N S Ford

Tag: Edward Page Mitchell

  • Review of ‘Classic Science Fiction Stories’ edited by Adam Roberts

    Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library series, this volume presents science fiction from before the ‘golden age’ and is a very respectable selection, bookended by stories from the great H G Wells. I had previously read 4 stories in this collection but they are good ones so I didn’t mind re-reading. My favourite of those I hadn’t read before turned out to be Arthur Conan Doyle’s, which surprised me as I’ve never enjoyed his detective stories. There is a detailed introduction which discusses the history of early science fiction and each piece has a very short introduction too.

    I felt that Lovecraft’s story was kind of spoilt by a footnote from the editor which tells us that Lovecraft was a notorious racist. He was singled out, as two or three of the other stories contained racist references and were not given footnotes. Most authors of ‘classic’ works would have held views considered unacceptable today and if we are to continue enjoying these works, we need to separate the art from the artist. These authors lived a long time ago, those were the views they would have held, please allow us to enjoy their work.

    Here are the stories included in the book:

    ‘The Star’ by H G Wells is a stunning and terrifying story – one of his best – about a new star threatening to collide with the Earth.

    ‘A Martian Odyssey’ by Stanley Weinbaum is an adventurous and action-packed story of alien encounters on Mars.

    ‘The Diamond Lens’ by FitzJames O’Brien is a strange obsessive tale of microbiology and spiritualism, from an author I hadn’t heard of before.

    ‘Micromégas’ by Voltaire is a philosophical journey, which I appreciated rather than enjoyed.

    ‘The Mortal Immortal’ by Mary Shelley is a sorrowful story of alchemy and immortality with tones of her novel The Last Man.

    ‘A Tale of the Rugged Mountains’ by Edgar Allan Poe is a story of psychics and time travel, quite frightening as you’d expect from Poe.

    ‘The Automaton Ear’ by Florence McLandburgh is a very unusual and dark story of scientific obsession and mental illness, from another author I hadn’t heard of before.

    ‘The Tachypomp’ by Edward Page Mitchell is a mathematics themed story which I didn’t enjoy, although it does have an amusing tone.

    ‘The Colour Out of Space’ by H P Lovecraft is one of his most disturbing tales, although not one of my favourites, as it becomes repetitive towards the end.

    ‘To Hermann Stoffkraft, Ph.D., A Paradoxical Ode (After Shelley)’ by James Clerk Maxwell is a poem, which I didn’t really get and wasn’t sure why it was included, as the only poem in a collection of ‘stories’.

    ‘The Horror of the Heights’ by Arthur Conan Doyle is an exciting and sinister tale about what awaits aviators who fly too high.

    ‘Sultana’s Dream’ by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain is an early feminist utopian story which has interesting ideas but not much plot.

    ‘A Psychological Shipwreck’ by Ambrose Bierce is more supernatural than sci-fi and I didn’t have much opinion on it.

    ‘The Door in the Wall’ by H G Wells is a cleverly symbolic story which will make you think.

    Thank you to the publisher Pan Macmillan for the advance copy via NetGalley. The book will be published on 21st June.

  • Review of ‘Beyond Time’ edited by Mike Ashley

    If you could travel in time, would you visit the past or the future? I think I’d prefer the past. The future might be too frightening. I like time-travel stories, hence the appeal of this anthology of 13 stories dating from the ‘classic’ era of science fiction. Excepting one by H G Wells, the stories are not well-known today, so I was looking forward to discovering some ‘forgotten’ authors. There’s an introduction to the history of time-travel in fiction, plus mini introductions to each author. Although these were interesting, I didn’t think they were particularly well-written. There were some typos in the book too, suggesting that the stories needed to be edited more thoroughly.

    ‘The Clock That Went Backward’ by Edward Page Mitchell is a historical adventure into the siege of Leiden.

    ‘The Queer Story of Brownlow’s Newspaper’ by H G Wells has a paper from the future somehow delivered to a man who only has a scrap to prove it.

    ‘Omega’ by Amelia Reynolds Long is fascinating, with experiments sending people mentally through time, which allows them to physically transform into beings from the past and future.

    ‘The Book of Worlds’ by Miles J Bruer has somewhat incomprehensible science and maths, but is a warning about how looking into the bleak future can send you mad.

    ‘The Branches of Time’ by David R Daniels is a thought-provoking journey into the far future, an update on Wells’ The Time Machine.

    ‘The Reign of the Reptiles’ by Alan Connell is an excellent adventure story which engages with the evolution vs. creationism debate.

    ‘Friday the Nineteenth’ by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding is a well-written Groundhog Day-style comedy about a man and woman arranging to have an affair the next day, but which never happens because they keep reliving Friday. It predates Frederik Pohl’s ‘The Tunnel Under the World’ and is the earliest ‘time loop’ story I’ve read so far.

    ‘Look After the Strange Girl’ by J B Priestley focuses on the differences between pre- and post-World War generations but is very underwhelming.

    ‘Manna’ by Peter Phillips is an odd story about time-travelling monks who enjoy eating a new plant-based superfood from the future.

    ‘Tenth Time Around’ by J T McIntosh is a badly-dated romance in which an author keeps returning to the past to have another go at winning a woman’s heart.

    ‘The Shadow People’ by Arthur Sellings is an intriguing and sad tale of a couple from the future, where the world has ended. It reminded me of Ray Bradbury’s stories.

    ‘Thirty-Seven Times’ by E C Tubb is about a bullying professor, supposedly dead, haunting his assistant. They keep meeting at different points in time.

    ‘Dial ‘O’ for Operator’ by Robert Presslie. A good concept, of a telephone booth transported to the future, with a woman in distress calling the switchboard for help. Anti-climax ending, however.

    I enjoyed several of these stories very much, while others were mediocre. The publication years of the stories were rather uneven; 1 from the 1880s, 1 from the 1920s, 4 from the 1930s, 1 from the 1940s and 6 from the 1950s. I would have preferred a better range. Why include a single story from the 19th century? And were there no decent time-travel stories written during the forty years after that?

    I’m not sure if I’d recommend this anthology or not. Certainly it introduced me to some authors I’d never previously heard of. The selection was hit and miss, though.

    First published in 2019 by the British Library under their Science Fiction Classics imprint.