Title: Microcosmic God
Author: Theodore Sturgeon
Date of First Publication: April 1941
Place of Publication: Astounding Science Fiction, Ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. (New York, NY: Street & Smith Publications, pp.46-68.
Bibliographic Reference: isfdb
Type: Short story
Keywords: BYRONIC HERO; POSTHUMAN; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER; FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER; RACE and POLITICS
Critical Summary: James Kidder, a reclusive biochemist, buys an island and produces inventions that progresses mankind’s lifestyle, engineering, and science. Kidder’s sole desire is intellectual gain; he is disinterested in political power or his growing wealth (a subsequent gain from his many inventions). However, he does not have the patience to wait for humanity to grow in knowledge; instead, Kidder starts developing synthetic life.
He successfully creates a species, the Neoterics, who have fast metabolic rates, quick maturity time, and evolve at an accelerated rate—taking two hundred days to evolve to equal humanity’s current knowledge of science. Kidder manipulates their microcosm to eliminate the “unfit” and strengthen the generations of the species by breeding the survivors to, once again, manipulate their microcosm—nodding to Darwinism theories. With the Neoterics’ quickly advancing and bypassing mankind, Kidder exhorts his authority and power over the Neoterics by killing half their population if they disobey Kidder’s orders, instilling fear into the Neoterics’ worldview.
Simultaneously, Conant, Kidder’s banker, cleverly proposes ideas for Kidder (really, the Neoterics now) to create; however, unlike Kidder, Conant desires wealth and the power that comes with it. He takes control of Kidder’s island in order to build a “new source of power” to help him rise in power and essentially take over the world. When Conant’s workers build Kidder’s power plant, Conant uses air strikes to kill everyone on the island and keep the power plant. However, Kidder asks the Neoterics to create “an impenetrable shield” to avoid the air raid. The Neoterics successfully build an impenetrable shield—but not before Kidder and a fellow engineer, Janhsen, could be in its safety.
As this story concludes, the narrator questions whether Kidder and Janhsen are even alive behind their impenetrable shield the Neoterics created. Nevertheless, Sturgeon ends with the following lines: “Some day the Neoterics, after innumerable generations of inconceivable advancement, will take down their shield and come forth. While I think of that I feel frightened.”
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Sturgeon’s work, both creations (the Creature, Neoterics) supersede human abilities, whether by physical or intellectual strength. The scientists of each work (Frankenstein, Kidder) mold their creations in such a way that they are the evolved species of mankind.
Like Frankenstein, Kidder is compelled to explore beyond human knowledge and experience, which compels him to create the Neoterics in order to attain wanted knowledge. However, unlike Frankenstein’s negative consequences for ambitiously creating life, Kidder is successful and even prosperous in and through his creation.
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