This is the third collection I read from these charming little light-blue books with the golden pages, and they’re uneven at best. Once again, as such, I have mixed feelings about this collection and I’ll have to proceed scientifically to give a rating, so here goes.
- H.G. Wells, The star. A new celestial body causes commotion in our solar system, lots of people die, but the Martians don’t seem to care much. ★★★★
- Stanley Weinbaum, A Martian Odyssey. A scientist tells his peers about the extraordinary meeting he has with a local intelligence while stranded in the desert of Mars. ★★★★★
- Fitz-James O’Brien, The diamond lens. An amateur scientist becomes obsessed in creating the perfect microscope lens and, after consulting a medium, goes down the rabbit hole. ★★★★
- Voltaire, Micromégas. I swear I couldn’t summarise this tale if my life depended on it: an alien visits us, and it’s a chance for the author to be very clever about it. ★★
- Mary Shelley, The Mortal Immortal. An apprentice drinks a portion from an alchemic mixture he doesn’t understand, and he has to come to terms with what this means for his future. ★★★★
- E.A. Poe, A Tale of the Ragged Mountains. An absolute classic in mixing mesmerism, orientalism and horror. ★★★★★
- Florence McLandburgh, The Automaton Ear. A scientist invents a device that’s capable of picking up even the most remote sounds, both in time and space, because no sound is never truly extinguished, and that isn’t bound to bode well for his nervous system. ★★★★
- E.P. Mitchell, The Tachypomp. In the attempt to impress his Math professor into allowing him to marry his charming daughter, an untalented student plunges deep into impossible research. ★★★★
- H.P. Lovecraft, The Colour out of Space. Another classic, telling us of the unimaginable and the horror that comes from what cannot be described. ★★★★★
- J.C. Maxwell, Ode to Yadda Yadda (why is there poetry in my short stories collection?) ★
- A. Conan Doyle, The Horror of the Heights. A pilot goes higher than anyone has ever gone, and finds… unexpected stuff. ★★★
- Rokeya Sakhawat Hussein, Sultana’s Dream. A woman dreams of a place where it’s men to be locked up in harems, and women lead with grace and wisdom, but it’s unfortunately too cheesy to be interesting. ★★
- Ambrose Bierce, A Psychological Shipwreck. A guy dreams he meets a girl and befriends her, only to wake up and find out that… well, no spoilers, except it doesn’t end well. ★★★★
- H.G. Wells, The Door in the Wall. A haunting story of a guy who finds a wall to an enchanted garden, but he can only cross it if he gives up something important in his life. ★★★★
If you do the math, the total would be 3.5 but I’m rounding it up to 4 for a few reasons.
The first is that some stories are probably rated lower than they deserve for my personal disliking of their author’s general production: it’s Voltaire’s case (Micromégas) ’cause I can’t stand the guy, and Conan Doyle’s (The Horror of the Heights) ’cause I think that was a bit of a lazy exercise.
The second is that some of them were groundbreakingly modern for their times, even if not executed at the top for my liking, and that’s Mary Shelley’s case (The Mortal Immortal).
The third and most important is that I absolutely adored A Martian Odyssey. It’s a brutally underrated story, both for its classical echoes that will make you go “oh, dear, that’s the sirens” and for its approach to alien communication and language. It alone is worth the reading. What a splendid discovery.
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