The Godmen

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Edmond Hamilton (1904–1977) has been hailed as one of the three pioneers of the space opera. Indeed, of the three writers credited with creating this beloved science fiction subgenre, Hamilton, Edward E. Smith, Ph.D., and Jack Williamson, Hamilton's first space opera, “The Comet Doom,” beat both his colleagues into print, by almost a year, in the case of Smith's unprecedented universe-spanning epic, The Skylark of Space, and by almost three years in the case of Williamson's “The Cosmic Express.” Since Smith had begun his book around 1919, clearly neither he nor Hamilton influenced the other, while Williamson has tipped his hat to the inspiration of both. So, in the final analysis, sole credit must be given to Edmond Hamilton and E. E. Smith as the progenitors of the space opera as so many know and love it today.

In the 1930s Hamilton was approached by a pulp editor who wanted him to create a science fictional equivalent of the then bestselling Doc Savage novels which appeared in the magazine that bore his name. Hamilton's character was Curt Newton, Man of Tomorrow, known to the world as Captain Future (also the magazine's title). Captain Future opposed interplanetary crime as well as menaces from beyond the solar system, accompanied everywhere by his closest friends, the giant metallic robot, Grag and the pasty-faced android Otho, who bickered comically throughout the books over which was the most valuable to the Captain. Titles of some of the novels Hamilton wrote about Curt Newton included Calling Captain Future, The Magician of Mars, Outlaw World, The Comet Kings (ghosted by his wife, Leigh Brackett, and hands-down best of the CF novels), Planets in Peril, and Red Sun of Danger.

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