Thirteen o'clock

by Fenton W Earnshaw

Peter Packer discovers a secret room in his grandfather's attic, full of various knick knacks, and old chests. He also finds a clock - a strange clock that has thirteen hours on it, instead of the usual twelve. Curious, he takes it downstairs into his workshop, and winds it up. But when the clock strikes thirteen, Peter finds himself getting sick with nausea as he is transported to another world. A world filled with witches, and demons, and all sorts of strange inhabitants.Peter quickly finds himself in a very different New York, run by a ruthless dictator named Almarish.

Genres: Science Fiction

Unknown Binding

First published December 1, 1970

Reviews

[Mack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parody of fantasy? Creative, brilliant, off-kilter, funny, wordy.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories (except the last) were written under the Cecil Corwin pseudonym, possibly to separate these pure fantasy stories from Kornbluth's SF writing. The stories are all amusing and fun to read, but the most fun thing is the last story, which was published as a Kornbluth story and included Corwin as a character. This story enabled Kornbluth to "do away" with Corwin for ever.

[Karen Eichler · Rating 3 out of 5]

According to the Preface, a collection of C.M. Kornbluth (under the pen name Cecil Corwin) short fantasy stories is rare. As a fan of fantasy, I was interested, but I don't think these stories are quite what I think of when I hear "fantasy". The stories were interesting, but more scifi or maybe just "odd" tales that didn't quite fit any genre. If you're a fan of C.M. Kornbluth, you'll want to check these out. Modern fans of fantasy stories will probably not find what they're looking for here. The collection has:
Thirteen O'clock
The Rocket of 1955
What Sorghum Says
Crisis
The Reversible Revolutions
The City in the Sofa
The Golden Road
Ms. Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early work by Kornbluth, and nowhere near to his best. However, it does contain The Rocket of 1955, which is pure story-telling craftmanship in a very short story.

[Peter Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please give me a helpful vote at https://www.amazon.com/review/R2WDQVA...

This is a very minor - essentially forgotten - work from a very great writer.

C. M. Kornbluth died much too young, after writing some great science fiction short stories and novels. He undoubtedly had in him a novel that would have redefined science fiction if time had permitted him to write it.

This short story is entertaining but minor. Peter Packer inherits his grandfather's house. He discovers a strange clock that goes to "13" and - boom, zoom - Peter slips into an alternate universe where magic seems to work. The magical universe is a parody of our own with trolls and anachronistic resemblances to mid-20th Century America. Peter meets a girl, loses the girl, rescues the girl and gets home again. It is thoroughly predictable and all in good fun. Kornbluth was just playing around with this story.

The average reader can pass this by and never miss it. A modern reader might find it curiously dated. On the other other hand, if you are a fan of the great writers of science fiction, you will want to read this as a guilty pleasure.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a common misconception that - until Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett - science fiction and fantasy were serious and po-faced. This collection of stories by Cyril Kornbluth, written during the 1940s under the pseudonym Cecil Corwin, are proof that this was not the case. Wryly humorous (usually whimsical, but at times laugh-out-loud funny) are a bit dated (they are a product of their time, after all), but also show themselves to be surprisingly timeless. The title story in particular (originally published as two separate short stories), is a excellent, and a clear evolutionary "missing link" between Narnia and Discworld. The first half of that story (originally published alone as a short story with the same title in 1941) is a gem, and the remainder of the book is not that much less enjoyable.

[William Laing · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cyril Kornbluth, who died in 1958 at the age of 34, was one of the best writers of the heroic age of SF. A lifespan as long as Asimov or Clarke would have seen him equal and in some ways surpass them: humour, characterisation and satirical acuity come to mind. I think I'm right in believing that he would have excelled in whatever branch of fiction he chose. This breadth of mind shows in most of his work.
The present story is a reminder of just how young this writer started. Some enthusiasms are slightly callow--he uses the word "grotesquely" with a schoolboy abandon that made me smile as I shuddered. TO'C has only a glimmer of the great visionary-comedy-hardboiled-satire (The Cosmic Charge Account, Two Dooms) to come, but all Kornbluth is to be treasured.

[bluetyson]

Thirteen o'Clock and Other Zero Hours by C. M. Kornbluth (1970)

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Goofy nonsense that I can't get into.