1947 - Year in SF&F: Reviews

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE Read other issues here ---------------------------------------------- Francis Flagg & Weaver Wright "Strangers in a Strange Time" (also as "The Time Twister") © Thrilling Wonder Stories, Oct 1947 --/ cool sf story Two funny scientists (possibly drunk, or even worse, ridiculously sober) get all excited about time travel, quickly make some impressive-looking machine and hop in, only to discover that they were hit by a twister - creating all kinds of chaos around, but none time-travel-related. A bummer. ---------------------------------------------- Philip K. Dick "Stability" © written in 1947 Beyond Lies The Wub, 1987 --/ cool sf story First, unpublished story - quite rough around the edges, of course. Ideas of man against the government, machines, flying free, talking cars - elements used in future stories. review: 04-Jul-06 (read in 2006) ---------------------------------------------- A. E. Van Vogt "The Barbarian" (Clane / Empire of the Atom series) © Astounding, Dec 1947 Empire of the Atom, 1957 The Book of A.E.Van Vogt, 1972 --/ cool sf novella Different in mood from the rest of "Empire of the Atom" bunch, this one broadens the interplanetary intrigue and gives more sense of scale and wonder. The barbaric tribes (devolving after earthlings abandoned its outer planet colonies) still use high-tech machinery and space travel, which gives an amusing and at times paradoxical atmosphere to this story. Very popular "retrograde technology evolution" idea has been widely used in the other pulps (try Alfred Coppel's "Rebel of Valkyr" where the barbarians ply the insterstellar lanes inside highly sophisticated spaceships - relics of the Empire). Pure "Planet Stories" material. review: 27-Jul-06 (read in 1990) ---------------------------------------------- Return to the Wonder Timeline

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