Wanderers of Time [collection]

This is sort of bog-standard mid-20th century sci-fi, with that mix of gee-whiz positivism and total blinkered of-its-timeness and little of Wyndham's later radical imaginativeness, but it's still quite fun because it was written in the thirties by a Brit, and that means that as opposed to all the smug can-do garbage that you get in, like, Asimov and Heinlein, here there are all the classic late-imperial tendencies: the Great Game, foreigners insidiously corrupting the green and pleasant isle, Nazis. Only this time the Great Game is humans vs. ants, the foreigners are corrupting by tricking English gardeners into growing huge puffball fungi that bounce around and take out humans with their EVIL SPORES, and the Nazis are in space. Rather!

The stories here were actually written in the 1930s, and in many ways are as dated, 'pulp' and ridiculous as one would expect. Otoh, I did thoroughly enjoy them. Wyndham was smart, creative, and underappreciated. These five are particularly delightful because they could have been dragged out to be novels, but were left as concise, quite tight stories.

"It is a funny thing that for most men the whitest conscience is no protection from some apprehension in the presence of police." (Ah, I'm not the only one!)

Mention of the Third Reich and Germany's movements towards aggressiveness: "They made a mess of 1914. They came a cropper in 1940. And now they're working up for it again." (I know nothing of history, but I do wonder what he imagined show more happening that would have stopped the Holocaust. Would that he'd been right.) show less

This is a short collection of stories that were written in the Golden Age, mostly 30's as far as I can tell.

For those of you not in the know, Wyndham wrote one of the first best horror/SF dystopias in 1951 called The Day of the Triffids, plummeting a stolid middle-class England into a world full of blind men and women (save a handful) living and dying in droves while man-eating plants like in The Little Shop of Horrors picks off whoever is left. The style, the excitement, and the quality are palpable.

These short stories here came out before then, and like most of the Golden Age SF that came out, its very dated by today's standards and some are outright passe. The time travel stuff, for example, is kinda wild and sometimes seems like show more carbon copies of all the others, while the space-travel stuff is usually pretty wild.

The breakdown:

Wanderers of Time - my least favorite. Basically, it's an undertow of time machines causing ripples and popping travelers out of time. Time to get off the isolated island after a shipwreck!

Derelict of Space - easily my favorite. A salvage operation, with rumors of treasure, becomes a kerfuffle when governments turn it into a black-flag operation and a PR nightmare that presages the opening salvos of WWII BEFORE WWII. It's absolutely nuts, not wild like some adventure, but scarily plausible every step. How perceptions and the BIG LIE can take over everyone's talking points and the truth gets lost in the old legend of lost treasure. You can guess what the lost treasure is. :)

Child of Power - very decent.
Pretty weird and scary sensitive child comes into extra senses in the modern '30's and is either used or not quite used by others. Mostly it's a character study of the kid from the parents' point of view. It's odd and a warning at the same time. Reminds me of Wyndham's later Chocky.

The Last Lunarians - okay first contact story. It's really more of a warning, but what kind of contact story isn't?

The Puff-ball Menace - my second-favorite story in the lot. Mycelium and bio-warfare in rural towns. Wild end. :)

Wyndham is no author to sneeze at. :) show less

Excellent writing, as usual from John Wyndham. Although dated (some stories pre-date WWII, they can also be scarily current- an attempt by Afghan zealots to declare biological warfare against England, for exapmle. This is a good one, and a good read.

This is a collection of John Wyndham short stories written under the pen name of John Beynon. These stories and others were written in the 1930s and 1940s and some were sold to the giant American pulp magazine market. They were perfect for the early SF pulps. It wasn't till after WWII that there were similar SF pulp magazines in Wyndham's England.
Wyndman was older and was publishing stories a decade ahead of the Classic SF masters like Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and Pohl. He was more a contemporary of Ray Cummings and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I really enjoyed these. They were fun and interesting. I like some of them better then some of his famous novels.

Five longish short stories from the 1930s by the author of [Day of the Triffids] when he was just starting to get published and still writing under various other names. Included are Wanderers of Time, Derelict of Space, Child of Power, The Last Lunerians, and The Puff Ball Menace. These are minor Wyndham, recommended for those who want to read all of his work or read early works which feed into his masterpieces ([Day of the Triffids] and [Chrysalids]).

There would be some great short films here.