The man who put out the sun

In Short

Written in 1930 for the pulps, this science fiction novelette follows Police Inspector Hines and his eccentric theoretical physicist ally, Professor Albert Schaaf, as they face down a brilliant rogue scientist named Preston. Having previously survived Preston's terror tactics, the pair wakes on Hines's wedding day to discover the sun has failed to rise. Preston has ionized the upper atmosphere, blocking out solar heat and light to hold the world hostage. Packed with inventive period tech and propulsive action, the story endures as a pure, high-stakes example of early weather-control fiction.

The Story

On the morning of May fifth, Police Inspector Hines prepares for his wedding, only to find the sun missing from the sky. There are no sudden storms or earthquakes, but as eight o'clock arrives, the Atlantic coast remains wrapped in an pitch-black veil. In New York, a power station operator watches current consumption skyrocket as millions of citizens switch on their lights, forcing the city's power grid to run at peak capacity.

Across the ocean, the same eerie phenomenon strikes London, where solar heat drops to a fraction of its normal output. Professor Albert Schaaf, a German physicist living in New York, realizes what has happened. Months earlier, Schaaf had unwittingly helped electrophysicist Preston develop technology capable of turning the air opaque. Though Preston was believed dead after a previous encounter, Schaaf recognizes his signature work. The villain has charged the Heaviside Layer—an ionized atmospheric roof five to fifteen miles up—with short-wave radiation, creating a blanket of total darkness across the entire planet.

Schaaf alerts Police Headquarters, warning that Hines and his fiancée, newspaper reporter Kathryn Bush, are in immediate danger. After thwarting an assassination attempt by Preston's henchmen, Hines and Schaaf calculate the villain's likely position. Reasoning that Preston needs an isolated oceanic location to operate his machinery, they pinpoint Metinic Island off the Maine coast.

The global stakes escalate rapidly. With the sun's heat intercepted, temperatures plunge across the continent—dropping toward zero in Montana and threatening a global deep-freeze that will destroy all life within days. Armed forces mobilize. Hines coordinates a massive military operation, positioning battle cruisers, destroyers, and heavy railway artillery along the Maine shoreline to shell the island flat.

Knowing Kathryn has been kidnapped and taken to the stronghold, Hines and Schaaf board a Navy destroyer, then row toward the island in a small cutter during the blacked-out night. Navigating by underwater microphones, they land on the shore, only to be ambushed by Preston's defensive high-voltage death beams. Falling through the roof of an underground dugout, Hines and Schaaf are captured and brought before Preston.

Deep inside the subterranean lab, Preston gloats, threatening to kill them with a terrifying new freezing ray. Schaaf stalls the megalomaniac by falsely claiming the military has already deciphered and replicated his short-wave technology. The bluff gives Hines the opening he needs. Hines hurls massive vacuum tubes at the controls, engaging Preston in a brutal hand-to-hand fight while Schaaf smashes the transmitter array, neutralizing the darkness beam. With the equipment wrecked and Preston killed in the melee, Hines, Schaaf, and the rescued Kathryn flee to their waiting boat just as the Navy's synchronized bombardment turns Metinic Island into a cratered wasteland. With the sun restored, Hines and Kathryn finally head off to be married.

How It Unfolds

The morning the sun didn't rise Citizens wake to find an eerie, pitch-black sky lingering past eight in the morning. At a New York power station, operators struggle to keep pace with the massive surge in electrical demand as the metropolis turns on every light to function.

A physicist sounds the alarm Professor Albert Schaaf realizes his former employer, the criminal genius Preston, is alive and utilizing short-wave technology to make the atmosphere opaque. Schaaf contacts the police to secure protection for Inspector Hines and his reporter fiancée, Kathryn Bush, just as Preston's men launch an attack.

Tracing the mastermind Analyzing transport routes, timeframes, and geographical needs, Hines and Schaaf deduce that Preston is operating from an isolated spot off the Maine coast. Temperatures dive across the globe, forcing the military to prepare a devastating joint-service artillery and naval barrage against Metinic Island.

Invasion through the dark Hines, Schaaf, and a squad of naval personnel row a silent wooden cutter through pitch-black, electrified waters toward the island fortress. Upon landing, high-voltage beams strike the landing party, electrocuting several men and forcing Hines and Schaaf into the enemy's subterranean bunker.

Confrontation in the dugout Inside the underground laboratory, Preston boasts of his supremacy and prepares to execute his captives with a lethal freezing ray. Schaaf executes a desperate technical bluff to distract the villain, allowing Hines to overpower Preston in a chaotic, fatal struggle while Schaaf demolishes the machine's tubes.

Escape and destruction With the darkness generator shattered, the trio escapes to the shore just as Navy guns open fire, completely pulverizing the island behind them. The sun returns to the sky, and Hines and Kathryn finally proceed with their postponed wedding.

The People

• Police Inspector Hines wants to stop Preston's global terror campaign and marry his fiancée, Kathryn Bush. Blocked by assassinations, blackouts, and a ticking clock, he moves from a disciplined lawman to a desperate warrior willing to throw himself into a suicide mission to save the woman he loves.
• Professor Albert Schaaf wants to eradicate the menace he unwittingly helped create through his theoretical research. Hindered by Preston's scientific lead and his own guilt, the eccentric physicist uses his sharp mind, explosive temper, and outrageous technical bluffs to neutralize the rogue scientist's machinery.
• Preston wants absolute dominance over the world by holding its light and temperature hostage. Driven by paranoiac arrogance and standing in opposition to all civilization, his maniacal overconfidence ultimately leaves him vulnerable to a sudden, physical retaliation.
• Kathryn Bush wants to report the truth as a capable newspaper journalist while building a life with Hines. Trapped as a captive in Preston's island lair, she endures the terrifying darkness before being rescued moments prior to the island's utter annihilation.

In Its Own Voice

"At half past eight the man in the green eyeshade raised the window and stared shakenly upward."

An early line captures the quiet, unsettling shift in New York City as an ordinary morning transforms into an unending night.

"To make the earth's whole atmosphere opaque would have required millions of billions of horse-power."

Schaaf's technical explanation grounds the wild premise in the plausible atmospheric physics of the 1930s pulp era.

"There was lurid spoutings of fire and shattering explosions coming from the land they had left, and there were dim bulks all around the horizon which emitted tongues of flame and unbearable thunderings."

The story closes on a note of spectacular physical destruction as military firepower levels the madman's stronghold.

What It's Really About

Beneath its pulp-adventure exterior, the narrative wrestles with the terrifying vulnerability of modern technological civilization. It asks how easily the delicate balance of nature can be disrupted when cutting-edge science falls into unprincipled hands. The story highlights the double-edged sword of scientific discovery: Schaaf’s pure theoretical physics, intended for harmless academic understanding, becomes a terrifying weapon of mass destruction under Preston's influence. Ultimately, the plot argues that technical ingenuity is worthless unless paired with civic duty, courage, and self-sacrifice. It balances the cold, impersonal scale of global atmospheric collapse against intimate human motives—a detective's drive to protect his bride and a scientist's desire to redeem his past mistakes.

Why Read It Today

Fans of retro sci-fi, classic pulp thrillers, and "mad scientist" tropes will find plenty to enjoy in this fast-paced tale. Reading it offers a nostalgic journey into the speculative fiction of the 1930s, where world-ending crises were met with military grit, blackboard physics, and raw courage. Leinster writes with a crisp, efficient rhythm that keeps the action moving forward without getting bogged down in unnecessary exposition.

Modern readers should expect period-typical pulp conventions: straightforward characterizations, dramatic coincidences, and heavy reliance on technobabble that reflects the science of its era rather than modern physics. The narrative relies on simple action-hero dynamics and rapid-fire dialogue, occasionally skipping over subtle character development in favor of high-velocity plot beats. Yet, its sheer inventive energy, tense atmospheric dread, and satisfying resolution make it a light, entertaining read that leaves a lasting impression of mid-century speculative imagination.