Title The Girl in the Golden Atom Series --- Author Ray Cummings Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing 1922 Category Science Fiction Warnings --- Main Characters The Chemist, The Young Man, The Doctor, The Banker, The Business Man Main Elements Miniaturization

A classic work of science fiction, this novel was one of the first to explore the world of the atom. The Girl in the Golden Atom is the story of a young chemist who finds a hidden atomic world within his mother’s wedding ring. Under a microscope, he sees within the ring a beautiful young woman sitting before a cave. Enchanted by her, he shrinks himself so that he can join her world. Having worked for Thomas Alva Edison, Ray Cummings (1887–1957) was inspired by science’s possibilities and began to write science fiction.

This book literally took me months to read. Not just because it was on my eReader which I don't use much now that I don't commute, but honestly, this book was pretty boring. The science was utter nonsense, interesting mental exercises if you treated this as fantasy but as science fiction very little made any sense, I don't know exactly what people knew about the atom in 1922 but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a single person who thought you could shrink someone down, have them crawl into a crack in a golden ring, keep shrinking until they find an entire world populated by humanoids inside a single gold atom.

And I suppose I could forgive that if the characters weren't mostly one-dimensional. They do have names actually, but are often referred to by their profession, or by their age (though the young man, by the time he goes into the ring, isn't really that young anymore but he acted like he was 10 rather than in his 20's maybe pushing 30). And their solution to every problem is to grow big and stomp on everyone...the imagery is horrific. I don't go around stomping on ants (unless they are in my house) to imaging taking my foot and squashing a human being, hearing their tiny cries, seeing their mutilated bodies and then just moving on like nothing happened? Well, the people did act like a mob rather than as individuals, they were just as one-dimensional, there simply so the the main characters can have some conflict rather than simply enjoy their trip.

It was a bit like the author said, "I want to write something that feels like The Time Machine, only I have a Chemist instead of a Time Traveller", and then forgot that Wells kept his stories short and just kept blathering on, making nonsense diversions so this novel could drag out for 400 pages instead what might have been an acceptable 200. Although...reading the blurb above, seems there was a second book The People of the Golden Atom, I didn't notice any division between the two, but maybe I did read a 2-in-1 which explains the length. After all the story pretty well wraps up and didn't need to be continued further.

So far I've yet to be impressed by Cummings. Now I accept that he did a lot of firsts, including setting a tale inside of an atom, just recently discovered. But even if his science is a little off, something I'd be willing to forgive, his stories are just silly, his characters uninteresting, and almost without fail, overly long. I wonder if I'd feel the same about his contemporaries or is it Cummings himself whose stories just don't work for me, I mean I read and enjoyed the entire Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs after all.