The Sky is Falling

Reading Challenge 2017: book by an author who uses a pseudonym. Meteor Menace, by Kenneth Robeson, is is where modern science and somewhat science fiction meet and cross, leaving one behind. A blue meteor is causing troubles for Doc Savage and his men. They race to the aid of Rae Stanley, a young woman who has lost her father to an evil genius named Mo-Gwei. We discover that the meteor is part of a larger piece of radioactive space debris which causes humans to lose all brain function. It is likened to radium, which scientifically does not cause this phenomenon. The twist at the end, very much like Scooby Doo, is the discovery that Mo-Gwei is Professor Stanley, the girl's father, who has been negatively affected by the radioactive substance and gone crazy. Action from beginning to end, as is usual with Savage's stories, including Tibetan language, travel from South America to Asia, and local mythology supporting the story.

This reminds me of the old myth of "duck and cover" to escape an atomic blast.  We did not know much about radioactive substances in the 30's, much less the 60's of my youth, so anything was possible when confronting this material, even having your mind erased.  The savages in the story claim it is from their god, while Savage knows it is just a piece of space debris that is used to confound the unintelligent and uncivilized.  Much like taking a lighter or flashlight into a jungle tribe today who has never seen white man, they would make up a mythology around the science, since Zeus creates lightning and we all go to heaven when we die.  Science unravels that mythology, piece by piece, until the enlightened understand what it really is - something that is logical and explainable.

I kept thinking of Gizmo from Gremlins who was a mogwai from China (close to Tibet) and wondered if that word did not find itself into the silly movies of the 80's.  But then Furbies were a plagiarism of a mogwai, so nothing is every truly original.