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Post by cauldronbrewer on Feb 18, 2021 19:01:17 GMT
This will be out in May of next year; really not for me but posting it for those who might enjoy it. Speaking of which: has anyone seen a table of contents for that book? Judging by the description, it sounds as though Dr. Strange is correct that it will include Blackwood's "A Victim of Higher Space" and Long's "Hounds of Tindalos," but after that I'm uncertain. The "non-Euclidian geometry" suggests Lovecraft (which would fit with Dr. S's guess of "Dreams in the Witch House"). For Borges, maybe "Funes the Memorious" (which includes a bizarre counting system)? I can't recall reading anything by Miriam Allen deFord. 'I have stood on the dim shore beyond time and matter and seen it. It moves through strange curves and outrageous angles. Some day I shall travel in time and meet it face to face.'Unlike nineteenth-century Gothic fiction, which tends to fixate on the past, the haunted and the ghostly, early weird fiction probes the very boundaries of reality the laws and limits of time, space and matter. Here, unimaginable terrors lurk in hitherto unknown mirror dimensions, calamities in ultra-space threaten to wipe clean all evidence of our universe and experiments in non-Euclidean geometry lead to sickening consequences.
In twelve speculative tales of our universe's mathematics and physics gone awry, this new anthology presents an abundance of curiosities and terrors with stories from Jorge Luis Borges, Miriam Allen deFord, Frank Belknap Long and Algernon Blackwood.contents are: The Plattner Story - H.G. Wells The Hall Bedroom - Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman Space - John Buchan A Victim of Higher Space - Algernon Blackwood The Pikestaff Case - Algernon Blackwood The Hounds of Tindalos - Frank Belknap Long The Trap - Henry S Whitehead and HP Lovecraft The Living Equation - Nat Schachner Infinity Zero - Donald Wanderei The Library of Babel - Jorge Luis Borges "—And He Built a Crooked House—" - Robert Heinlein Slips Take Over - Miriam Allen deFord My copy of this book just arrived, so I figured I'd combine the discussions of it from the Glimpses of the Unknown thread and the Platform Edge thread. I've read the stories by Wilkins Freeman, Long, Borges, Whitehead/Lovecraft, and Heinlein, along with the first of the Blackwood stories, but I'm looking forward to the rest. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Feb 21, 2021 18:07:35 GMT
Two stories from Dangerous Dimensions, both of which I liked (though they're more "weird" or "strange" than horrific):
H. G. Wells - The Plattner Story: A chemical explosion thrusts unassuming schoolteacher Gottfried Plattner into the fourth dimension. He spends several days there and undergoes a variety of inexplicable experiences.
John Buchan - Space: A tale within a tale about a mathematician/metaphysician/mountaineer who deduces that seemingly empty space "is really full of things we cannot see." These include "presences" better left unseen. Buchan's story reads like a lower-key version of Francis Stevens's "Unseen--Unfeared" or HPL's "From Beyond." It also includes an analogy that sounded familiar to me:
"And then he tried to show me what he called 'the involution of Space,' by taking two points on a piece of paper. The points were a foot away when the paper was flat, but they coincided when it was doubled up."
It's essentially the same metaphor that Mr. Clarke uses to explain the logic of the "Upside Down" in Stranger Things:
I'm guessing the parallel is a coincidence, unless the Duffer Brothers are big John Buchan fans.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 21, 2021 18:50:05 GMT
John Buchan - Space: A tale within a tale about a mathematician/metaphysician/mountaineer who deduces that seemingly empty space "is really full of things we cannot see." These include "presences" better left unseen. Buchan's story reads like a lower-key version of Francis Stevens's "Unseen--Unfeared" or HPL's "From Beyond." It also includes an analogy that sounded familiar to me: "And then he tried to show me what he called 'the involution of Space,' by taking two points on a piece of paper. The points were a foot away when the paper was flat, but they coincided when it was doubled up."It's essentially the same metaphor that Mr. Clarke uses to explain the logic of the "Upside Down" in Stranger Things Buchan may be an early example, but this "explanation" turns up regularly in science fiction. Here are some examples. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Feb 21, 2021 19:12:11 GMT
Buchan may be an early example, but this "explanation" turns up regularly in science fiction. Here are some examples. Looking at the list, I've come across (and evidently forgotten) several of them, including the ones in A Wrinkle in Time, Event Horizon, Dark, and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.As an aside, I've spent far too many hours of my life on that website. |
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Post by andydecker on Feb 21, 2021 20:51:35 GMT
Buchan may be an early example, but this "explanation" turns up regularly in science fiction. Here are some examples. Looking at the list, I've come across (and evidently forgotten) several of them, including the ones in A Wrinkle in Time, Event Horizon, Dark, and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.As an aside, I've spent far too many hours of my life on that website. Yes, it is addictive. Me too.
On the other hand I found that too much knowledge about tropes can leach the enjoyment out of any kind of fiction.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Feb 22, 2021 22:25:56 GMT
Algernon Blackwood - The Pikestaff Case: A landlady rents a room to a mathematician who dabbles in transdimensional travel. Blackwood's stories often balance horror and awe, with this one leaning more toward the awe end of the spectrum. "The Pikestaff Case" also features an engaging central character in the landlady, who's both afraid of and fascinated by the mathematician.
In other British Library Tales of the Weird news, I found the contents of a new anthology on the publisher's Twitter account:
Kevan Manwaring [ed.] - Heavy Weather: Tempestuous Tales of Stranger Climes (British Library, 2021)
Introduction
Mary Shelley - History of a Six Weeks' Tour (extract)
Herman Melville - The Lightning-Rod Man
Edgar Allan Poe - A Descent into the Maelstrom
Richard Jefferies - The Great Snow
E. F. Benson - The Horror-Horn
Algernon Blackwood - May Day Eve
W. F. Harvey - August Heat
Doris Lessing - A Mild Attack of Locusts
William Hope Hodgson - Through the Vortex of a Cyclone
Jonas Lie - The Wind-Gnome
Adam Chase - Summer Snow Storm
Margaret St. Clair - The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes
Gerald Vance - Monsoons of Death
M. P. Shiel - The Purple Cloud (extract)
Daphne du Maurier - The Birds
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Feb 23, 2021 21:18:27 GMT
More stories from Dangerous Dimensions:
Nat Schachner - The Living Equation: A burglar breaks into the house of a mathematician who's working on a calculating device--one that can devise novel equations, rather than simply solve them. When the mathematician's housekeeper and lawyer friend spot the burglar, he tries to flee and bumps into the machine, with cosmically disastrous results.
Donald Wandrei - Infinity Zero: A reporter sent to cover the bombing of a chemical factory discovers a bizarre phenomenon: a motionless gray flame in the sky over an expanding hole in the ground. He recruits a pair of mathematicians to investigate, and one of them deduces that the explosion created a hole through which negative space is bleeding into our universe at an accelerating rate. Bleak.
Miriam Allen deFord - Slips Take Over: A man walks into a bar--and, according to its lone patron, into a parallel dimension. Our protagonist is skeptical, but what happens when he steps out of the bar makes him reconsider. Fans of Fringe might see, well, parallels.
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