The Flickr Volume3Number1 Image Generatr

John Taine (Eric Temple Bell, 1883-1960) was an accomplished mathematician and, as John Taine, a science fiction author. “White Lily” is a sci-fi horror story in which life based on crystalline silicate threatens to engulf carbon life on Earth. Humankind is about to be extinguished by rock crystals. The story was later rewritten as “The Crystal Horde” and published by Fantasy Press in 1952.

Groff Conklin, reviewing the 1952 edition, gave a mixed opinion; praising “one of the most magnificent science-horror ideas ever created,” but ridiculing the plot as “probably the worst yellow-menace-plus-Bolsheviks-plus-religious-prejudice mélange ever to hit science fiction.”

A good sci-fi horror film featuring a horde of life-threatening rock crystals is “Monolith Monsters” (1957). The crystals from outer space grow fast, grow to enormous height, and then fall over crushing everything in their path.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxohSwDFjxg

The illustration depicts a scene from the story in which the Ekkisians are sending their line out for the drifting sphere which they find in interstellar space between Jupiter and their new landing place.

“It seemed that every being on Ekkis was doomed. The plague fixed itself in the blood of the victim, and dried it out until the body withered away to a hideous caricature [Sounds like the plague in “The Andromeda Strain,” Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel]. There was no stopping it. The physicians and scientists of Ekkis were skilled; but they could do nothing. They could neither prevent, cure, nor account for it.

“They said the disease was caused by a strange pathogenic bacterium, which meant nothing at all to the multitudes; that it had come in from far space, which was common supposition; that they had succeeded in isolating the germs, but only to prove them indestructible by any means known on Ekkis . . .

“Alvis, the capital of what was left of Ekkis, had dwindled from 22,000,000 to a few scores of thousands, and the entire population of the planet was not much over a million . . .

“In desperation a final appeal was made to the Science Guild, a body composed of the foremost technical men of Ekkis. Their response: ‘The government can do nothing; the physicians nothing; the people worse than nothing. Their sense warns them that the fate of Ekkis is sealed . . . the only cure is to leave Ekkis; that only those who leave will live . . . It is insufferable that wisdom should perish. We will take our knowledge to some other planet, where it can live on gloriously, even though we perish in the doing, and we must perish, because it is 550 trillion miles to Estoris (Jupiter) in the neighboring Solar System, the nearest planet that offers us any chance of a resting place . . .” [Quoting the story]

The ad coincides with the movie’s 1946 re-release. An American Western, “The Outlaw” stars Jack Buetel as Billy the Kid, Jane Russell as Rio McDonald, Thomas Mitchell as Pat Garrett, and Walter Huston as Doc Holliday. Howard Hughes, the business magnate, produced and directed the film, while Howard Hawks served as an uncredited co-director. The film is notable as Russell’s breakthrough role, and she soon became a sex symbol and Hollywood icon. Later advertising (as in this 1946 issue of Sensation) billed Russell as the sole star. [Source: Wikipedia]

Scenes from The Outlaw: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZKF9s3Ss3Y&t=18s