[LIVE]: Intergalactic Wasabi Mix with snowdusk
Best–selling books written by very wealthy people are usually along the lines of “The Secrets of My Success” ― but this is a space–travel story!
This is regarded as the first “Gothic novel” of terror and suspense. I had trouble restraining my laughter all through.
Horace Walpole (1764)
For those who wish to follow along at home, the text is available on Project Gutenberg.
This book, published in 1913 (but also dated 1989, in accord with the story) to benefit the International Institute of Shanghai, was the generous gift of well-known leading SDF member smj. The author, alias John Gilbert Reid, was only 14 at the time of publication, & one supposes much of the work was written at least a year or two before that.
My plan is to present one chapter per show of this intriguing work, with something closer to our usual theme rounding out the show.
Continue reading “Pickwickians Abroad”This further sequel to A Princess of Mars and The Gods of Mars has no preface to explain how the author came into possession of Captain Carter’s story. Rather, it picks up directly where the previous book left off.
This is the immediate sequel to A Princess of Mars, relating the further adventures of John Carter after his death on Earth.
Everett Bleiler, in his monumental Science Fiction : The Early Years suggests that the “Great Marvels Series” of juvenile scientific-adventure novels, in which this was the eighth and next–to–last volume, was the first cloth–bound SF series in any language. The first instalment, Through the Air to the North Pole, or, The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch, appeared in 1906, and this one dates from 1929.
According to Bleiler, publishing magnate Edward Stratemeyer provided the plots to be fleshed out by writers under the Rockwood pseudonym, and for the first six books, the writer can be identified as Howard R Garis, but for this one it is unknown. Several of the other books in the series are available on Project Gutenberg, but not this one. Copyright is Cupples & Leon Co.
This work is pretty much contemporary in publication with The Moon Pool, and has some similarities, involving South Seas islands and lost races. It is, however, quite different in both tone and theme. The dedication to Lord Curzon is noteworthy (see below).
First half read 2019-02-03 ; about half of what remained, 2019-02-17, and finished 2019-03-03. (Video livestream recordings are available for two weeks.) This is a long one, for all that it represents an abridged edition. No unabridged version exists in English.
Willy Ley encountered this Mars story in a German translation, and, failing to find the English original (possibly hampered by looking for it under the title Beyond the Zodiac, but Percy Greg was apparently a well-known English author), considered that it might be actually German. The confusion was not helped by the fact that author Greg presents himself as translating a found manuscript. Sam Moskowitz considers it the genesis of the Mars romance so characteristic of the early period of modern science fiction.
Continue reading “Across the Zodiac : The Story of a Wrecked Record”
This novel was edited together from two novelettes (one with the same title, the other entitled The Airlords of Han) which appeared in 1928—29. The first part, in fact, was published in the same issue of Amazing Stories as the first part of The Skylark of Space. And that’s why I’ve chosen to read it now, rather than later.
There is also a 1978 version available, “specially revised and updated for the modern reader” (or rather, heavily rewritten) by of all people “noted science fiction critic and Hugo Award winning author Spider Robinson”. I missed my chance to ask him about this at the Kansas City Worldcon, where he was Guest of Honor.