Wed 12 Dec 2018
Pulp SF Stories I’m Reading: ALFRED COPPEL “The Last Two Alive!”
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Science Fiction & Fantasy , Stories I'm Reading[4] Comments
ALFRED COPPEL “The Last Two Alive!” Short novel. First published in Planet Stories, November 1950. Reprinted with Out of Time’s Abyss, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, as half of Armchair Fiction Double Novel #D-169, paperback, 2015.
If you all you want is a whopping good old-fashioned space opera story without a lot of either depth or characterization, this may be the story for you. Aram Jerrold is accused and convicted of conspiring against the ruling Tetarchy of the Thirty Suns, based on the testimony of Deve Jennet, a girl Aram thought he had a future with.
But once sent to the prison planet Atmion IV for execution, Aram is pleasantly surprised (to say the least) to find that Deve is a member of group of rebels against both the Tetarchy and Satane, the despot ruler of the Kaidor planetary system. Planning to revolt and take over the Tetarchy, the latter has developed a biological weapon that wipes out the memories of its victims and turns them into howling beasts.
Well, sir, what can a band of only a handful of rebels do — the one Aram is now a member of? They do their best, and realistically, the outcome is all but inevitable. The story is told in picturesque fashion, however, and it doesn’t slow down for a minute, exactly how you’d expect from a tale first published in a magazine called Planet Stories.
[WARNING: PLOT ALERT AHEAD] As it so happens, this is one of those big-scale stories in which humanity completely wipes itself out, leaving only two survivors. Aram [Jerrold] and Deve [Jennet] become the progenitors of a new human race, and over the years, their names become corrupted to … can you guess?
December 12th, 2018 at 6:37 pm
Despite what we may think of the individual stories, there is one thing that PLANET STORIES, along with STARTLING STORIES and THRILLING WONDER STORIES, got absolutely right in the 1940’s.
They had magnificent covers!
December 12th, 2018 at 7:17 pm
Since I used the cover art twice to illustrate the review, I think I ought to give the artist credit by name: Allen Anderson. He did 28 covers for PLANET STORIES, plus another six for TWO COMPLETE SCIENCE-ADVENTURE BOOKS, another favorite magazine of mine.
Here’s a link to a webpage for more information about him. Looks like he started his career in the early 40s working for the SPICY magazines.
https://www.pulpartists.com/AA.html
December 12th, 2018 at 9:42 pm
Coppel was a staple at Planet and usually reliable though closer to Gardner Fox than Brackett.
He was the same Alfred Coppel who wrote some top selling spy novels in the sixties and seventies wasn’t he, not to be confused with the British writer Alec Coppel.
December 12th, 2018 at 9:56 pm
Yes, indeed. The author of those spy thrillers, maybe 6 or 8 of them, was the same Alfred Coppel, but it was the 70s and 80s he wrote them in, with one or two in the 90s. He also came back to the field and wrote a SF trilogy for Tor in the 90s, but I don’t know anything about it.
This in spite of one the tritest endings ever to SF stories. As I understand it, readers of sluch piles for SF magazines look at the endings of the stories sent in, and if it says “Adam and Eve!” it gets sent right back.
Being in the right mood for it, I enjoyed this one anyway.