A runaway planet hurtles toward the earth. As it draws near, massive tidal waves, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions wrack our planet, devastating continents, drowning cities, and wiping out millions. In central North America, a team of scientists race to build a spacecraft powerful enough to escape the doomed earth. Their greatest threat, they soon discover, comes not from the skies but from other humans. A crackling plot and sizzling, cataclysmic vision have made "When Worlds Collide" one of the most popular and influential end-of-the-world novels of all time.This "Bison Frontiers of Imagination" edition features the original classic story and its sequel, "After Worlds Collide". Philip Wylie (1902-71) wrote several classic works of speculative fiction, including "Gladiator" and "The Disappearance", as well as a popular work of nonfiction, "A Generation of Vipers". Edwin Balmer (1883-1959), an engineer, was also a writer of detective stories and speculative fiction. Introducer John Varley is an acclaimed science fiction writer and a winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. His books include "Wizard", "Demon", and "Steel Beach".
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" ... a rattling good old-fashioned story of world-cataclysm and the exploration of a new planet."--interzone, february 2000
--This text refers to an alternate
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edition.
About the Author
Philip Wylie (1902-71) wrote several classic works of speculative fiction, including "Gladiator" and "The Disappearance," as well as a popular work of nonfiction, "A Generation of Vipers." Edwin Balmer (1883-1959), an engineer, was also a writer of detective stories and speculative fiction. Introducer John Varley is an acclaimed science fiction writer and a winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. His books include "Wizard," "Demon," and "Steel Beach."
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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First Sentence
THE secret itself was still safe. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
THE secret itself was still safe. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I wasn't much of a reader when I first picked up this book in Junior High School, but it quickly grabbed my interest - I couldn't put it down! It wasn't until later that I learned it had a sequel, which I promptly read. Over the years, I have read it over and over again, until the library decided to take it out of circulation. I look forward to the opportunity to buy a copy for my personal collection, and share it with my children.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Rod Williams
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This Bison Books edition of the 1932 collaboration is an attractive item in its own right and includes a foreword by John Varley and the sequel ‘After Worlds Collide’
A courier carrying photographic plates from South African astronomer Professor Bronson to Cole Hendron, his colleague in New York, is offered increasingly alarming sums of money to give exclusive information to various newspapers.
The papers do not have long to wait for the terrible news. A gas giant and an orbiting smaller world are heading in from outer space on collision course with the Earth.
Professor Hendron confirms from the plates that the pair will swing past our world, causing massive earthquakes and tidal waves and then swing round the sun. On the return journey Bronson Alpha will hit the Earth head on. However, the scientists (hiding behind the not-so-subtle name ‘The League of The Last Days) have a plan to build a ship, carrying a chosen few to the new world of Bronson Beta, which is predicted to break free of its large companion following the collision and take Earth’s place in its orbit.
Most readers will be more familiar with the George Powell movie; a production more or less faithful to the novel, but lacking much of the suspense and sense of wonder of the original.
Despite some examples of what we see from today’s perspective as scientific hokum, the effects of the passing of the large planet are well described and seem accurate enough.
The scenes describing ever-increasing tides invading New York and drowning the streets, leaving the skyscrapers sprouting from the sea are, in an odd sense, quite beautiful. Likewise, the eventual destruction of the Earth viewed from the rocketship by the survivors, provides for the reader a kind of smug satisfaction.
... Read more ›
By Sleep Mode
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is, as described and expected, a classic which defined the genre.
The fact that the book combines the original and the sequel of the series is a great extra.
A got-to-read.
The fact that the book combines the original and the sequel of the series is a great extra.
A got-to-read.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What if the world had the chance to start all over again knowing what we know today? Wylie has this special way of writting! When you get to the end of the book you feel like you read a good story and a philosophy treaty and the insight of a man that always kept a lucid and critical eye on his own time...
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