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Frankenstein Dreams: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Science Fiction
From Mary Shelley to H.G. Wells, a collection of the best Victorian science fiction from Michael Sims, the editor of Dracula's Guest.
Long before 1984, Star Wars, or The Hunger Games, Victorian authors imagined a future where new science and technologies reshaped the world and universe they knew. The great themes of modern science fiction showed up surprisingly early: space and time travel, dystopian societies, even dangerously independent machines, all inspiring the speculative fiction of the Victorian era.
In Frankenstein Dreams, Michael Sims has gathered many of the very finest stories, some by classic writers such as Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, and H.G. Wells, but many that will surprise general readers. Dark visions of the human psyche emerge in Thomas Wentworth Higginson's "The Monarch of Dreams," while Mary E. Wilkins Freeman provides a glimpse of "the fifth dimension" in her provocative tale "The Hall Bedroom.'
With contributions by Edgar Allan Poe, Alice Fuller, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Arthur Conan Doyle, and many others, each introduced by Michael Sims, whose elegant introduction provides valuable literary and historical context, Frankenstein Dreams is a treasure trove of stories known and rediscovered.
Long before 1984, Star Wars, or The Hunger Games, Victorian authors imagined a future where new science and technologies reshaped the world and universe they knew. The great themes of modern science fiction showed up surprisingly early: space and time travel, dystopian societies, even dangerously independent machines, all inspiring the speculative fiction of the Victorian era.
In Frankenstein Dreams, Michael Sims has gathered many of the very finest stories, some by classic writers such as Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, and H.G. Wells, but many that will surprise general readers. Dark visions of the human psyche emerge in Thomas Wentworth Higginson's "The Monarch of Dreams," while Mary E. Wilkins Freeman provides a glimpse of "the fifth dimension" in her provocative tale "The Hall Bedroom.'
With contributions by Edgar Allan Poe, Alice Fuller, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Arthur Conan Doyle, and many others, each introduced by Michael Sims, whose elegant introduction provides valuable literary and historical context, Frankenstein Dreams is a treasure trove of stories known and rediscovered.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2017
28 people are currently reading
832 people want to read
About the author
Michael Sims
53 books69 followersMichael Sims is the author of the acclaimed "The Story of Charlotte's Web, Apollo's Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination," "Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form," and editor of "Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories" and "The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Detective Stories." He lives in western Pennsylvania.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
April 17, 2019
This collection works toward two main goals: It provides readers with a sampling of Victorian sci-fi, and it also provides a history of the science fiction genre throughout that period. An introduction briefly describes science fiction’s rise in the 19th century, and each story or excerpt is preceded by an analysis that both describes the author and grounds the work in its historical context. This book is all over the place, but since it’s an anthology, that’s not such a bad thing. Some of the stories are really good, while others are perhaps no longer as appealing as they were at the time of their publication. I like that this collection features such a wide range of stories: Early Victorian and late Victorian, short stories and excerpts from longer works, well-known to modern audiences and practically unknown. I liked some, and I didn’t care for others, but I’m glad that I had the chance to read them. The analyses were rather disappointing, however. They did not seem to be objective, and many opinions were treated as facts. I think that Sims was eager to draw conclusions and trace certain schools of thought through the decades—and that’s not a bad thing—but I am uncomfortable with his methods. It’s as though he was so eager to make his point that he shoehorned some stuff to make everything fit. Some of his assertions about the stories’ meanings did not seem, to me, to be borne out by the text.
September 20, 2017
2.5
This review and others posted over at my blog.
I thought this would be right up my alley, but I almost DNF’d it. I kept on because it’s a shorts collection, so I reminded myself that even if I wasn’t enjoying one story, something by a different author would be up next.
This collection was a mixed bag for me. Most of the stories I really liked were snippets from classic novels that I would like to read someday. There were a few other true short stories that I liked, but many I found boring and/or confusing.
Here are my highlights:
Dreams of Forgotten Alchemists (from Frankenstein) by Mary Shelley – I really need to just read the novel. Honestly, when the doctor was talking I was so bored, but then the monster showed up and started to plead his case for a chance at life and then the story ended! I don’t know if that’s only part of the novel or what part, or if it was edited (because in the little note it seemed like maybe this was the first draft? I can’t recall) but I needed more! It ended just as it started to pique my interest!
Man-Bats on the Moon by Richard Adams Locke – This read like a topography lesson of the moon. I couldn’t picture nearly anything and was so utterly lost. I wanted more man-bats and less physical descriptions of the moon. I couldn’t even tell you what it’s about.
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allen Poe – This was excellent and the first Poe I’ve read since high school. It deals with mesmerism and the living dead and it was gross and creepy and puzzling and I wanted more.
A Walk on the Bottom of the Sea (from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) by Jules Verne – Yet again, a reminder that I need to read the novel. This was a chapter or two while a team is under water (hence the title) exploring. Once more, just as it started to get good, it ended.
The Senator’s Daughter by Edward Page Mitchell – This was my favorite story in the collection! There’s plenty of future tech crammed into Victorian England surrounding a story about a man who cannot be with the girl he loves because he’s foreign. Mitchell dreamed up teleportation tubes, meals in pellet form, talk boxes and even cryo tubes! I wanted this to be a full-length novel.
A Horror of the Spirit (from Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde) by Robert Louis Stevenson – This didn’t intrigue me like I thought it would and I’m hoping because it’s another snippet of the novel and not because I won’t enjoy the novel if I ever get around to it.
A Wife Manufactured to Order by Alice W. Fuller – This was a little Stepford Wives-like tale, where a man gets a wife made to his liking (out of wax…ew) and all’s well and good until her boring complacency starts to drive him nuts. I liked the idea but the ending was so convenient that it was less believable than a living wax wife.
I passed this collection on to a friend and while I didn’t love it, there were a few stories that held my interest. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mindset to absorb Victorian sci-fi – it’s not always easy to plop down and read classical writing in the way it can be to read something more modern. It at least opened my eyes to the words of Edward Page Mitchell and I’m hoping I can get my hands on more from him. If you like Victorian stories and sci-fi, Frankenstein Dreams is at least worth borrowing from the library.
I received this book for free from Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. All opinions in this post are my own.
This review and others posted over at my blog.
I thought this would be right up my alley, but I almost DNF’d it. I kept on because it’s a shorts collection, so I reminded myself that even if I wasn’t enjoying one story, something by a different author would be up next.
This collection was a mixed bag for me. Most of the stories I really liked were snippets from classic novels that I would like to read someday. There were a few other true short stories that I liked, but many I found boring and/or confusing.
Here are my highlights:
Dreams of Forgotten Alchemists (from Frankenstein) by Mary Shelley – I really need to just read the novel. Honestly, when the doctor was talking I was so bored, but then the monster showed up and started to plead his case for a chance at life and then the story ended! I don’t know if that’s only part of the novel or what part, or if it was edited (because in the little note it seemed like maybe this was the first draft? I can’t recall) but I needed more! It ended just as it started to pique my interest!
Man-Bats on the Moon by Richard Adams Locke – This read like a topography lesson of the moon. I couldn’t picture nearly anything and was so utterly lost. I wanted more man-bats and less physical descriptions of the moon. I couldn’t even tell you what it’s about.
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allen Poe – This was excellent and the first Poe I’ve read since high school. It deals with mesmerism and the living dead and it was gross and creepy and puzzling and I wanted more.
A Walk on the Bottom of the Sea (from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) by Jules Verne – Yet again, a reminder that I need to read the novel. This was a chapter or two while a team is under water (hence the title) exploring. Once more, just as it started to get good, it ended.
The Senator’s Daughter by Edward Page Mitchell – This was my favorite story in the collection! There’s plenty of future tech crammed into Victorian England surrounding a story about a man who cannot be with the girl he loves because he’s foreign. Mitchell dreamed up teleportation tubes, meals in pellet form, talk boxes and even cryo tubes! I wanted this to be a full-length novel.
A Horror of the Spirit (from Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde) by Robert Louis Stevenson – This didn’t intrigue me like I thought it would and I’m hoping because it’s another snippet of the novel and not because I won’t enjoy the novel if I ever get around to it.
A Wife Manufactured to Order by Alice W. Fuller – This was a little Stepford Wives-like tale, where a man gets a wife made to his liking (out of wax…ew) and all’s well and good until her boring complacency starts to drive him nuts. I liked the idea but the ending was so convenient that it was less believable than a living wax wife.
I passed this collection on to a friend and while I didn’t love it, there were a few stories that held my interest. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mindset to absorb Victorian sci-fi – it’s not always easy to plop down and read classical writing in the way it can be to read something more modern. It at least opened my eyes to the words of Edward Page Mitchell and I’m hoping I can get my hands on more from him. If you like Victorian stories and sci-fi, Frankenstein Dreams is at least worth borrowing from the library.
I received this book for free from Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. All opinions in this post are my own.
October 30, 2018
First of all I will say that I skipped the five chapters that were excerpts from novels as I had read two of the novels already and the others I prefer not to read out of context though I hope to someday read the novels they belong to. I also think an important disclaimer for this collection of "Victorian Science Fiction" is that many of the stories are only in the ballpark of the Victorian era. Some, like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, were still very popular readings during the Victorian era all though Frankenstein came out nearly twenty years before Queen Victoria's reign. I do think Frankenstein was a great inclusion to demonstrate the effect the work had on later science fiction. The final four stories were published after the Victorian era, the final entry comes 12 years after Queen Victoria's death. Though once again I think they're fantastic inclusions and the fact that these stories are collected in chronological order of publishing makes for a fantastic journey through Victorian science fiction. This really is a stellar anthology and a huge recommendation to anyone who loves Horror or Science Fiction of any kind, especially classics like Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde etc.
Here are my individual reviews of the stories:
-Man-Bats on the Moon: This story was the least interesting of them all and not very exciting. Reading from the modern day without a great knowledge of the culture of the era it's hard to understand what the author was going for. It seems to be written as a scientific journal and thus is, I suppose, purposefully dull. The narrator lists out their discoveries in a very scientific and tedious manner. I'm not sure if it's an honest attempt at sounding true or supposed to satirize the scientific writing of the time but I found myself giggling at the laborious over indulgent writing style. Take a deep breath and try to digest the words written almost to impress the reader so as to convince us that they should be believed. I even felt like this was an early example of trolling, my biggest piece of evidence for this was a particularly funny section. After the narrator painstakingly explains each and every discovery they made in god awful tacky detail he then explains that they shared these findings in a written statement. This statement makes up the rest of the story and the first half of this statement is a reiteration of every detail of their findings which they had already listed (of course because these findings had been told to the reader of the story and not the intended reader of the statement itself). I found this endlessly funny and I really do think the only explanation is either that the author was trolling the readers or just wrote a really horrible story unintentionally. The payoff for this story is exactly what you would think, there are man-bats and they are on the moon, meh. After reading this story I was not too excited for the rest of the book but this was luckily the weak point.
-The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar: This story by Edgar Allen Poe is by no surprise well written. There really aren't characters in the sense that you learn anything about their life or personality. It's a for the most part dry account of a creepy happening and is effectively creepy at it. It's pretty good but won't leave a lasting impression on me.
-The Telescopic Eye: This story feels like a do-over of the Man Bats on the Moon. It is greatly improved because of the high concept of having an eye with an extremely distant focal point. The writing style is also less self-indulgent and scientific. The result of the story however is no more interesting and there are disappointingly no man-bats on the moon of this story. Don't worry I swear this book gets better.
-The Automaton Ear: If this author was not inspired by Frankenstein I would be greatly surprised. The obsessive mad scientist protagonist of this story takes the concept of sound never really disappearing over time but simply becoming inaudible to the human ear and he creates a hearing piece that can harness these sounds from the past. The thought experiment here is explored really well and the story that surrounds it is also very thrilling. This story was fantastic!
-The Monarch of Dreams: This story uses the Frankenstein type of mad scientist character to explore the world of dreams. We end up with a ton of amazing surreal scenes that are described expertly. I found myself as wrapped up in the man's work as he and anticipating his next dream in step with him. I will be thinking about this story for a long time.
-The Senator's Daughter: This is the first of two stories in the collection by Edward Page Mitchell. This story is really unique. The actual story, characters, and interactions are essentially just a vessel to present the setting which is a futuristic (at the time) 1937 U.S.A. The amazing ease with which the author incorporates unheard of inventions and political relationships and platforms is amazing. With hardly any exposition the author invites us into a totally foreign future, especially to readers of the time. I loved this story not mainly for the story or the setting but for the execution.
-The Clock That Went Backwards: Mitchell's second story in the collection. This story goes into the past rather than the future and yet the past in this isn't how it seems. At the time it was published these concepts must have been revelations to readers, today not so much but it is still a very fun well written story.
-A Wife Manufactured to Order: A sizzling criticism of what men want in a woman and an assurance that they don't really know what they want. This is a super fun science fiction story with a sharp edge.
-Mysterious Disappearances: Maybe even a more descriptive title than Man-Bats on the Moon, this story consists of three accounts of mysterious disappearances wherein someone seemed to, by all evidence, have vanished into thin air never to be seen again. After the accounts a silly little "scientific" explanation of how this type of thing may actually be possible. The accounts are fun and the story is short so it's a nice little story.
-The Monster of Lake LaMetrie: This story felt almost like a pulp monster story from the cold war era, think creature from the black lagoon. The only thing that made it feel Victorian was the brain transplanting. This story was very bad. It was boring, the monster was stupid looking and I can't imagine a time when the idea of transferring a guys brain into a monster would have been enough payoff for such a dull story.
-The Thames Valley Catastrophe: This story is so unlike any of the others. It's a disaster story of massive scale. This is a certified thriller. The plight of the protagonist throughout the story is exhilarating. The scene is amazing. Read this cool story.
-Wireless: This one is fantastic. It's supernatural, surreal, and atmospheric. The scenes are so well described by Kipling and the developments leave you on the edge of your seat. It's super eerie and neat.
-The Hall Bedroom: This is like the '1408' of 1905. This story is creepy and fun. It's supernatural but in a very mild way. The only fault I could give this story is the intro and the outro. This story like so many of the era insists on being a diary account and another character has to consciously introduce the diary of the protagonist and yet doesn't seem to have read it. Also who is this supposed to be submitted to? I suppose whatever magazine it was first published in. Apart from that silliness which is part of most of these stories it's cool.
-The Five Senses: This one is Like 'Dr. Jekyll' meets the 'Automaton Ear'. It's cool. But not as cool as 'Dr. Jekyll' or 'Automaton Ear'.
-The Horror of Heights- Holy crap is this story exhilarating. The intensity with which the narrator describes his acts keeps you sweating and clenching the pages of the book. The story is fun enough but the writing is the work of a true master. I look forward to reading more from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Here are my individual reviews of the stories:
-Man-Bats on the Moon: This story was the least interesting of them all and not very exciting. Reading from the modern day without a great knowledge of the culture of the era it's hard to understand what the author was going for. It seems to be written as a scientific journal and thus is, I suppose, purposefully dull. The narrator lists out their discoveries in a very scientific and tedious manner. I'm not sure if it's an honest attempt at sounding true or supposed to satirize the scientific writing of the time but I found myself giggling at the laborious over indulgent writing style. Take a deep breath and try to digest the words written almost to impress the reader so as to convince us that they should be believed. I even felt like this was an early example of trolling, my biggest piece of evidence for this was a particularly funny section. After the narrator painstakingly explains each and every discovery they made in god awful tacky detail he then explains that they shared these findings in a written statement. This statement makes up the rest of the story and the first half of this statement is a reiteration of every detail of their findings which they had already listed (of course because these findings had been told to the reader of the story and not the intended reader of the statement itself). I found this endlessly funny and I really do think the only explanation is either that the author was trolling the readers or just wrote a really horrible story unintentionally. The payoff for this story is exactly what you would think, there are man-bats and they are on the moon, meh. After reading this story I was not too excited for the rest of the book but this was luckily the weak point.
-The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar: This story by Edgar Allen Poe is by no surprise well written. There really aren't characters in the sense that you learn anything about their life or personality. It's a for the most part dry account of a creepy happening and is effectively creepy at it. It's pretty good but won't leave a lasting impression on me.
-The Telescopic Eye: This story feels like a do-over of the Man Bats on the Moon. It is greatly improved because of the high concept of having an eye with an extremely distant focal point. The writing style is also less self-indulgent and scientific. The result of the story however is no more interesting and there are disappointingly no man-bats on the moon of this story. Don't worry I swear this book gets better.
-The Automaton Ear: If this author was not inspired by Frankenstein I would be greatly surprised. The obsessive mad scientist protagonist of this story takes the concept of sound never really disappearing over time but simply becoming inaudible to the human ear and he creates a hearing piece that can harness these sounds from the past. The thought experiment here is explored really well and the story that surrounds it is also very thrilling. This story was fantastic!
-The Monarch of Dreams: This story uses the Frankenstein type of mad scientist character to explore the world of dreams. We end up with a ton of amazing surreal scenes that are described expertly. I found myself as wrapped up in the man's work as he and anticipating his next dream in step with him. I will be thinking about this story for a long time.
-The Senator's Daughter: This is the first of two stories in the collection by Edward Page Mitchell. This story is really unique. The actual story, characters, and interactions are essentially just a vessel to present the setting which is a futuristic (at the time) 1937 U.S.A. The amazing ease with which the author incorporates unheard of inventions and political relationships and platforms is amazing. With hardly any exposition the author invites us into a totally foreign future, especially to readers of the time. I loved this story not mainly for the story or the setting but for the execution.
-The Clock That Went Backwards: Mitchell's second story in the collection. This story goes into the past rather than the future and yet the past in this isn't how it seems. At the time it was published these concepts must have been revelations to readers, today not so much but it is still a very fun well written story.
-A Wife Manufactured to Order: A sizzling criticism of what men want in a woman and an assurance that they don't really know what they want. This is a super fun science fiction story with a sharp edge.
-Mysterious Disappearances: Maybe even a more descriptive title than Man-Bats on the Moon, this story consists of three accounts of mysterious disappearances wherein someone seemed to, by all evidence, have vanished into thin air never to be seen again. After the accounts a silly little "scientific" explanation of how this type of thing may actually be possible. The accounts are fun and the story is short so it's a nice little story.
-The Monster of Lake LaMetrie: This story felt almost like a pulp monster story from the cold war era, think creature from the black lagoon. The only thing that made it feel Victorian was the brain transplanting. This story was very bad. It was boring, the monster was stupid looking and I can't imagine a time when the idea of transferring a guys brain into a monster would have been enough payoff for such a dull story.
-The Thames Valley Catastrophe: This story is so unlike any of the others. It's a disaster story of massive scale. This is a certified thriller. The plight of the protagonist throughout the story is exhilarating. The scene is amazing. Read this cool story.
-Wireless: This one is fantastic. It's supernatural, surreal, and atmospheric. The scenes are so well described by Kipling and the developments leave you on the edge of your seat. It's super eerie and neat.
-The Hall Bedroom: This is like the '1408' of 1905. This story is creepy and fun. It's supernatural but in a very mild way. The only fault I could give this story is the intro and the outro. This story like so many of the era insists on being a diary account and another character has to consciously introduce the diary of the protagonist and yet doesn't seem to have read it. Also who is this supposed to be submitted to? I suppose whatever magazine it was first published in. Apart from that silliness which is part of most of these stories it's cool.
-The Five Senses: This one is Like 'Dr. Jekyll' meets the 'Automaton Ear'. It's cool. But not as cool as 'Dr. Jekyll' or 'Automaton Ear'.
-The Horror of Heights- Holy crap is this story exhilarating. The intensity with which the narrator describes his acts keeps you sweating and clenching the pages of the book. The story is fun enough but the writing is the work of a true master. I look forward to reading more from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
May 16, 2021
A perfect three this, neither high nor low. Sitting smack bang in between.
Now I love the Victorian era, all that sitting around in parlours wearing crepe and saying things like “good heavens George, did you hear that Edith has befriended a shop girl, a shop girl I say!” I also harbour a healthy taste for most Victorian literature.
And I also love me some Science Fiction, so it seemed like this would be a perfect storm. And a storm it was, rather just a good one than a perfect one.
Most of the stories herein are just good, some pretty good and a few crap, but by in large all very middling. Some are whole short stories and some are just chapters of longer books, both I found interesting, as this will end up being a gateway drug to the other novels. They showed off the wide range of the genre at the same time as bringing to light some unknown (to me) writers, and overall the experience was a lovely one. Like drinking tea in your Victorian parlour, lovely.
A deffo shelf filler for a Sci-Fi fan, but if you are just starting out in the world of Victorian time travel and the like, you could do worse than to just read everything HG Wells has ever written.
Below is the patented Lynsey Heart Reviewing system...
Dreams of forgotten alchemists 🖤🖤🖤
Man-bats on the moon 🖤
The facts in the case of M.Valdemar 🖤🖤🖤
A walk on the bottom of the sea 🖤🖤
The telescopic eye 🖤🖤
The automaton ear 🖤🖤🖤🖤
The Monarch of dreams🖤🖤🖤
The senators daughter 🖤🖤🖤
The clock that went backwards🖤🖤🖤
Monsters of magnitude🖤🖤
A horror of the spirit 🖤🖤🖤🖤
A wife manufactured to order 🖤
Mysterious disappearances 🖤🖤
Monsters manufactured 🖤🖤🖤🖤
The monster of lake lametrie 🖤🖤🖤
The Thames Valley catastrophe 🖤🖤
Wireless 🖤
The hall bedroom 🖤🖤
The five senses 🖤🖤
Now I love the Victorian era, all that sitting around in parlours wearing crepe and saying things like “good heavens George, did you hear that Edith has befriended a shop girl, a shop girl I say!” I also harbour a healthy taste for most Victorian literature.
And I also love me some Science Fiction, so it seemed like this would be a perfect storm. And a storm it was, rather just a good one than a perfect one.
Most of the stories herein are just good, some pretty good and a few crap, but by in large all very middling. Some are whole short stories and some are just chapters of longer books, both I found interesting, as this will end up being a gateway drug to the other novels. They showed off the wide range of the genre at the same time as bringing to light some unknown (to me) writers, and overall the experience was a lovely one. Like drinking tea in your Victorian parlour, lovely.
A deffo shelf filler for a Sci-Fi fan, but if you are just starting out in the world of Victorian time travel and the like, you could do worse than to just read everything HG Wells has ever written.
Below is the patented Lynsey Heart Reviewing system...
Dreams of forgotten alchemists 🖤🖤🖤
Man-bats on the moon 🖤
The facts in the case of M.Valdemar 🖤🖤🖤
A walk on the bottom of the sea 🖤🖤
The telescopic eye 🖤🖤
The automaton ear 🖤🖤🖤🖤
The Monarch of dreams🖤🖤🖤
The senators daughter 🖤🖤🖤
The clock that went backwards🖤🖤🖤
Monsters of magnitude🖤🖤
A horror of the spirit 🖤🖤🖤🖤
A wife manufactured to order 🖤
Mysterious disappearances 🖤🖤
Monsters manufactured 🖤🖤🖤🖤
The monster of lake lametrie 🖤🖤🖤
The Thames Valley catastrophe 🖤🖤
Wireless 🖤
The hall bedroom 🖤🖤
The five senses 🖤🖤
February 12, 2018
Some of the short stories are fantastic and well written, others weren’t too interesting
Highlights for me were
-Dreams of Forgotten Alchemists
-Man-Bats on the Moon
-The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
-The Telescopic Eye
-The Senator’s Daughter
-A Wife Manufactured to Order
-The Monster of Lake LaMetrie
-The Hall Bedroom (personal favourite)
- The Horror of the Heights
Highlights for me were
-Dreams of Forgotten Alchemists
-Man-Bats on the Moon
-The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
-The Telescopic Eye
-The Senator’s Daughter
-A Wife Manufactured to Order
-The Monster of Lake LaMetrie
-The Hall Bedroom (personal favourite)
- The Horror of the Heights
April 11, 2018
I finally picked this up and finished it! Hoorah!
As I thought, the whole book was interesting. There were a few stories that I did not enjoy but for the most part I really enjoyed these. The final story might have been one of the coolest, it was a Arthur Conan Doyle story so I'm not surprised by that. I highly recommend it if you want a sampler of SF from the Victorian period.
As I thought, the whole book was interesting. There were a few stories that I did not enjoy but for the most part I really enjoyed these. The final story might have been one of the coolest, it was a Arthur Conan Doyle story so I'm not surprised by that. I highly recommend it if you want a sampler of SF from the Victorian period.
September 27, 2020
To be clear, there were only a couple of stories that appealed to me in this collection. But my friend Michael Sims' contextualizing introductions to both the volume and the individual selections, I found very interesting.
Part of that interest is generated by Sims' engaging prose style and thorough research.
Recommended
Part of that interest is generated by Sims' engaging prose style and thorough research.
Recommended
May 12, 2023
Frankenstein Dreams--no apostrophe there--is the kind of anthology that appeals to my fetish for retro science fiction. However, the selections here hardly classify it as retro, a period which I've delineated from the thirties, dominated by a varied crop of whimsical and fantastical pulp reads as well as philosophical, soul-searching scientific forays by trailblazers John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke, to the moon landing in 1969. (To a reader born in 1970 but vicariously came of age in the fifties and sixties, I gather that moon landing was a major anti-climax for fans of science fiction. I personally blame Ray Bradbury, whose The Martian Chronicles, published in 1950, already had us pondering over John Cheeverish, suburban domestic troubles of earthling homesteaders in Mars. And come 1969, what did that moon landing yield? A handful of moon rocks!)
To better appreciate the genre and feed a fetish, I look to the past. As my fascination with Julius Caesar led me further back in time to the bloodier legacies of Marius and Sulla, so has this book showed me earlier versions of retro science fiction as I know and enjoy it, fittingly coined Victorian Science Fiction, a sub-genre I only discovered when I came across this book on Big Bad Wolf's online sale. The fact is, calling this Victorian Fantasy and Science Fiction would have been more apt, since most of the stories veer into the fantastic and the weird:
1 Dreams of Forgotten Alchemists (an excerpt from Frankenstein) by Mary Shelley - A preview of Victor Frankenstein's descent into genius. I read the book some twenty years ago, mainly for the plot, so the teenaged Shelley's writing only managed to impress me now: clipped, concise, and very visual passages conveying the narrator's conflicted emotions as he navigates the maelstrom of his making. Shelley's story predates Jules Verne's, making her THE Father of Science Fiction. SF.
2 Man-Bats on the Moon by Richard Adams Locke - If the scenario sounds familiar to me, it could only mean I have read this in a prior anthology, or something very much like it. Fantasy.
3 The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe - Poe doesn't appeal to me much, but this macabre little piece does. It reads like an Aleister Crowley-H.P. Lovecraft hybrid, and should have had a place among one of the last books I read, The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. Weird Fantasy.
4 A Walk on the Bottom of the Sea (an excerpt from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas) by Jules Verne - Here's trivia worth some salt: a typographical translation from French to English eradicated the "s" from Seas. This excerpt failed to impress me, maybe because it is far too dated, and because I am a jaded scuba diver. No doubt I would have been fascinated, had I read this as a child. But then, as now, I'm sure I would have felt the same disgust with Captain Nemo for shooting down a harmless, non-confrontational "albatross of the finest kind." SF.
5 The Telescopic Eye by William Henry Rhodes - Good premise of a plot, about a boy with a Hubble-like telescopic eye that can see into the moon, as far into the moon as to be able to describe its inhabitants and discern their activities, thereby allowing said boy's relations and the usual ilk that comes with such a discovery carte-blanche opportunities to vicariously turn into voyeurs. Fantasy.
6 The Automaton Ear by Florence McLandburgh - Sublime prose depicting a bucolic existence. But I could not figure out the end. Was it all a figment of the narrator's imagination? If so, at what point of the story did it begin? Fantasy.
7 The Monarch of Dreams by Thomas Wentworth Higginson - This one has echoes of Daphne du Maurier's The House on the Strand. Or should be the other way around, since this story predates the book by decades. Then again, time, in a story like this, seems immaterial. Fantasy.
8 The Senator's Daughter by Edward Page Mitchell - The story that felts the most contemporary, thanks to its ambitiously futuristic setting. Familiar SF staples can be found here: a pneumatic mode of travel which sounds like a teleport machine, full meals and nourishment in a pill, and that all-too familiar program in contemporary science fiction, cryogenics. SF.
9 The Clock That Went Backward by Edward Page Mitchell - A compelling story involving a grandfather clock and Father Time. Reminiscent of The Twilight Zone's Ninety Years Without Slumbering from 1963. Fantasy.
10 Monsters of Magnitude (an excerpt from Two on a Tower) by Thomas Hardy - While I could not detect a hint of fantasy nor science fiction in this one, Hardy's description of the young man, this golden boy, and the most beautiful youth I have come across in literature, will stay with me forever.
11 A Horror of the Spirit (an excerpt from Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) by Robert Louis Stevenson - An excerpt from a story we are generally familiar with in spite of never having read the book, with an equally intriguing, but lesser known excerpt of the story's origins. SF.
12 A Wife Manufactured to Order by Alice W. Fuller - A story with the sixties-era Twilight Zone overtones of Ray Bradbury's I Sing the Body Electric and Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives, until you realize it was published in 1895. SF.
13 Mysterious Disappearances by Ambrose Bierce - Bierce is known to me as the writer of the disturbing An Occurrence at Owl Creek. And for having penned a couple of war novels, all of which, owing to its topic, I've avoided. But I wasn't aware he was a journalist, nor of his mysterious disappearance while after a scoop on Pancho Villa. While his imaginative ditties here belong in a John A. Keel compendium, they can't match the circumstances of his mysterious disappearance. Fantasy.
14 Monsters Manufactured (an excerpt from The Island of Dr Moreau) by H.G. Wells - This particular chapter is a clip straight out of a James Bond movie. It's the requisite scene where the villain, over cocktails at his lair, goes through the trouble of explaining his reason for world domination before offing Bond in a slow-paced, but preferably ingenious manner (recall a strapped, spread-eagled Bond, a laser approaching his crotch: Do you expect me to talk? Auric Goldfinger: No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!). Just add vivisection. SF.
15 The Monster of Lake LaMetrie by Wardon Allan Curtis - The story of an elasmosaurus, a humongous serpent from another time, living in a bottomless, volcanic lake high up in the mountains of Wyoming is decapitated but kept alive by the lake's restorative waters and is given the brain of a freshly-dead youth, resulting in a conversant, yodeling, eventually cursing serpent. This is definitely the most fantastical tale here, and one I wish I had read at the height of my fascination for the genre. And penned by the man who wrote that wonderful mishmash of fantasy and western, The Valley of Gwangi--a movie that thrilled me as a child, and therefore credit for my random fantasies of dinosaurs, alive and well, somewhere. (The best takeaway from this story: The Valley of Gwangi was a novel! Now that I'll have to read.) Without a doubt, fantasy. Weird fantasy.
16 The Thames Valley Catastrophe by Grant Allen - The dullest entry. Although once upon a random fissure eruption, it may have appealed to tourists on bikes.
17 Wireless by Rudyard Kipling - Another dull entry, made more disappointing because it's by Kipling, one of my favorite writers. Fantasy.
18 The Hall Bedroom by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Multiple dimensions navigable by sound, smell, taste, sight, and touch. Fantasy.
19 The Five Senses by E. Nesbit - Coincidentally, like the immediate previous entry, this also deals with the perils at play in the heightening of the five senses. Only here the senses are spurred on by mysterious vials rather than atmosphere. SF.
20 The Horror of the Heights by Arthur Conan Doyle - My favorite story in the collection, and small surprise, as it seems patterned after one of my treasured adventure stories, The Lost World by the same writer. Only instead of dinosaurs high up on a South American plateau, here we have gigantic globs of floating jellyfish and vicious, expansive, vulpine creatures thirty thousand feet above Wiltshire, England. Fantasy.
Three and a half stars (since Goodreads doesn't do half stars, this shows four).
* In spite of my fascination with science fiction, fantastical creatures, and time travel, and though both books have been on my shelves since I was in elementary, I have never read H.G. Wells's The Time Machine and Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. I wonder if this is because I had already seen the classic movie versions, both films I enjoyed as a kid?
To better appreciate the genre and feed a fetish, I look to the past. As my fascination with Julius Caesar led me further back in time to the bloodier legacies of Marius and Sulla, so has this book showed me earlier versions of retro science fiction as I know and enjoy it, fittingly coined Victorian Science Fiction, a sub-genre I only discovered when I came across this book on Big Bad Wolf's online sale. The fact is, calling this Victorian Fantasy and Science Fiction would have been more apt, since most of the stories veer into the fantastic and the weird:
1 Dreams of Forgotten Alchemists (an excerpt from Frankenstein) by Mary Shelley - A preview of Victor Frankenstein's descent into genius. I read the book some twenty years ago, mainly for the plot, so the teenaged Shelley's writing only managed to impress me now: clipped, concise, and very visual passages conveying the narrator's conflicted emotions as he navigates the maelstrom of his making. Shelley's story predates Jules Verne's, making her THE Father of Science Fiction. SF.
2 Man-Bats on the Moon by Richard Adams Locke - If the scenario sounds familiar to me, it could only mean I have read this in a prior anthology, or something very much like it. Fantasy.
3 The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe - Poe doesn't appeal to me much, but this macabre little piece does. It reads like an Aleister Crowley-H.P. Lovecraft hybrid, and should have had a place among one of the last books I read, The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. Weird Fantasy.
4 A Walk on the Bottom of the Sea (an excerpt from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas) by Jules Verne - Here's trivia worth some salt: a typographical translation from French to English eradicated the "s" from Seas. This excerpt failed to impress me, maybe because it is far too dated, and because I am a jaded scuba diver. No doubt I would have been fascinated, had I read this as a child. But then, as now, I'm sure I would have felt the same disgust with Captain Nemo for shooting down a harmless, non-confrontational "albatross of the finest kind." SF.
5 The Telescopic Eye by William Henry Rhodes - Good premise of a plot, about a boy with a Hubble-like telescopic eye that can see into the moon, as far into the moon as to be able to describe its inhabitants and discern their activities, thereby allowing said boy's relations and the usual ilk that comes with such a discovery carte-blanche opportunities to vicariously turn into voyeurs. Fantasy.
6 The Automaton Ear by Florence McLandburgh - Sublime prose depicting a bucolic existence. But I could not figure out the end. Was it all a figment of the narrator's imagination? If so, at what point of the story did it begin? Fantasy.
7 The Monarch of Dreams by Thomas Wentworth Higginson - This one has echoes of Daphne du Maurier's The House on the Strand. Or should be the other way around, since this story predates the book by decades. Then again, time, in a story like this, seems immaterial. Fantasy.
8 The Senator's Daughter by Edward Page Mitchell - The story that felts the most contemporary, thanks to its ambitiously futuristic setting. Familiar SF staples can be found here: a pneumatic mode of travel which sounds like a teleport machine, full meals and nourishment in a pill, and that all-too familiar program in contemporary science fiction, cryogenics. SF.
9 The Clock That Went Backward by Edward Page Mitchell - A compelling story involving a grandfather clock and Father Time. Reminiscent of The Twilight Zone's Ninety Years Without Slumbering from 1963. Fantasy.
10 Monsters of Magnitude (an excerpt from Two on a Tower) by Thomas Hardy - While I could not detect a hint of fantasy nor science fiction in this one, Hardy's description of the young man, this golden boy, and the most beautiful youth I have come across in literature, will stay with me forever.
11 A Horror of the Spirit (an excerpt from Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) by Robert Louis Stevenson - An excerpt from a story we are generally familiar with in spite of never having read the book, with an equally intriguing, but lesser known excerpt of the story's origins. SF.
12 A Wife Manufactured to Order by Alice W. Fuller - A story with the sixties-era Twilight Zone overtones of Ray Bradbury's I Sing the Body Electric and Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives, until you realize it was published in 1895. SF.
13 Mysterious Disappearances by Ambrose Bierce - Bierce is known to me as the writer of the disturbing An Occurrence at Owl Creek. And for having penned a couple of war novels, all of which, owing to its topic, I've avoided. But I wasn't aware he was a journalist, nor of his mysterious disappearance while after a scoop on Pancho Villa. While his imaginative ditties here belong in a John A. Keel compendium, they can't match the circumstances of his mysterious disappearance. Fantasy.
14 Monsters Manufactured (an excerpt from The Island of Dr Moreau) by H.G. Wells - This particular chapter is a clip straight out of a James Bond movie. It's the requisite scene where the villain, over cocktails at his lair, goes through the trouble of explaining his reason for world domination before offing Bond in a slow-paced, but preferably ingenious manner (recall a strapped, spread-eagled Bond, a laser approaching his crotch: Do you expect me to talk? Auric Goldfinger: No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!). Just add vivisection. SF.
15 The Monster of Lake LaMetrie by Wardon Allan Curtis - The story of an elasmosaurus, a humongous serpent from another time, living in a bottomless, volcanic lake high up in the mountains of Wyoming is decapitated but kept alive by the lake's restorative waters and is given the brain of a freshly-dead youth, resulting in a conversant, yodeling, eventually cursing serpent. This is definitely the most fantastical tale here, and one I wish I had read at the height of my fascination for the genre. And penned by the man who wrote that wonderful mishmash of fantasy and western, The Valley of Gwangi--a movie that thrilled me as a child, and therefore credit for my random fantasies of dinosaurs, alive and well, somewhere. (The best takeaway from this story: The Valley of Gwangi was a novel! Now that I'll have to read.) Without a doubt, fantasy. Weird fantasy.
16 The Thames Valley Catastrophe by Grant Allen - The dullest entry. Although once upon a random fissure eruption, it may have appealed to tourists on bikes.
17 Wireless by Rudyard Kipling - Another dull entry, made more disappointing because it's by Kipling, one of my favorite writers. Fantasy.
18 The Hall Bedroom by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Multiple dimensions navigable by sound, smell, taste, sight, and touch. Fantasy.
19 The Five Senses by E. Nesbit - Coincidentally, like the immediate previous entry, this also deals with the perils at play in the heightening of the five senses. Only here the senses are spurred on by mysterious vials rather than atmosphere. SF.
20 The Horror of the Heights by Arthur Conan Doyle - My favorite story in the collection, and small surprise, as it seems patterned after one of my treasured adventure stories, The Lost World by the same writer. Only instead of dinosaurs high up on a South American plateau, here we have gigantic globs of floating jellyfish and vicious, expansive, vulpine creatures thirty thousand feet above Wiltshire, England. Fantasy.
Three and a half stars (since Goodreads doesn't do half stars, this shows four).
* In spite of my fascination with science fiction, fantastical creatures, and time travel, and though both books have been on my shelves since I was in elementary, I have never read H.G. Wells's The Time Machine and Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. I wonder if this is because I had already seen the classic movie versions, both films I enjoyed as a kid?
February 6, 2023
Here is a book that I’ve owned for a pretty long time and finally got around to reading! Perhaps now, I can make another book haul (or maybe not, I have been so good in not buying more books or teacups).
Frankenstein Dreams is a collection of Victorian science fiction stories, some excerpted from longer works but most from actual short stories, with each story is preceded by a couple of pages of introduction about the author. Some of the authors here were unknown to me, but others are famous and will probably ring a bell with most people: Mary Shelley (no prizes for what is excerpted), Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, E. Nesbit, and Robert Louis Stevenson are some of the most famous authors whose works are in this collection.
After reading this, I’ve noticed two similarities in the stories. One is applicable to most, if not all the tales: sentences feel longer and so do the paragraphs. Victorian writers are not afraid of making us pay attention – this is not the snappy thrillers that I’ve been reading lately! The other similarity is less generalised: the use of the “found” narrative and faux-nonfiction, with stories disguised as accounts of real-life incidents. It appears in slightly more than a couple of stories and I’m not sure if it’s a preference of the editor or because Victorian authors really did prefer this style of story-telling. Either way, it’s something for me to look out for if I’m reading more Victorian fiction.
I generally enjoyed all the stories here, but a few that stood out to me were:
- The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Alan Poe – I’m not sure if this is a horror story dressed as science fiction or science-fiction dressed as horror but either way, though this features the faux-scientific mesmerism, it creeped me out.
- The Clock that Went Backward by Edward Page Mitchell – An interesting time travel story!
- A Wife Manufactured to Order by Alice W. Fuller – This reminded me a little of the manga Absolute Boyfriend, but less light-hearted. Here, a bachelor decides to order the perfect wife and promptly falls in love with her
- Mysterious Disappearance by Ambrose Bierce – This isn’t really a story in that there’s no premise, middle, or end, but it is interesting and a good example of a story/phenomenon “told” through newspaper reports
- The Thames Valley Catastrophe by Grant Allen – A fairly straightforward catastrophe story where London is engulfed by a river of lava. If you enjoy classic tales of nature trying to kill us (e.g. The Day After Tomorrow, Volcano), you’ll enjoy this
- The Hall Bedroom by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman – Another sci-fi story with elements of horror, this one, for some reason, reminded me of nosleep stories.
As you can probably tell, I enjoyed this collection. I think it’s nice that it combines both the big-names of Victorian fiction with some relatively unknown authors. While I’m generally not the biggest science-fiction reader, I thought this was a fun book and I liked that I could read a story or two every morning since everything works as a standalone.
This review was first posted at Eustea Reads
Frankenstein Dreams is a collection of Victorian science fiction stories, some excerpted from longer works but most from actual short stories, with each story is preceded by a couple of pages of introduction about the author. Some of the authors here were unknown to me, but others are famous and will probably ring a bell with most people: Mary Shelley (no prizes for what is excerpted), Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, E. Nesbit, and Robert Louis Stevenson are some of the most famous authors whose works are in this collection.
After reading this, I’ve noticed two similarities in the stories. One is applicable to most, if not all the tales: sentences feel longer and so do the paragraphs. Victorian writers are not afraid of making us pay attention – this is not the snappy thrillers that I’ve been reading lately! The other similarity is less generalised: the use of the “found” narrative and faux-nonfiction, with stories disguised as accounts of real-life incidents. It appears in slightly more than a couple of stories and I’m not sure if it’s a preference of the editor or because Victorian authors really did prefer this style of story-telling. Either way, it’s something for me to look out for if I’m reading more Victorian fiction.
I generally enjoyed all the stories here, but a few that stood out to me were:
- The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Alan Poe – I’m not sure if this is a horror story dressed as science fiction or science-fiction dressed as horror but either way, though this features the faux-scientific mesmerism, it creeped me out.
- The Clock that Went Backward by Edward Page Mitchell – An interesting time travel story!
- A Wife Manufactured to Order by Alice W. Fuller – This reminded me a little of the manga Absolute Boyfriend, but less light-hearted. Here, a bachelor decides to order the perfect wife and promptly falls in love with her
- Mysterious Disappearance by Ambrose Bierce – This isn’t really a story in that there’s no premise, middle, or end, but it is interesting and a good example of a story/phenomenon “told” through newspaper reports
- The Thames Valley Catastrophe by Grant Allen – A fairly straightforward catastrophe story where London is engulfed by a river of lava. If you enjoy classic tales of nature trying to kill us (e.g. The Day After Tomorrow, Volcano), you’ll enjoy this
- The Hall Bedroom by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman – Another sci-fi story with elements of horror, this one, for some reason, reminded me of nosleep stories.
As you can probably tell, I enjoyed this collection. I think it’s nice that it combines both the big-names of Victorian fiction with some relatively unknown authors. While I’m generally not the biggest science-fiction reader, I thought this was a fun book and I liked that I could read a story or two every morning since everything works as a standalone.
This review was first posted at Eustea Reads
July 1, 2024
Synopsis: Collection of short stories and excerpts from Victorian-era sci-fi/proto sci-fi. Combination of well-known authors and works (ie. Mary Shelly, H. G. Wells, Jules Verne) and lesser known authors (ie William Henry Rhodes, Florence McLandburgh, and Edward Page Mitchell).
Common themes:
- Scientific and technological breakthroughs (cars, planes, the theory of evolution, psychology, etc.) made the Victorian era a time of upheaval and anxiety
- A lot of the sci-fi themes we take for granted now - ie. aliens, robots, dystopia, heightened senses, time travel etc. - were first developed during this era
- A feeling of excitement mixed with caution - the mad scientist going too far (ie. Frankenstein, Dr. Moreau, the Automaton Ear, etc.), the explorer finding something that ends up killing him (ie, The Monsters of Lake LaMetrie, The Horror of the Heights)
- Some genuinely spooky shit (Mysterious Disappearances, The Hall Bedroom, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar) - Horror and sci-fi are born of some of the same DNA
- Sci-fi sometimes served as the vehicle for progressive causes (ie. The Monarch of Dreams, Wife Made to Order, The Senator’s Daughter).
Common themes:
- Scientific and technological breakthroughs (cars, planes, the theory of evolution, psychology, etc.) made the Victorian era a time of upheaval and anxiety
- A lot of the sci-fi themes we take for granted now - ie. aliens, robots, dystopia, heightened senses, time travel etc. - were first developed during this era
- A feeling of excitement mixed with caution - the mad scientist going too far (ie. Frankenstein, Dr. Moreau, the Automaton Ear, etc.), the explorer finding something that ends up killing him (ie, The Monsters of Lake LaMetrie, The Horror of the Heights)
- Some genuinely spooky shit (Mysterious Disappearances, The Hall Bedroom, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar) - Horror and sci-fi are born of some of the same DNA
- Sci-fi sometimes served as the vehicle for progressive causes (ie. The Monarch of Dreams, Wife Made to Order, The Senator’s Daughter).
December 22, 2017
Note: I won this book through goodreads giveaways.
I was super excited for this book. I love Victorian era fiction and pretty much anything deemed classical in novels and fiction. However, this book was a major letdown. There were strangely chopped up bits of classic novels such as Frankenstien, personal journal entries, magazine articles, newspaper articles (under stolen names), and in the case of Edgar Allen Poe's "story" the account of his dying insane friend that was to be the friends final journal entry.
The stories that were actually fiction were usually by unheard of authors. Seriously, most people have never heard of them because this is like their 1 and only work of fiction. The well-known authors that were featured (and were actually writing a work of fiction) were obviously creating one of their leader works.
I wouldn't recommend anything in this Collection and wouldn't recommend anything by Michael Sims either as he put his own personal thoughts into the author bios for every story.
I was super excited for this book. I love Victorian era fiction and pretty much anything deemed classical in novels and fiction. However, this book was a major letdown. There were strangely chopped up bits of classic novels such as Frankenstien, personal journal entries, magazine articles, newspaper articles (under stolen names), and in the case of Edgar Allen Poe's "story" the account of his dying insane friend that was to be the friends final journal entry.
The stories that were actually fiction were usually by unheard of authors. Seriously, most people have never heard of them because this is like their 1 and only work of fiction. The well-known authors that were featured (and were actually writing a work of fiction) were obviously creating one of their leader works.
I wouldn't recommend anything in this Collection and wouldn't recommend anything by Michael Sims either as he put his own personal thoughts into the author bios for every story.
March 7, 2021
If you ever wanted to read classics like Frankenstein, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, or The Strange Case of Doctor Jeckle and Mr. Hyde, but were daunted by the complex language and sentences, this sampler is for you. This anthology picks the best of Victorian science fiction and gives a sample chapter (if from a book) or short story from well-known authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allan Poe, and more. It is challenging reading, but fun to view the "what if" dreams from the late 1800s: What if men could walk on the bottom of the sea wearing oxygen tanks? What if a potion could transform someone into their evil nature and then back again into their good? What if a fissure earthquake spewed molten lava down the Thames River valley and obliterated London? Fans of classics and fantasy will enjoy this anthology.
January 24, 2018
I cannot express adequately how much how I enjoyed this collection. Not only were the stories thrilling but together they demonstrated the new sense of awe and terror towards science and technology which flourished during that age. Sims includes selections from well know authors such as Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, and Arthur Conan Doyle as well as those whom I am certain I never would have come across. It served as an excellent break from constant novel reading and an opportunity to sample some authors that I had always intended to explore but never got around to it. I can't wait to check out his other collections.
June 10, 2024
DNF at page 17.
Sorry but I can't! Since Feb I have been trying to read it but I dont have the motivation for it.
Like, when I first read the title I was really intrigued about it and once I have started reading it, for me it read like a boring essay.
It's about victorian authors and how they contributed or paved the way to what we know as science fiction. while that is interesting; reading it not so much.
Twice I had to read the introduction and I feel like falling asleep.
So no, I won't continue on with it even though some might say I should just push through, sorry but no.
Yes I achieve my Goodreads goal but I refuse to be in a reading slump.
Sorry but I can't! Since Feb I have been trying to read it but I dont have the motivation for it.
Like, when I first read the title I was really intrigued about it and once I have started reading it, for me it read like a boring essay.
It's about victorian authors and how they contributed or paved the way to what we know as science fiction. while that is interesting; reading it not so much.
Twice I had to read the introduction and I feel like falling asleep.
So no, I won't continue on with it even though some might say I should just push through, sorry but no.
Yes I achieve my Goodreads goal but I refuse to be in a reading slump.
June 27, 2024
This is a mixed bag - mostly because several of the entries are just chapters or portions taken from novels (and without the context of the rest of their stories, they don't work as decent excerpts). I see the thinking behind it, but it did feel a little like the editor had struggled to actually come up with enough Victorian scifi to fill the volume. There were a few "what was the point of that?" stories, and a few I'd call closer to horror (or at last supernatural) than scifi, but still worth a read for some of the original ideas here.
September 16, 2022
A nice collection of classic Victorian Sci Fi, just like it says on the cover.
Starting with the queen that started it all, Mary Shelley, and an excerpt from Frankenstein to set the scene, it then moves on to other well known Sci Fi authors such as H G Wells and Jules Verne. It also includes works by authors that are more famously known by their other works but have still written some solid gold Sci Fi, like Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Starting with the queen that started it all, Mary Shelley, and an excerpt from Frankenstein to set the scene, it then moves on to other well known Sci Fi authors such as H G Wells and Jules Verne. It also includes works by authors that are more famously known by their other works but have still written some solid gold Sci Fi, like Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle.
June 29, 2025
For the most part, the stories were interesting, though I did find Sims' opinions about some of the authors a bit off the mark and some of the stories did seem to me to be a case of just writing to see how many words they could fit on the page. I also think that in some of the stories, both Sims and some of the of the other people involved may have taken some liberties to put their own spin on it. But overall it was a good read.
July 6, 2024
A really solid collection of Victorian Science Fiction. It’s a great way to see how the genre was approached by different authors, and what the thoughts and sentiments of the times were. It’s well-curated, with short backstories of each of the authors to provide some context. Some of the stories are more interesting than others, but it all works well together and has good variety.
September 30, 2017
Absolutely great for fans of classic sci fi. It's like a highlight reel of your favorite movies. Snippets and scenes that make you feel all the love you have for these books. Or help you discovery new stories you hadn't previously found. Loved it!
December 10, 2017
Outside of a couple of stories, most of this collection was quite good with a number of pieces I had never read before. I did enjoy the excerpts from from some of the classic novels and it made me want to revisit those, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" in particular.
April 29, 2018
A great selection of classic SciFi - reminding us that SciFi doesn't equal spaceships! :) I particularly enjoyed 'The Senator's Daughter' for its effortless world building and alternate history aspects, and 'The Hall Bedroom' because... well, it felt very Lovecraftian.
November 27, 2018
I had high hopes for this book, I wanted something with hort stories but this was more along the lines of cutting and pasting small bits of longer works. I think it's more worth it just the read the main book and not to read bits randomly.
March 26, 2018
The origins of the genre. Fascinating.
July 11, 2018
This book just wasn't for me. I can see why other people would love it, but while I enjoyed some of the works included, more of them just didn't do it for me.
March 16, 2020
Very enjoyable. A lot of short stories from authors I've never heard about, which made for a fascinating read.
October 19, 2021
A great anthology that provided fodder for my short story “book” club for over a year. Great introductions to each reading and the selections chosen were the “right” ones imho.
November 13, 2017
Michael Sims has another stunning anthology to his name. This is the fourth in the “Connoisseur’s Collection,” Victorian-era stories on a theme. Here Sims has focused on early science fiction stories, though perhaps not the kind you would first assume. Using Mary Shelley’s seminal work, Frankenstein, as a starting point on the timeline, readers are given glimpse into the mindset of the day.
For the Victorian, science fiction was not so much about alien invasions or robots taking over the human race (although there was some of that too). The writers applied the tenets of naturalism and newfound knowledge to a little bit of imagination. In this way, these stories are more like speculative fiction, exploring the “what-ifs” of the natural world.
Please read my full review here: https://mwgerard.com/review-frankenst...
For the Victorian, science fiction was not so much about alien invasions or robots taking over the human race (although there was some of that too). The writers applied the tenets of naturalism and newfound knowledge to a little bit of imagination. In this way, these stories are more like speculative fiction, exploring the “what-ifs” of the natural world.
Please read my full review here: https://mwgerard.com/review-frankenst...
December 8, 2017
So what did science fiction look like when modern science was still in its infancy? Michael Sims has put together a collection of 19th century short science fiction stories that illustrate not only the breadth and the creativity of the field prior to the turn of the 20th century, but also the creepy prescience of some of the writers (if not for strict scientific fact, then for topics that would remain scifi staples into the current day).
In this collection we find mechanical brides made to order, vicious monsters awaiting daring pilots in the upper levels of the atmosphere, superhuman senses, alternate dimensions, strange aliens, time travel, and apocalyptic plagues and disasters. The stories, which include samples from authors like Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, and Rudyard Kipling, range from chapter excerpts to short stories to stories fashioned so like news items that, War of the Worlds-style, many people accepted them as fact.
My biggest complaint is that for the bigger names in the collection, clearly selected for their name recognition to the larger public, Sims has largely chosen to include only bits of chapters from their most famous works. As someone who looks to these collections to find little known authors or stories, this was a bit frustrating. I would have preferred something a little more off the beaten path.
Fans of Victorian literature and scifi buffs should check this volume out. In these stories, we can see the seed of inspiration for a number of modern tales.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via Goodreads Giveaways in exchange for an honest review.
In this collection we find mechanical brides made to order, vicious monsters awaiting daring pilots in the upper levels of the atmosphere, superhuman senses, alternate dimensions, strange aliens, time travel, and apocalyptic plagues and disasters. The stories, which include samples from authors like Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, and Rudyard Kipling, range from chapter excerpts to short stories to stories fashioned so like news items that, War of the Worlds-style, many people accepted them as fact.
My biggest complaint is that for the bigger names in the collection, clearly selected for their name recognition to the larger public, Sims has largely chosen to include only bits of chapters from their most famous works. As someone who looks to these collections to find little known authors or stories, this was a bit frustrating. I would have preferred something a little more off the beaten path.
Fans of Victorian literature and scifi buffs should check this volume out. In these stories, we can see the seed of inspiration for a number of modern tales.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via Goodreads Giveaways in exchange for an honest review.
February 9, 2025
Terrific anthology of Victorian period sci-fi.
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October 20, 2017Fiction F8296 2017
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