Steampunk Prime_ A Vintage Steampunk Reader - Mike Ashley [11]
Ranger Gull (1875-1923) was born Arthur Ranger Gull, the son of a country vicar. He later adopted the first name Cyril, and later still took on the pseudonym Guy Thorne by which he became best known. Under that alias he wrote When it was Dark (1903) which looks at the social and religious chaos that follows the revelation that archaeological evidence has been discovered to prove that Christ was never resurrected. The book was an international bestseller and established Gull’s reputation. Alas it gave him even more opportunity to drink — he once claimed he was never more than a few hundred yards from a bottle. He settled in Cornwall and produced a mass of novels, many of them science fiction, including The Greater Power (1915), The Air Pirate (1919), The City in the Clouds (1921) and When the World Reeled (1924). Over time his plots became repetitive — he often rewrote earlier stories — but at his best he was a very creative writer and deserves to be better remembered. In his later years he became diabetic and died in London aged only 47. — M.A.
ABOUT THE MIDDLE of this century public interest in the game of chess received a remarkable impetus from the arrival in London of it man named Greet, a Jew from Poland, who brought with him an automatic chess-playing figure. This figure had been first exhibited at Prague some six months before, and its subsequent tour of the great cities on the continent of Europe had excited an extraordinary interest. Most of the best-known masters of the game had taken up its challenge in St. Petersburg, Paris and Vienna, but one and all had suffered a defeat, inexplicable in its suddenness and completeness.
Mr. Greet now announced that his figure was ready to play against, and beat, anyone in England who should care to oppose it. The Automaton (for this was the name that the public had given to the figure) was exhibited a number of times in London, and on each occasion a crowded and mystified audience witnessed the uncomfortable spectacle of an image made of wood and iron, defeating in an easy and masterful manner several well-known exponents of the most difficult game in the world.
The machine consisted of a large figure of wood, roughly hewn and painted to resemble a man. It was about twice the size of a full-grown human being, and when playing was seated in a chair made on a very open design. It was quite motionless, except for the jerky movements of its arm and of the two long steel pincers that served it for fingers. It made no sound save the one word “check,” that rasped out from its wooden throat, and the final “check-mate,” pitched in a higher and more triumphal key.
This soulless machine was a master of all the known gambits, and seemed to play them with a supreme inspiration not granted to any living professor of the game. Public excitement about the matter was acute, and speculation ran high as to the probable methods employed to bring about so marvelous a result. Every facility was afforded to the public for inspection. Before and after each game the figure was opened in full view of those among the audience who might care to come upon the stage, and the closest scrutiny revealed nothing but a mass of cogs and wheels, among which it was quite impossible for a man to be concealed. Moreover, Mr. Greet was quite willing to allow the Automaton to be moved about on the stage at the direction of its opponent, so that the theory of electrical communication with a player concealed beneath the platform, had to be abandoned by those who had conceived such an opinion. During the games, Mr. Greet sat or walked about on the stage, but two members of the audience were always accommodated with chairs by the chess table, and it was obvious that there