This review originally appeared on Goodreads on May 8, 2012.

The Airlords of Han

By Philip Francis Nowlan – Amazing Stories – March 1929

Review by Robin Marx

This is the follow-up volume to Armageddon 2419 A.D., the story that introduced Anthony Rogers—who later became known as Buck Rogers—to the world. While I didn't quite enjoy it as much as the first Rogers story, the second half more than makes up for a lackluster beginning.

The book opens with the continuing struggle of the techno-tribal Americans versus the diabolical Han, technologically advanced Mongolians and the dominant race of 25th century Earth. While there's plenty of action in these early sequences, the war scenes are described in a bloodless, clinical manner that robs them of much of their excitement. This bland description of (invariably successful) tactics is a problem that the later half of the first book shared. Things become even worse when the author takes a mystifying two chapter break right in the middle of an air combat scene to describe “ultron” and “inertron” technology in detail. There's one chapter for the American's technology, and one for the Han's equipment. I doubt most readers are as interested in the author's technobabble as Nowlan himself was, and this digression harms the flow of the story.

Fortunately, things quickly pick up after this sidetrack. In a rare moment of fallibility, Rogers's cockiness leads to him being captured by the Han and taken to their capital city, where he serves as both a prisoner of war and an honored guest to his decadent, soft captors. This portion of the story finally gives a face to the enemy. While Armageddon 2419 A.D. was fairly light on the racism despite a Yellow Peril-era premise, it appears all that was saved up for the sequel. Repeatedly we're told how decadent and soft and corrupt the Mongolians are, unlike the noble and virile (and apparently minority-free) Americans. (Ironically, I'd trade 25th century American life for a Han lifestyle in an instant. They've got luxurious housing, a welfare system, e-commerce, telecommuting, undemanding jobs, and loose women. Where do I sign up?) We even learn that the Han aren't quite real Mongolians, but actually half-alien hybrids resulting from a space ship crashing in Tibet. I guess that makes their eventual genocide at the hands of square-jawed, white-bread Americans OK, then!

Some old-fashioned thinking aside, the second half of the story is fun and exciting. Rogers makes a daring escape from the Han with the assistance of remote-controlled explosive drones. Why these remarkably versatile killer drones weren't used by the Americans in previous battles was unclear to me, but their very presence (along with the telecommuting and e-commerce mentioned previously) is pretty astonishing for a story written in 1929. Rogers's escape is also excitingly rendered and much less dispassionately described than the mass battles from the first half of the book.

The American's eventual victory seems a little too easily won, but the two volume series comes to a satisfying conclusion. Parts of the story will feel—understandably—creaky and outdated to a modern audience, but the pulp action is exciting and the futurism genuinely impressive. Both books are worth a read to pulp fiction fans and those interested in learning more about an classic American icon.

★★★☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on May 3, 2012.

Armageddon 2419 A.D.

By Philip Francis Nowlan – Amazing Stories – August 1928

Review by Robin Marx

Published in a 1928 issue of Amazing Stories, this novel is both a fun pulp adventure and the origin of the Buck Rogers character of comic strip and radio serial fame.

The premise is simple but intriguing. World War I veteran and scientist Anthony Rogers (he doesn't gain the “Buck” nickname until the comic adaptation) finds himself caught in a mine cave-in and immersed in radioactive gas. He awakes to find himself nearly 500 years in the future, where after a devastating second World War Mongolians have taken over the world, with Americans reduced to a semi-tribal existence hiding in forest camps. Although there's a tinge of the Yellow Peril themes prevalent of the time, the Mongolians aren't painted in too racist a light. They're decadent and soft, unlike the hard-living Americans, but they're also clever and technologically advanced. Given the period the book was written in, I was surprised by the egalitarian role of women in the story as well. Wilma Deering plays a strong, active role, working and fighting alongside the men.

The writing itself is workmanlike. There are some bits of info-dump style exposition, and none of the characters are very complex, but the action is engaging and the pace brisk. The technology presented in the story (anti-gravity belts, rocket pistols, levitating airships, etc.) is fun and exciting, even today. The main theme, of an outsider leading a group of underdogs to victory against technologically-advanced enemies, is pretty well-worn territory, but it may have been fresher at the time. It was interesting how Rogers serves as sort of a reversed example of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: he's from a primitive past, but his knowledge of WWI tactics—lore lost over the centuries—ends up playing an important role in the story's battles.

While this book didn't quite enthrall me as much as Edgar Rice Burrough's A Princess of Mars, a thematically similar pulp yarn, I enjoyed this look at Buck Rogers's origins. I look forward to reading the sequel, The Airlords of Han.

★★★☆☆

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