{"id":140,"date":"2006-10-06T16:52:10","date_gmt":"2006-10-06T23:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thepulp.net\/PulpBlogs\/YellowedPerils_test\/?p=140"},"modified":"2006-10-06T16:52:10","modified_gmt":"2006-10-06T23:52:10","slug":"a-few-last-thoughts-on-captain-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/2006\/10\/06\/a-few-last-thoughts-on-captain-future\/","title":{"rendered":"A few last thoughts on Captain Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, after my first venture into the world of <a href=\"http:\/\/thepulp.net\/PulpWiki\/wikka.php?wakka=CaptainFuture\">Captain Future<\/a> \u2014 four novels so far \u2013 I\u2019m marginally entertained. Writer <a href=\"http:\/\/thepulp.net\/PulpWiki\/wikka.php?wakka=HamiltonEdmond\">Edmond Hamilton<\/a> has a great imagination. He shows us some neat technology \u2014 from protective force fields (remember this is the early 1940s), gravity equalizers and a zone of \u201ccreation force\u201d where thoughts come to life. But he has some trouble with characterizations and creating complex plots.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_144\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-144\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-144\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/files\/2010\/08\/captainfuture42.jpg?resize=150%2C215&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Captain Future in 1942\" width=\"150\" height=\"215\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-144\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Captain Future in 1942<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If robot Grag and synthetic man Otho are supposed to equate with <a href=\"http:\/\/thepulp.net\/PulpWiki\/wikka.php?wakka=DocSavage\">Doc Savage<\/a>\u2019s Monk and Ham (complete with annoying pets), Hamilton fails. The quarrelsome duo are more irritating than entertaining. There\u2019s no humor in their bickering banter.<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton created, to mix metaphors, a future with its foot planted firmly in the 1940s \u2014 use of microfilm to store information, colonial workers, frontier territories, few robots doing work and fewer computers of any kind.<\/p>\n<p>But, to give Hamilton credit, his <strong>Captain Future<\/strong> stories would make great movies. The plots are streamlined enough, just a bit of editing to trim unnecessary bits and clean up the Grag\/Otho characterizations would be needed. (Yes, I&#8217;m aware of the <strong>CF<\/strong> <em>anime<\/em> and other foreign productions. But I\u2019m thinking of a live-action, Hollywood-style pix.)<\/p>\n<p>Maybe Curt Newton ought to be the next pulp character on the silver screen.<\/p>\n<p>As reading material, there are aspects of <strong>Captain Future<\/strong> that I really enjoy, but an equal amount that I don\u2019t. It\u2019s not as easy for me to read multiple <strong>CF<\/strong> novels back-to-back as it is, say, <strong>Doc Savage<\/strong>. What keeps me going is wondering what novel thing Hamilton will drop into the story next.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 William<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, after my first venture into the world of Captain Future \u2014 four novels so far \u2013 I\u2019m marginally entertained. Writer Edmond Hamilton has a great imagination. He shows us some neat technology \u2014 from protective force fields (remember this is the early 1940s), gravity equalizers and a zone of \u201ccreation force\u201d where thoughts come [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[4,11],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-pulps"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2qgXO-2g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}