Ralph Milne Farley’s The Hidden Universe

Roger Sherman Hoar (1887-1963) was an American politician who also wrote a considerable amount of rather interesting pulp science fiction under the name Ralph Milne Farley. His novel The Hidden Universe was published in 1939.

Cathcart is an engineer but times are tough so he’s working as a truck driver for a huge industrial conglomerate, Frain industries. Malcolm Frain has a reputation as a slightly eccentric charismatic billionaire with a genius for business.

Like so many Frain Industries employees Cathcart hopes for a chance of a job in one of Frain’s colonies. Cathcart has another motive as well - his brother landed a job in one of the colonies a while back and Cathcart hasn’t heard from his since. He’d like to make sure his brother is OK. Nobody knows exactly where these colonies are but it's reasonable to assume that they're scattered in far-flung corners of the globe.

To get a shot at a job in the colonies Cathcart has to go through an interview with Frain’s daughter Donna. Cathcart is fascinated by Donna from the start.

Cathcart gets his chance and as soon as he arrives in the colony he notices some odd things. Things that interest him as a man with scientific training. Things like the length of the days and the fact that no stars are visible at night.

He is employed as an assistant to Dr Freundlich, a good-natured scientific genius who is a big deal in the colony. Dr Freundlich has noticed other odd things about the colony.

The colony is, superficially at least, a utopia. Everybody has a good well-paid job. Good housing is available to everyone. There is prosperity and security. Of course there will always be trouble-makers and there’s a faction known as the Populists constantly trying to create unrest.

Both Dr Freundlich and Cathcart become more and more determined to find an explanation for the increasing number of puzzling things they keep noticing. They’re subtle things which most people would not be aware of but to scientists they are very disturbing indeed. There is something about the light. And the way it rains. The explanation they eventually come up with is crazy and impossible but they’re convinced that it’s true.

That explanation has momentous consequences for those hoping one day to return to their old lives and their old homes.

There are some wildly inventive and imaginative ideas in this novel. They might be scientific nonsense but they are undeniably clever and there’s lots of deliriously loopy technobabble. The world in which Cathcart finds himself is very strange indeed but I don’t propose to spoil things by giving you any hints as to the bizarre nature of that world.

There’s also political intrigue as Cathcart reluctantly gets mixed up with the Populists. There are others who suspect that there’s something odd about this colony but Cathcart is not at all sure if he can trust them. He’s also not sure that he can trust Donna although he’d very much like to.

The novel offers adventure and action and romance and a great deal of wild craziness. It’s fast-paced and pulpy and fun.

The pulp science fiction of the 1920s and 30s is well worth exploring. Science fiction was not yet totally dominated by spaceships and death rays. There weren’t really any rigid genre conventions. There were plenty of wildly entertaining offbeat stories such as this. If wildly entertaining and offbeat are concepts that appeal to you then The Hidden Universe is highly recommended.

This novel is published in an Armchair Fiction two-novel paperback edition, paired with Frederik Pohl’s Danger Moon.

I’ve also reviewed Ralph Milne Farley’s 1924 novel The Radio Man and it’s very much worth checking out.