Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Futura Publications (1977), Paperback, 368 pages
Description
A young Victorian couple are pulled into a mystery that transcends time and space. A mystery that will have very familiar elements for any fan of HG Wells but which cannot possibly be related to the work of the great man. Or can it? This early novel from Christopher Priest is at once a wonderful facsimile of late Victorian writing and an enticing modern novel that plays with the reader's expectations and comments on two of the greatest novels of science fiction. Christopher Priest is a genre-leading author of SFF fiction. His novel, THE PRESTIGE, won a number of awards and was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated film directed by Christopher Nolan (TENET, INCEPTION) starring Hugh Jackman (THE GREATEST SHOWMAN, X-MEN), Christian Bale (THE BIG SHORT, BATMAN BEGINS), Michael Caine (THE ITALIAN JOB) and Scarlett Johansson (MARRIAGE STORY, THE AVENGERS).… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member JohnGrant1
I read this in the omnibus edition (with the wonderful A Dream of Wessex) that was done by the short-lived imprint Earthlight, 'way back when.
As will be evident to all, I'm a great fan of Priest's work. I read this novel many years ago and, while I enjoyed it on its own terms, felt it to be the
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weakest of his books. Rereading it recently confirmed both of these senses to me: the fact that his writing has gone from strength to strength in later novels makes The Space Machine seem even flimsier, yet I enjoyed the romp even more this time around. That said, I was more irritated this time by the constant stream, most especially in the earlier chapters, of arch knowingness on sexual matters and narrator Edward Turnbull's astonishing innocence of them; that aside, though, this was lots of fun.Essentially this is a sequel to Wells's The Time Machine and a complement to the same author's The War of the Worlds. Edward, a travelling salesman and part-time inventor, encounters Amelia Fitzgibbon, the beautiful young ward of and assistant to famous inventor Sir William Reynolds, who proves to be the character known only as the Time Traveller in Wells's book. With a few drinks inside them and Sir William away on business, the young pair drunkenly experiment in his Richmond laboratory with the time machine, which -- as Amelia tells us -- is also a space machine, in that it moves in all four dimensions and not just the temporal one. When they manage to stop the device, they find themselves on Mars, with no immediate hope of return. There they discover a society ruled by the ruthless, soulless, near-immobile monsters of The War of the Worlds, who are creatures bred into existence from themselves centuries ago by the Martians, who are normally humanoid; the reason for developing these "thinking machines" was to tackle the problem of Mars's rapidly depleting resources, a problem the monsters have decided to solve by taking over the earth. Beneath the monsters in Martian society are the techs and slavemasters, and beneath those are countless slaves, who serve also as food animals for the monsters, who must feed regularly on human blood. After many adventures, Edward and Amelia find themselves in the cockpit of the first of the mighty projectiles fired at earth as the monsters mount their invasion. Landing near Richmond, they encounter H.G. Wells, who informs them that Sir William departed years ago aboard the time machine (whose automatic Snap Home feature returned it from Mars to the inventor's laboratory, without him being aware it had ever been gone) and has never been heard of since. The trio, in Sir William's home, build a second, more primitive version of the time machine, employing its space-machine capabilities to mount a resistance against the Martian conquerors . . .
While I was reading it occurred to me that, with The Space Machine, Priest must have more or less invented the recursive Steampunk novel. The only other one I can offhand think of that's of similar vintage is Tim Powers's The Anubis Gates, but that was published quite a few years later, in 1983. Hm. Checking in the Clute/Nicholls Encyclopedia of Science Fiction I find it mentions also Michael Moorcock's The Warlord of the Air which, published in 1971, predates The Space Machine. As with Colin Greenland -- another extremely literary writer -- being the one to trigger the great Space Opera Revival with his Take Back Plenty (and I can remember disbelieving him, a couple of years before that, when he told me he thought Space Opera was due for a comeback), it seems an unexpected matchup. All power to Priest's elbow that it should be so.
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Subjects
Awards
Ditmar Award (Winner — 1977)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1976
Physical description
368 p.; 17.7 cm
ISBN
0860079392 / 9780860079392
Local notes
Omslag: Ikke angivet
Omslaget viser noget, der med vilje bringer mindelser om "Klodernes kamp" af H.G.Wells for det er en slags alternativ historie til den
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Omslaget viser noget, der med vilje bringer mindelser om "Klodernes kamp" af H.G.Wells for det er en slags alternativ historie til den
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
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Pages
368
DDC/MDS
| 823.914 |