I was a member of the Quality Paperback Book Club for a number of years. Back in 1995, the Quality Paperback Book Club offered this omnibus edition featuring three class Science Fiction novels: John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (1951), I Am Legend (1955) by Richard Matheson, and Philip K. Dick’s Time Out of Joint (1959).
I read The Day of the Triffids after I was freaked out by the 1962 film version. The British SF writers of that era specialized in catastrophic novels where the Earth was imperiled and The Day of the Triffids–with the horrific situation of most people in the world blinded by an apparent meteor shower and then an aggressive species of plant begins killing people–was enough to give me nightmares for months.
Yes, I Am Legend freaked me out, too! After the outbreak of a pandemic that has killed the rest of the human population and turned infected survivors into “vampires”. Once again, I read the novel after seeing the 1964 movie, The Last Man on Earth. More movie versions followed: The Omega Man (1971), and I Am Legend (2007).
I read Time Out of Joint around 1960. I’d read plenty of Philip K. Dick short stories and loved the quirkiness of his Science Fiction. The title is a reference to Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. The line is uttered by Hamlet after being visited by his father’s ghost and learning that his uncle Claudius murdered his father:
“The time is out of joint; O cursed spite!/That ever I was born to set it right!” [I.V.211-2])
Ragle Gumm lives in the year 1959 in a quiet American town. His unusual profession consists of repeatedly winning the cash prize in a national newspaper contest called “Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?”. But Gumm’s world starts to unravel as Philip K. Dick creates a world where nothing is as it seems. Paranoid, indeed!
I read all three of these novels in my teens so it was fun to revisit them. Are you familiar with these “paranoid” SF novels? GRADE: A (for all three novels)
I have read all three at kat least twice starting back in the mid 60’s. Never freaked out about a movie or book though. The movie versions of the first two are not very good. . Never seen the British mini series of Triffids. Love the first two. The Dick isn’t one of my favorites . Two A’s and one B.
Steve, I easily freaked out when I was a 10 years old. Man-eating plants, vampires, and upside-down Reality flipped me out!
Fond memories!
At the end of the 50s German publisher Goldmann started a series of cheap paperbacks and found an SF fan to translate and edit these classics.
Of course I had not enough money to buy them and these were not available in librarys but a friend of my mother allowed me to read them in the bookstore that she managed – fantastic.
Especially the Triffids made a big impression on me, helped me to read even more SF.
Wolf, the Triffids haunted my dreams for years!
I’ve read LEGEND and JOINT. both well worth the time, and I have fond memories of the 1964 film version of I AM LEGEND. With it’s ragged, near-amateur look, as if it were made by, not about, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH.
Dan, I knew your love for HAMLET would put TIME OUT OF JOINT in the win column for you. I have fond memories of THE OMEGA MAN.
Great books all. My favorite is the Wyndham, which I consider second only to his THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS. But where’s the other classic Fifties Paranoid SF Novel, Jack Finney’s THE BODY SNTCHERS?
Jerry, I’ll have to investigate and see if the QUALITY PAPERBACK BOOK CLUB issued any other omnibuses of paranoid SF from the 1950s. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS certainly would qualify!
I’ve read the first two. When we first went to England int he early 1970s, I bought all the Wyndham books that were available in Penguin and read them. Yes, TRIFFIDS made a big impression on me. I did see the British mini-series, but still prefer the book. I haven’t read the Dick.
Jeff, Jerry is right about THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS being even a little bit more scary than DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS. TIME OF OUT JOINT is no MARTIAN TIME-SLIP but presents Dick’s key elements of “Nothing is What It Seems” that lurk in all of PDK’s books.
I was a member of the Quality Paperback Book Club for I’m pretty sure its entire existence, and bought many, many of its books. I don’t remember even seeing this one. A neat collection.
Jeff, I was a member of the QUALITY PAPERBACK BOOK CLUB for years and enjoyed their wonderful “custom” books like THE PARANOID FIFTIES.
Read the Wyndham and Matheson in junior high. I appreciated “-Tiffids” and think that Wyndham is a fine science fiction writer who deserves more acclaim. “I am Legend” left me devastated and depressed for weeks. I could never warm up to Dick so that one would be a pass. I somehow missed the Quality Paperback Book Club at the time perhaps because I was already working in a bookstore at the time while also haunting the other seven or eight shops in town at the time (those were the days).
Byron, those were the days, indeed! The Quality Paperback Book Club offered their own line of “custom” books like THE PARANOID FIFTIES that I found irresistible. Though, I still bought books at BORDERS and Barnes & Noble and independent bookstores.
I have I AM LEGEND, which I liked.
Patti, I’m a big fan of Richard Matheson.
I’ve been meaning to read LEGEND for quite some time, and am aware of both the others, but haven’t yet read any, while enjoying other work by all three.
Todd, I AM LEGEND is a quick, compelling read.
Like Jeff Smith, I was a member of the Quality Paperback Book Club for many years and I don’t remember seeing this, but maybe I wasn’t as tuned into to science fiction at the time. You make all of them sound maybe too paranoid for me, but I have been wanting to read the first two, and TIME OUT OF JOINT would be worth a try too.
Tracy, copies of THE PARANOID FIFTIES are available online for reasonable prices.
FWIW, I was a member of the QPB when I lived in Hawaii, and the SFBC (though I had joined the latter when in my last year in NH)…in those years, no automatic shipping of Monthly Selections from either (unless you opted out) to the non-contiguous states, and military addresses, which made them more attractive to me.
Todd, I remember buying books from both the QPB and the SFBC…sometimes both in a month!