dreams, memories and even fantasy. I have talked about it to friends and family for decades and no one ever knew about the book I was talking about.
Last night I was talking about it to my wife after dinner and forgot all about it again. That was until I sat up in bed at 1:00 AM while dreaming about the book and yelled out “The Wailing Asteroid!” bolted down the stairs and Googled the name not expecting much. I was floored to find the book instantly and information about the author. He was so much ahead of his time and I would give anything to go back in time just to talk to him and let him know what he has done for my life and my creativity and that of my children.
Tonight my son will get to read “The Wailing Asteroid” and a new generation will know the name Murray Leinster.
Thank you for keeping his web site up!
Bill Carroll, Sr.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer Stephen Goldin worked as a civilian space scientist before switching careers to full-time writing. He wrote about Will:
I never had the good fortune to meet Murray Leinster — our generations just barely overlapped. But his work influenced me tremendously.
The first thing I think about when I hear his name is The Wailing Asteroid.
That book practically defines the phrase “sense of wonder.” It transported me out of my ordinary world to a place of fascination and adventure and held me spellbound to the very end.
The Wailing Asteroid was made into a movie called The Terrornauts. It was filmed in England in 1967. Three British scientists succeed in their efforts to make contact with other intelligent creatures in the universe but are unexpectedly teleported to a hostile planet. The most favorable review calls it “a camp delight.” It was reported to be a New York TV staple in the 1990s and is still available on DVD.
Besides The Wailing Asteroid, the following novels were published in the 1960s: Creatures of the Abyss (Berkley, 1961) (reprinted in the UK as The Listeners), Operation Terror (Berkley, 1962), Talents Incorporated (Avon, 1962), The Duplicators (Ace Double, 1964) (also known as Lord of the Ulffs, backed with The Mutant Weapon), The Greks Bring Gifts (Macfadden, 1964), Invaders of Space (Berkley, 1964), The Other Side of Nowhere (Berkley, 1964), Time Tunnel (Pyramid, 1964), Checkpoint Lambda (Berkley, 1966), Space Captain (Ace Double, 1966), Tunnel Through Time (juvenile) (Westminster Press, 1966), Miners in the Sky (Avon, 1967), Space Gypsies (Avon, 1967), Time Tunnel—
Pyramid, 1967 (novelization of TV series), and Timeslip! (Pyramid, 1967) (novelization of TV series).
Will and Mary were delighted when Elizabeth “Beth” Jenkins DeHardit, daughter of Betty and Bill, joined the family on March 28, 1961. How wonderful to have a baby grandchild right in Gloucester to be enjoyed almost every day! Pam and Gail Stallings, now thirteen and ten, visited often with their parents, and occasionally alone.
Little Mary had taken in a young foster son, Franz Farquhar, and she brought him down, often staying for several weeks in the summer. For Franz, Will became a treasured granddaddy, and he has happy memories of those times, while Will enjoyed having a small boy around. Jo-an was living and working in New York, so visiting at Clay Bank was possible. Ardudwy was a family center once again.
Pam and Gail also have rich memories of those days. When Gail was asked for her favorite memory of her grandparents, she quickly answered,
“Grandmother sitting in Granddaddy’s lap.” Will once said, “A happy marriage 134
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is a series of love affairs with the same woman.” They had a happy marriage.
Will recalled, “One night we got to talking and all of a sudden saw the sun come up. We had talked all night.”
Both Pam and Gail also fondly remember parties, many of them unde
r the enormous weeping cherry tree on the front, or river side, of the house.
Mary had planted two weeping cherry trees shortly before going to New York and came back to find that one had died, It was fortunate because the other had grown so large it covered half the view of the river from the house, creating a large room under its branches. Two trees would have completely cut off the view. They paved the space under the remaining tree with bricks, and it was a favorite spot for outdoor dining and relaxing on summer afternoons.
“Staying up late and talking” is a vivid memory that Pam and Gail have.
Children at Clay Bank were both seen and heard whenever they wanted to be a part of adult gatherings. In the years they visited, both girls remember doing all the things their mother did, swimming, crabbing, climbing trees and riding to the Court House with their grandfather to pick up the mail —
a good time for long talks. He amused them by raising each eyebrow individually, a skill that has re-surfaced in one of his great-granddaughters. They were entranced with his experiments and the odd things he collected around the house. A Victorian medical gadget that gave a small, supposedly health-improving electric shock when you cranked the handle particularly fascinated Gail. They read the books that filled the house. After finishing the Oz books from the collection that was still in one of the bedrooms, Gail began to dip in to Analog and remembers the first of her grandfather’s books she tried. It was Four from Planet Five. At her prepubescent age, she thought it had too much “love stuff ” in it.
Will was a natural musician and could play the piano and stringed instru-ments (especially the banjo and mandolin) by ear. His half-sister Lula also played by ear. He had never studied, so was not an expert, and Mary couldn’t carry a tune, but nobody cared and everyone had a lot of fun. They would sing old songs like, “Did You Ever See a Lassie,” and “She’ll be Coming
’Round the Mountain,” and the children and grandchildren would sing along.
Gail and Pam were at the age that Will most enjoyed. He could open their eyes to new experiences, explain them, and they were interested. They could work on projects together. Gail wrote a little story, and he bound it for her by making a cardboard cover. He showed Pam how to make a book safe, taking an old discarded book with an interesting binding and cutting out a section of the pages to make a “hidey hole.” She vividly remembers him refer-
Opposite: Will plays for his grandchildren, Gail on left and Pam on right.
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ring to his novella Proxima Centauri as they watched the stars one dark summer night when they were especially bright. He spoke about the Proxima Centauri star and its constellation Centaurus, noting they cannot be seen from the little dot of our existence in the continental United States. This incident and the implications of our human limitations have remained with her in her faith-based journey. He enriched their lives.
Will was a great fan of G. K. Chesterton and often quoted from his auto-biography. A favorite passage of his and his grandchildren was in a letters to the editor section in a Fleet Street paper edited by Chesterton’s brother.
Because Will repeated it so many times, it seemed to reflect his own views.
Although he was not uncomfortable with southern culture, as it existed in those days, he was liberal for his time. The exchange in the letters was about racial intermarriage and was initiated by a report on a meeting between H.
G. Wells and Booker T. Washington. The first letter, deploring intermarriage between black and whites, was signed “White Man.” A letter from Wells followed signed “Bexley Street White Man.” Another letter followed signed
“Black Man,” and a third addressing intermarriage with races of Asia was signed “Brown Man.”
“Finally,” Chesterton writes, “there appeared a letter, of which I remember almost every word; for it was short and simple and touching in its appeal to larger and more tolerant ideals. It ran, I think, as follows: Sir, May I express my regret that you should continue a correspondence which causes considerable pain to many innocent persons who, by no fault of their own, but by the iron laws of nature, inherit a complexion uncommon among their fellow-creatures and attractive only to the elite. Surely we can forget all these differences; and, whatever our race or colour, work hand in hand for the broadening of the brotherhood of humanity.
Yours faithfully, Mauve Man with Green Spots
(The Autobiography of G. K. Chesterton, Chapter 8) Will and Mary continued their trips to New York, finding it beneficial to keep up personal contacts in publishing. They now had a convenient way to break up the trip. Haddonfield, New Jersey, where Billee lived, was six hours from Clay Bank and less than two from New York City. They would stop and stay a few days, sometimes longer, and Will could even take an express bus to New York for the day if he wished. Mary loved these stops.
Billee could drive her to the many shopping malls, and they could plan decorating and work together on sewing projects. Will was never far from his typewriter but joined in some activities. He expressed a wish to visit Win-terthur, the Dupont estate easily accessible in Delaware, so Billee took him and Mary there.
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In the winter of 1961, while visiting Billee and her family, Will complained of pains in his left arm and Billee whisked him to the nearest hospital.
It was diagnosed as an incipient heart attack, and he was treated and quickly recovered.
In a letter to Isaac Asimov on January 5, 1962, Will gave permission to use “Exploration Team” as a Hugo winner for Asimov’s Doubleday anthology and added:
I have to thank you and several others for your note, listing drinks and expressing sympathy for my being on a bed of pain. I had a pain in my back and it was a coronary waiting to happen. It got stopped. No permanent damage, I’m told. It pleased me very much that people would bother to send such a round robin of sympathy.
In a letter to Jo-an a year later, on March 16, 1963, after she had asked how he was, he told her:
Have to keep on with the peretrate stuff. The peretrate stuff requires that I also take extra vitamins because it destroys them. If I stop the peretrate, I appear likely to get a backache like the one that sent me to hospital. I get one, take the peretrate, and it stops. But Sam Mines [editor of Thrilling Wonder and Startling Stories from 1951 to the end of 1954. They stopped publishing in 1955] sent me some vitamins, which Raymond [Brown, Will’s doctor and close friend]
approves warily. But they seem to include some tranquilizer. That makes me a zombie. So I have to get vitamins, which do not include a tranquilizer. I should take 200 mg. of ascorbic acid for each peretrate pill. I will do so. Minus tranquilizer. Then it is likely that I will be my normal, coruscating self.
In the early fifties, Will had begun working on a system of providing back -
ground by projection from the front of instead of the rear of a set, and filed for his first patent March 3, 1952. He filed for a second patent November 30, 1953. When the patents were denied, in true Jenkins fashion, he went down to Washington and explained how his invention varied from others. Both patents were issued in December 1955. The process was simply called front projection.
Much later, in his article “Applied Science Fiction” published in Analog Science Fiction, November 1967, Will explained how this particular project began: Here’s the low down. There was once a television series called “Out There,” which televised some of my science fiction stories. I remember my “First Contact” and “The Seven Temporary Moons” in particular. The producer was John Haggott, who is one of the good eggs of the world. One day he invited me to watch a rehearsal of “First Contact” in preparation for broadcast. Afterwards he asked me how I liked the production job. I made one criticism. The action of the play took place on a spaceship, and the ceiling of the set was so high as to be invisible — at least fifteen feet. The set didn’t look cramped, as I
thought it should. A spaceship would travel in empty space, but it wouldn’t carry empty space inside it. There’d be plenty outside.
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Haggott explained, scenery costs money. Also it had to be made in one place, carried to another to be used, and then carried back to be scrapped. Besides —
and even more importantly — a ceiling would play hob with the lighting of the set. He explained the last in detail, but it was the transportation angle that impressed me. I went away muttering to myself about machinery interfering with art like my stories.
Writing science fiction as I do, it seemed to me that in a science-oriented world such things ought to be better handled....
I considered the problem as if I were planning a story in terms of a device. For a story, a device needs only to seem plausible. Whether or not it would work doesn’t matter. And this is how the whole thing started.
Will’s family lived with the new project’s progress on a daily basis. In a letter from New York to his daughter Jo-an in the fall of 1956, in her first year of college, Will told her:
I went over to Transluxe today and showed them the gadget to improve Front Projection. They were very much pleased. Said it made an entirely different picture of the whole performance (picture, there, not referring to the projection) and tomorrow morning I have to go to Brooklyn to talk to their engineers. It’s now necessary to find out the engineering cost of making the first acceptable commercial job.
I think it’s gone over. I learned two things. One is that in engineering circles, such haywire, cardboard, improvised assemblies as I demonstrated with are called “cheesecake.” (The more conventional cheesecake has more aesthetic appeal.) The other thing is that M-------- (his lawyer) admires me — not for what you’d think, but because the outfit including the new gadget is so much superior that the original outfit (which RCA got a license on, as you know) looks inferior now. M-------- said: “You knew all along that the original thing was worthless without this — you son-of-a-gun!” He admired me enormously for holding out on it.
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