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[Bud Brewster]

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What do the posts for War of the Worlds, The Blackhawks serial, and It! The Terror from Beyond Space have in common?

Answer: They have more pictures than the Louvre in Paris!

Enjoy! _
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The War of the Worlds (1953)

Tales from the Parallel Universe!
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Near the end of my recent post on the First Men in the Moon thread I came up with an idea that I don't think H.G. Wells thought of.

I suggested that a cavorite sphere which could be rendered completely weightless . . . would actually work like a hot air balloon!

I love the irony! The sphere is made of steel, with a framework that looks like the beams from a skyscraper!

Add to that the massive railroad bumpers used to minimize the impact of box cars, and you've got something you could drop from the Empire State Building. The only thing that would be broken is a large portion of Fifth Avenue!

And yet none of that matters when you can actually negate every ounce of the sphere's weigh with cavorite and send it off to cruise the sky with a fleet of colorful hot air balloons!





My post on the First Men in the Moon thread also demonstrated that a cavorite sphere could be flown to the Moon and back — but only if the astronauts make sure that the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth are all perfectly positioned to slow it down as it approached the lunar surface!





All the delightful speculations I enjoyed making to create the post for First Men in the Moon inspired me to come up sometihng new in a fictional vein.

I started wondering if there was some way to put H.G. Wells and Jules Verne together in story. Here's what I came with.
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Somewhere in the vast multiverse is a version of Earth which faced a terrible threat, and its only hope lay in the heroic efforts of two men who pioneered some of the greatest scientific inventions the world had ever seen!

I’m talking about versions of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne in a parallel universe.

In this universe, the two men are both great inventors and brilliant authors who have thrilled the public with stories which described how there own inventions played key roles in historic events!

Jules Verne was born in 1828, and H.G. Wells was born 1866 — 38 years later. The older one died 41 years before before the young one, and in different countries — France and England.

Sadly, these two giants in the fields of both science and science fiction never met in our universe — but in the parallel universe, a global crisis compelled H.G. Wells to seek the aid of Jules Verne!

Separately they were each awesome forces who championed the virtues of logic and scientific advancement.

But together they became an unstoppable force when faced with a hideous threat to humanity!

This is a summary of their amazing story.
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In 1897, Earth was invaded by malevolent beings from Mars who were determined to wipe out mankind and take possession of our planet. Wells would later write a powerful novel about this event — and it was drastically different from the one Wells wrote in our own universe!

Herbert George Wells, who was 31 years old and dazzling the world with his new inventions and his amazing science fiction stories, quickly realized that mankind needed help to defeat these nightmare creatures from another planet.

He's desperate efforts to convince the terrified authorities that drastic actions were needed fell on the deaf ears of men who lacked H.G. Wells incredible intellect.

Wells soon realized that he needed a strong ally who could grasp the bold strategy he'd devised, one which could save mankind!

Unfortunately the man Wells needed was almost 70 years old. Wells knew he required the help of the younger version of this great individual — and Wells had a way to bring that young man into this battle for the survival of humanity!

With great reluctance, Wells decided to use the device he'd invented just two years earlier in 1895, which he then published a novel about that described his experience with his invention — as a fictional account.

The novel was The Time Machine.

Wells knew he had to use his carefully hidden invention and travel back to 1863 — despite the danger of altering the timeline.





When Wells arrived in 1863 he showed the time machine to a 35 year old Jules Verne — and proved that it worked. As a result, these two young men bonded immediately and agreed to do whatever it took to save mankind!

They knew that the fate of Earth relied on their combined efforts to defeat the invaders by inspiring mankind to employ every aspect of science at their disposal.

Wells and Verne used the time machine to return to 1896 — a full year before the Martians arrived!

But before leaving 1863 they committed all of Verne's fortune in investments that Wells had researched before traveling back in time.

When the men arrive in 1896, thirty-four years later, Verne's personal fortune had increased dramatically. This provided the two men with ample working capital to fund their plans. Based on their combined reputations, the two men succeeded in convincing the authorities that alien invaders would arrive on Earth within a year, and mankind would not survive without carefully planning.

With a year to prepare, Wells and Verne took charge of Earth's defenses. They began an ambitious campaign, employing their accumulated knowledge to defeat the alien invaders.

H.G. Wells began by supervising the construction of a fleet of giant cavorite spheres which were self propelled, well armed, and loaded with biochemical bombs. He had correctly theorized that Earth's microorganisms would be lethal to the invaders.

Then Wells launched part of the fleet towards Mars while the rest of the spheres were made ready to attack the Martian tripods immediately after the cylinders landed.

Meanwhile, Jules Verne designed a fleet of large airships based on the one featured in his novel Five Weeks in a Balloon. These proved to be invisible to the Martian's sensors because they used very little metal in their construction!

These airships were able to fly over the Martian war machines without the aliens considering them as a threat.







The airships, which used heated helium to control their altitude, were able to drop powerful bombs, as well as packets of viral organisms which polluted the air in the craters where the Martian cylinders were located. The moments the cylinders opened, the Martians were exposed to the viral organisms.

However, several groups of oversized cylinders landed in the ocean, and they were fully equipped to establish undersea bases. This protected them from the biological threat in the atmosphere.

Verne and Wells had anticipated this possibility, and Verne had shared his designs for the Nautilus, which he obtained from Captain Nemo when the two men met, shortly before Nemo's sad demise.

In the novel Verne wrote, he substituted the fictional character of Prof. Pierre Aronnax rather than reveal that he was actually the one who'd traveled with Nemo on the submarine.

During the months prior to the invasion, the American and British ship-building industries worked feverishly to produce a fleet of submarines based on Nemo's designs!





The Herculean efforts of these nations resulted in a successful effort to scour the oceans for undersea Martian bases — and to destroy them whenever they were found!

Inspired by the genius of these two men, the world succeeded in defeating the alien invaders!

H.G. Wells returned Jules Verne to the exact instant he left in 1863 — thus preventing any disruption in the time line. Naturally, both Wells and Verne greatly benefited from their incredible collaboration.

And so did the world in the centuries to come.

Mars, however, was completely devastated by the fleet of cavorite spheres which were sent there to seed the atmosphere with viral organisms.





Blackhawk (1952 serial)
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Decades ago, when I used to hang out with a group of creative young friends I'd known for years, I pitched my idea for a Blackhawk movie as we sat around a table in a Denny's restaurant — something we did on a regular basis.

The group included the follow people.

Rod Bennett - A fine artist and a published author.

He did the drawing below for me to use for a science lesson with my 2nd graders, which included an actual Venus Flytrap!

I told the kids I was going to show them a plant that could eat a cow!

Rod made this amazing drawing from his imagination, using colored markers on poster board — with no "pencil outline" to guide him!

I used it to surprise my class before I revealed an actual Venus Flytrap I'd kept hidden . . . and then I revealed it before feeding the plant a small piece of hamburger to prove it was a "plant that could eat a cow!"





The kids were dazzled by this demonstration.
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Jim Peavy - A professional artist who has done magazine covers for Wonder Magazine, along with other amazing paintings. You can enjoy his work at The Art of Jim Peavy


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Brian Bustard is another old friend and a fine artist whose work is featured here on All Sci-Fi in our gallery called The Art of Bryan Bustard.

My favorite of his is the one below

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And finally there's Larry Hanson, one of my oldest friends, who was famous in our group for the wonderful creations he made to enhance our many "movie nights".

For example, the ones shown below were for the elaborately planned events we spent weeks preparing for.

These are from our Jason and Argonauts night, our This Island Earth Night, our Earth vs the Flying Saucer Night, and our 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Night.








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Larry and I collaborate on the last one below when he asked me to create a small painting to go with his illuminated model of the Nautilus, which he planned to display atop the delicious desert we would later enjoy during our amazing evening when we shared this great movie!

Here's the preliminary sketch I did for the painting I made for his cake.





And here's his cake and my painting, when the evening finally took place.







It was an event we'll never forget!


It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)

TCM aired this movie on November 27th, 2021, and Ben Mankiewicz made his usual great introduction, mentioning that it inspired the blockbuster hit, Alien in 1979 — which TCM aired immediately after this one.

Ben discusses the fact that this movie was a low-budget B-movie which lacked state-of-the-art special effects.

In all fairness, some of the FX are state-of-the-art, while others are not. And the worst of these are that lousy monster suit!

With that in mind, I propose that an enhance version of this movie could be made using CGI to replace all the embarrassingly bad scenes of the clumsy monster.

A more slender, agile creature would work better than the bulky alien who was supposed to crawl around in the ship's air ducts.

Forgive me for promoting my artwork yet again, but a good CGI crew could take designs like the ones below and improve this movie by making the alien lith and agile — instead of a lumbering Frankenstein monster!




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Ridley Scott knew the alien creature needed to be slime and spidery, and that's exactly what this movie needs too. Enhancing it with CGI would be complicated, but I think the result would be spectacular. [/size]
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)