1900s - Decade in SF&F - Full Year Reviews

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE - Decade of 1910s Read other issues here ---------------------------------------------- Lord Dunsany: one of the first crowned princes of High Fantasy Lord Dunsany "The Fortress Unvanquishable Save For Sacnoth" © The Sword Of Welleran, 1908 --/ fourth place fantasy story - DRB Best Fantasy Lists --/ wonder award --/ awesome scale Some of the most intriguing and exciting examples of early high fantasy are the magical (and sweepingly mythical in a true Tolkien style) tales of Lord Dunsany, or Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany - who quite appropriately lived all his life in an ancient castle (seen below, looming in the mist), with a beautiful lady who faithfully stood by his side throughout the years: (Lady Dunsany, Beatrice Child Villiers - and the Dunsany Castle, via) Speaking of Tolkien, the wealth of Dunsany's work (which is many books and more than a hundred tales) served as a powerful inspiration for Middle Earth, and not vice versa. The world of Lord Dunsany is wildly fantastic, inherently beautiful, even though painted in broad strokes, sketchily realized (due to the immensity of the canvas) but nevertheless a fully enchanting and addicting environment - which, once tasted, cannot be forgotten. (illustrations by Sydney Sime via) You can read some of the Lord Dunsany's stories for free at the Internet Archive: for example, the Book of Wonder. Gorgeous illustrations by Sydney Sime are a perfect fit for the fantastic beauty of Lord Dunsany's tales (and even early H.P. Lovecraft's epic fantasy efforts) - they are indeed epic in the best sense of this word: ---------------------------------------------- Elia W. Peattie "The Crime Of Micah Rood" © 1902, original also in - Dangerous Vegetables, ed. K. Laumer, 1998 --/ cool f story --/ wonder award --/ rare find Who could've known that an exciting fantasy, detailing strange growths in and around abandoned gardens, was published as early as 1902 - with great narrative tension, the overall feel of "Weird Tales" magazine and even some of the "look" of modern-day computer special effects, but here it is. Surprise! I wonder how many other top-notch and imaginative stories are languishing in antique magazine piles, passed over by critics and collectors as a simple "mass-market" entertainment. ---------------------------------------------- "Treasure Island...or Planet... or Universe" - take your pick! Robert Louis Stevenson "Treasure Island" (nv) © 1883 Current Publ., 1906 --/ adventure award --/ style award I include this book here as an example of enchanting adventure in exotic setting, which may just as well have been set in outer space - as was recently proved by a marvelous Disney movie "Treasure Planet" (I quite like the poster for this movie, too, see below). The story itself is timeless, its plot endlessly fascinating. A Treasure Hunt against all odds, quickly moving through multitude of exotic environments, and facing many (mostly pirate) monsters. By the way, the "weird fantasy" sub-genre has always been fond of a pirate lifestyle and often made a good use of it (take, for example, the "Pirates of Caribbean" movies, which at times can even have the same effect as reading a good old issue of "Weird Tales", almost matching the visual intensity and inventiveness of the 1930s pulps). The 1906 year saw the first "pulp-style" edition of the "Treasure island" (in a popular "yellow-back" series format), quickly achieving legendary status and starting a flow of reprints... the flow that will only cease when Davy Jones himself would mutter "enough already" out of the murky depths. ---------------------------------------------- Jules Verne "Off On A Comet!" (Also as "Hector Servadac", "The Career Of A Comet", "To The Sun!") (Voyages Extraordinaires Series) © 1877, Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation Amazing Stories, Apr 1926 (First Issue!) --/ cool apocalyptic sf novel --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ idea award --/ steampunk award --/ awesome scale A feast of wonders, indeed, a fitting opening for the first issue of Amazing Stories (the first truly science fiction magazine), opening up the the Glorious Age of Wonder. The apocalyptic passages are rather subdued, but there is a case to be made that a truly titanic change might not even be perceived as such by those most closely affected by it. Thus our heroes (launched into outer space on a piece of Earth, or a "Splinter", like in a later Adam Roberts' tribute novel) have not a slightest idea what happened, even though they are wandering now amid surrealistic Salvador Dali-like landscapes and Biblical-like perturbations of their environment. Jules Verne does masterfully the subtle atmosphere of dark wonder in the first half of the novel, and in the second part we are treated to some memorable steampunk scenes: Tolkien-like lava cave "city", Moorcock-like "The Ice Schooner" voyage across the frozen ocean, Bob Show-like ("The Wooden Spaceships" and "Ragged Astronauts") impossible retro-tech flights, and even a glorious scene of skating under the rings of Saturn (lovingly depicted on the cover of this Amazing Stories issue). I did not enjoy characters' interactions quite as much (they are more than jarring in places, though cultural clashes between British, French, and Russian can be somewhat enjoyed (with better translation) - but the miserable depiction of a German Jew is so full of Anti-Semitism as to be despicable: aparently Jules Verne wanted to remove or downplay these sentiments himself (prevalent in Europe at the time of writing), but left it to his editor, who later... conveniently forgot to do it.) The original draft also did not have an air balloon journey between the two atmospheres (more than dubious in its science) with heroes perishing without any sort of a happy ending; but I am glad the novel concludes with this incredible sheer-fantasy imagery of an air baloon between worlds (the tedious science lecturing in Part Two made it hard to otherwise maintain interest). Some memorable images stick in the mind after reading this lovingly obsolete Voyage Extraordinaire, and provide a great springboard for the whole science fiction genre to emerge later in the pages of various pulp magazines. review: 5-Mar-21 (read in 2019) ---------------------------------------------- H. G. Wells "The New Accelerator" © The Strand, Dec 1901 Science & Invention, Feb 1923 Amazing Stories, Apr 1926 Twelve Stories and a Dream, 1903 --/ third place time sf story --/ wonder award --/ idea award --/ style award One of the very earliest sf stories I've read, and still fresh in my mind - it is a definitive treatment of "time speeding-up / slowing-down" concept and wish-fullfilment fantasy about "frozen people around you, so that you can do whatever you want". Everyone had dreams like that, and Wells wrote a classic, which stands the passing of time. "Strand" magazine, as you notice, was the closest thing to a pulp magazine at the turn of a century. review: 14-Jul-06 (read in 1999) ---------------------------------------------- Return to the Wonder Timeline

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