Far Boundaries

by August Derleth, Robert Bloch, Murray Leinster

Contents:

• Introduction by August Derleth
• Primitives by August Derleth
• From a Private Mad-House by Humphrey Repton
• Missing One's Coach: An Anachronism by Anonymous
• Tale of a Chemist by Anonymous
• The Last American by J.A. Mitchell
• Mid-Period Pieces by August Derleth
• Infinity Zero by Donald Wandrei
• Frankenstein - Unlimited by H.A. Highstone
• Open, Sesame! by August Derleth [as by Stephen Grendon ]
• Tepondicon by Carl Jacobi
• The Fear Planet by Robert Bloch
• The Contemporary Scene by August Derleth
• De Profundis by Murray Leinster
• Invasion by Frank Belknap Long
• Dear Pen Pal A.E. van Vogt (aka Letter from the Stars)
• Time to Rest John Wyndham [as by John Beynon Harris ]
• An Ounce of Prevention by Paul A. Carter [as by Paul Carter ]
• The Song of the Pewee by August Derleth [as by Stephen Grendon ]
• And Lo! The Bird by Nelson S. Bond [as by Nelson Bond ]
• The One Who Waits by Ray Bradbury
• Vignettes of Tomorrow by Ray Bradbury
• Holiday by Ray Bradbury
• The Man Who Rode the Saucer by August Derleth [as by Kenyon Holmes ]
• Later Than You Think by Fritz Leiber

Genres: Science Fiction

219 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the Cosmic Horror genre, as well as his founding of the publisher Arkham House (which did much to bring supernatural fiction into print in hardcover in the US that had only been readily available in the UK), Derleth was a leading American regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including historical fiction, poetry, detective fiction, science fiction, and biography

A 1938 Guggenheim Fellow, Derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious Sac Prairie Saga, a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the Wisconsin he knew. Derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturalist and conservationist in his writing

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augus...]

Reviews

[Mark Baumgart · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were numerous anthologies like August Derleth’s Far Boundaries published in the early fifties that tried to document the early days of science fiction, and all worked out to various amounts of success.

However, as far as this idea goes now Far Boundaries is fairly dated, as it was originally published in 1951, and a lot of has happened in the past seventy years.

●In his effort to represent the very early days, the 1700’s, of science fiction, Derleth reprints two rare stories, From a Private Mad-House by Humphrey Rapton and Missing One’s Coach: An Anachronism by Anonymous, and they are of interest for historical purposes only as both were unreadable.

●The anthology picks up somewhat with Anonymous’ (possibly Robert Bell) Tales Of A Chemist, which is a whimsical spoof of the mad scientist plotline as a scientist invents a way to negate his personal gravity. Of course, nothing will go right in this humorous and fun tale.

●Up next is the mini-classic The Last American by J. A. Mitchell (John Ames Mitchell: 1845-1918) from 1889, and whole collage dissertations could be written on it. However, in the future, an Arabic Expedition finds the lost continent of “Merika”, and they are less than impressed by what they find, and they are very arrogant and superior in their own supposed superiority. Especially as Merika doesn’t conform to their narrow Muslim theology. While some of these observations have become outdated since this story was published, it’s surprising just how many of these conservative Muslim opinions are still being practiced. But, in the end, Mitchell manages to lampoon both sides, the American, and the Muslim cultures.

●After this, publisher, poet, and writer Donald Wandrei (Donald Albert Wandrei: 1908-87), then ends the world in his story Infinity Zero. In his story America is fighting a never-ending extended war, a war that resembles WWII even though this story was written in 1936. Then a bomb finds its mark on an experimental weapons research laboratory and in a case of a perfect storm a situation occurs that causes a phenomenon that will exponentially consume the earth.

●Frankenstein—Unlimited by H. A. Highstone is a post-apocalyptic story in which a character narrates how robots and the controlling A. I. took over the world and eliminated most of mankind. A story that doesn’t rise above the ordinary. Highstone only wrote two sf stories before fading into publishing history.

●Up next is the first of three stories by editor Derleth (August William Derleth: 1909-71) under several pseudonyms. Open Sesame is both a first contact and a fair invasion story, as a scientist finds himself possessed by an alien intelligence.

●Carl Jacobi (Carl Richard Jacobi: 1908-1997) was another of a myriad of pulp authors that benefited from the resurgence of the small presses of the late sixties when his fiction was rediscovered.

In Tepondicon Jacobi gives us a science fantasy in which a man is seeking a treasure through the decadent cities of Ganymede, only to find that he might have a higher destiny than just being a treasure hunter.

●Robert Bloch (Robert Albert Bloch: 1917-94) has always been one of my favorite writers, be it his mysteries, suspense, science fiction, or horror, so I was looking forward to reading his story, Fear Planet, reprinted here. Fear Planet is a combination of both sf and horror as some astronauts land on a planet where the very vegetation is alive and malignant. Then there will be death, and the dead will rise. Falls into the “Deathworld” sub-genre of science fiction.

●De Profundis by multi-genre author Murray Leinster (William Fitzgerald Jenkins: 1896-1975) deals with an alien first contact, only the alien race is already right here on Earth. And the story is told from the alien’s viewpoint as it tries to justify our existence, and understand our mindset. Unique, for the time, as it gives away the twist ending at the beginning, and goes from there to explore the concept.

●Up next is a different type of story from the one-time Lovecraftian Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994). Invasion is a, for its time, a totally different type of alien contact, as an isolated family is contacted by a man who is from out there, and while benevolent, he is friendly, what could be a beneficial relationship between us and the alien race will be destroyed by an afraid and small-minded outsider.

●Dear Pen Pal by A. E. van Vogt (Alfred Elton van Vogt: 1912-2000) is one of his more ironic stories, in which a correspondent to interplanetary prisoners is hijacked to a previously unknown planet and one of its prisoners. Both will get what they want, in this first contact story, but not in a way they wanted it. For all fans of Frederic Brown.

●John Beynon Harris (John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris: 1903-69) would write future bestsellers under the pseudonym of John Wyndham, but here, under his own name he gives us Time to Rest, a character study involving a man who survives the destruction of Earth by drifting around Mars doing odd jobs for the native Martians. A melancholy story of a lost man and a forced immigrant, a story for all fans of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.

●Over the years Paul Carter (Paul Allen Carter: 1926-2016) wrote relatively little fiction, but all of the stories that I’ve read have been of a high quality. And An Ounce Of Prevention is no different, as a lone survivor of a Martian expedition ends up being the last survivor of Earth as he ends up watching as Earth dies screaming. All is not lost however, as he meets the ingenious Martian natives that will send him back into time to prevent Earth’s destruction, only to find in this cynical story that human nature never misses an opportunity to do the wrong thing.

●The Song Of The Pewee is the second story by Derleth, this time as Stephen Grendon, and it is a blackly cynical dystopian tale of a future where everything is regulated, and a man just wants to see a bird, which have all been destroyed as being non-productive by the state. A stubborn wish that will cause his downfall.

●And Lo! The Bird is by the prolific pulpster Nelson Bond (Nelson Slade Bond: 1908-2006), and an astronomer has detected an astronomical disturbance. A giant cosmic bird has entered the solar system, and the planets are being destroyed, and Earth may soon join them. Meh.

●Ray Bradbury (Ray Douglas Bradbury: 1920-2012) wrote a lot of Martian tales, and not all of them ended up in his original Martian Chronicles braided novel. The One Who Waits is a simple, but solid, horror story of something waiting in a well on Mars, and then it starts picking off Earth’s astronauts. Would have worked just as well on Earth without the Martian trappings.

●Bradbury’s second story in this anthology was Holiday and it is about a holiday being celebrated as the new Martians sit around and watch Earth’s destruction (Again?!?). Doesn’t really work as a stand-alone story.

●And now, as Kenyon Holmes, August Derleth gives us The Man Who Rode The Saucer, which is one of his Tex Harrigan newspaperman stories. Here Tex has to investigate a scientist who claims that he was abducted and experimented on by the denizens of a UFO. A neat cross between Kolchak and the X-Files decades before either one was created.

●Last up is Later Than You Think, a minor, but entertaining, story by the ever-reliable essayist, writer, and actor, Fritz Leiber (Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr.: 1910-92). Again, dealing with a future civilization that is investigating a past one. A story that could be favorably paired with the Leinster story that is described above.

While the reason for this anthology’s existence is long gone, it does exhibit a strong streak of cynicism, and the trope of apocalypsism does become repetitious, still yet it was still worth reading for me for the Mitchell, Wandrei, Bloch, Leinster, Long, van Vogt, the last two Derleths, Harris, Carter, and Bradbury (The One Who Waits) stories. A pretty good average for me. Still, most of the others were at least entertaining, and sadly, most of the stories here seem to be hard to find. Read this anthology if you can find it.

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first tale is an early depiction of a man, who has become fed up with the world as he knows it, chooses to travel into space, heading to the moon by his giant balloon where he encounters a strange looking alien. He finds that life away from earth will become unbearable. An almost whimsically written short story from the 1700s

A brilliantly worded story of a man who while travelling through England finds himself face to face with a monk called Bede. He relates the differences and changes of his modern world to the shock of the old monk. The ending was quite a sudden change from the rest of the story and brought on much to suddenly. That of the young man being chased out of the area by the fellow monks, for basically keeping Bede away from them.

The last American is a strange one of a group of men travelling the seas from Persia in the far off future who land on the ancient country of America to find it in ruins with no sign of a population. It is written mostly in the style of a diary entry. I disliked the ending of this one as it became too violent when compared with the rest of the exploration in the story

My favorite of the many short stories in here is titled, And Lo! The Bird. A story of deep space observation. A mysterious sighting in the far distance of space, slowly approaching. The tension slowly brought on is brilliant. Loved it

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

1ST CONSUL/BRITISH EDITION. DESCRIBED AS 'AN APPENDIX TO THE LARGER ANTHOLOGY' BEYOND TIME AND SPACE.