I love Bob Eggleton’s cover artwork for Logical Fantasy because it reminds me of the artwork in the late 1950s and early 1960s by the Winston Science Fiction series.
“Winston Science Fiction was a series of 37 American juvenile science fiction books published by the John C. Winston Company of Philadelphia from 1952 to 1960 and by its successor Holt, Rinehart & Winston in 1960 and 1961. It included 35 novels by various writers, including many who became famous in the SF field, such as Poul Anderson, Arthur C. Clarke, Ben Bova, and Lester del Rey. There was also one anthology, The Year After Tomorrow, edited by del Rey and others. There was one non-fiction book Rockets Through Space: The Story of Man’s Preparations to Explore the Universe by del Rey which details the factual science and technology of rocket flight. Many of the dust jackets became science fiction classics; the artists included Hugo Award winners Ed Emshwiller and Virgil Finlay along with Hugo nominees such as Mel Hunter and Alex Schomburg.”
It would be hard for me to decide whether John Wyndham’s Village of the Damned or Day of the Triffids gave me more nightmares. 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. Village of the Damned features telepathic children with a scary agenda. Based on The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), Village of the Damned shows the power of contagion.
But John Wyndham was also a gifted short story writer. Logical Fantasy: The Many Worlds of John Wyndham displays Wyndham’s talents in stories like “Spheres of Hell” (also known as “The Puffball Menace”) which was the original source for The Day of the Triffids. Then there’s the story of a homesick robot (‘The Lost Machine’) and a surprising tale of a lovelorn dragon (‘Chinese Puzzle’).
Five previously uncollected stories are included in Logical Fantasy. If you’re a John Wyndham fan, Logical Fantasy is a must-buy. If you’re a fan of classic SF stories from the 1950s and 1960s, you’ll enjoy this wonderful collection! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Introduction by Michael Marshall Smith — 7
- The Lost Machine — 13
- Spheres of Hell — 35
- The Man from Beyond — 63
- Beyond the Screen — 91
- Child of Power — 139
- The Living Lies — 171
- The Eternal Eve — 217
- Pawley’s Peepholes — 243
- The Wheel — 267
- Survival — 275
- Chinese Puzzle — 303
- Perforce to Dream — 323
- Never on Mars — 339
- Compassion Circuit — 361
- Brief to Counsel — 373
- Odd — 377
- The Asteroids, 2194 — 387
- A Stitch in Time– 403
“Consider Her Ways” is also a Wyndham gem, nicely adapted as an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock TV series many years ago. I tend to confuse Wyndham with another British master of cozy catastrophe SF, John Christopher.
Fred, Wyndham, John Christoper, and J. G. Ballard were Masters of Disasters! I’ll have to rewatch “Consider Her Ways.”
George the Tempter strikes again!
Sounds good. Will have to check it out.
Bill Crider often talked about the Winston Science Fiction series. A few years ago I read Evan Hunter’s first book, FIND THE FEATHERED SERPENT, and his DANGER: DINOSAURS!, originally published as by Richard Marsten. They were fun, fast reads. There is one more Marsten that I haven’t read, ROCKET TO LUNA. I do have Raymond F. Jones’s THE YEAR WHEN STARDUST FELL on the shelf.
Jeff, The Winston Science Fiction Series was aimed at 12-year-old boys. The covers were eye-catching, the stories were full of action, and once you read one of these Young Adult SF novels, you wanted to read more!
I have many fond memories of the Winston Sf series;; I have read about 20, have several others on Mount TBR, and hope to have finished reading the entire series over the next year or two. I also love Wyndham’s work, with THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS (THE VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED) being my top fav; a later novel, CHOCKY, comes in a close second. Since I’ve read all but the five unpublished stories in LOGICAL FANTASY, and since the book comes in at fifty bucks, I’ll wait until I can get a copy from a library, but my waiting will be very, very anxious.
BTW, George the !@#$% tempter strikes again! I’ve ordered four Gerald Kersh collections since your wonderful review this Wednesday.
Jerry, you’ll be happy to have been tempted by those Gerald Kersh collections after you read them. Kersh is a vastly underrated and unjustly forgotten writer.
When I was a Fort Leonard Wood for AIT (Advanced Individual Training) in 1967, a friend and I went to the base theater one Saturday! Playing was The Day of the Triffids! We enjoyed the movie but even more enjoyable were the antics of another soldier sitting a few rows ahead of us! He watched the whole movie leaning forward in his chair, bouncing up and down and squealing things like, “Look at the Triffids!” “The triffids are going to get him!” You’d think he was the12-year-old kid you mentioned! We were more than amused by this guy’s antics and joked about it the rest of the time we were at FLW!
Bob, some people really get into watching movies. When we saw BARBIE almost everybody in the audience was singing!
Fond memories!
Wyndham titles appeared early in German translation in the mid 50s, there must have been a fan who translated them. And they really fascinated me!
And I was lucky to get to read many titles in the bookstore of a relative, really nice.
Only in the 60s I had the money to buy (some …) books.
Wolf, the 1950s was the Golden Age of Science Fiction magazines. In the 1960s many SF magazines folded and the focus for most SF fans became paperbacks.