John
Wyndham
I
found a collection of six of Wyndham's novels a couple of weeks ago,
at one of the charity shops in town, and snapped it up immediately;
at one pound there was no
question but that it would go with me. There is a bit of overlap
with the three i already own, but it does mean that i'll be able to
send one to Stephanie for her opinion of him. Mine own opinion, of
course, is clear and without doubt: He was one of the best of the
British writers of science fiction, whose control of plot may have
been slightly less than perfect, but who forced the reader to think
about consequences and ideas with every story he wrote. The
Day of the Triffids,
then: This is probably the most successful of his novels, from
either writing period (before and after the War), both in terms of
critical and cultural (and maybe financial, though i wouldn't know)
success; certainly it is the one which has been the best known,
having been made into a film (which i have never seen; one of those
'fifties sci-fi/horror genre, i suspect, it could have been
appalling, but it was popular, i believe), and spawning at least one
sequel which i read and reviewed about half a dozen years ago.
John
Wyndham
A
collection of short stories; i think this is the lesser of the (i
think) two collections made in Wyndham's later period (not including
The Outward Urge
which could, arguably, be considered a novel), the other being
Consider her Ways.
I have read neither of them recently (well, not until i just reread
this one, obviously), but it seems to me that Consider
has the stronger stories in it. This is not to say, however, that
those in this collection are weak; they are not, in the main.
Wyndham clearly wrote attempting different styles and genres in these
stories ~ he says as much in his introduction ~ with fair success.
To my mind the better of the stories include the first
(“Chronoclasm”), a romance between time-crossed lovers,
“Survival”, a horrible development of the idea in Asimov's first
published story, “Marooned off Vesta”, “Pillar to Post”, a
very complicated story of time travel and body swapping which ends
rather unsatisfactorily, and “Dumb Martian”, which shows almost
more clearly than any fiction about actual racism the pointlessness
and foolishness of prejudice.
John
Wyndham
Though
i can see flaws in it, this has always been my favourite Wyndham ever
since i read it; i'm not altogether sure that i can pinpoint why,
other than sheer pleasure
in the clever simplicity of the plot and characters, along with, as
always with Wyndham, a necessity for the reader to think about what
would happen if.... It is hard to be critical in some reviews, and
this is one, because i feel too invested in the book that i'm
reviewing; i don't feel as though i can ever write less than
effusively about Wyndham or, for a further example, Dick Francis,
because i enjoy them too much, though, as i say, i can see
imperfections in what they write those imperfections seem less
important than the whole which surrounds them. So, clearly, i
enjoyed reading this, and i'm glad i now own a copy, so i can reread
it any time i choose.
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