Leslie F. Stone: A Woman’s Perspective on Early Sci-Fi

The famous “giant butterfly” cover. Inside is part 3 of Leslie F. Stone’s “Across the Void.”

This is the Rocketeer coming at you with Podcast #45. Today I want to talk to you about one of my favorite early science fiction writers— Leslie Francis Stone (married name— Leslie Francis Silberberg.)

Here in the episode notes I’m going to add a visual post script. Stone’s stories did not often become featured covers, I really couldn’t say why. One notable exception is the image above. I’ve seen it described on eBay as, “a giant butterfly carries off a man.” The story is not named on the cover but it happens to illustrate part 3 of “Across the Void” (Amazing Stories, June 1931 issue.) With no backstory, the cover art is curious and doesn’t sit well with other covers in nearby issues.

The main illustration for “Across the Void,” part 3.

The giant “butterfly” is actually an intelligent being, the ruler of a population of sentient insects with a fairly advanced culture. (Their planet is the vicinity of Alpha Centauri.) The man being carried—silver-skinned you’ll notice—is the hero of the tale, Moura-weit. He is on a journey of redemption after being the villain in the first novel, “Out of the Void” (1929). On the planet “Kal” he hopes to stop the insect-like ruler from making some of the same mistakes that he had made, which led to Moura’s exile from his home world of Abrui.

But the insect ruler is cruel and has no intention of changing his ways. He kills Moura-weit directly after this scene takes place. The cover shows the minutes leading up to his death. His friends are too late to save him, and you see their attempt in the black and white image above. *Sad.*

So, if you ever see the issue for sale anywhere, you’ll know the story behind the “big butterfly” cover.

I was so inspired by the research for this week’s podcast that I’m re-reading “Across the Void” one more time. Ah the Yodverl! (It means, “Ship of the Void.”) It’s definitely my favorite spaceship, ranking even above Captain Future’s “Comet.”

Here’s an AI-generated image of the Yodverl based on Stone’s text. Not too shabby, really, except for the odd captions which don’t really relate to anything. I left them in as interesting artifacts. As an artist and creative, I’m not afraid of A.I. It has a long way to go before it can out-creative a human being. (And psst A.I….The Yodverl was actually cigar-shaped not a long cylinder and has smooth sides, as I described to you….)

This is the Rocketeer signing off for today.