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The Best of John Wyndham
The Lost Machine (1932)The Man from Beyond (1934)The Perfect Creature (1937)The Trojan Beam (1939)Vengeance by Proxy (1940)Adaptation (1949)Pawley's Peepholes (1951)The Red Stuff (1951)And the Walls Came Tumbling Down (1951)Dumb Martian (1952)Close Behind Him (1952)The Emptiness of Space (1960)
318 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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About the author
John Wyndham
378 books2,017 followersJohn Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was the son of a barrister. After trying a number of careers, including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, he started writing short stories in 1925. After serving in the civil Service and the Army during the war, he went back to writing. Adopting the name John Wyndham, he started writing a form of science fiction that he called 'logical fantasy'. As well as The Day of the Triffids, he wrote The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned) and The Seeds of Time.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 11, 2021
Gathered after his death, this anthology of 12 John Wyndham stories published from 1932 to 1960 provides an interesting snapshot of his short-form writing over those years. All but the final two stories precede the period of his great success which began with The Day of the Triffids in 1951.
A couple of the stories also appeared in his 1956 short-story collection The Seeds of Time; Pawley’s Peepholes and Dumb Martian, the later being my favourite from that collection which on the whole is the more interesting of the two. The main feature of the present set of stories is the themes Wyndham was interested in over time. His writing is pretty polished from the beginning but his stories become more complex. The earlier ones are single ideas whereas the later tales carry larger themes familiar to readers of Wyndham’s novels, for example unknown organisms from outer space wreaking havoc on Earth explorers.
There’s a lot of time travel, for both animate and inanimate beings. In the aforementioned Pawley’s Peepholes time travellers from the future make nuisances of themselves before the locals turn the tables in a novel and effective fashion. It bears remembering that Wyndham’s ideas are his strength, along with a restraint which means he usually suggests technical matters rather than detailing them.
There are interplanetary adventures and trials concerning the difficulties of adapting both to foreign planetary environments and the side effects of long term space travel.
There is one overtly political story I found particularly interesting because it reflected the sentiments of the time. The Trojan Beam is a clever ‘science taken beyond practical limits’ story, a moral fable requiring the inhuman Japanese to be taken in by the noble, but-hard-put-upon Chinese during the Sino-Japanese War, prior to World War Two. Wyndham’s is unusually partisan, as would have been appropriate at the time. Good story though, a very neat idea.
Here is a brief listing of the stories (containing some spoilers):
1. 1932: The Lost Machine – an intelligent machine comes to Earth and dissolves itself
2. 1934: The Man from Beyond – on Venus, the lone survivor of Earth’s destruction because of the greed of rival exploration companies, realises his predicament and suicides
3. 1937: Perfect Creature – Doctor Dixon’s vivisection experiments go wrong
4. 1939: The Trojan Beam - partisan Sino-Japanese War spy story
5. 1940: Vengeance by Proxy – a vengeful spirit changes from body to body
6. 1949: Adaptation – Earth people born on Mars end up being really short
7. 1951: Pawley’s Peepholes – time-travelling tourists
8. 1951: The Red Stuff – space craft, people and settlements are enveloped by a red-coloured organism which grows all over them. Extra-terrestrial organisms can be dangerous
9. 1951: And the Walls Came Tumbling Down – explorers to Earth encounter humans, their artefacts and machinery but never come to terms with either
10. 1952: Dumb Martian – Martian wife leaves troglodyte Earthman master out in the cold
11. 1953: Close Behind Him – burglars are pursued by a spirit
12. 1960: The Emptiness of Space – an astronaut returns to Earth finding he has aged, but not nearly as much as everyone else.
A couple of the stories also appeared in his 1956 short-story collection The Seeds of Time; Pawley’s Peepholes and Dumb Martian, the later being my favourite from that collection which on the whole is the more interesting of the two. The main feature of the present set of stories is the themes Wyndham was interested in over time. His writing is pretty polished from the beginning but his stories become more complex. The earlier ones are single ideas whereas the later tales carry larger themes familiar to readers of Wyndham’s novels, for example unknown organisms from outer space wreaking havoc on Earth explorers.
There’s a lot of time travel, for both animate and inanimate beings. In the aforementioned Pawley’s Peepholes time travellers from the future make nuisances of themselves before the locals turn the tables in a novel and effective fashion. It bears remembering that Wyndham’s ideas are his strength, along with a restraint which means he usually suggests technical matters rather than detailing them.
There are interplanetary adventures and trials concerning the difficulties of adapting both to foreign planetary environments and the side effects of long term space travel.
There is one overtly political story I found particularly interesting because it reflected the sentiments of the time. The Trojan Beam is a clever ‘science taken beyond practical limits’ story, a moral fable requiring the inhuman Japanese to be taken in by the noble, but-hard-put-upon Chinese during the Sino-Japanese War, prior to World War Two. Wyndham’s is unusually partisan, as would have been appropriate at the time. Good story though, a very neat idea.
Here is a brief listing of the stories (containing some spoilers):
1. 1932: The Lost Machine – an intelligent machine comes to Earth and dissolves itself
2. 1934: The Man from Beyond – on Venus, the lone survivor of Earth’s destruction because of the greed of rival exploration companies, realises his predicament and suicides
3. 1937: Perfect Creature – Doctor Dixon’s vivisection experiments go wrong
4. 1939: The Trojan Beam - partisan Sino-Japanese War spy story
5. 1940: Vengeance by Proxy – a vengeful spirit changes from body to body
6. 1949: Adaptation – Earth people born on Mars end up being really short
7. 1951: Pawley’s Peepholes – time-travelling tourists
8. 1951: The Red Stuff – space craft, people and settlements are enveloped by a red-coloured organism which grows all over them. Extra-terrestrial organisms can be dangerous
9. 1951: And the Walls Came Tumbling Down – explorers to Earth encounter humans, their artefacts and machinery but never come to terms with either
10. 1952: Dumb Martian – Martian wife leaves troglodyte Earthman master out in the cold
11. 1953: Close Behind Him – burglars are pursued by a spirit
12. 1960: The Emptiness of Space – an astronaut returns to Earth finding he has aged, but not nearly as much as everyone else.
September 2, 2024
At the times of Wells, Burroughs and also Wyndham the unknown cosmic frontier was Mars, Venus and Moon. But to make the stories readable also in the future, the frontier should be a variable.
On another note, I think Wyndham errs against the rule of show, don't tell. In that sense not only the tech "sci" is outdated, but also the literary "fi" part feels ancient.
I found this collection of stories along with another one while wandering around Visby in an antiquary and sadly I feel the other one might have some better stories. The introduction kinda hints on the quality of "research" and "visionary" before the time of actual space flights or biotech, but these six don't really tingle those notes in my mind.
A little story-by-story memo follows
On another note, I think Wyndham errs against the rule of show, don't tell. In that sense not only the tech "sci" is outdated, but also the literary "fi" part feels ancient.
I found this collection of stories along with another one while wandering around Visby in an antiquary and sadly I feel the other one might have some better stories. The introduction kinda hints on the quality of "research" and "visionary" before the time of actual space flights or biotech, but these six don't really tingle those notes in my mind.
A little story-by-story memo follows
March 12, 2024
[Michael Joseph] (1975). HB/DJ. 1/1. 283 Pages.
Also published by Sphere in SB (1975); subsequently, split across two volumes: "The Best of John Wyndham 1932-1949" (1975) and "...1951-1960" (1977).
An interesting, posthumous collection of twelve short yarns (1932-1960) harvested from specialist magazines such as “Science Fantasy” and “Tales of Wonder”. Generally bleak in outlook, with flashes of intense darkness.
They’re ordered chronologically. The quality of execution drifts up, somewhat, over time.
“The Lost Machine” was published in “Amazing Stories” (April 1932). It’s a prescient tale with AI and robotics featured. Though such technologies are now firmly established, the doomed Martian contraption’s earthly adventures have a faint, possibly unintentional, comic undercurrent. For instance, Zat refers to humans thus:
“Before me was the biggest of all the cloth covered erections.”
"The Red Stuff" (1951) strikes me as a political allegory related to encroachment, in some form... plenty of possible targets suggest themselves...
"And the Walls Came Tumbling Down" (1951) sees earth described as "...a grotesquely misconceived planet... a disgusting and dangerous dump with the potentialities of a paradise." No change there, then, in 73 years...
Also published by Sphere in SB (1975); subsequently, split across two volumes: "The Best of John Wyndham 1932-1949" (1975) and "...1951-1960" (1977).
An interesting, posthumous collection of twelve short yarns (1932-1960) harvested from specialist magazines such as “Science Fantasy” and “Tales of Wonder”. Generally bleak in outlook, with flashes of intense darkness.
They’re ordered chronologically. The quality of execution drifts up, somewhat, over time.
“The Lost Machine” was published in “Amazing Stories” (April 1932). It’s a prescient tale with AI and robotics featured. Though such technologies are now firmly established, the doomed Martian contraption’s earthly adventures have a faint, possibly unintentional, comic undercurrent. For instance, Zat refers to humans thus:
“Before me was the biggest of all the cloth covered erections.”
"The Red Stuff" (1951) strikes me as a political allegory related to encroachment, in some form... plenty of possible targets suggest themselves...
"And the Walls Came Tumbling Down" (1951) sees earth described as "...a grotesquely misconceived planet... a disgusting and dangerous dump with the potentialities of a paradise." No change there, then, in 73 years...
July 3, 2019
A very entertaining collection of Sci-fi stories from the author, all of which with some merit, written in Wyndham's authoritative style. A better and more consistent collection than Jizzle in my opinion, a story from which ('Una') is duplicated here (as 'The Perfect Creature'). 'The Lost Machine' (1932) later became the basis of Wyndham's very readable 1935 Stowaway To Mars novel.
Stand-outs for me are 'The Red Stuff' (tense and vivid, like a long lost Star Trek episode) and 'Dumb Martian' (racism and sexism on an interplanetary scale), but, as stated, all of the stories work very well.
May 20, 2023
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Vengeance by Proxy - 3/5
Vengeance by Proxy - 3/5
July 7, 2012
This book is a selection of short stories written by John Wyndham and published in various magazines and other collections of short stories compiled by Wyndham himself. Whether or not these are actually the best of John Wyndham is not really for me to say as I haven't read a great deal of his short stories but that is what they are listed as, so who am I to argue!
In general I would say that the stories are generally a good bunch with a couple of real standout stories (for me at least) and a few that I didn't really think much of.
My favourite story in the collection is Dumb Martian, which is probably one of Wyndham's most famous stories which is a story about a human and his Martian wife out in deep space and his descent into madness and brutality.
Some of the other stories that I enjoyed are The Lost Machine which was about a sentient Martian machine which was lost on the planet Earth and its experiences on the planet Earth in the early part of the twentieth century and how it longs to go home.
The Man from Beyond is a story about the planet Venus and its inhabitants and of a strange creature found in a museum and its links to the first manned mission to the planet.
The Perfect Creature is a story about scientist who wanted to create a new lifeform free from the problems of our own species, a bit like Dr Moreau, which doesn't go down at all well with the local populace.
The other stories in the collection were ok, but those were my favourites and the ones that I would re-read and also are the ones that I would recommend that other's read as well.
In general I would say that the stories are generally a good bunch with a couple of real standout stories (for me at least) and a few that I didn't really think much of.
My favourite story in the collection is Dumb Martian, which is probably one of Wyndham's most famous stories which is a story about a human and his Martian wife out in deep space and his descent into madness and brutality.
Some of the other stories that I enjoyed are The Lost Machine which was about a sentient Martian machine which was lost on the planet Earth and its experiences on the planet Earth in the early part of the twentieth century and how it longs to go home.
The Man from Beyond is a story about the planet Venus and its inhabitants and of a strange creature found in a museum and its links to the first manned mission to the planet.
The Perfect Creature is a story about scientist who wanted to create a new lifeform free from the problems of our own species, a bit like Dr Moreau, which doesn't go down at all well with the local populace.
The other stories in the collection were ok, but those were my favourites and the ones that I would re-read and also are the ones that I would recommend that other's read as well.
April 28, 2013
Titles of Short Stories: The Lost Machine, The Man from Beyond, The Perfect Creature, The Trojan Beam, Vengeance by Proxy, Adaptation, Pawley’s Peepholes, The Red Stuff, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, Dumb Martian, Close Behind Him, The Emptiness of Space
This series of John Wyndham stories cover his entire writing career. Starting with The Lost Machine written in 1932, written from the point of view of a Martian machine which has become stranded on earth; the stories carry your through the decades in chronological order until the last, The Emptiness of Space, which was written in 1960.
My two favourite were The Perfect Creature and Dumb Martian. The perfect creature is a female entity created by a scientist – he brings his friends in to meet her and they discover that one persons idea of perfection is not the same as another – especially when the creature takes a shine to one of the visitors. Comical in its delivery – there is the hard message of don’t dabble with nature. In Dumb Martian a human is assigned to a remote moon outpost – and takes a Martian wife to help him while away the hours and keep house for him. He only ever wants her as a disposable creature to use and abuse, mostly abuse. he taunts her for being ‘dumb’ – but she is not so dumb. With this story there are the underlying themes of racism and abuse.
I didn’t enjoy all of the stories – but on the whole the book was a good average read and great bedside reading.
This series of John Wyndham stories cover his entire writing career. Starting with The Lost Machine written in 1932, written from the point of view of a Martian machine which has become stranded on earth; the stories carry your through the decades in chronological order until the last, The Emptiness of Space, which was written in 1960.
My two favourite were The Perfect Creature and Dumb Martian. The perfect creature is a female entity created by a scientist – he brings his friends in to meet her and they discover that one persons idea of perfection is not the same as another – especially when the creature takes a shine to one of the visitors. Comical in its delivery – there is the hard message of don’t dabble with nature. In Dumb Martian a human is assigned to a remote moon outpost – and takes a Martian wife to help him while away the hours and keep house for him. He only ever wants her as a disposable creature to use and abuse, mostly abuse. he taunts her for being ‘dumb’ – but she is not so dumb. With this story there are the underlying themes of racism and abuse.
I didn’t enjoy all of the stories – but on the whole the book was a good average read and great bedside reading.
March 28, 2014
This short story collection covers the spectrum of Wyhndham's career and was overall of high quality (no shock, since it was supposed to be a best-of anthology). Wyndham is most impressive when he is getting inside the head of an alien creature and imagining its perspective on, and interactions with, humanity. My two favourite stories fall into this category - 'The Walls Come Tumbling Down', where a group of sentient glass-creatures land in the desert and try to communicate with humans (ending in disaster) and 'The Lost Machine', where a robot commits suicide out of loneliness for the company of its own kind.
March 7, 2010
This is a posthumous collection of Wyndham's best short stories. Wyndham has a dry and somewhat humorous tone that very much fits these stories, although I oddly heard some of his stories in an American accent, despite the man being a very British gent (and I never had the issue with any of his novels). In the collection, Close Behind Him was really rather creepy, while there's a humour and playfulness about The Perfect Creature and Pawley's Peepholes which is endearing. A good collection from an excellent author.
December 9, 2011
A selection of his short stories written between 1932 and 1960, mostly sf but including a couple of horror stories. I've a feeling I may have read a couple of them before; "Pawley's Peepholes" about a community disrupted by time-travelling tourists seemed familiar, as did "Close Behind Him" a horror story about a murderer being dogged by bloody footsteps getting ever closer to him.
April 19, 2014
comprising:
The Lost Machine (1932)
The Man from Beyond (1934)
The Perfect Creature (1937)
The Trojan Beam (1939)
Vengeance by Proxy (1940)
Adaptation (1949)
Pawley's Peepholes (1951)
The Red Stuff (1951)
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down (1951)
Dumb Martian (1952)
Close Behind Him (1952)
The Emptiness of Space (1960)
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May 24, 2015contient les nouvelles suivantes :
The lost machine (1932)
The man from beyond (1934)
Adaptation (1949)
And the walls came trumbling down (1951)
The emptiness of space (1960)
Perfect creature (1937)
World to barter (1933)
Traduction de Mary Rosenthal
The lost machine (1932)
The man from beyond (1934)
Adaptation (1949)
And the walls came trumbling down (1951)
The emptiness of space (1960)
Perfect creature (1937)
World to barter (1933)
Traduction de Mary Rosenthal
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August 22, 2008Best of John Wyndham by John Wyndham (1975)
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