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Before Armageddon, Vol 1
An Anthology of Victorian & Edwardian Fiction Published Before 1914.
Collection of early science fiction stories with introductory essay from Michael Moorcock.
Contents:
• Introduction by Michael Moorcock
• The Battle of Dorking by George Tomkyns Chesney
• Dr. Trifulgas by Jules Verne
• The Raid of Le Vengeur by George Griffith
• The Great War in England in 1897 by William Le Queux
• Life in Our New Century by W. J. Wintle
• The Three Drugs by E. Nesbit
Collection of early science fiction stories with introductory essay from Michael Moorcock.
Contents:
• Introduction by Michael Moorcock
• The Battle of Dorking by George Tomkyns Chesney
• Dr. Trifulgas by Jules Verne
• The Raid of Le Vengeur by George Griffith
• The Great War in England in 1897 by William Le Queux
• Life in Our New Century by W. J. Wintle
• The Three Drugs by E. Nesbit
180 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1976
1 person is currently reading
39 people want to read
About the author
Michael Moorcock
1,210 books3,770 followersMichael John Moorcock is an English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels.
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 30, 2018
It's a brave book that goes back to before science fiction was called science fiction, to give us not only a prime instance of future-war speculative fiction, but also the unreadable hackwork that it inspired, full of place names and pointless lists of fictional names and regiments due to the author being paid by the word. Those two pieces tend to dominate, and so E Nesbit with a mad scientist trying to create the Ubermensch, and Jules Verne with a predominance of weird place names and a dog that carries a lantern for its owner, both get swamped. But this now-rare collection is worth a browse, especially for those with specialist interest. It all would have been called lurid back in the day, but some of it still has a strong intent.
June 29, 2022
An interesting look at what authors thought the future held for them at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.
August 21, 2013
Before Armageddon is an anthology of (largely) speculative fiction from around the turn of the 20th century, edited by Michael Moorcock. For those interested in the early history of science fiction, this is an illuminating collection:
"The Battle of Dorking", by George Chesney, is famous for kicking off the genre of invasion literature. The story is told from the ground-level POV of a regular joe, so the invasion in question is seen more in the terror and tedium of a soldier's experiences, rather than any high-level excitement. Highly influential, obviously.
On the other hand, Jules Verne's "Dr. Trifulgas" (in some translations titled "Frritt-Flacc") is an oddity, being a short horror story about a cranky, selfish physician. It's enjoyable enough for what it is - it sets up the story, gives the twist, and gets out - but aside from showcasing a piece of short fiction from one of the fathers of science fiction, it's hard to understand its inclusion.
By contrast, "The Raid of La Vengeur", by George Griffith, is a brilliant short piece showing scientists on both sides of a fictional war attempting to solve the obstacles then confounding the viable development of submarines - with the two men coming up with completely different solutions, all couched in an actual war narrative with an exciting ending.
William Le Quex's "The Great War in England in 1897" is just an excerpt, reprinting the final quarter of the novel. And this was the only clunker of the collection, as the entry is simply awful, telling the story of a fictional invasion in dry and near-encyclopedic detail - yet detail entirely devoid of characters. Instead, we get chapter after chapter listing this area of London that was destroyed, these neighborhoods shattered, people dying in the streets in front of these shops and those grounds. At one point it takes most of a page to list a dozen or so units of fighting forces, complete with the names and ranks of leading officers. Why? Is this information useful or interesting? Not really, no. This novel was apparently as influential as "Dorking", but I'm much more at a loss as to why; it frankly reads like a war gamer moving pieces around his board and recording the movements in minute detail. After trying to slog through it, I found I was less than halfway through the excerpt and gave up.
The next segment is W.J. Wintle's "Life in our New Century" (or what appears to be another excerpt thereof), a nonfiction essay predicting the technological advances that the twentieth century will bring. Impressively, by restricting these predictions to reasonable limits, he was astonishingly accurate at how things developed.
The final story is E. Nesbit's "The Three Drugs", a tense and terrifying tale of a man's experience encountering a Dr. Moreau type obsessed with the secret of eternal life. Like "La Vengeur", it's exactly as long as it needs to be, and is proof that speculative fiction was not solely being written by men.
In short, this is an illuminating and mostly satisfying anthology illustrating the early days of what would become known as science fiction. Hopefully some publisher will notice its lack, and get this lost collection quickly back into print.
"The Battle of Dorking", by George Chesney, is famous for kicking off the genre of invasion literature. The story is told from the ground-level POV of a regular joe, so the invasion in question is seen more in the terror and tedium of a soldier's experiences, rather than any high-level excitement. Highly influential, obviously.
On the other hand, Jules Verne's "Dr. Trifulgas" (in some translations titled "Frritt-Flacc") is an oddity, being a short horror story about a cranky, selfish physician. It's enjoyable enough for what it is - it sets up the story, gives the twist, and gets out - but aside from showcasing a piece of short fiction from one of the fathers of science fiction, it's hard to understand its inclusion.
By contrast, "The Raid of La Vengeur", by George Griffith, is a brilliant short piece showing scientists on both sides of a fictional war attempting to solve the obstacles then confounding the viable development of submarines - with the two men coming up with completely different solutions, all couched in an actual war narrative with an exciting ending.
William Le Quex's "The Great War in England in 1897" is just an excerpt, reprinting the final quarter of the novel. And this was the only clunker of the collection, as the entry is simply awful, telling the story of a fictional invasion in dry and near-encyclopedic detail - yet detail entirely devoid of characters. Instead, we get chapter after chapter listing this area of London that was destroyed, these neighborhoods shattered, people dying in the streets in front of these shops and those grounds. At one point it takes most of a page to list a dozen or so units of fighting forces, complete with the names and ranks of leading officers. Why? Is this information useful or interesting? Not really, no. This novel was apparently as influential as "Dorking", but I'm much more at a loss as to why; it frankly reads like a war gamer moving pieces around his board and recording the movements in minute detail. After trying to slog through it, I found I was less than halfway through the excerpt and gave up.
The next segment is W.J. Wintle's "Life in our New Century" (or what appears to be another excerpt thereof), a nonfiction essay predicting the technological advances that the twentieth century will bring. Impressively, by restricting these predictions to reasonable limits, he was astonishingly accurate at how things developed.
The final story is E. Nesbit's "The Three Drugs", a tense and terrifying tale of a man's experience encountering a Dr. Moreau type obsessed with the secret of eternal life. Like "La Vengeur", it's exactly as long as it needs to be, and is proof that speculative fiction was not solely being written by men.
In short, this is an illuminating and mostly satisfying anthology illustrating the early days of what would become known as science fiction. Hopefully some publisher will notice its lack, and get this lost collection quickly back into print.
August 30, 2012
Anthology of science fiction published prior to 1914
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews