Classics of Science Fiction

Posted on February 15, 2023 by jameswharris · 4 Comments

Can You Come Up With a Better Science Fictional Idea for This Cover Than They Did in 1929?

It’s surprising how often you see this cover on the internet. It’s even sold as a print, fridge magnet, and puzzle. I think the artwork is both ugly and bizarre. Why would people be wearing helmets with video screens for the faceplates? To find out why, I went and read “Into the Subconscious” by Ray Avery Myers, the cover story in the October 1929 issue of Science Wonder Stories. The explanation was bonkers.

Mad scientist Doc Macey has invented a way to view the past. I’ve always thought it would be fantastic if we could see the past, but I seriously doubt Doc Macey’s technique will ever work. He theorizes that humans have memories of all their past ancestors, including all the animal stages we’ve passed through in the history of evolution. I can see how Myers could think this up this idea for a science fiction story, but wouldn’t it involve too much information to transfer from generation to generation? Anyway, Doc Macey uses hypnotism and a special ray he discovered to read those memories and project them onto a screen. The story gets even crazier when he explains why different human body types are key to delving into specific animals in the past.

In the course of the experiment, his test subject remembers being a Neanderthal but eventually regressed to remembering being an amphibian during the time of the dinosaurs. We see that in the cover painting. You’d think this idea is too whacky for anyone to believe, but in the 1950s it was the basis of a bestselling “nonfiction” book, The Search for Bridey Murphy. The same idea was used for a 1965 Broadway play, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, which was remade into a 1970 Barbra Streisand film of the same name. There is a rather long article on Wikipedia about past life regression.

Luckily, I believe such nonsense is no longer accepted even by kooks, but who knows. Still, I’m intrigued by Frank R. Paul’s cover showing people with video-screen faceplates. VR goggles, glasses, and helmets are a big thing right now, but their screens face the wearer. Why would a screen face outward so others can see? This got me thinking.

I watch a lot of YouTube videos. And to me, the best way to explain anything is to show a video. What if we developed a language based on videos? Instead of using words we just projected videos. Videos we recorded ourselves from our own experiences, videos given to us that other people have recorded, or videos of things we’ve studied. That way, instead of telling people in words about a horrendous car wreck you saw happening on the way home from work, you just project the video of what you saw.

I do think my idea has possibilities.

What reason can you come up with for wearing video screen faces?

James Wallace Harris, 2/15/23

Posted on February 13, 2023February 13, 2023 by jameswharris · 2 Comments

Why Do Science Fiction Stories Always Sound Stupid When I Try To Tell People About Them Out Loud?

Yesterday while Linda and I were telling each other over the phone what we’ve read this past week I described to her the basic plot and ending to “For I Am A Jealous People!” by Lester del Rey. My description of the story went over with an embarrassing silent response. This happens to me quite often when I describe the plot of a science fiction story to other people. Of course, even while I struggle to explain my enthusiasm for these stories I often hear how stupid they sound with my own ears. Should this tell me something?

“For I Am A Jealous People!” first appeared in Star Short Novels edited by Frederik Pohl in 1954, but I read it in Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction: Invasions edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh. Probably the cheapest way to read “For I Am A Jealous People!” is to buy The Ninth Science Fiction Megapack from Amazon for 99 cents. I don’t see it anywhere online to read.

Reading “For I Am A Jealous People!” after reading and reviewing “Though Dreamers Die” revealed that Lester del Rey had improved greatly as a writer from 1944 to 1954. In my review of “Though Dreamers Die,” I complained that it was all ideas with no character or plot development. The heart of “For I Am A Jealous People!” is solid character development well integrated into a tight dramatic plot. In fact, this might be the best story I’ve read by del Rey.

So, why isn’t “For I Am A Jealous People!” more famous and reprinted? Well, if I told you the kicker of the story you might respond with the same dumb silence that Linda gave me. I’m torn as to whether or not I should tell you what happens. It’s a very cool idea if we don’t discuss it verbally. It’s even quite philosophical if you have the background reading to appreciate the story.

It helps to know The Old Testament. It also helps to know about how the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Romans conquered the Israelites and Jerusalem. It also helps to know about how God directed the Jews to destroy various Canaanite cities. I’ll give you a little hint. Lester del Rey compares an alien invasion of Earth to the Jews being a conquered people and how they wondered about God forsaking them.

“For I Am A Jealous People!” is about the Reverend Amos Strong whose town is ravaged by invading aliens from another star system. Amos interprets the invasion as it unfolds by ministering to his flock, praying, interpreting the Bible, and asking God how could this be happening. Eventually, Amos is captured and escapes, but before he can get away, he sees the aliens worshipping at an altar. And it’s a very special altar and what he sees blows his mind.

Del Rey does an amazing job developing Reverend Amos Strong. The aliens and other science-fictional elements of this story aren’t the reason why the story is good. It’s good because of Amos Strong. He’s just as developed as Charlie Gordon in “Flowers for Algernon,” which is the standard I used to judge del Rey last time. Del Rey is no great literary writer, at least compared to his literary writer contemporaries. But for this 1954 science fiction novella, he does a fine job at writing a character-driven SF story.

Then, why isn’t “For I Am A Jealous People!” more famous? If I told you the ending, especially out loud, it would sound stupid. But I think if you read the story, the ending would work very well. Del Rey built a solid foundation for his ending. And I think “For I Am A Jealous People!” is one of the better attempts at integrating religion and science fiction.

To answer the question I asked in my title, I believe it’s because science fiction themes are entertaining speculations for reading, but when considered in the real world they just sound silly. Hearing science-fictional ideas used in stories out loud feels like listening to the guys on The Big Bang Theory argue over a comic book. Science fiction themes are weird and wacky like the metaphysical conversations of potheads. They are closer to dream logic than reality.

But if I was a judge like in the Olympic games back in the 1950s, I’d hold up a card with 9.1 for “For I Am A Jealous People!” I believe del Rey pulled out quite a performance in the science fiction short story writing competition.

I should also say, most stories from The Bible sound pretty damn silly when discussed out loud too.

James Wallace Harris, 2/13/23

Posted on February 11, 2023February 11, 2023 by jameswharris · 3 Comments

“Though Dreamers Die” by Lester del Rey

Ideas are the building blocks of science fiction — that’s obvious when you start categorizing science fiction by themes. I’ve been getting into old science fiction theme anthologies and I recently ordered the ten volumes of Asimov’s Wonder Worlds of Science Fiction anthology series edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh. The first story I read by randomly flipping through the first eight volumes I received in the mail was “Though Dreamers Die” by Lester del Rey. It was in volume 9, covering Robots. However, “Though Dreamers Die” first appeared in the February 1944 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction. Read it here.

Lester del Rey isn’t well remembered today, except maybe for “Helen O’Loy” another robot story that was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One edited by Robert Silverberg. “Though Dreamers Die” was anthologized in two significant anthologies about robots The Robot and the Man edited by Martin Greenberg and Machines That Think edited by Isaac Asimov, Patricia S. Warrick, and Martin H. Greenberg. Del Rey’s daring story “For I Am a Jealous People!” is included in the 10th volume of this series, covering Invasions. I can’t believe his story “The Day is Done” wasn’t included in the 6th volume for Neanderthals.

To explain why I said ideas are the building blocks of science fiction, I’m going to have to describe the plot of “Though Dreamers Die” in detail, giving all the spoilers. The story is included in the volume for robots but it could have been included in many different theme anthologies.

“Though Dreamers Die” begins with a man named Jorgen regaining consciousness. We’re given some backstory in the narrative. Humans have been wiped out by a plague on Earth, thus we have both a Post-Apocalypse and a Last Man story and maybe even a Dying Earth story. The Dying Earth theme usually involved the far future when Earth is about to be destroyed. Sometimes Dying Earth means the planet is dying, and other times it suggests the human race is dying. Maybe we should just call it End of Humanity themed.

Jorgen is waking up from Suspended Animation or Cold Sleep, another trope of science fiction. In this 1944 story, del Rey has Interstellar Travel limited to the speed of light. Before the plague had nearly wiped out humanity, humans had tried to Colonize Mars, but the plague had found its way there too. So a new design of spaceship was built to be a Space Ark to go to the stars. The humans were put to sleep during the long voyage of Interstellar Exploration which lasted 90 years. The ship was manned by Intelligent Robots who during the voyage developed Artificial Gravity and Controlled Interia.

After Jorgen is revived he is told that all the other colonists aboard the ship had died of the plague and he was the only one immune. Jorgen works with five robots that are named One, Two, Three, Four, and Five. They have found a New Earth. It turned out to be a paradise, much like Earth, but with no intelligent life. Jorgen suffers from an Existential Despair in Space of being the Last of Our Species. Robot Five describes to Jorgen how he imagined the new world becoming if humans had survived. This is when Jorgen realizes that Robots are equal to Humans, and Robots are our Descendants and that he shouldn’t despair.

Jorgen tells the robots they should build a Robot Civilization but robot Five says robots could never be happy without humans. This harkens back to Clifford Simak, that Robots are our Faithful Companions. Jorgen orders the robots to lie down and to Memory Wipe everything they know about humans. Jorgen leaves in the spaceship. Before he goes he decides to leave a drawing of the Solar system hoping the robots would one day find the Original Home of Humanity.

“Though Dreamers Die” is overly sentimental and crudely told, it does provide a great deal of wonder. I expect back in 1944 its ideas created quite an impact. And if you read the story closely, you could find many more science-fictional ideas that have become cliche over the years. The story isn’t dramatic. It’s just an unfolding of interlocking concepts. This was common back in the early days of science fiction.

As science fiction evolved, writers had to weave science-fiction ideas into dramatic scenes and intricate plots. That was why Robert A. Heinlein made such an impact when he began publishing in 1939. Lester del Rey achieved this in his novella “Nerves,” which was later expanded into a novel. However, that story has become dated because of our knowledge of atomic energy.

Now that I’m reading all these old science-fiction anthologies I’m noticing how science-fictional ideas were used to construct science-fictional stories. Science fiction that combined ideas and good storytelling techniques didn’t really emerge until the 1950s. A great example is “Fondly Fahrenheit” by Alfred Bester or “The Moon Moth” by Jack Vance when the characters and storytelling became way more important than the SF idea.

Even today, science fiction often feels like a writer came up with an idea and then invented characters and a plot to showcase the idea. We never feel Jorgen is a real person. A counter-example is Charlie Gordon from “Flowers for Algernon.” That story has several science-fictional ideas in it, but what we remember is Charlie and what he felt. Lester del Rey tells us what Jorgen felt, but we never experience his emotions as we do with Charlie Gordon. However, I thought the passage beginning with “Breakfast lay beside him…” was quite good for del Rey at the time.

I wonder how a modern writer would write this same story today? What if it was just one scene, the parting scene, and it had the dramatic impact of the “Tears in the Rain” scene from Blade Runner? With so few words we feel deeply for Roy Batty. And we remember that feeling for the rest of our lives. Could someone make us feel for Jorgen as we do for Charlie Gordon?

Just think of all the ideas I will find in these anthologies, but how many of the stories will have sophisticated storytelling and deep emotional impact? I’ll see and let you know.

James Wallace Harris, 2/10/23

Posted on February 6, 2023 by jameswharris · 3 Comments

Thinking About Apocalyptic Fiction

Lately, I’ve been reading about the end of the world as we know it. Why is that such a popular fictional theme? Does it reveal a sick side of my personality? Back in 1963, Bob Dylan sang “Talkin’ World War III Blues,” where he dreamed he was the only person left on Earth. A few of the lines that have always stuck with me:

Well, now time passed and now it seems

Everybody’s having them dreams

Everybody sees themselves

Walkin’ around with no one else

No, it wasn’t true everyone was fantasizing about being the last person on Earth, but there sure were a lot of science fiction stories and movies about the end of the world. And I have to admit, I also daydreamed about being the last person on Earth too. I’ve always wondered if many of us, and I include myself, didn’t secretly wish they had the Earth all to themselves. One way of looking at post-apocalyptic novels is to divide them into cozy apocalypses and nightmares. The dividing line is decided by how many people are left. In Mad Max or The Last of Us, there are still too many damn people to make surviving the end world an appealing Walter Mitty escape.

To me, the ideal apocalyptic novel to actually want to experience is Earth Abides by George R. Stewart. The runner-up is Survivors, a BBC television series from 1975. But if I was honest, what I really picture is being Henry Bemis in the famous Twilight Zone episode, “Time Enough At Last,” but not breaking my glasses. Actually, it wouldn’t matter to me because I’m nearsighted and read with books inches from my face. If you haven’t seen that iconic episode, Henry Bemis is the last man on Earth with all the time in the world to read books without being bothered by other people — until he breaks his glasses.

Both Earth Abides and Survivors cover all the philosophical questions about the human race starting over from scratch. It helps to have read or seen Connections by James Burke, a nonfiction book about how hard it would be to rebuild civilization. It’s really a fascinating problem worthy of endless speculation. Earth Abides and Survivors deal with a very similar apocalypse, one where probably less than 1 out of 10,000 people survive, which in a world of 8 billion would mean 800,000 people or in a city of 1 million, 100 people. I believe in the show they suggest only a few thousand survive in all of England. That’s a survival rate of .01 percent.

The bubonic plague at its worse is estimated to kill between 30 and 50 percent. So stories, where very few people survive, probably aren’t realistic. We’re a tough species to wipe out. It is estimated that WWII killed 3% of the population and we bounced back rather quickly and thrived. Of course, in The Bible, Noah and his family were the only survivors of a worldwide flood. Flood stories are much older than The Bible, and are probably the origin of post-apocalyptic fiction. If you go back in time and explore other cultures you can find stories where humans are nearly wiped out, or completely wiped out, or the Earth is completely destroyed. This represents different levels of apocalypses.

In other words, it will take a lot to kill off the human race. Even the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs didn’t end life on Earth. Some writers have written stories about solar catastrophes that fried our world or wrote about the Moon or a comet slamming into our planet, or even alien invaders blowing us up. Those post-apocalyptic stories deal with starting over on another planet. The first one I read of this kind was When Worlds Collide and its sequel After Worlds Collide by Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie.

We can call these stories Starting Over Apocalypses or End of the World stories. These are different from Dying Earth stories, which imagine life in the very far future when our planet slowly passes away and the last remains of life cling still. I rather enjoy that theme too. (No, I’m not depressed.)

However, the post-apocalyptic stories I like best are the ones where a few people survive a plague or a war, and they must rebuild society from scratch. My favorites are the books Earth Abides, which I’ve mentioned, and The Hopkins Manuscript by R. C. Sherriff which I reviewed, and the TV series Survivors, which I’ve reviewed before. They have a similar appeal to Robinson Crusoe-type stories (The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss or The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne), and they also have the related appeal of first colonizers to other planet stories. Think of Tunnel in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein or Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

I believe we can call these post-apocalyptic stories Apocalypse Survivor Stories or Last People on Earth Stories.

However, most post-apocalyptic stories are about the aftermath of political upheavals, wars, catastrophes, plagues, or alien invasions, where a good portion of the population survives. These stories are about how society changes and people have to live under new norms. Most climate science fiction is of this type. Or living under alien occupation after being conquered. Most of the stories in the post-apocalyptic anthologies I listed the other day are of this type. A good example is The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett where people have become anti-science and anti-technology and revert to Amish-style living after a nuclear war.

Some of these stories could also be called dystopian stories and it’s hard to distinguish between the two. Writers often use some kind of apocalypse to world-build their dystopia. I believe the appeal of reading dystopias is identifying with characters that want to overthrow the dystopia. While the appeal of reading gloomy post-apocalyptic stories is imagining all the horrible things that could happen to society. I’m sure it would be interesting to psychoanalyze readers as to why they consume fiction of either theme. I believe for most YA dystopias it’s the vicarious thrill of being a revolutionary. I call this type of story Blows Against the Empire, which explains the popularity of Star Wars. Young people love to rebel against the status quo.

I call the kind of apocalyptic stories like those that predict life after significant climate change, economic collapse, the AI singularity, etc. If This Goes On Warnings.

As I try to read all those post-apocalyptic anthologies I will probably find other types to classify. Maybe I’ll even keep notes and makes charts and graphs.

James Wallace Harris, 2/6/23

Posted on January 27, 2023January 27, 2023 by jameswharris · 26 Comments

End-of-the-World Anthologies

Our reading group on Facebook is considering reading a science fiction theme anthology and I thought I’d look up all the end-of-the-world anthologies devoted the apocalyptic science fiction.

1956: The End of the World edited by Donald A. Wollheim

The Year of the Jackpot • (1952) • novelette by Robert A. Heinlein
Last Night of Summer • (1954) • short story by Alfred Coppel
Impostor • (1953) • short story by Philip K. Dick
Rescue Party • (1946) • novelette by Arthur C. Clarke
Omega • (1932) • short story by Amelia Reynolds Long
In the World’s Dusk • (1936) • short story by Edmond Hamilton

This old 1956 paperback is kind of expensive to buy, so not really practical for a group read. We need books that are readily available in libraries or are cheap to buy new or used.

1982: The Last Man on Earth edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh

Introduction (The Last Man on Earth) • (1982) • essay by Isaac Asimov
The Underdweller • (1974) • short story by William F. Nolan (a variant of Small World 1957)
Flight to Forever • (1950) • novella by Poul Anderson
Trouble with Ants • [City] • (1951) • novelette by Clifford D. Simak (a variant of The Simple Way)
The Coming of the Ice • (1926) • short story by G. Peyton Wertenbaker
The Most Sentimental Man • (1957) • short story by Evelyn E. Smith
Eddie for Short • (1953) • short story by Wallace West
Knock • (1948) • short story by Fredric Brown
Original Sin • (1946) • short story by S. Fowler Wright
A Man Spekith • (1969) • novelette by Richard Wilson
In the World’s Dusk • (1936) • short story by Edmond Hamilton
Kindness • (1944) • short story by Lester del Rey
Lucifer • (1964) • short story by Roger Zelazny
Resurrection • (1949) • short story by A. E. van Vogt (variant of The Monster 1948)
The Second-Class Citizen • (1963) • short story by Damon Knight
Day of Judgment • (1946) • short story by Edmond Hamilton
Continuous Performance • (1974) • short story by Gordon Eklund
The New Reality • (1950) • novelette by Charles L. Harness

I’d love it if we voted this one in, but again, it’s out-of-print and too expensive to buy used.

1985: Beyond Armageddon edited by Walter M. Miller Jr. and Martin H. Greenberg

Case 101: Ch’iu-Ch’iu’s Firestorm • poem by uncredited
Alibi • poem by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Forewarning (an Introduction) • essay by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Salvador • (1984) • short story by Lucius Shepard
The Store of the Worlds • (1959) • short story by Robert Sheckley
The Big Flash • (1969) • novelette by Norman Spinrad
Lot • [David Jimmon] • (1953) • novelette by Ward Moore
Day at the Beach • (1959) • short story by Carol Emshwiller
The Wheel • (1952) • short story by John Wyndham
Jody After the War • (1972) • short story by Edward Bryant
The Terminal Beach • (1964) • novelette by J. G. Ballard
Tomorrow’s Children • (1947) • novelette by Poul Anderson and F. N. Waldrop
Heirs Apparent • (1954) • novelette by Robert Abernathy
A Master of Babylon • (1966) • novelette by Edgar Pangborn
Game Preserve • (1957) • short story by Rog Phillips
By the Waters of Babylon • (1937) • short story by Stephen Vincent Benét
There Will Come Soft Rains • (1950) • short story by Ray Bradbury
To the Chicago Abyss • (1963) • short story by Ray Bradbury
Lucifer • (1964) • short story by Roger Zelazny
Eastward Ho! • (1958) • short story by William Tenn
The Feast of Saint Janis • (1980) • novelette by Michael Swanwick
“If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth …” • (1951) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke
Case 113: Ch’iu-Ch’iu’s Wow • poem by uncredited
A Boy and His Dog • [Vic and Blood • 2] • (1969) • novella by Harlan Ellison
My Life in the Jungle • (1985) • short story by Jim Aikin

This looks wonderful. Again, out of print. I wonder if I could convince several people to track down a used copy? That’s the weakness of the group. Even though we have hundreds of members, very few members join in the reading and discussion. Participating is depended on the availability of the anthology and I think the age of the stories. I feel most of our members prefer newer stories, while I prefer older ones. There are quite a few copies at ABEbooks for under $10 including shipping.

2010: The End of the World edited by Michael Kelahan

Introduction • essay by Michael Kelahan
Darkness • (2001) • poem by Lord George Gordon Byron [as by Lord Byron]
The Last Man • (1826) • short story by Anonymous
The Comet • (1839) • short story by S. Austin, Jr.
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion • (1839) • short story by Edgar Allan Poe
Earth’s Holocaust • (1844) • short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Into the Sun • [Into the Sun • 1] • (1882) • short story by Robert Duncan Milne
Plucked from the Burning • [Into the Sun • 2] • (1882) • short story by Robert Duncan Milne
For the Ahkoond • (1909) • short story by Ambrose Bierce
The Crack of Doom • (1895) • novel by Robert Cromie
The Star • (1897) • short story by H. G. Wells
The Thames Valley Catastrophe • (1897) • short story by Grant Allen
A Corner in Lightning • (1898) • short story by George Griffith
Within an Ace of the End of the World • (1900) • short story by Robert Barr
The Last Days of Earth • (1901) • short story by Geo. C. Wallis
The End of the World • (1903) • short story by Simon Newcomb
Finis • (1906) • short story by Frank Lillie Pollock
The Scarlet Plague • (1912) • novella by Jack London
The Last Sunset • (1907) • short story by Edwin A. Start
The Machine Stops • (1909) • novelette by E. M. Forster
The Poison Belt • [Professor Challenger • 2] • (1913) • novel by Arthur Conan Doyle
Nyarlathotep • [Dream Cycle] • (1920) • short fiction by H. P. Lovecraft

If the group was more scholarly I think this would be a good choice because it goes further back in time, which is interesting to me.

2016: This Way to the End Times edited by Robert Silverberg

Editor’s Introduction (The Eternal Adam) • essay by Robert Silverberg
The Eternal Adam • (1957) • novelette by Jules Verne and Michel Verne
Editor’s Introduction (The Last Generation) • essay by Robert Silverberg
The Last Generation: A Story of the Future • (1908) • novelette by James Elroy Flecker
Editor’s Introduction (Finis) • essay by Robert Silverberg
Finis • (1906) • short story by Frank Lillie Pollock
Editor’s Introduction (The Coming of the Ice) • essay by Robert Silverberg
The Coming of the Ice • (1926) • short story by G. Peyton Wertenbaker
Editor’s Introduction (N Day) • essay by Robert Silverberg
N Day • (1946) • short story by R. S. Richardson [as by Philip Latham]
Editor’s Introduction (Guyal of Sfere) • essay by Robert Silverberg
Guyal of Sfere • [Dying Earth] • (1950) • novella by Jack Vance
Editor’s Introduction (A Pail of Air) • essay by Robert Silverberg
A Pail of Air • (1951) • short story by Fritz Leiber
Editor’s Introduction (Who Can Replace a Man?) • essay by Robert Silverberg
Who Can Replace a Man? • (1958) • short story by Brian W. Aldiss
Editor’s Introduction (Heresies of the Huge God) • essay by Robert Silverberg
Heresies of the Huge God • (1966) • short story by Brian W. Aldiss
Editor’s Introduction (The New Atlantis) • essay by Robert Silverberg
The New Atlantis • (1975) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
Editor’s Introduction (When We Went to See the End of the World) • essay by Robert Silverberg
When We Went to See the End of the World • (1972) • short story by Robert Silverberg
Editor’s Introduction (The Wind and the Rain) • essay by Robert Silverberg
The Wind and the Rain • (1973) • short story by Robert Silverberg
Editor’s Introduction (The Screwfly Solution) • essay by Robert Silverberg
The Screwfly Solution • (1977) • novelette by James Tiptree, Jr.
Editor’s Introduction (After-Images) • essay by Robert Silverberg
After-Images • (1983) • short story by Malcolm Edwards
Editor’s Introduction (Daisy, in the Sun) • essay by Robert Silverberg
Daisy, in the Sun • (1979) • short story by Connie Willis
Editor’s Introduction (Three Days After) • essay by Robert Silverberg
Three Days After • (2014) • short story by Karen Haber
Editor’s Introduction (The Rain at the End of the World) • essay by Robert Silverberg
The Rain at the End of the World • (1999) • short story by Dale Bailey
Editor’s Introduction (The End of the World as We Know It) • essay by Robert Silverberg
The End of the World as We Know It • (2004) • short story by Dale Bailey
Editor’s Introduction (Final Exam) • essay by Robert Silverberg
Final Exam • (2012) • short story by Megan Arkenberg
Editor’s Introduction (Prayers to the Sun by a Dying Person) • essay by Robert Silverberg
Prayers to the Sun by a Dying Person • short story by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
Editor’s Introduction (Last and First Men) • essay by Robert Silverberg
Last and First Men (excerpt) • [Last and First Men] • (1966) • short fiction by Olaf Stapledon

This one is in print, $10 for the Kindle edition and $20 for the paperback. Plus it has introductions by Silverberg which are always worth reading.

2010: The End of the World edited by Martin H. Greenberg

Dancing Through the Apocalypse • essay by Robert Silverberg
The Hum • (2007) • short story by Rick Hautala
Salvador • (1984) • short story by Lucius Shepard
We Can Get Them for You Wholesale • (1984) • short story by Neil Gaiman
The Big Flash • (1969) • novelette by Norman Spinrad
Kindness • (1944) • short story by Lester del Rey
The Underdweller • (1974) • short story by William F. Nolan
Lucifer • (1964) • short story by Roger Zelazny
To the Storming Gulf • (1985) • novella by Gregory Benford
The Feast of Saint Janis • (1980) • novelette by Michael Swanwick
The Wheel • (1952) • short story by John Wyndham
Jody After the War • (1972) • short story by Edward Bryant
Salvage • [The Mormon Sea] • (1986) • novelette by Orson Scott Card
By Fools Like Me • (2007) • short story by Nancy Kress
The Store of the Worlds • (1959) • short story by Robert Sheckley
Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels • (1973) • short story by George R. R. Martin
If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth … • (1951) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke
Afterward • (2006) • short story by John Helfers
When We Went to See the End of the World • (1972) • short story by Robert Silverberg
Flight to Forever • (1950) • novella by Poul Anderson

Another anthology that’s available to buy. It even has an audiobook edition. That’s a big plus for me.

2010: The Mammoth Book of the End of the World edited by Mike Ashley

The End of All Things • (2010) • essay by Mike Ashley
When We Went to See the End of the World • (1972) • short story by Robert Silverberg
The End of the World • (2002) • short story by Sushma Joshi
The Clockwork Atom Bomb • (2005) • short story by Dominic Green
Bloodletting • (1994) • short story by Kate Wilhelm
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth • (2006) • novelette by Cory Doctorow
The Rain at the End of the World • (1999) • short story by Dale Bailey
The Flood • (1998) • short story by Linda Nagata
The End of the World Show • (2006) • short story by David Barnett
Fermi and Frost • (1985) • short story by Frederik Pohl
Sleepover • (2010) • novelette by Alastair Reynolds
The Last Sunset • (1996) • short story by Geoffrey A. Landis
Moments of Inertia • (2004) • novelette by William Barton
The Books • (2010) • short story by Kage Baker
Pallbearer • (2010) • novella by Robert Reed
And the Deep Blue Sea • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
The Meek • (2004) • short story by Damien Broderick
The Man Who Walked Home • (1972) • short story by James Tiptree, Jr.
A Pail of Air • (1951) • short story by Fritz Leiber
Guardians of the Phoenix • (2010) • novelette by Eric Brown
Life in the Anthropocene • (2010) • short story by Paul Di Filippo
Terraforming Terra • (1998) • novelette by Jack Williamson
World Without End • (2010) • short story by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
The Children of Time • (2005) • short story by Stephen Baxter
The Star Called Wormwood • (2004) • short story by Elizabeth Counihan

Again, out of print, but it is available at ABEbooks.

2019: The End of the World and Other Catastrophes edited by Mike Ashley

For some reason, ISFDB.org doesn’t have a table of contents for Mike Ashley’s latest end-of-the-world anthology. But you can read about the stories in The BSFA Review. This is another anthology with older stories. That’s great for seeing how the theme evolved.

2010: The Last Man Anthology edited by Hunter Liguore

Timeline of Catastrophe, 2000-2010 • essay by uncredited
Snowmelt • short story by Lane Ashfeldt
Teddy and the Last Girl of Brighton Street • short story by William Wood
The End of the Beginning • poem by George Moore (I)
The Paperless Doctrine of 2152 • short story by Aaron M. Wilson
Origins • short story by Liz R. F. Coley
Ozymandias • (1818) • poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Omega Museum • short story by Jaleta Clegg
Turning In • poem by Caitlin Kenzie Scott
Fire and Ice • (1920) • poem by Robert Frost
Under Erasure • short story by Murray Leder
The Star • (1897) • short story by H. G. Wells
Depletion • poem by Mark Brandon Allen
Old Gods at the Armageddon • short story by Jeffery Ryan Long
Helen of Troy • (1911) • poem by Sara Teasdale
Suicide of the World • short fiction by Andre Saglio
Nuclear Winter • poem by Nicolas Samaras
Gip • short story by Mark Taylor (I)
There Will Come Soft Rains • [The Martian Chronicles] • (1950) • short story by Ray Bradbury
The Last Man on Earth • short story by Big Jim Williams
Eclipse • poem by Alicia A. Curtis [as by Alicia Curtis]
The Last Day of Sanity • short story by Darryll B. Snyder
Immutable • poem by Janelle Schwartz
The Last Unicorn • short story by H. L. Liguore
The Last Hours • (1919) • poem by D. H. Lawrence
Cassandra • (1978) • short story by C. J. Cherryh
Cee-Cee was My Dog • poem by John Dudek
水 (mi)? • short story by Jack Frey
My Blue Ribbon Pies • short story by Jacquelyn Fedyk
The Masque of the Red Death • (1845) • short story by Edgar Allan Poe
Finley’s Last Chapter • short fiction by Alexandra Wolfe
Life of a Child • short story by Samantha Boyette
The End of the World • (1911) • essay by Hilaire Belloc
Arturo • short story by M. Sullivan
Going Home • short story by Kodilynn Calhoun
Life Gaped Open • poem by Alan Gann
The Scarlet Plague • (1912) • novella by Jack London
The Last of Everything • poem by Cassandra Consiglio
Corridors • (1982) • short story by Barry N. Malzberg
The Last of the Great Coffee Shop Philosophers • short story by Koos Kombuis
Last Call • short story by Mark Edwards

This anthology seems to be more historical and covers territory outside of the science fiction genre. It’s not something the group would read but I think I’ll track down a copy.

2012: After edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

The Segment • short story by Genevieve Valentine
After the Cure • novelette by Carrie Ryan
Valedictorian • [The Trojan Girl • 2] • short story by N. K. Jemisin
Visiting Nelson • novelette by Katherine Langrish
All I Know of Freedom • short story by Carol Emshwiller
The Other Elder • juvenile • [Across the Universe] • short story by Beth Revis
The Great Game at the End of the World • novelette by Matthew Kressel
Reunion • short story by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Blood Drive • short story by Jeffrey Ford
Reality Girl • novelette by Richard Bowes
How Th’irth Wint Rong by Hapless Joey @ homeskool.gov • short story by Gregory Maguire
Rust with Wings • [7th Sigma • 0.5] • short story by Steven Gould
Faint Heart • novelette by Sarah Rees Brennan
The Easthound • (2012) • short story by Nalo Hopkinson
Gray • poem by Jane Yolen
Before • short story by Carolyn Dunn
Fake Plastic Trees • novelette by Caitlín R. Kiernan?
You Won’t Feel a Thing • [Shade’s Children milieu] • short story by Garth Nix
The Marker • short story by Cecil Castellucci

This is an original anthology that focuses on the post-apocalypse. I’m not sure if the group has ever read an original anthology.

2008: Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams

The End of the Whole Mess • (1986) • novelette by Stephen King
Salvage • [The Mormon Sea] • (1986) • novelette by Orson Scott Card
The People of Sand and Slag • (2004) • novelette by Paolo Bacigalupi
Bread and Bombs • (2003) • short story by M. Rickert
How We Got in Town and Out Again • (1996) • novelette by Jonathan Lethem
Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels • (1973) • short story by George R. R. Martin
Waiting for the Zephyr • (2002) • short story by Tobias S. Buckell
Never Despair • (1997) • short story by Jack McDevitt
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth • (2006) • novelette by Cory Doctorow
The Last of the O-Forms • (2002) • short story by James Van Pelt
Still Life with Apocalypse • (2002) • short story by Richard Kadrey
Artie’s Angels • (2001) • short story by Catherine Wells
Judgment Passed • novelette by Jerry Oltion
Mute • (2002) • short story by Gene Wolfe
Inertia • (1990) • novelette by Nancy Kress
And the Deep Blue Sea • (2005) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
Speech Sounds • (1983) • short story by Octavia E. Butler
Killers • (2006) • short story by Carol Emshwiller
Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus • (1988) • novelette by Neal Barrett, Jr.
The End of the World as We Know It • (2004) • short story by Dale Bailey
A Song Before Sunset • (1976) • short story by David Grigg
Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of Purple Flowers • (2007) • novelette by John Langan

Another title that’s in print and available on ebook and audio.

2015: Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams

The Tamarisk Hunter • (2006) • short story by Paolo Bacigalupi
Deep Blood Kettle • (2013) • short story by Hugh Howey
Animal Husbandry • (2009) • short fiction by Seanan McGuire
“… For a Single Yesterday” • (1975) • novelette by George R. R. Martin
Chislehurst Messiah • (2011) • short story by Lauren Beukes
Colliding Branes • (2009) • short story by Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling
Ellie • (1995) • novelette by Jack McDevitt
Foundation • [Razorland • 0.5] • (2012) • short story by Ann Aguirre
Beat Me Daddy (Eight to the Bar) • (2002) • short story by Cory Doctorow
A Beginner’s Guide to Survival Before, During, and After the Apocalypse • (2013) • short story by Christopher Barzak
Wondrous Days • (2009) • short story by Genevieve Valentine
Dreams in Dust • (2012) • short story by D. Thomas Minton
By Fools Like Me • (2007) • short story by Nancy Kress
Jimmy’s Roadside Cafe • (2008) • short story by Ramsey Shehadeh
The Elephants of Poznan • (2000) • novelette by Orson Scott Card
The Postman • [The Postman] • (1982) • novella by David Brin
When We Went to See the End of the World • (1972) • short story by Robert Silverberg
The Revelation of Morgan Stern • (2013) • short story by Christie Yant
Final Exam • (2012) • short story by Megan Arkenberg
A Flock of Birds • (2002) • short story by James Van Pelt
Patient Zero • (2000) • short story by Tananarive Due
Soulless in His Sight • (2012) • short fiction by Milo James Fowler
Outer Rims • (2011) • short story by Toiya Kristen Finley
Advertising at the End of the World • (2009) • short story by Keffy R. M. Kehrli
How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth • (2007) • short story by Rachel Swirsky
Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back • (1986) • short story by Joe R. Lansdale
After the Apocalypse • (2011) • short story by Maureen F. McHugh
The Traditional • (2013) • short story by Maria Dahvana Headley
Monstro • (2012) • short story by Junot Díaz
Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince • (2013) • short story by Jake Kerr

Also, still in print including ebook and audio.

2019: Wastelands: The New Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams

Bullet Point • short fiction by Elizabeth Bear
The Red Thread • (2016) • short story by Sofia Samatar
Expedition 83 • short fiction by Wendy N. Wagner
The Last to Matter • (2018) • novelette by Adam-Troy Castro
Not This War, Not This World • short story by Jonathan Maberry
Where Would You Be Now • [The Bannerless Saga] • novelette by Carrie Vaughn (variant of Where Would You Be Now? 2018)
The Elephants’ Crematorium • (2018) • short story by Timothy Mudie
Bones of Gossamer • short fiction by Hugh Howey
As Good As New • (2014) • short story by Charlie Jane Anders
One Day Only • short fiction by Tananarive Due
Black, Their Regalia • (2016) • short story by Darcie Little Badger
The Plague • (2013) • short story by Ken Liu
Four Kittens • short fiction by Jeremiah Tolbert
Eyes of the Flood • short fiction by Susan Jane Bigelow
The Last Garden • (2017) • novelette by Jack Skillingstead
Through Sparks in Morning’s Dawn • short fiction by Tobias S. Buckell
Cannibal Acts • (2017) • short story by Maureen F. McHugh
Echo • short fiction by Veronica Roth
Shooting the Apocalypse • (2014) • novelette by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Hungry Earth • (2013) • short story by Carmen Maria Machado
Last Chance • (2017) • novelette by Nicole Kornher-Stace
A Series of Images from a Ruined City at the End of The World • short fiction by Joseph Allen Hill [as by Violet Allen]
Come on Down • short fiction by Meg Elison
Don’t Pack Hope • (2018) • short story by Emma Osborne
Polly Wanna Cracker? • short fiction by Greg van Eekhout
Otherwise • (2012) • novelette by Nisi Shawl
And the Rest of Us Wait • (2016) • novelette by Corinne Duyvis
The Last Child • short fiction by Scott Sigler
So Sharp, So Bright, So Final • short fiction by Seanan McGuire
Burn 3 • (2013) • novelette by Kami Garcia
Snow • (2015) • short story by Dale Bailey
The Air Is Chalk • short fiction by Richard Kadrey
The Future Is Blue • [Garbagetown • 1] • (2016) • novelette by Catherynne M. Valente
Francisca Montoya’s Almanac of Things That Can Kill You • (2014) • short story by Shaenon K. Garrity

Again, in print, including ebook and audiobook editions.

1980: After the Fall edited by Robert Sheckley

The Last Days of (Parallel?) Earth • short story by Robert Sheckley
The Day After the End of the World • short story by Harry Harrison
A Very Good Year … • (1979) • short story by Roger Zelazny
Fire and/or Ice • short story by Roger Zelazny
Exeunt Omnes • short story by Roger Zelazny
Sungrab • [Sam Space] • novelette by William F. Nolan
Where Are You Now, Erik Scorbic? • short story by K. Copeland Shea
Bud • short story by Ian Watson
The Making of Revelation, Part I • novelette by Philip José Farmer?
Rebecca Rubinstein’s Seventeenth Birthday • short story by Simon Gandolfi
The Revelation • short story by Thomas M. Disch
Nirvana Is a Nowhere Place • short story by Joel Schulman
Heir • short story by J. A. Lawrence
Afterword (Heir) • essay by J. A. Lawrence
The Kingdom of O’Ryan • novelette by Bob Shaw
Just Another End of the World • short story by Maxim Jakubowski

I imagine this collection by Sheckley is about finding humor at the end of the world. I think I would need it if I read all the other anthologies.

I think my pick would be Beyond Armaggedon edited by Walter M. Miller, Jr. and Martin H. Greenberg.

I can’t believe I’ve found 14 anthologies about the end of the world or the post-apocalypse.

James Wallace Harris, 1/26/23

Posted on January 21, 2023January 24, 2023 by jameswharris · 15 Comments

The Empty World by D. E. Stevenson

The Empty World by D. E. Stevenson was first published in 1936 when very few science fiction novels were published in book form. That’s for two reasons. First, not many science fiction novels were being written, and second, the term science fiction was not widely recognized outside the tiny audience who read science fiction magazines. It wasn’t until the late 1940s and early 1950s that science fiction emerged as a publishing category.

D. E. stands for Dorothy Emily. She was a Scottish writer of over forty books, published between 1923 – 1970. Most were light romantic novels, so it is surprising that The Empty World is science fiction. I wasn’t going to review The Empty World because I already mentioned it in my essay on post-apocalyptic novels. Then I got to thinking about how it represents a kind of writing, a proto-genre novel. However, I started listening to a second novel by Stevenson, Miss Buncle’s Book which has a very clever plot, and realized that she is a much better writer than I imagined. And that’s making me rethink the value of The Empty World. Maybe more people should give it a read, and give D. E. Stevenson a try.

Barbara Buncle lives in a quaint little English village during the depression. Her investments are not paying dividends, so she decides to write a novel to make some money. However, she is not very imaginative and writes a book about all the people that live in her village but under the name of John Smith. Barbara is, however, very talented at observing details. The townspeople become outraged at her photographic portrayal of themselves in words. The book within a book is clever and I’m enjoying it quite a lot. I have a feeling I will be reading more D. E. Stevenson books in the future. By the way, many of her books are available on Scribd if you want to give them a try. (I’m partial to forgotten English writers. I maintain a website for Lady Dorothy Mills, who is far more forgotten. She also wrote a couple science fiction books published in the 1920s.)

This is strange, but in the first week of 2023, I discovered two science fiction novels that were first published in the 1930s and are mostly forgotten today. The first was The Hopkins Manuscript by R. C. Sherriff which I’ve already reviewed, and The Empty World by D. E. Stevenson. It is currently available on Amazon for the Kindle for $3.99. I enjoyed it but I would only recommend it to two types of readers. First, to science fiction readers who love to find forgotten science fiction novels from the past, and second to Anglophiles who like cozy books from England in the 1930s. However, I wished other science fiction readers would read them and let me know if they deserve more recognition.

This also makes me wonder just how many more forgotten science fiction novels are waiting to be rediscovered? Right now I’m focused on the 1930s. If you look at which books from the 1930s in our CSFquery.com database you won’t see many. And if you use our Show Citations feature you’ll see that most of them with just one citation come from the Radium Age list of science fiction or the library reference book Anatomy of Wonder. Neither novel is widely known to science fiction readers.

The Hopkins Manuscript nor The Empty World is in our database. That’s telling since our database is built on dozens of recommendation lists. This is disappointing since I believe The Hopkins Manuscript is a minor masterpiece and The Empty World is a rather fun book and surprisingly science fictional for its time. The main difference between the two is The Hopkins Manuscript is literary in writing style, and The Empty World anticipates genre writing.

I say that about D. E. Stevenson because, in The Empty World, the characters are shaped to convey the plot. That’s typical of genre writing. In The Hopkins Manuscript, the characterization of Edgar Hopkins is the best aspect of the story. That’s typical of literary writing.

The main character in The Empty World is Jane Forrest, a writer of popular books of history. We don’t know her exact age, but she’s older but still very attractive. The novel starts with her taking a commercial transatlantic flight from New York to London. This is before the first actual commercial flight on August 11, 1938. The novel is set in 1973. During the flight, the pilot flew at the plane’s upper altitude to avoid a storm, but even then the plane suffered tremendous turbulence. They lose all radio contact. When they land they find no people or animals left on Earth. They remember a scientist had warned the world would be destroyed when the Earth passed through a tail of a comet. This makes me wonder if Stevenson had read London and Verne. Both of these old SF books are based on hogwash science.

Stevenson covers many plot issues that later post-apocalyptic novelists will consider. How to scrounge canned food from stores and homes and figure how long such stores of food can last. How to rebuild. How to assign jobs. How money becomes worthless. How does life after the apocalypse affect class, education, gender, etc? What happens when there are more men than women?

However, Stevenson’s first plot problem is not one I’ve seen before. There are 16 men, and 6 women, but two of the women are elderly. Most of the men are in their twenties. Now, I have seen this problem before in after-the-collapse stories, but Stevenson takes an interesting tack. The higher-class men tell Jane they must get all the women away from the lower-class men. At first, she doesn’t understand, but then five of the men pull guns and tell the group they want to divide up the women. Much of the middle of the book deals with women escaping a fate worse than death.

That’s about as much as I want to tell you about the plot. The last half goes in a totally new very fun direction, but again, the women are at risk from a new threat. And much of the book is about the women finding the husband they want. Stevenson tries to surprise us by having the women pick men we wouldn’t think they’d pick.

The novel does wrap up with a happy ending, but Stevenson disappointed me because she didn’t deal with the details of rebuilding the species and civilization. She assumes just a few couples making babies will be enough to be the new Adams and Eves of the next human civilization. Of course, we know now that it would take many more people to give us the proper genetic diversity to survive. What’s amusing is there is a scientist among the survivors who advocates eugenics and a form of animal husbandry for the survivors.

After thinking about The Empty World for a while I saw how a science fictional idea could be worked out by a writer who probably neither read science fiction nor plan to write it. The collapse of civilization is a rather mundane concept unlike space travel and robots. Hell, it’s really just another version of the Noah and the Ark story (note the book cover above). But if you observe the writing in The Empty World you realize each character is there for the purpose of exploring the plot idea. That’s what science fiction has always done. Ditto for mysteries and thrillers. It’s even true for romances. Science fiction writers come up with an idea, then figure out a plot to present that science fiction idea, and then invent characters to unfold the plot.

Now that I’m reading a second D. E. Stevenson’s novel, Miss Buncle’s Book, I see that happening too but with a twist. The main plot is driven along like a genre novel, but it’s based on the idea that one character wrote a literary novel. I don’t think the concept of genre novels existed much before WWII. If you went to a bookstore in the 1930s novels were all lumped together in the fiction section. I’m guessing there was a division of readers between popular novels and literary novels but not because they were shelved in different locations in the bookstore. Sometimes and I’m assuming after WWII, and maybe not until the 1950s, booksellers started dividing up their shelves by what readers wanted to read. Then publishers followed suit and genres were born.

This is why there are science fiction books published before the war that are often forgotten today. They were never grouped with science fiction books, so they never were embraced by the science fiction genre. There’s no telling how many pre-WWII science fiction novels were written and published. And it might also be a factor that these two post-apocalyptic novels were English rather than American. The Empty World was reprinted in America in 1939 as A World in Spell.

James Wallace Harris

Posted on January 17, 2023January 24, 2023 by jameswharris · 9 Comments

What Would You Do If You Were Among The Last Humans on Earth?

Once again I’m gorging on post-apocalyptic novels where a few people survive a horrific civilization-destroying catastrophe. Usually, they hope to rebuild civilization. But not always. I recently finished The Hopkins Manuscript by R. C. Sherriff first published in 1939 which I’ve already reviewed. And I just finished The Empty World by D. E. Stevenson first published in 1936. This has gotten me to think about all the books, movies, and television shows I read or watched because of this theme. I’ve listed and rated all that I can remember in the table below. But what I want to talk about first is the appeal and common plot elements of this sub-genre of science fiction. I have written about this a number of times before and have linked to those essays at the end — just in case this essay got you interested. I do know that other science fiction fans love this theme too.

[HBO just started a new series based on this theme. It appears people never get tired of it.]

There are many kinds of post-apocalyptic novels. See the long comprehensive overview on Wikipedia on Post-Apocalyptic fiction The ones I like best are those that focus just on a few survivors. You might call this version of the theme the Robinson Crusoe Post-Apocalypse. Some people also call them Cozy Catastrophes — but the exact definition is often argued over. For example, I disagree with many of the choices in “Jane Rogers’s top 10 cozy catastrophes” from The Guardian.

Here are my favorite elements in a cozy catastrophe:

Few Survivors

I like stories that follow just a few characters who survive the end of the world and try to rebuild. I would even enjoy it if it was just one person, which happens in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man, but usually, these stories start with one survivor who eventually finds a few more.

How They Survive

I also love the details of how they survive, whether it’s raiding grocery stores, becoming a hunter, or starting a garden. I love seeing how people start over from scratch and accomplish all the things we depend on civilization to give us now. This appeals to my younger self who wanted to move back to nature and subscribed to Mother Earth News. I loved the idea of being self-sufficient on five acres.

Social Dynamics

I also love reading about how people get along. In American fiction written by men, the stories can get rather violent. American guys believe the collapse of civilization means no laws, grab your guns, and everyone out for themselves. Think Mad Max or The Postman. Female Americans see starting over as a lot less violent. Consider Station Eleven. English writers of either gender, see post-apocalyptic affairs as being much less violent.

I just read The Empty World by D. E. Stevenson, first published in 1936. D. E. is for Dorothy Emily, and her books were light romances aimed at shop girls. The Empty World did have some violence. Right after the catastrophe we are told two-thirds of the surviving group of men are civilized and one-third are not, and the civilized men must get the few surviving women away from the uncivilized. Stevenson seemed to enjoy showing how the brutish lower-class Englishmen would fight and kill to possess a woman. Stevenson’s early cozy catastrophe anticipated many of the common elements that would emerge in this sub-genre, but her focus seemed to be on the women finding the right husband. Her premise for how civilization was wiped out was mumbo-jumbo science but that didn’t seem to hurt the story. Jo Walton gives a short review of the novel in her Tor.com column. I wonder if Stevenson had read London’s The Scarlet Plague?

My all-time favorite novel of this theme, Earth Abides (1949) by George R. Stewart tells about how Ish, the protagonist wants to educate the first generation after the collapse. He was a college professor who wanted to preserve knowledge but realized the vastness of human learning couldn’t be passed on. My favorite TV show that covers this theme, Survivors (1975 BBC) focuses on how a few people can work together to start a farm, and eventually, build coalitions between survivor groups. Survivors the TV show has an excellent novelization by Terry Nation. It’s currently for sale at Amazon for the Kindle for just $1.99. The complete series on DVD is just $22. But a warning, the production was low-budget and modern TV watchers might not like it. Episodes of the show are available in low-resolution on YouTube, but not streaming anywhere else.

How Would You Do It

Probably the most fun aspect of this genre is picturing myself in the same situation as in the story and fantasizing about how I would have dealt with it. I have to admit, those fantasies have changed over the years. When I was younger, I pictured a post-apocalyptic world as more of an adventure. As I got older, it became more about how to farm and take care of myself. Now that I’m old, I realize if I found myself becoming one of the last people on Earth, my solutions for how to live would be much different. I don’t have the strength to farm. I now see myself just hiding out, scrounging for preserved food, and reading books, while contemplating the end of the world.

Hope for the Future

Another thing I love about this theme is seeing how the characters hope to rebuild things. I believe part of the appeal of this genre comes from disliking the way things are now. And readers love to imagine a better society. One thing I was very impressed with in Sherriff’s The Hopkins Manuscript is how he predicted that people don’t change and we’d just quickly go back to our bad ways. That’s depressing but I believe philosophically correct.

Some stories, like On the Beach by Nevil Shute and The Road by Cormac McCarthy imply there is no hope for mankind.

Misanthropic – A Subconscious Urge For Fewer People

I also believe these stories appeal to us because deep down we wish there were a lot fewer people on Earth. The question is how fewer? Would you want to be the last person? Just a few friends? A small community? Maybe a world where the total population is just ten million? And do we want to bring back civilization?

Post-Apocalyptic Stories I Remember

Rating	Year	Title
***	1826	The Last Man by Mary Shelley
tbr	1885	After London by Richard Jefferies
****	1901	The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel
****	1912	The Scarlet Plague by Jack London
****	1913	Goslings by J. D. Beresford
***	1936	The Empty World by D. E. Stevenson
*****	1939	The Hopkins Manuscript by R. C. Sherriff
*****	1949	Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
*****	1951	The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
*****	1955	“A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
****	1956	The Death of Grass by John Christopher
*****	1957	On the Beach by Nevil Shute
*****	1959	Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
*****	1959	On the Beach U.S. film
*****	1959	The World, the Flesh, and the Devil MGM
****	1962	The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard
*****	1975-1977	Survivors BBC
*****	1976	Survivors by Terry Nation
*****	1985	The Postman by David Brin
****	1985	The Quiet Earth New Zealand film
****	2006	Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
*****	2006	The Road by Cormac McCarthy
****	2008-2010	Survivors BBC remake
****	2012	The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
**	2012-2014	Revolution NBC
*****	2014	Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
***	2015-2018	The Last Man On Earth Fox TV
****	2021	Y: The Last Man FX on Hulu

Essays About Post-Apocalyptic Fiction I’ve Written Before

James Wallace Harris 1/17/23

Posted on January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 by jameswharris · 2 Comments

Babel by R. F. Kuang

Normally I avoid reading fantasy books but will make an exception for outstanding works of the genre, such as Babel by R. F. Kuang. I became intrigued by this novel when reviews described it being a fantasy about language translation, set in Oxford at the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign. I love reading about how books are translated, and I’m fond of poking around in the 19th century. Then I saw that LitHub found Babel on 7 best-books-of-2022 lists. That convinced me to try it.

I find most fantasy novels to be mediocre. This is due to the genre being flooded with works, and because exceptional works of fantasy have set the bar so high that reading anything less is boring. Babel reminded me of Harry Potter books, The Golden Compass trilogy, and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

Babel is mostly set in Oxford, England in the 1830s. Follows four students who study at the Royal Institute of Translation – known as Babel. It is the most powerful college at Oxford in Kuang’s fantasy world. Babel is a fantasy novel rather than a historical one because silver can be embued with powerful charms via knowledge in language translation. This magical silver powers the industrial revolution and is a metaphor for capitalism. Actually, for the evils of capitalism.

I would call this a YA novel except that the protagonists are college students. Kuang is impressively creative in her writing and plotting but I was somewhat disappointed with her characterization. I would say they were excellent for genre writing — because genre fans will love them. But I thought her characters lacking compared to literary writing. The main character, Robin Swift, is half Chinese and half English and grew up in Canton, China before being taken to England to study languages. He never felt Chinese. He always felt English. Ramy is a Muslim kid from India, his cultural background doesn’t come through either. People are prejudiced against these two for their physical appearance, but I never felt they were different from the English characters internally. The only character that emotionally acts a bit different is Victoire, a girl originally from Haiti. Letty, the fourth in the cohort, is a privileged English girl and acts exactly that.

Even though this is a fantasy it focused on the historical sins of England in the 19th century. It judges Imperial England harshly, which it deserves. Actual history is like studying the Holocaust — full of horrors. There is an infinite amount of history to hate, but finding any real understanding is rare. I question making an attack on the past for the basis of a fantasy novel, but then I don’t take fantasy novels seriously. I feel they are mostly fun, and mostly for young people.

The story comes across as another YA tale of Blows Against the Empire that’s no more realistic than a Star Wars sequel or The Hunger Games. It’s hard to take its plot seriously since it involves magic. But maybe young readers will be inspired to read nonfiction history about the period, such as Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert. On the other hand, the plot is compelling from a reading point of view.

And I do believe R. F. Kuang is deadly serious. That makes me worry about her solution supporting violence. Her novel is really a metaphor for our times. It asks: How can we enjoy the fruits of evil when we know the price of them will be so much suffering? But the woken judge the past so severely without realizing the future will judge them just as harshly. We all need to read What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill. I’m afraid the future will look back on the 21st century and judge anyone who flew in an airplane or ate meat like we feel about 19th-century slave owners.

If Babel is just a fun fantasy that mixes in history and uses the English imperialists as its bad guys, how should we judge it? But what if it’s a philosophically deep challenge to history? Then, how should we judge Babel? Does it condemn the past fairly? Or is it more complicated? How many nonfiction books will we have to read to really answer that question?

James Wallace Harris, 1/15/23

Posted on January 9, 2023January 9, 2023 by jameswharris · 14 Comments

The Hopkins Manuscript by R. C. Sherriff

Short Review: If you loved George R. Stewart’s 1949 classic novel Earth Abides then there’s a good chance you’ll love to read R. C. Sherriff’s forgotten 1939 novel The Hopkins Manuscript.

I bought the new Scribner audiobook edition that came out on January 6, 2023, because of Alec Nevala-Lee’s review in The New York Times. Right now, the Scribner edition is only available as an ebook and audiobook edition. An older, 2018, Penguin trade paper edition is still for sale. This apocalyptic novel first appeared in 1939 and has been reprinted a number of times since, yet it’s never achieved much notice.

I listened to The Hopkins Manuscript and thought it a science fiction masterpiece. However, I’m reluctant to recommend you buy it because it does not have even one citation in our Classics of Science Fiction database. If I believe The Hopkins Manuscript is so incredible why wasn’t it cited by any of the dozens of sources we used to build the database, including recommended reading lists from science fiction writers, polls from fans voting for their favorite novels, or lists of books admired by critics and scholars?

I loved The Hopkins Manuscript and can’t understand why it isn’t a well-known classic of science fiction. See the scans below from various reviewers in the past. I’d love to read what Michael Moorcock said about The Hopkins Manuscript in the September 2005 issue of The New York Review of Books (#205) if anyone has a copy. But in Thrilling Wonder Stories, from January 1940, H. K. recommended readers put it on their “Must” list. But in the April 1940 issue of Astonishing Stories, Donald A. Wollheim concluded the novel conveyed nothing new, nothing hopeful, and nothing very real. I disagree completely. Avram Davidson in the January 1964 issue of F&SF said the novel was first-rate and ended with “Don’t just read it — buy it.” P. Schuyler Miller damns it with faint praise in the April 1964 issue of Analog, concluding “The book first came out in 1939 and lives well.” Finally, Neil Barron did not recommend The Hopkins Manuscript in his library resource book Anatomy of Wonder.

Nevala-Lee spends most of his review talking about cozy catastrophes, giving Sherriff’s biography, and describing the story. I felt he told too much, but then I consider almost everything in a story to be spoilers. Nevala-Lee’s most positive statement is “Reissued this month, this wonderful novel should powerfully resonate with readers whose consciences are troubled by inequality and climate change. As Aldiss wrote, ‘The essence of cozy catastrophe is that the hero should have a pretty good time … while everyone else is dying off.” I disagree with by Nevala-Lee and Aldiss. This novel isn’t just for the woke and poor Edgar Hopkins suffers tremendously.

The Hopkins Manuscript is my kind of science fiction. I deeply resonated with Edgar Hopkins’ story, even though he is stodgy, vain, and frequently seeking to prove his self-importance. His memoir gives us a quiet and personal account of what was almost the end of the world. And I love stories about a few people trying to survive a worldwide catastrophe. If you loved the 1970s British TV shows Survivors, you might to get this book. I recommend the audiobook because the narration is pitch-perfect for the story. If you loved The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, also consider reading The Hopkins Manuscript. (Survivors is available on YouTube for free in low resolution. It doesn’t seem to be streaming anywhere. Amazon sells a complete series DVD set for $22. It’s one of my all-time favorite TV shows.)

The Hopkins Manuscript is what some call a cozy catastrophe – a first-person account of the end of the world. The story is set in rural Britain before WWII and imagines the fall of Western civilization due to impending celestial events. Edgar Hopkins, a never-married retired teacher who raises show hens describes a very personal account of the end of the world. What made his story great is he’s a flawed but very realistically drawn character, and Sherriff’s philosophical take on humanity follows my own philosophy – especially that we don’t change. And that’s the tragedy of the novel, we don’t change even when faced with epic incentives.

The novel opens with a Forward from The Imperial Research Press, Addis Ababa telling us how the Hopkins manuscript was discovered two years earlier by the Royal Society of Abyssinia. It is assumed to be over 700 years old. The Forward also tells us how Western Europe is a dead civilization and the Hopkins manuscript is one of the very few artifacts left of the English Empire. The others are an iron tablet that says KEEP OFF THE GRASS, and a stone inscribed with PECKHAM 3 Miles. Except for old Roman roads, the entire history of England is gone. Since I read a three-volume history of the world last year, this felt very real. Civilizations come and go and we can’t expect ours to last forever.

American post-apocalyptic novels tend to involve a lot of violence and guns. British post-apocalyptic novels are genteel and quiet. If you’re looking for Mad Max, read elsewhere. The first half of the novel deals with how the British faced the coming doom. If you like stories about Britain between the wars, that’s another indicator you might want to buy The Hopkins Manuscript. That’s a big interest of mine. I’m not sure you need to be an Anglophile to enjoy this story but it might help. If you read Brian Stableford’s New Atlantis, a four-volume history of scientific romance, he shows how British science fiction evolved differently from American science fiction. I agree with him, and I’m partial to British science fiction. That’s probably another factor in explaining my love of The Hopkins Manuscript. Unfortunately, Stableford doesn’t cover The Hopkins Manuscript. That disappoints me. That’s just more evidence that my love of this novel might be unique to me. I hope not.

Even though The Hopkins Manuscript remains a mostly forgotten work, and has little critical support, I hope people rediscover it with the new Scribner edition. If you read it, please leave a comment below.

James Wallace Harris, 1/9/23

Posted on December 21, 2022 by jameswharris · 7 Comments

Baby Boomer Science Fiction

Science fiction stories are fairytales for teenagers that fuel their imaginations about the future. Science fiction creates myths about tomorrow for each new generation. And science fiction offers both hopes and fears about what’s to come. Readers from each new generation embrace their own flavor of science fiction.

The World Turned Upside Down is an anthology where the editors picked science fiction stories that wowed them when they were teens. Currently available in print for the Kindle for $8.99 or free online for misers and the poor. And for collectors, the hardback is readily available used. I dearly wish there were an audiobook edition because I’d love to hear these stories read by a professional reader.

David Drake (b. 1945) and Jim Baen (b. 1943) are from the Silent Generation (1925-1945). Eric Flint (b. 1947) is from the second year of the Baby Boomers (1946-1964). I was born in 1951, the fifth year. All three editors started reading science fiction in the 1950s and I started in 1962. I believe science fiction fans that discovered the genre in the 1950s and 1960s during the Baby Boomer era imprinted on a certain type of science fiction that’s distinctly different from later generations’ science fiction. I believe the stories in The World Turned Upside Down will appeal the most to Baby Boomers.

One significant extra to this anthology is the personal recollections from the three editors. The introductions and follow-ups are bite-size memoirs. The editorial comments added extra enjoyment to reading this anthology. And I felt on the same wavelength as the editors.

Picture a graph with a bell curve stretched out on the trailing edge. Each year hundreds (thousands?) of science fiction stories are published, but only a small number become popular and are embraced as favorites by a generation. The newest stories are the leading edge of the curve. Then the long stretched-out trailing edge is where stories are remembered as they fade away in pop culture memory. Growing up I mostly read science fiction short stories that were at the peak of the curve. They were mostly 5-20 years old. Now those stories are 55-70 years old.

As I’ve gotten older, that bulge has diminished. In The World Turned Upside Down 5 stories are from the 1930s, 5 from the 1940s, 15 from the 1950s, and 4 from the 1960s. You should be able to visualize the curve just from that tiny bit of data. Readers today from the current generations will like or know very few of these stories. They are now far away from the leading bulge of popular stories. In 20 years, that bulge in the 1950s will thin away in future anthologies. Anthologists whose teen years were during the 1980s or 2010s will seldom pick stories that old.

For the past couple of months, our Facebook group has been reading and discussing the 29 stories from The World Turned Upside Down. I thought the age of the group member had an impact on which stories they liked. Current with reading these old stories on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, we read newer stories from The Good New Stuff edited by Gardner Dozois on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I also thought the contrast to it in the comments was age-related. Austin Beeman reviewed The World Turned Upside Down on his blog and overall liked most of the stories, but the stories he responded to best were a bit different from my favorites. And I thought he liked stories in The Good New Stuff a lot more than I did. I believe he’s 25-30 years younger than I am. Jeppe Larsen reviewed the anthology on his blog and liked fewer stories. My hunch is he is younger. But it’s also possible, he’s not young, and like many people, just likes to keep up with the times. I actually prefer the older stuff, even if it feels old. And to also skew my impression, most of the active members are hardcore SF fans that love a wide range of science fiction.

Generally, a great story is usually liked by any age group, but less famous stories seem to have a generational appeal. My guess is writers write under the assumption they are speaking to the current generation but some of them end up speaking across the ages.

The stories in The World Turned Upside Down were first published from 1933 through 1967, but the most common decade represented was the 1950s. Here are the stories with my ratings (1-5 stars).

1930s

Shambleau • (1933) • novelette by C. L. Moore (*****)
Who Goes There? • (1938) • novella by John W. Campbell, Jr. (*****)
Black Destroyer • (1939) • novelette by A. E. van Vogt (*****)
Heavy Planet • (1939) • short story by Milton A. Rothman (***+)
Spawn • (1939) • novelette by P. Schuyler Miller (****+)

My father (b. 1920) would have been a teen when these stories came out. He was from the Greatest Generation (1901-1924). These are also stories that appeared with the generation of First Fandom. Those were the old guys of science fiction when I was a teen. I’m not sure if any of them are around anymore. The star of that era was E. E. “Doc” Smith. Most of the fiction from then felt dated in the 1960s and even more so in the 2020s, even to me, a guy who loves to read old science fiction.

1940s

Quietus • (1940) • short story by Ross Rocklynne (****)
Environment • (1944) • short story by Chester S. Geier (***+)
Rescue Party • (1946) • novelette by Arthur C. Clarke (*****)
Thunder and Roses • (1947) • novelette by Theodore Sturgeon (*****)
The Only Thing We Learn • (1949) • short story by C. M. Kornbluth (***+)

These stories came out during the teen years of the Silent Generation. This has been called The Golden Age of Science Fiction, but people who felt that are mainly dead. Stories collected in anthologies stay around for a few decades, and I was reading these stories as a teen in the 1960s. I thought 1940s SF was science fiction from the good old days. They felt somewhat dated when I read them in the 1960s, but they were still fun. Today, even to me, they feel quite quaint.

1950s

Liane the Wayfarer • (1950) • short story by Jack Vance (****)
Trigger Tide • (1950) • short story by Wyman Guin (***+)
A Pail of Air • (1951) • short story by Fritz Leiber (****+)
All the Way Back • (1952) • short story by Michael Shaara (***+)
Thy Rocks and Rills • (1953) • novelette by Robert E. Gilbert (****+)
Answer • (1954) • short story by Fredric Brown (*****)
The Cold Equations • (1954) • novelette by Tom Godwin (*****)
Hunting Problem • (1955) • short story by Robert Sheckley (****)
A Gun for Dinosaur • (1956) • novelette by L. Sprague de Camp (****)
The Last Question • (1956) • short story by Isaac Asimov (****+)
The Gentle Earth • (1957) • novella by Christopher Anvil (***+)
The Menace from Earth • (1957) • novelette by Robert A. Heinlein (*****)
Omnilingual • (1957) • novelette by H. Beam Piper (*****)
St. Dragon and the George • (1957) • novelette by Gordon R. Dickson (****)
The Aliens • (1959) • novelette by Murray Leinster (****)

Now, these were stories that were often anthologized in the 1960s when I was a teen and a number of them are considered classics. They seem just a little bit old to me when I was a teen. Like 1950s Rock and Rollers, who were in their twenties when I was a teen in the 1960s, but they were still so cool!

1960s

Code Three • (1963) • novella by Rick Raphael (***+)
Turning Point • (1963) • short story by Poul Anderson (***+)
Goblin Night • (1965) • novelette by James H. Schmitz (****)
The Last Command • (1967) • short story by Keith Laumer (****)

It’s interesting that these stories did come out when I was a teen, but they were some of my least favorites in the anthology, although still a lot of fun to read. I’m surprised Flint, Drake, and Baen picked them because none of them became classics. These kinds of stories were the salt of the Earth content of the SF magazines in the 1960s, but not the stories I thought defined the generation. At the time, Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, J. G. Ballard, and Ursula K. Le Guin were the bright stars in the sky.

Even though fiction being called science fiction was around in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, it wasn’t until the 1950s that the general public recognized it. The 1950s was a boom time for science fiction when it regularly began appearing in book form – both paperback and hardback. Plus, it became popular in the movies and in the early days of television. In 1953 there were three dozen science fiction magazine titles being published. When I grew up stories from the 1950s boom felt like they defined the genre.

I felt the most famous SF from the 1950s would be the classics all my life and into the future. However, I’ve now lived long enough to see those stories age and fade away. It sometimes hurts me to see my favorite science fiction novels and short stories being forgotten, rejected or even vilified. This is why it’s difficult to recommend The World Turned Upside Down to younger readers. But I feel its stories capture an era so nicely. The stories aren’t the most famous Baby Boomer science fiction stories, but then the most famous stories are often over-anthologized while so many other good stories need to be remembered. I’m guessing Drake, Flint, and Baen wanted to preserve a picture of our era taken from a different angle. Of the stories I hadn’t read before, I was very glad to be introduced to them.

I would love to review each story one by one and natter about how they each aged and guess how each appealed to their generation. But this post is already longer than what 99% of internet readers read. I know, I’m way too verbose.

JWH