Zap! Ray Gun Classics

Singer, Leslie. Zap! Ray Gun Classics. San Francisco: Chronicle P, 1991. Dixie Knight, photography.

Presents 97 pictures of rayguns and such, mostly from the 1950s, the golden age for zap weapons. Rev. Russell Letson, SFRA Newsletter #196 (April 1992): 44-45, source for this entry. Letson refers his readers to Pierre Boogaerts's Robot (Futuropolis, 1978), which he refers to as an important work on S. F. toys.

Note also William J. Fanning Jr.'s essay “The Historical Death Ray and Science Fiction in the 1920s and 1930s” (2010), in Arthur B. Evans, editor, Vintage Visions: Essays on Early Science Fiction (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2014), with Visions reviewed by John J. Pierce, SFRA Review #313 (Summer 2015): here, p. 52.[1] Pierce tells us that, "It seems that the news media ran accounts that such weapons had actually been de- veloped. Popular fiction writers and even movie makers thus found a ready audience for their imagined versions."

RDE et al., initial; finishing 8Aug21