Logical Fantasy: The Many Worlds of John Wyndham

John Wyndham Lucas Parkes Beynon Harris was long considered the “invisible man” of science fiction due to his reclusive nature and disinclination toward publicity. Distinctly British yet with breakthrough appeal to American readers matched only by George Orwell, Wyndham thrived trans-Atlantically during the heyday of the digest-sized magazines, under his own name as well as a variety of recombinant pseudonyms which allowed him to “collaborate with himself” as he first planted boots in the sci-fi pulps of the 1930s. As “John Beynon” (or John B. ) Harris, he debuted this collection's first tale, “The Lost Machine,” in Amazing Stories, and followed with sales to Wonder Stories, Fantasy, and New Worlds up until World War II provided an interruption and hiatus. After the war years, Wyndham wholly recreated himself. The 1950s brought a decade-long run of novels that redefined science fiction. Through it all, the short stories continued, always startling, always thought-provoking. The seed of The Day of the Triffids is found here in “Spheres of Hell” (also known as “The Puffball Menace”). By the 1960s he was firing on all cylinders ― cogent, innovative stuff such as “Odd” (which debuted in Consider Her Ways and Others) and “The Asteroids, 2194” (part of his pastiche novel of the space-faring Troon dynasty, The Outward Urge). It is the magazines, pulps and digests, from Thrilling Wonder Stories to Argosy, that provide the bulk of these oddities and rediscoveries, now gathered under one roof ― including five previously uncollected tales. Only five collections were published during Wyndham's lifetime. Following his death in 1969 a number of short fiction assemblies appeared, but the most recent of these was twenty years ago. Logical Fantasy: The Many Worlds of John Wyndham serves as a primer, tribute, and reminder of the author's work.