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May 16

OYEEEE GET OFF ME ATOMS! YOU'R RUINING ME SCIENCE!Click for full image

Bob M Comments: Goodness! It would appear I am being ogled… by a giant, no less! How very splendid.
Published 1950

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of art!I would touch it without protective gloves.I've seen worse. Far, far, worse.Interesting, but I would still read it in public.Middlng: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lame picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show Sir! (Average: 6.23 out of 10)
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32 Responses to “The Princess of the Atom”

  1. THX 1138 Says:

    “Fools! They said I was too old to play with dolls! I mean, action figures.”

  2. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    Joke’s on him, she’s so thoroughly irradiated she’s luminescent.

  3. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    Something is very, very wrong if he’s leering, she’s glowing, and the author’s name was Ray Cummings.

  4. Perry Armstrong Says:

    If ‘Terror of the Autons’ were written by Talbot Rothwell, it might look something like this (complete with Pertwee-era CSO halo!)

  5. fred Says:

    A tiny beautiful blond caucasian woman can mean only one thing…..METAL MOTHRA!!!!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=broPmKFqmpI

  6. Ikari Gendo Says:

    I misread the second line at the top as “atomic beauty secrets”, which was tried around the turn of the last century.

  7. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @IG: that would explain the very unhealthy-looking bit of poo under the microscope in the background. ^^;

  8. Tat Wood Says:

    @Perry Armstrong: The Talbot Rothwell-style ‘Terror of the Autons’ was ‘Carry On At Your Convenience’. It even had the coach-trip. Kenneth Williams as Farrell Senior and Richard O’Callaghan as Rex – which makes Charles Hawtrey the Master.

  9. Tat Wood Says:

    The plot is our old friend ‘there is no such thing as a smallest particle, it’s turtles all the way down and atoms look like mini solar systems so they have mini people on the particles.’. Cummings worked with Edison so obviously quantum theory was a bit beyond him. The artist, however, needs a few pointers on how small an atom is compared to a microscope or a letch.

  10. Anna T. Says:

    I’m going to assume the necklace is holding her dress up so she doesn’t suffer a wardrobe malfunction. Also, she clearly doesn’t know she’s being ogled by a giant – she’s much too calm for that. Unless she enjoys that kind of attention.

  11. B. Chiclitz Says:

    Yes, the décolletage is quite appealing, but she’s got man hands!
    Another effect of too much radiation being splashed about during the 50s?

  12. THX 1138 Says:

    Lily Tomlin: got a friend for you.

  13. B. Chiclitz Says:

    Does anyone really think there is an “INCOMPLETE AND ABRIDGED” version of this book?

  14. Tat Wood Says:

    @B. Chiclitz: your wish is my command. Here’s the 1922 trial-run, ‘Girl of the Golden Atom’. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/21094/pg21094.txt

  15. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @BC:

    “Hey Golden!” shouted a voice. I looked up. It was…. Draco Malfoy!

    “What’s up Draco?” I asked.

    “Nothing.” he said shyly.

    But then, I heard my friends call me and I had to go away.

    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

    AN: IS it good? PLZ tell me fangz!

  16. B. Chiclitz Says:

    Note to anyone who says the books on this site are criticized unfairly: This is an actual sentence from the edition Tat W. directed me toward. If this sentence can get published, anything one wants to say is within bounds of propriety.

    “Gosh,” said the Very Young Man, and lighted another cigarette.

    Excerpt From: Ray Cummings. “The Girl in the Golden Atom.” iBooks.

    Lighted!

  17. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @BC: the sentence illustrated.

  18. Bob M Says:

    “And then I saw Dianne. The glory of her beauty swept me. She ran up and kissed me.

    ‘Frank, dear–‘

    I do not know what I was to her then. But to me, this was not my sister. A thousand times more strongly now, I felt it. And no princess this. Just a girl!”

    Actual excerpt from page 62 of The Princess of the Atom.

    There’s sort of a reverse-Luke-and-Leia thing going on with the protagonist and the princess. They’re raised to believe they’re biologically brother and sister. While they’re still children she disappears, and when they meet again years later, he, only having recently been informed of the truth, seems to immediately fall for her. They get married at the end.

  19. HappyBookworm Says:

    @Bob M. – Oh, you didn’t say Spoilers! first.

    I think Her Royal Highness Princess Atom is so nonchalant because she just likes to freak out scientists with her size and golden glow. And she IS made of atoms, I assume. If not, I’m even more interested.

  20. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @DSWBT—no wonder he lighted another one.

  21. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @Bob M—feels like it’s about to morph immediately into a Victorian porno novel—maybe I should have read past page one.

  22. Bob M Says:

    @B. Chiclitz: It has many themes in common with the earlier Girl in the Golden Atom, but it’s generally a different story, as I recall. And a weaker one. A later novel he wrote called “Beyond the Stars” used the atom universe idea once again. I haven’t even been able to bring myself to read past the first few pages on that one. I’m seeing a pattern…

  23. Bibliomancer Says:

    She must be Xenon, Warrior Princess.
    A Noble Lass.

  24. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @B’Mancer—
    A glowing, hot Princess named Xenon
    Was a slightly ambiguous phenom
    Though quite Noble a lass
    She suffered from gas
    And so made it dangerous to lean on

  25. Bibliomancer Says:

    @B.C. – Excellent 🙂

  26. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    “Good God!” ejaculated the Banker, as the white-faced men stared at each other.

    “Great Caesar!” ejaculated the Banker. “Don’t let’s go into that any deeper!”

    “Great Scott, this is a tornado!” ejaculated the Big Business Man. His words were almost lost amid the howling of the blast as it swept across the barren waste of rocks.

    “Well, I’ll be——” ejaculated the Very Young Man. “What next?”

    “Now what?” ejaculated the Very Young Man, standing up abruptly, with his feet spread wide apart.

    “Oh,” ejaculated the Big Business Man, comprehending at last, “so that’s the——”

    The Very Young Man standing with his back to the wall and his legs spread wide looked hastily at his watch. “Moving the ring? Why, damn it——” he began impetuously.

    “A curious land, gentlemen,” he remarked quietly.

    “It’s—it’s weird,” the Very Young Man ejaculated.

    The Very Young Man looked about in dismay. “Great Scott,” he ejaculated, “this won’t do at all.”

    If I didn’t have the Glenlivet in front of me already, I’d say I need a freaking drink. 😉

  27. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    Er, @HBw: SPOILERS!

  28. anon Says:

    Woman in secret frolic — beauty’s desperate struggle to eat meat sword
    THE CUMMINGS OF THE PRINCESS
    Ray Atom
    Go de-pant! Mace unbridled!

  29. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @DSWBT # 26—Great Scott indeed, Sir. I am ejaculating on the edge of my seat as I indulge in gripping your narrative, I mean, your gripping narrative. I can only imagine how much even greater would be the complete and unabridged version.

  30. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @BC: I was gay while I was writing the thing, yes. To my surprise and dismay, though, there were only two instances of erections. Maybe the narrative could have done with more.

  31. A.R.Yngve Says:

    Nuclear scientists must be very, very lonely.

  32. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @BC: bad news, I’ve found an instance of “lighted” in place of “lit” in chapter 3 of Moby-Dick.

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