Marius
Entry updated 2 March 2026. Tagged: Author.
Pseudonym of Steve Benedict (? - ), an author briefly active in the late 1920s who began to publish work of genre interest with "Vandals from the Moon" in Amazing Stories for July 1928. This features Invasion of Earth by Aliens from the Moon who deploy irresistible war Machines resembling and moving like huge snakes or worms (singled out by editor Hugo Gernsback as an ingenious idea that should be adopted by real-world military engineers) and armed with Death Rays. Following the traditional Cliché, the vaguely humanoid invaders are driven by a "powerful mating urge" to kidnap Earth's women, but in a nod to H G Wells are defeated by (here laboratory-grown) microbes. In the serial The Sixth Glacier (January-February 1929 Amazing; 2014 dos) an amateur palaeontologist discovers from ancient records that the five past Ice Ages were caused by Earth passing through "a frigid belt in space" which it is now again entering. Absurdly rapid Climate Change ensues (see Scientific Errors): "Juneau [in Alaska] was under a hundred feet of ice. A huge moving sheet that extended for many miles over land and sea had suddenly popped up overnight and crushed the town, leaving no survivors to tell the tale." The Disaster spreads worldwide; the destruction of New York takes a mere fifteen minutes. Eventually the ice threat is dealt with using "electric superheaters", and rebuilding can begin. [DRL]
The online Fictionmags Index distinguishes between the Steve Benedict who wrote as Marius, as above, and the one who published several genre stories 1951-1964. [DRL]
Steve Benedict
born
works
- The Sixth Glacier (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2014) [dos: January-February 1929 Amazing: pb/Frank R Paul]
links
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