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reasie's review
4.0
I see there's a series of these and I may have to avail myself of more. It's nice to have the original art with the stories, and the original editor's notes. A nice way to get a slice of science fiction past.
Clare Winger Harris' story "The Miracle of the Lily" is first, and it has the distinction of having its twist ending telegraphed by the frontplate. It happened and still happens! Also a fun story for the insight into 1920s mentality. It was conceivable that we would cover the earth in an endless city, eradicate all non-human life and live off chemicals. In a way, these were processes underway at the time. However interplanetary travel was still unimaginable! Though intelligent aliens on both Mars and Venus were not. So much in this one story.
Miles J. Breuer's tale "The Appendix and the Spectacles" takes a wild medical tangent from the theory of fourth dimensional mechanics, where a doctor can enter the fourth dimension to operate on a patient without cutting. Enjoyable revenge tale.
There was a somewhat forgettable "Journey to Venus" that nevertheless predicts accurately the phenomenon of landing deniers... even more plausible in a world with interplanetary rockets but no television.
"A Visitor from the Twentieth Century" was the weakest story in the collection, I think it was included for its interest to us future denizens in seeing how we were expected to look.
The last story is Edmond Hamilton's "The Comet Doom" which has a trope-tastic alien invasion, but rises above by setting everything on Lake Erie. I'm not joking... it was nice to have a sense of place in the story, and the hero described as being middle-aged and portly. I'll look to check out more of Hamilton's work.
Clare Winger Harris' story "The Miracle of the Lily" is first, and it has the distinction of having its twist ending telegraphed by the frontplate. It happened and still happens! Also a fun story for the insight into 1920s mentality. It was conceivable that we would cover the earth in an endless city, eradicate all non-human life and live off chemicals. In a way, these were processes underway at the time. However interplanetary travel was still unimaginable! Though intelligent aliens on both Mars and Venus were not. So much in this one story.
Miles J. Breuer's tale "The Appendix and the Spectacles" takes a wild medical tangent from the theory of fourth dimensional mechanics, where a doctor can enter the fourth dimension to operate on a patient without cutting. Enjoyable revenge tale.
There was a somewhat forgettable "Journey to Venus" that nevertheless predicts accurately the phenomenon of landing deniers... even more plausible in a world with interplanetary rockets but no television.
"A Visitor from the Twentieth Century" was the weakest story in the collection, I think it was included for its interest to us future denizens in seeing how we were expected to look.
The last story is Edmond Hamilton's "The Comet Doom" which has a trope-tastic alien invasion, but rises above by setting everything on Lake Erie. I'm not joking... it was nice to have a sense of place in the story, and the hero described as being middle-aged and portly. I'll look to check out more of Hamilton's work.
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