“Are you a technician or a driveling idiot?” — “The Proud Robot” (1943)
The story goes that science-fiction writer, Henry Kuttner, named his inebriated and gifted scientist “Gallagher” while writing “The Time Locker” then mistakenly called him “Galloway” when writing its sequel. And after realizing his error, Kuttner combined the names giving “Galloway Gallagher” his full name. Continue reading
I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time travel. They are exceedingly unpleasant. — The Time Machine (1895)
July 9th, 2009.
Today I finished the final chapters of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, and felt the sadness I always feel when finishing a great book—it is the sadness of parting ways with people I have grown to love with the turn of every page. But mixed with my sadness was pride of accomplishment. I had started the book numerous times, but always lost my way. This time I set off with the Time Traveler determined to see the journey to its end. Continue reading
May 26, 2017.
In a brittle issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from November 1952, I stumbled across a short story entitled “Bem” by sci-fi author Charles T. Webb. His story so amused me that I decided to write my own using “Bem” as one inspiration and the 1897 UFO crash in Aurora, Texas as another. And without my knowing it, my prose fell into rhythm with rhymes and near rhymes, and to my amazement, I had the first two stanzas of a poem.
Any fans of sci-writer Henry Kuttner will see that I also took inspiration from his Galloway Gallagher story entitled “The World Is Mine” first published in Astounding Stories in June 1943 under the pseudonym Lewis Padgett.
It is an Associated Press dispatch, describing a universal nightmare. —The Critic April 23, 1898
June 25, 2012.
After two unsatisfying productions, one produced by George Pal in 1953 and another directed by Steven Spielberg in 2005, it is obvious that Hollywood – from its producers and directors down to its writers and its gaffers – does not understand H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898). Both Pal and Spielberg modernize the story and by doing so, doom both films before the end of their opening credits. Like the Martians, who did not survive leaving their native soil, The War of the Worlds does not survive modernization without cheapening it, turning it into yet another clichéd invasion film with its sole distinction being H. G. Wells’ name on its credits. Continue reading
MARTIAN DEATH RAY 