Review: Science Fiction Short Story: "The World Beyond" by Ray Cummings

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Downstairs, the partygoers are enjoying themselves. Upstairs, Lee Anthony sits with his elderly dying guardian, Anna Green. It’s his twenty-first birthday. The doctor had left medicine, saying he’d be back in the morning, but Anna wasn’t fooled. She knew she wouldn’t last the night. Anna now tells Lee that his grandfather was a scientist and not dead. He merely went away. And he had promised her to return, if he could, when Lee was twenty-one. Shortly after that, two drunken late-comers show up, Tom Franklin and his date, Vivian Lamotte. Lee doesn’t know Franklin well, and Lamotte not at all. He breaks the news to them. As he does, there’s movement on the porch. Hooded figures appear, attack them and snatch them all away. Franklin threatens to have his rich father throw them in jail. When the group wakes up, they find themselves in what appears to be a metal room. One of the hooded figures tells them they will be leaving soon. A person he refers to as “he” only wanted Lee, but they brought along the other two so no one would talk about having seen them. It’s what he would want. This is an odd and sad twist the Garden of Eden story. The explanation for faster-than-light travel didn’t convince me but it turns out to be essential to the plot later on. It’s also Lee’s coming of age. He’s not only turning twenty-on, when people were assumed to be adults, but he’s taking over the role of one who can no longer function. It’s not a bad story as these things go. It just hasn’t aged as well as some of them. Nevertheless, it is fun for what it is. Author Ray Cumming’s most notable work was The Girl in the Golden Atom. He published some 750 novels and short stories. For a few years, he worked as Thomas Edison’s personal assistant and technical writer. This story is available from Project Gutenberg and as an audiobook from Librivox. _____ Title: “The World Beyond” Author: Raymond King Cummings (1887-1957) First published: Amazing Stories July 1942 Source: ISFDB *An earlier version of this review appeared on another site. It has been updated and expanded for its inclusion on myLot.*