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Giants from Eternity
Scientist Oliver Norfleet and his college buddy Spencer DuPogue are called by the Board of Science, to investigate a mysteriously expanding red blight that is growing around the site of a meteor crash. With the help of the daughter of a famous scientist, they soon discover that the blight is not only alive, but that it consumes nearly everything in its path. When their own abilities prove inadequate, they are forced to turn to the greatest scientific minds that history has to offer. Can Norfleet and DuPogue and the Giants from Eternity stop the blight before the entire Earth is consumed? Also includes the novella The Timeless Tomorrow.
The Lost Wellman series is dedicated to bringing back into print the fiction of Manly Wade Wellman that has languished in the pulps, un-reprinted for decades and unavailable to a general readership. Night Shade’s earlier series, The Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman brought together the weird and supernatural fiction for which he was most famous. This new series demonstrates Wellman’s dynamic range of styles and genres – from science fiction, to fantasy, to adventure, to mystery fiction. It will further demonstrate that far from being only a master of the weird and supernatural, Wellman was a compelling master of all the genres he chose to work in.
Under the guidance of Night Shade Books, series editor and Wellman scholar Jeremiah Rickert is working to present a unified, textually accurate set of Wellman’s “lost” work. Other titles in this series include Strangers on the Heights.
The Lost Wellman series is dedicated to bringing back into print the fiction of Manly Wade Wellman that has languished in the pulps, un-reprinted for decades and unavailable to a general readership. Night Shade’s earlier series, The Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman brought together the weird and supernatural fiction for which he was most famous. This new series demonstrates Wellman’s dynamic range of styles and genres – from science fiction, to fantasy, to adventure, to mystery fiction. It will further demonstrate that far from being only a master of the weird and supernatural, Wellman was a compelling master of all the genres he chose to work in.
Under the guidance of Night Shade Books, series editor and Wellman scholar Jeremiah Rickert is working to present a unified, textually accurate set of Wellman’s “lost” work. Other titles in this series include Strangers on the Heights.
- GenresScience Fiction
159 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1959
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 19, 2013
The sheer silliness of "Giants From Eternity" had my cursor poised over the two star button, but then I read "The Timeless Tomorrow" and two stars became four. Published in 1939 and 1947 respectively, they are bookend pieces.
Ok, so Giants really is silly. Silly, giddy, fun. It had to have been the inspiration for The Blob, though it is a lot weirder. In brief, when an alien life form crashes to earth, its mysterious powers are used by the steely-eyed, square-jawed hero (what other kind is there?) to assemble an A-Team of resurrected scientific giants (Darwin! Newton! Pasteur! Edison! Curie!), who then work together to stop said alien life form from engulfing Earth.
It's clear that Wellman is enjoying himself with this one, and his enthusiasm for scientific progress, exclamation point, practically leaps off the page. There are some genuinely gripping moments along the way, but it's ultimately a pulpy tale of science and derring-do. If you've ever wanted to see Louis Pasteur go all action hero in a trailer park, then look no further. "Giants From Eternity" has that need covered in spades.
In the more subdued "The Timeless Tomorrow" a middle aged Nostradamus sidesteps a transparent plot on his life with the help of some swashbuckling (hey, it's still a pulp story) and a young woman who shares his gift for prophecy. It is a distinct tonal shift from the frenetic joy of progress that permeates Giants. Wonderment is replaced with horror, as Nostradamus tries to puzzle out the meaning of atoma divisa, a phrase heard in a vision. The story's climactic scene hinges upon his understanding of this phrase's meaning, and the realization threatens to unhinge him.
Wellman, I think, is too clever a writer to beat his fist on the pulpit, even though his sympathies are clear. In the end, both Nostradamus and the reader are offered the implied hope that the ingenuity that split the atom (the same ingenuity that drives the characters of Giants forward), and the callousness with which the fruits of that ingenuity were used, can be ultimately tempered by simple connection with another human being.
To get back to my initial point, what made these stories succeed was the fact that they are so obviously products of their time. No other historical period could have produced them. They stand like two opposing heraldic guardians, with the vast chaos of WW II between them.
Ok, so Giants really is silly. Silly, giddy, fun. It had to have been the inspiration for The Blob, though it is a lot weirder. In brief, when an alien life form crashes to earth, its mysterious powers are used by the steely-eyed, square-jawed hero (what other kind is there?) to assemble an A-Team of resurrected scientific giants (Darwin! Newton! Pasteur! Edison! Curie!), who then work together to stop said alien life form from engulfing Earth.
It's clear that Wellman is enjoying himself with this one, and his enthusiasm for scientific progress, exclamation point, practically leaps off the page. There are some genuinely gripping moments along the way, but it's ultimately a pulpy tale of science and derring-do. If you've ever wanted to see Louis Pasteur go all action hero in a trailer park, then look no further. "Giants From Eternity" has that need covered in spades.
In the more subdued "The Timeless Tomorrow" a middle aged Nostradamus sidesteps a transparent plot on his life with the help of some swashbuckling (hey, it's still a pulp story) and a young woman who shares his gift for prophecy. It is a distinct tonal shift from the frenetic joy of progress that permeates Giants. Wonderment is replaced with horror, as Nostradamus tries to puzzle out the meaning of atoma divisa, a phrase heard in a vision. The story's climactic scene hinges upon his understanding of this phrase's meaning, and the realization threatens to unhinge him.
Wellman, I think, is too clever a writer to beat his fist on the pulpit, even though his sympathies are clear. In the end, both Nostradamus and the reader are offered the implied hope that the ingenuity that split the atom (the same ingenuity that drives the characters of Giants forward), and the callousness with which the fruits of that ingenuity were used, can be ultimately tempered by simple connection with another human being.
To get back to my initial point, what made these stories succeed was the fact that they are so obviously products of their time. No other historical period could have produced them. They stand like two opposing heraldic guardians, with the vast chaos of WW II between them.
October 10, 2026
A brainy fellow named Oliver Norfleet and his college buddy Spencer DuPogue get called up by the big-shot Board of Science to look at a mighty strange mess out in a Kansas field. A meteor slammed into the dirt and started sprouting a glowing, blood-red mold that’s spreading faster than Kudzu on a hot July afternoon. This ain't your average garden fungus, either. It’s a live, flesh-eating space blight that swallows up trees, dirt, cows, and anything else in its way. The army tries digging ditches and lighting fires, but the red goo just laps up the kerosene like moonshine and keeps on rolling. When Oliver accidentally figures out a sci-fi serum that can bring dead cells back to life, he doesn't just revive a possum—he decides he needs the smartest fellas in human history to help him fix this cosmic mess. So what does he do? He goes to the cemetery and resurrects a super-team of history's biggest geniuses: Louis Pasteur, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, and Marie Curie. Once they get the cobwebs out of their brains, these "Giants from Eternity" get right to work. While Spencer DuPogue turns out to be a greedy, backstabbing snake trying to steal the glory, the undead science squad builds a nuclear-powered anti-gravity rocketship. They fly up into the atmosphere, use an atomic beam weapon to literally slice off the infected hunk of the Earth like a tumor, and launch that nasty red space-mold right out into the dark void of the cosmos. It’s an absolutely beautifully unhinged 1939 pulp story that proves you haven't lived until you've seen Louis Pasteur running around a Kansas farm with a shotgun trying to blast alien mold. The finest backwoods science fair to ever save the planet.
October 12, 2012
Two short stories re-printed for the first time since their publication in 1939 and 1947. If Giants of Eternity wasn't the inspiration for the 1958 film, The Blob, I'd be surprised. A meteor crashes to Earth from which a red jelly-like organism oozes out and begins devouring everything in sight, increasing it's mass at an alarming rate. The similarities end there however, for when the "giants" of the title make the scene, it begins to feel more like a children's version of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The Invisible Man will not be getting raped by Mr. Hyde, but Marie Curie just might help save the world in a rocket designed by Thomas Edison. It's an absurd story, but fun to read.
Wellman's depiction of women reflects the attitudes of the time, but seems more comical than insulting.
"But she, being a woman, did not speak or struggle against the invader. She fainted. And the enemy rolled over her within minutes."
"He remembered how she pleaded to share the danger, and he smiled to himself. Woman or not, she had spirit and courage."
The Timeless Tomorrow is a story about Nostradamus in which he must deal with being framed for witchcraft, resist the accuser's jailbait cousin, demonstrate his swashbuckling skills, thwart Napoleon in the future, and suffer visions of atomic war. As written here, Nostradamus was a real Buckaroo Banzai type, able to do just about anything.
Wellman's depiction of women reflects the attitudes of the time, but seems more comical than insulting.
"But she, being a woman, did not speak or struggle against the invader. She fainted. And the enemy rolled over her within minutes."
"He remembered how she pleaded to share the danger, and he smiled to himself. Woman or not, she had spirit and courage."
The Timeless Tomorrow is a story about Nostradamus in which he must deal with being framed for witchcraft, resist the accuser's jailbait cousin, demonstrate his swashbuckling skills, thwart Napoleon in the future, and suffer visions of atomic war. As written here, Nostradamus was a real Buckaroo Banzai type, able to do just about anything.
July 12, 2009
Well I've read all of Wellman's fantasies and most of his book non-fiction, this means I move on to his Science Fiction. This 1939 novel is breezy and fast moving. It hasn't dated that badly, and the plot premise is still good. People new to Wellman need to start with his classic fantasy short stories ("Who Fears the Devil" is an easy starting place).
If it was written by someone else, I would still like it.
If it was written by someone else, I would still like it.
September 24, 2013
A hideous, unkillable alien blight oozes over Kansas, killing or mutating the life in its past. How do you stop it? Well if you're the protagonist of this book, you figure out how to resurrect Louis Pasteur, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison and Madame Curie to find a way to destroy the terrifying menace. Entertaining, though far from Wellman's best work; the back up story is pretty weak though.
August 5, 2013
This title must be read in a booming, deep voice - nothing else would do it justice. The plot is absolutely ridiculous (Kenny would feel right at home here), and this is begging for a B-movie to be made just so MST3K could catapult it into stardom for eternity.
July 21, 2012
This is science fiction as I remember it from the pulse pounding days, before it became literary tedium. This short novel delivers the all goods.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews