Space Beach!
Thanks for the shout-out! Yes, Annalee has it exactly right. We don't want eBay to kick our project off its servers because we're making "false claims" about the objects for sale. Naturally we'd rather not have the disclaimer there, because -- for those who get that they're being hoaxed, and enjoy being hoaxed -- the disclaimer kills the charm.
@oldandintheway: Thanks lazyeight -- my expertise is in PGA SF, not GA. But I could have done a better job fact-checking the GA stuff. I just wanted to share that bad-ass cover, was the impetus.
@Dimbo_Sama: Purple Cloud is way better than most of the books on the list, you're right. But because I've written about it an earlier post for this series, as I mention, I decided to leave it off. (Last and First Men, Poison Belt, others -- same deal.)
@Brett Holman: Ha! I keep doing that. Better fix it. Thanks so much.
@ZanipoloLebron: How is that an eco-disaster?
@neophil13: Thanks for the tip! I have two French and a German SF stories on my Top Ten list, so I am interested... as long as they've been translated.
@The Curse of Millhaven: My fault!
@Tom Nealon: There is one and only one Pre-Golden-Age SF story in which garbage -- though not pollution, in the sense of carbon emissions -- causes an eco-catastrophe. It's Fred M. White's "The Dust of Death," published in April 1903. Here it is.
@deruberhanyok: Yeah, that's a badly worded sentence -- it's not the flooding that causes flooding, obviously. It's geological upheavals.
@The Curse of Millhaven: My writeup of "The Evacuation of England" doesn't do justice to Gratacap's chapter(s)-long discussion of the geological reasons that might cause a large part of Central America to sink beneath the waves.
@Joshua Glenn: Sorry, the URL I was trying to include is
Check it out. Kids welcoming the glowing orb from outer space. Just like in When the Tripods Came.
When the Tripods Came -- agreed, this is nowhere near as good as Christopher's terrific trilogy. However, worth reading for the description of the Trippy Show... which sounds exactly, and I mean exactly, like the very real kiddie show ">Boohbah, a 2003-05 kiddie show (by the creator of Teletubbies) that aired in Britain & the US.
@Grey_Area: Oh, just picked up on your Bulwer-Lytton joke. Nice one.
@AlvaAcoetes: Just saw this thread. You bought a copy of the book? Good for you! It would be amazing if you got the text online...
@Counterglow: Right you are. Though as you appear to realize already, "Kenneth Robeson" was a syndicate pseudonym, and Ernst didn't write the Doc Savage books. Thanks for reading these posts!
@crotchetyoldfan: Are you referring to the Hypnobioscope that allows people to read newspaper in their sleep? I don't think Ralph invented that one -- though did he invent a telepathy-like technology that I'm forgetting? Please inform! Either way, I suppose the book should be included on my long list. (The Top Ten lists aren't "primary" -- just some of my favorites. Now that I've done a few installments of this series, and don't want to keep writing about the same titles, often the Top Ten lists don't include the "best" or "most influential" titles -- just ones of particular interest to me.) PS: I wrote a bit about Gernsback's novel in my previous post.
@Erik Olson: Right! I talk about "Odd John" a little in another post from this series. It's one of my favorites. But comes fairly late in the game -- I thought I'd try to look at some of the earlier ones, in this post.
@Grey_Area: Thanks so much!
@tetracycloide: There's a lot of gray area between occult novels featuring telepathic powers and SF ones... but the SF ones do attempt to offer some kind of scientific (sounding) explanation. Usually the idea is that these powers are already latent in our brains, but we're not sufficiently evolved/advanced (yet) to tap into them. Alien races, lost civilizations, and others, though, have somehow learned to do so.
