Review: Science Fiction Short Story: "The Sargasso of Space" by Edmond Hamilton

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Captain Crain lets the men of the freighter Pallas know the situation. Sometime during transport, the starboard tanks developed a leak and now they do not have enough fuel to make it Neptune. What he sees happening, unless they’re able the raise another ship by radio (yes, radio) they will drift into the dead-area, a 90,000 miles across within Neptune’s orbit in which the gravitational forces of the solar system balance each other out. It’s believed there is a great mass of wrecks in the middle of the dead area and the Pallas is about to become the next one. The Sargasso of the title is drawn from the Sargasso Sea, an area of calm in the North Atlantic bounded by currents. It’s known (and indeed named) for a free-floating sea weed called sargassum. A number of sea critters inhabit the region and the seaweed, taking advantage of the relative calm. Because of the relative calm, however, garbage tends to settle there. It has become host to what’s been called the North Atlantic Garbage Patch. Both this and the Sargasso Sea itself shift geographically with shifts in ocean currents. In popular literature, the Sargasso Sea is often portrayed as a place of peril or mystery, which ships traverse at their risk, a nineteenth century Bermuda Triangle. And then there’s that Ezra Pound poem, “Portrait d’une Femme.” Think he was annoyed at the lady in his life? But I digress. Captain Crain puts the men on half rations. In a few days, they sight the expected wreck-pack. It’s astounding—thousands of ships in various degrees of decay. Some of them are mere skeletons. Others seem hardly touched. Seeing the nearly pristine condition of some of the wrecks, First Officer Rance Kent hits on an idea: “Why couldn’t we find one that has fuel in its tanks, transfer it to our own tanks, and get away?” It means, of course, donning space suits and hopping around the wreck pack, but the men are game. It’s better than slowly starving to death. But there’s something they haven’t taken into consideration. They’re not alone on the wreck-pack. This, like the author’s other story, “Monsters of Mars” is full of technical details (even if they’re not exactly always accurate). The reader get a primer on the mechanics of gravity. However, the story itself, as is “Monster of Mars,” is quite simplistic. It’s a fun enough adventure tale, but deep it ain’t. This story is available from Project Gutenberg and as an audiobook from Librivox: ____ Title: “The Sargasso of Space” Author: Edmond Hamilton (1904-1977) First published: Astounding Stories September 1931 Source: ISFDB