The Pandora Effect

by Jack Williamson

Jack Williamson, one of the all-time greats of the science-fiction world, presents his very first collection of short stories and novelettes here under the provocative but fitting title of THE PANDORA EFFECT.

Genres: Science Fiction

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

John Stewart Williamson who wrote as Jack Williamson (and occasionally under the pseudonym Will Stewart) was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction".

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jack Williamson began writing science fiction professionally in 1928 and continued until shortly before his death in 2006. With a prolific career that spanned over three-quarters of a century, it's strange that this first collection of his short fiction didn't appear until 1969. It contains seven stories, including his first, The Metal Man, which was published in Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories magazine in 1928 with a Frank R. Paul cover. Also from that radium-era of Amazing is The Cosmic Express from 1930, by which time T. O'Connor Sloane had taken over as editor. The Cold Green Eye was published in Fantastic in 1953, in an issue which also contained stories by John Collier, Shirley Jackson, and B. Traven. There are two stories that were first published in Frederik Pohl's seminal Star anthologies of the 1950s, The Happiest Creature and one my favorites, Guinevere for Everybody. The two best stories in the book are from 1947 issues of John W. Campbell's Astounding, The Equalizer and With Folded Hands, which is one of the great classics of the genre. It's fascinating to note how his style changed and how his ability improved from the 1920's stories into the post-Golden Age 1950s. The book has a very 1960s cover by Charles Gross with a bug and an eye.

[SciFiOne · Rating 3 out of 5]

1988 grade C

short stories

[Steven Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice collection of Jack Williamson's short stories. Among these: "The Happiest Creature," "The Cosmic Express," "The Metal Man," "The Cold Green Eye," "Guinevere for Everybody," "With Folded Hands," and my personal favorite, "The Equalizer." Each is provocative. "The Equalizer," for instance, tells the story of the social and political effects of the invention of a powwer source that gave individual households all the energy that they needed. The end result? An individualistic, libertarian society. Intriguing tale. . . . "With Folded Hands" is a distressing short story, speaking of the loss of power by humans.