shadowedge613 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shadowedge613) wrote2007-07-26 08:18 pm
shadowedge613) wrote2007-07-26 08:18 pm
Entry tags:
Project Lit. Lust
A new horizon!
My newest conquests have been a book and its sequel.
"When Worlds Collide" and "After Worlds Collide" by Edwin Baulmer and Philip Wylie
Why I grabbed them:
The line in Rocky Horror Picture Show! "But "When Worlds Collide," said George Pal to his bride, I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills! Like a Science Fiction Double Feature ..."
Also, what is not to love about the opening sentences?: "The secret itself was still safe. It was clear that the public not yet could have learned it. No; the nature of the tremendous and terrific Discovery remained locked in the breasts of the men who had made it. No one had broken so badly under the burden of it that he had let slip any actual details of what had been learned. But the fact that there was a secret, of incomparable importance, was out."
What I thought:
The writing is marvelously precise, and slightly antique (look at that masterfully placed semi-colin!), and the tone wanders between matter of fact summery, and impassioned attempts to integrate the idea of the divine with that of Apocalypse.
The sequel is a little less amazing, as it is a bit more concerned with the communist threat (written in 1934), and alien civilizations.
Neither one of the books wholly follow through on the implicit promise of the rewriting of a society after the destruction of the world, but the writing, and grand vision is wonderful.
Recommended, especially for those who like good prose and science fiction.
My newest conquests have been a book and its sequel.
"When Worlds Collide" and "After Worlds Collide" by Edwin Baulmer and Philip Wylie
Why I grabbed them:
The line in Rocky Horror Picture Show! "But "When Worlds Collide," said George Pal to his bride, I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills! Like a Science Fiction Double Feature ..."
Also, what is not to love about the opening sentences?: "The secret itself was still safe. It was clear that the public not yet could have learned it. No; the nature of the tremendous and terrific Discovery remained locked in the breasts of the men who had made it. No one had broken so badly under the burden of it that he had let slip any actual details of what had been learned. But the fact that there was a secret, of incomparable importance, was out."
What I thought:
The writing is marvelously precise, and slightly antique (look at that masterfully placed semi-colin!), and the tone wanders between matter of fact summery, and impassioned attempts to integrate the idea of the divine with that of Apocalypse.
The sequel is a little less amazing, as it is a bit more concerned with the communist threat (written in 1934), and alien civilizations.
Neither one of the books wholly follow through on the implicit promise of the rewriting of a society after the destruction of the world, but the writing, and grand vision is wonderful.
Recommended, especially for those who like good prose and science fiction.