CUMMINGS, Ray

   Working name of US writer Raymond King Cummings (1887-1957), author of over 750 stories under various names in various genres; he was one of the few writers active during the heyday of US PULP-MAGAZINE sf (1930-50) to have begun his career before Hugo GERNSBACK launched AMZ in 1926. His first sf of any note is also his best-known story, "The Girl in the Golden Atom" (1919), which appeared, as did much of his early work, in All-Story Weekly (The ALL-STORY); with its sequel, "People of the Golden Atom", serialized in the same magazine in 1920, this famous story - about a young man who takes a size-diminishing drug and has extraordinary adventures on a microscopic world-became The Girl in the Golden Atom (fixup 1922 UK; exp 1923 US) and proved the cornerstone both of RC's reputation and of much of his work from this time on, for he used the idea of the size-diminishing drug and the microscopic world, with many variations, for the rest of his long career (GREAT AND SMALL). The Girl in the Golden Atom also constitutes the "Matter" segment of RC's Matter, Space and Time trilogy; the "Space" segment contains The Princess of the Atom (1929 The Argosy; 1950) and "The Fire People" (1922 The Argosy); the "Time" segment takes in The Man who Mastered Time (1924 The Argosy; 1929), The Shadow Girl (1929 The Argosy; 1946 UK) and The Exile of Time (1931 ASF; 1964).After the successes of his early years, RC remained prolific, but his mechanical style and the general rigidity of his stories gradually lost him popularity until, in the 1960s, some of his books were nostalgically revived. Typical of his journeyman prose and uneven quality are the Tama novels: Tama of the Light Country (1930 The Argosy; 1965) and Tama, Princess of Mercury (1931 The Argosy; 1966), the heroine of which does very well after being kidnapped from Earth to MERCURY. Brigands of the Moon (1931), later published in Canada with a mistaken attribution to John W. CAMPBELL Jr, and its sequel Wandl the Invader (1932 ASF; 1961 dos) are examples of his SPACE-OPERA output, in which space pirates tend to proliferate and humans to defeat terrifying alien monsters.RC was fundamentally a pulp writer; unlike some of those only a little younger - for example, Murray LEINSTER and Edmond HAMILTON - he was never capable of adapting himself to the changing times, either scientifically or stylistically. His later works could be interchanged with his earliest with very little adjustment.

   JC

   Other works: The Sea Girl (1930); Tarrano the Conqueror (1925 Science and Invention; 1930); Into the Fourth Dimension (1926 Science and Invention; anth 1943 UK), made up of the title novel plus stories by other hands, and not to be confused with Into the 4th Dimension (1981 chap), which reprints only the 1926 tale; The Man on the Meteor (1924 Science and Invention; 1944 UK); Beyond the Vanishing Point (1931 ASF; 1958 chap dos); Beyond the Stars (1928 The Argosy; 1963); A Brand New World (1928 The Argosy; 1964); Explorers into Infinity (1927-8 Weird Tales; fixup 1965); The Insect Invasion (1932 The Argosy; 1967); "The Snow Girl" (1929 The Argosy; in Famous Fantastic Classics No 1 [anth 1974]); Tales of the Scientific Crime Club (1925 The Sketch; coll 1979).

   See also: ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION; BLACK HOLES; CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; HISTORY OF SF; PUBLISHING; ROBOTS; SCIENTIFIC ERRORS; TIME TRAVEL.