John Charles Beecham

writer
Novel

Out of the Miocene

  • by John Charles Beecham
  • serialized in the Popular Magazine, 23 August and 1 October 1914 [Based on cover images of the Popular Magazine and the fact that it is bimonthly, we have assigned the dates of 23 August and 7 September 1914 to the two-part serial. We believe that Bleiler’s dates of 15 September and 1 October are incorrect.]
When Bruce Dayton wanders off the trails in the high plains of the American Southwest, he stumbles upon an old-timer who sends Bruce’s mind back to Miocene times and into the body of an apeman who had an earlier usage of the same soul as Bruce. —Michael Main
We are atoms in two oceans, time and space. Walk from here to the forest yonder, and your corporal self passes through a portion of space. Each moment you live you pass through a portion of the ocean of time. But the progression is only one way—for the corporal body. With the spirit it is different. Time has no boundaries for it. Out of the infinite, into the infinite, it comes and it goes. It is one with the Eternal. Therein Moses was right.
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  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

The Ape-Woman

Given the intriguing title, we hoped the title character of this early novelette would be a time traveling ape from from future, but alas, such was not meant to be. Instead, the narrator’s partner on a rubber plantation adopts an orphaned Bornean ape and brings her up as human. —Michael Main
In pursuance of this theory he strove sedulously to teach the ape to distinguish colors, to recognize and fashion geometrical patterns, and to do many of the clever things with blocks and tinted paper that four and five year olds do in the kindergartens. Each new accomplishment he claimed as a triumph and a further vidication of his theory. I had my doubts, although I was willing to concede that Claybourne was a good animal-trainer.
Pen-and-ink drawing of a man wielding a wicked, heavy blade, facing a roaring tiger in a jungle.
  • Science Fiction
  • No Time Phenomena