The Castaways of Eros

by Theo Varlet

  The Castaways of Eros

  by

  Théo Varlet

  translated, annotated and introduced by

  Brian Stableford

  A Black Coat Press Book

  Introduction

  In a note attached to the preface of the second edition of his novel La Grande Panne 1, published in 1936, Théo Varlet announced that a sequel would be published in the imminent future, entitled Les Naufragés d’Eros. As things turned out, that novel was not published before Varlet’s death in 1938, but it did appeared posthumously in 1943 from L’Amitié par le livre as Aurore Lescure, pilote d’astronef [Aurora Lescure, Spaceship Pilot]. I have preferred to use an English version of the author’s own title for this translation: The Castaways of Eros.

  The delay in the novel’s original publication was unfortunate, in that it was eventually issued in very different circumstances from those in which it was written, when World War II was in its fourth year. In 1936, that war was still an ominous shadow on the horizon of the future, but the story begins in that shadow of an imminent war, and it speculates extensively about the potentially disastrous implications of such a war, and the possible use therein of hypothetical new weapons. By 1943, the most important of those imaginary weapons was not longer hypothetical, and the pattern of Varlet’s anticipations was wide open to the criticism of hindsight, inevitably found wanting despite its fundamental accuracy. The time lag in the novel’s publication thus altered its perceptible significance considerably, as well as condemning it to a fugitive esotericism. Fewer than five hundred copies were printed—a tiny print run by comparison with the 20,000 copies that the publisher claimed to have sold of the second edition of its predecessor—and even that meager print run did not sell out; I was still able to buy a virgin copy, with its pages uncut, in 2012 (from which this translation has been made).

  As well as the note concerning the imminent appearance of Les Naufragés d’Eros, the reprint of La Grande Panne carried another note signed by the author in which he observed that Régis Messac, a French scholar then working in Canada, had pointed out to him similarities between the plot of his novel, originally published in 1930, and an American pulp science fiction story by A. Rowley Hilliard, “Death from the Stars” (Wonder Stories, 1931) There were, in fact, no reasonable grounds to suspect that Hilliard had “stolen” the idea for his story from La Grande Panne, any more than J. H. Rosny Aîné had had grounds to suspect Arthur Conan Doyle of appropriating the idea for The Poison Belt (1913) from his own La Force mystérieuse (1913)2 twenty years earlier, but it does seem probable, judging by the plot of Les Naufragés d’Eros, that Messac’s direction of Varlet’s attention to the American science fiction pulps was not without effect.

  Varlet might well have known that Rosny had sold translation rights to one of his novels to a US pulp in the early 1930s, and then had written at least one other action-adventure novel—La Sauvage aventure 3 (1932)—with the same potential market seemingly in mind, but whether he knew it or not, the similarity between Les Naufragés d’Eros and the standard fare of contemporary American pulp science fiction is so strong that it is hard to believe that there was no influence involved. In fact, had The Castaways of Eros been produced in the late 1930s rather than the early 2010s, it is not improbable that it might have sold to one of the contemporary pulps. The most likely markets, Amazing Stories or Wonder Stories, were in the doldrums by then, thanks to the economic difficulties that Varlet’s novel refers to as “the crisis” (nowadays known as the Great Depression), but the field as a whole was still feeling its way toward viability, and making significant gains in imaginative scope and in popularity.

  There are, of course, significant differences between Varlet’s story and American pulp sf stories of the 1930s, and its attribution of the first successful interplanetary flight to a Japanese-financed rocket with a French pilot might have been a disincentive for potential American readers. Pulp magazine editors might also have felt that the middle section of the novel’s action loses its impetus, and that Varlet’s stylistic quirk of drifting back and forth between the past historic and present tenses with no particular reason was unhelpful; science fiction editors aware that their audience consisted mostly of teenage boys might also have been put off by the fact that the story has a female hero—and, for that matter, a female villain—while its male characters are decidedly weak-kneed. They might well have felt, however, that the story’s merits as a daring and original exercise in imaginative fiction more than counterbalanced these slightly awkward elements.

  Had The Castaways of Eros achieved the distinction of publication in the US pulps when it was first written, it would doubtless now be remembered rather fondly by nostalgic historians of pulp sf, who would have found it to be more sophisticated in its thinking than much of its rival material. They would have been particularly struck by an intriguing idea that was then new, although it would make its first appearance in the pulps before the actual publication of Les Naufragés d’Eros in 1943: the suggestion that, had evolution taken a slightly different turn, dinosaurs might have produced a sentient species capable of building a civilization, thus occupying the existential niche that was still vacant on Earth when humans eventually appeared.4 Such historians might also have deemed the novel’s account of weightlessness-induced “space-sickness” interesting, although they would doubtless feel compelled to make apologies for numerous technical flaws that have become retrospectively obvious, in such matters as calculating the accelerations and velocities required to make interplanetary flights in a matter of days, the inadequacy of the spaceship’s life-support system and airlock, and the skimpiness of the breathing apparatus employed for use in a vacuum.

  Seen for what it is, however—as an example of French roman scientifique by one of the more significant practitioners of the genre active between the wars—Les Naufragés d’Eros is much more distinctive in its attempted popularization of the possibilities of “astronautics” and the potential of rocket technology to launch a “Space Age” of interplanetary colonization. It was not the first work by a French rocket enthusiast to attempt that, but Les Allemands sur Vénus 5 (1913) by the pseudonymous André Mas had been similarly overtaken and obscured by the outbreak of a war, whose aftermath had discouraged similar enterprises. Varlet’s novel does, however, fit in much more comfortably to the rich French tradition of anxious futuristic fiction posting awful warnings about the dangers to civilization posed by side-effects of the extravagant use of advanced technology, and the lesson formally preached by the moral tale of the planetoid Eros and its tragic saurian castaways is set squarely in that tradition, further supplementing the sentiments of such bitter contes philosophiques as Ernest Pérochon’s Les Hommes frénétiques 6 (1925) and Léon Daudet’s Le Napus, fléau de l’an 2227 7 (1927).

  The Castaways of Eros completes the set of Black Coat Press translations of the six full-length romans scientifiques that Varlet wrote in the course of his career. The first two, Les Titans du ciel (1921) and L’Agonie de la Terre (1922), which collectively constitute L’Épopée martienne,8 were based on original manuscripts by Octave Joncquel. The third, La Belle Valence 9 (1923), was based on a manuscript by André Blandin. The remaining three, Le Roc d’or 10 (1927), La Grande Panne 11 (1930) and the present work, were solo efforts.

  As that pattern of publication suggests, Varlet was initially recruited to the writing of romans scientifiques by an editor—Edgar Malfère—who hired him to tidy up manuscripts by other writers than were not yet in a fit state for publication. Malfère probably chose Varlet for the job of polishing the “Martian Epic” mainly because Varlet did a good deal of work for hire as a translator—he translated numerous novels by Robert Louis Stevenson—but also because
his reputation as a poet was partly based on his “cosmic poetry” celebrating the wonders of cosmology. Varlet might well have continued to regard his prose work as a vulgar commercial exercise, while poetry remained his vocation, but he certainly became wholeheartedly involved in his works of revision, and all three of his solo works of speculative fiction arose from genuine interests, tackled with considerable enthusiasm and earnest philosophical concern.

  Les Naufragés d’Eros made far greater demands on Varlet’s ability to extrapolate technological and scientific possibilities than his previous speculative novels—as is clearly evidenced by the narrator’s embarrassments—and might therefore be reckoned more inept, but the fact that the project’s reach exceeds its grasp should not be held entirely against it, and its merits do counterbalance, and perhaps outweigh, its defects. It relative eclipse is regrettable, and the fact that all six of Varlets romans scientifiques are now available in translation will hopefully assist in making the extent and range of his contribution to the genre more evident.

  Brian Stableford

  PRELIMINARY NOTES

  From the Editor12

  Deceased shortly before the war, Théo Varlet left several manuscripts as-yet-unpublished. We are delighted to offer the many admirers of the great French writer of the fiction of scientific anticipation this new novel, in which they will rediscover the heroine of La Grande Panne, a work whose second edition, published by us in a edition of 20,000 copies, has just gone out of print.

  From the Author

  A few critics, ignorant of the real state of the question of astronautics, have qualified my anticipations in that domain as “utopian” and “impossible.” While reserving for the writer of imaginative fiction every right to exceed the bounds of reality, I feel obliged to observe that minds of the highest order, scientists and technologists of a perfect competence, like Monsieur Robert Esnault-Pelterie,13 believe in and affirm the possibility and imminent realization of interplanetary voyages:

  “My conclusion today is that, if one could accumulate the necessary funds, it is infinitely probable that a voyage to the moon and back could be accomplished within ten years.” (R. Esnault-Pelterie, L’Astronautique, Lahure, 19 rue de Rennes, Paris, 1930, p. 255.)

  In addition, since the publication of my Grand Panne in October 1930, which gave rise to the abovementioned criticisms, the popularization of the question of astronautics has progressed greatly. There is no newspaper, great or small, that has not published one or more articles on the subject.

  THE CASTAWAYS OF EROS

  I. A Young Phenomenon

  “You’ve come on your own, Gaston?” said my Uncle Frémiet, astonished, as he greeted me at the door of his dining room. “What about your wife? Isn’t she coming?”

  “Aurore? Yes, indeed she is coming, but she had to go to a business meeting with Madame Simo…Simodzuki.”

  I dropped the name of the billionairess more to justify the importance of the meeting than out of a sentiment of base vanity, and immediately perceived that I had just committed an indiscretion, foolishly.

  With a reverential and ironic expression, my uncle shook his head. His white beard and “art-photographer’s mane” were still a trifle Bohemian in spite of his age and notoriety.

  “Saperlipopette! Madame Simodzuki! That’s not small beer!”

  My aunt, who had heard my reply, surged out of the kitchen where—as a cordon-bleu cook—she was overseeing the preparations for dinner. She kissed my cheeks, alarmed: “But Gaston, it’s an imprudence to let the poor girl run round Paris in an automobile on her own, on the same day that she’s come out of the clinic.”

  I refuted the affectionate reproach with a smile. “Not the same day, Aunt—don’t worry. She came out yesterday, and is entirely better.”

  The sonorous voice of my uncle added, mischievously: “And even if she was risking a headache, that wouldn’t be too high a price to pay for an opportunity to get into business with Madame Simodzuki. Do you know who she is? Has your wife talked to you about her?”

  “No—Aurore telephoned me from the Institute to tell me that she wouldn’t pick me up and would come directly here. She only told me the lady’s name. She’s a billionairess, isn’t she?”

  “Yes—and how! She’s mentioned in this evening’s Intran. Haven’t you read it? Sit down in this armchair, then, and listen. But an aperitif first, eh?”

  We sat down; my aunt poured the traditional Cap Corse wine and my uncle started reading:

  “The richest woman in the world is Japanese, Madame Yone Simodzuki, an extraordinary businesswoman, the owner of a fleet of ships, steelworks, sugar-cane and cotton plantations, etc., who has succeeded in building a handsome fortune of thirty million pounds sterling, which is 3,750 million francs.

  “A widow with no direct heirs, this philanthropic billionairess has already founded a considerable number of charitable and scientific institutions in Japan, China and America, and generously distributed enormous sums for the relief of poverty and the spiritual wellbeing of humankind. A stream of that Pactolus has also begun to flow in France. During a voyage to Europe six months ago, Madame Simodzuki acquired a considerable piece of land on the Île du Levant in the Hyères, adjacent to that which forms the naturist colony of Heliopolis, founded by the Doctors Durville.14 Since that time, large-scale work has been carried out, including the establishment of a powerful wireless transmitter, on the billionairess’ property. Although, disliking all interviews, she has obstinately refused to make her plans known, we believe that she too intends to preach the regeneration of our aged humankind by a return to nature, and the jealous care with which the new domain is enclosed permits the supposition that integral nudism will be practiced there. The wireless station will spread an abundant propaganda in favor of that hygienic doctrine.

  “Madame Simodzuki herself arrived in Paris the day before yesterday, having come from America via the Azores, with a view to recruiting adepts...”

  The door opened and Aurore made her entrance. We ran to her. My aunt, who has a mania for embraces, hugged her forcefully. Then, holding her at arm’s length beneath the glare of the ceiling light, she said: “My poor girl! You’ve had a narrow escape! It’s completely healed, then, your injury?”

  My uncle also approached, to examine the slight scar that slanted across her left temple from the eyebrow to the hairline.

  “Well, my niece, I’m glad to see that it hasn’t compromised your looks…or your activity. Scarcely on your feet and off you go to work! We were just reading”—he brandished the newspaper, which he had not put down—“this article on Madame Simodzuki. Perhaps you can inform us about her plans to regenerate humankind by integral nudism, or whatever?”

  By the reproachful glance that my wife shot me, I understood even more fully the extent of my recent gaffe. She affected a light tone. “Regenerate humankind? My God, no. Madame Simodzuki didn’t accord me any confidence of that sort. A simple business proposition…regarding my father’s patents.” And in order to change the subject of the conversation she said: “Do you have any news of Oscar? Is he content with his reportage? Still in Germany?”

  Père Frémiet sensed that he had raised an undesirable subject in the billionairess, and put down the newspaper, while Madame Frémiet hastened to reply: “Yes, yes, he sends us his news almost every day, and he seems content. The annoying thing is that we haven’t been able to write to him; he’s on a secret mission, under a false name, and the police…well, he ought to be back this evening, the dear boy. I hope that he’ll be here in time to have dinner with us...”

  My uncle rebelled, categorically. “Oh, no! It’s half past eight already. You’re not going to leave your guests to starve indefinitely…especially poor Aurore, scarcely convalescent. In reality, we don’t know whether our ‘young phenomenon’ will arrive today. His telegram from Berlin, at nine o’clock this morning, said: Expect return by air this evening. Now, I telephoned Le Bourget two hours ago and I was told that the regular servic
e from Berlin had arrived, but that there was no Oscar Frémiet, journalist, among its passengers. The question’s settled. Enough delay, Gisèle; tell Mélanie to serve. If, by chance, our young phenomenon still arrives this evening, you can be sure that he’ll have eaten.”

  My aunt strove to gain a few more minutes by exhibiting the postcards received from Berlin, but they were deceptively laconic—not one allusion to reportage.

  To a question from Aurore, Père Frémet replied: “No, he told us hardly anything before he left, and we have very little idea what he went to Berlin to do. It happened very suddenly ten days ago. Spinoff from an unimportant investigation in Saint-Malo had given him an idea. He didn’t tell us any more except that his future as a reporter depended on his attempting to check out that idea in Berlin. It’s he’s guessed right, he’ll become an ace in his profession, the equal of Géo London or Arthur Dupin15…and he seems to have succeeded, but I’m waiting for him to fill me in to get the details. He’ll tell us this evening, if he arrives…and the best way to make him come is to sit down at table.”

  My aunt gave in. We left the armchairs.

  “Sit in your usual places, my children. Gaston here, beside me; Aurore next to your uncle. Oscar can sit at the end.”

  An exquisite lobster bisque was savored with pleasure and almost in silence, apart from the just praise due to the mistress of the house, who had simmered that delectable recipe, When the chicken had been carved and the slices ritually distributed, Père Frémiet uncorked the Châteauneuf-du-Pape, filled the glasses and we drank to the health of “the absent and the present.”

  My aunt took advantage of that to ask Aurore for an account of her accident.