Bates was another influential pioneer. He edited Astounding Science Fiction and also wrote "Farewell to the Master". This one was published in 1934 so it's an early one. (Note: The Incredible Shrinking Man is not related, it is a late 50's spawn of Richard Matheson.)
In this story Bates posits space travel, and that the solar system has been well explored, and that life has spread long ago to many of the outer system moons so there are distant relatives of mankind scattered about the solar system. But he doesn't go into details of how the space travel is done. The protagonist is visited by a technologically advanced co-inhabititant of the solar system who has kept their presence concealed from mankind.
Here he slips back into classic story format: Advanced as these people are, they need his genes to invigorate their race... but the alien and Bates are a bit coy about this. In fact, his depiction of the offer seems silly -- this alien pops out of nowhere and asks the protagonist to head off with him into the solar system unknown. Silly... well... maybe not as silly to a twenty year-old as it seems to me as a sixty year-old. But, still, pretty abrupt. (Just noticed: Allison is referred to as Doctor Allison, so he has to be late twenties unless he's some kind of prodigy... which he may be.)
Bates is making predictions about the future evolution of mankind, and they are now classic -- big brained, small jawed, bald, wearing loose-fitting clothes. He adds one interesting twist: He has the shape of the foot changing to emphasize the first two toes. I wonder where that concept came from? (and went to?) This would seem to emphasize fast running? Why would a future man need that? (I like Niven's prediction better: That the feet become prehensile.)
Ah Hah! It just hit me: It's not running, it's high heels. <grin>
Next an odd description of a hallucinogenic experience -- keeping in mind that this is thirty years before the sixties when interest in hallucinogens became trendy on college campuses.
The age of Allison stays uncertain. When he's introduced to the beautiful damsel, CB-301, he's described as "the young ethnologist".
Turns to classic young love between two different cultures. Bates handles it sweetly. And definately from the male-enjoys-it-most perspective -- to start with, the male believes he is hard to get.
Interesting... wrist video in an era at the dawn of TV. (The 1936 Berlin Olympics were famous in part for the TV broadcasting demonstrated there.) And it "warms up" so Bates is thinking vacuum tubes, not IC's. Also it is dial-controlled, not voice or direct mind-link controlled. Also interesting, he does call it television, and you have to twiddle the controls to get the image to settle down.
Sight issue: Allison learns to operate the wrist video and all its knobs in a few seconds. Given that he's tracking objects in 3D this is the equivalent to learning advanced video gaming in about five minutes. Impressive... especially given that he's never experienced anything like a video game. So impressive, it's unbelievable... but slight.
What is nice about this slight flaw is the mystery this video viewing shows us readers. He's seeing himself get abducted a second time! Good twist!
And nice recap of the situation at the beginning of section three -- we review what Allison knows so we have good context for what happens next.
Some classic action man action. (and "PDQ" dates back this far.)
OK... classic early 20th century vision of air cars landing on building roofs. This is one of the early promises of flying that has never materialized. New York City tried this for a while on the Pan Am building, but gave up for good when a chopper crashed and a prop blade went flying off and killed people when it landed on the street below. (building built in 1963, flights in 1965-68, then again in 1977 for a few months, stopped when a chopper crash killed five, some on roof waiting, some on street below) Curiously, during the escape the girl directs Allison to stairs, not an elevator... perhaps because the elevators still mostly had operators in the 30's.
Inconsistency: This place has a space space port and it's used routinely enough that this girl knows where it is and doesn't mention anything about it being secret or military. This implies these people engage in space commerce. But... how do they do that and remain secret from the Earthlings who also travel extensively around the solar system? At the beginning of the story "Jones" states that his people have deliberately been hiding from Earthlings.
Bates describes from time to time what Allison is thinking about the girl. He has Allison steadily falling for the girl, and has her being sweet as sugar in an innocent way back to him. It's conventional, but it works for me. (She's certainly not the 21st century girl portrayal, either, she's meek and happy to serve her man.)
His air cars represent the full flying promise -- small one seater, mostly transparent, simple controls, motivated by something quiet that does not work by pushing air around. Ah... I wish! <grin> Once again, no sign of computers... as in computer control of the course or air traffic control. Flyers run around above the city.
Slightly odd... the space port is set up to service giant space craft. Allison spots one of the giant craft, and it's not in some special place, it's at the space port. But just one, so this doesn't seem to be space commerce. If it's not space commerce why is this craft in a "regular" place?
Written in 1934 and the promise of atomic power is already fully ensconced in science fiction literature. He doesn't have to explain what he means by it.
Even the controls on the "Titan" ship are simple. He pushes three buttons and he's off and running. No explanation of where the "intelligence" to make this operation so simple is coming from.
There may be atomic power, but Bates doesn't power the ship with it. He uses solar power instead.
Our Mr. Allison is a resourceful tool user. He uses the air car to push stuff around in the ship. Bates lays the ship floorplan out in pretty much sailing boat fashion, and makes no provision for low gravity.
Finally, a bit of mention of navigating intellience: It's handled by "an overlapping labarynith of seventy two circuits" and that's all it's going to take. Electronics was as impressive to these '30's types as atomics. <grin> One difference: they were already experiencing widespread use of vacuum tube electronics in the form of radios.
Interesting again, New York City has a space port, and landing this monster-size ship at that port does not cause Allison any concern. And related, we have the concept that space ships are going to land on planetary surfaces. They are going move as easily through space as through atmospheres. There's no concept of taking a shuttle from the ship to the surface. These space ships are as ideal as the flying car.
A lot of description of surviving as a small guy on a big ship. It's not so interesting... partly because I know the twist at the end. It's a little odd that Allison doesn't notice how uncannily human and English-oriented all the ship's equipment is. Also a bit odd is how long the trip takes. If this is in the Solar System and the ship is constant acceleration, the journey should take a few days to a few weeks at most.
The fact that the "stinger" will work on a being a thousand times more volume than it was designed for is a stretch, and surviving the fall is also a stretch. But the capture-and-carry is a good device for getting him out of the space port without him noticing some big "Welcome to New York City" sign and giving away his plight.
The second half of the story is about him running around his neighborhood in NYC as a six inch being. I find in only modestly interesting, even though Bates has him do a good job of being McGyverish resourceful and does a good job of describing it.
In the final part we discover that Allison has been split into 1,700 pieces, and each piece is doing its part to invigorate the stock of Jones' alien world. Our protagonist is a rogue piece, and he is convinced to come back and marry Miss Numbers.
A cute solution in its day -- well ahead of Watson and Crick who came up with the DNA concept in 1953. But it's now anachronistic given what we know about DNA and gene replicating.