Review: Great fiction for the price, but some warnings
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 19, 2014
This is a collection of public domain novellas and short stories by three of the most important pre-pulp science fiction writers: Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle. These are adventure stories first, with important scientific speculations embedded, rather than space opera romances or hard science fiction. They are the works that inspired many of the leaders of the post-WWII scientific revolution as well as the serious pulp science fiction writers from the 1930s to the 1950s.Among e-book compilations of public domain literature, I grade this a B. The typography is consistent and attractive, and works at a variety of font sizes. Headings are clear and I found no obvious spelling errors, omissions or other errors. There is no extraneous or repeated material. There is a table of contents with links, both within the book itself and supplied in metadata for your reader (however the in-text is organized differently, which is a bit confusing). On the negative side, the contents do not distinguish between chapters and books, so it can be a even more confusing.The book does not include internal links, nor definitions of unusual words or characters. There are only single-paragraph biographies of the three authors and no forwards or notes. Publication details including year, edition, translator (for Verne) and so on are sparse or missing entirely. On the topic of translators, the Verne translations are quite bad, but not the worst. However much of the scientific detail is garbled or omitted, and the prose is clumsy and wooden. Sadly few of Verne's works are available in really good English translations so readers with no French do not a lot of better options.The material works best as stories--energetic, imaginative, compelling and brilliantly told. These are the still-fresh originals of characters and plots that have been imitated into stock jokes. Even the lesser efforts have considerable literary merit and are fun to read. There are stilted Victorian and Edwardian conventions in these stories, the clothes, role of servants, attitudes toward non-Europeans and women can charm or repel at various times, both when prejudices of the time are breached or honored. There is some offensive material: antisemitism, racism, imperialism, protofascism and other unpopuar isms. However all of the authors have much more on the other side of the balance, positive ideas that transcended both their era and commonplace acceptance of injustice. If you're looking to be offended you will have no trouble finding objectionable parts but in my opinion, taken as a whole, these are some of the good guys.None of this is great literature, the stories and speculations take priority over stylish prose or emotional depth. Dramatic events, bold characters and fascinating ideas keep our interest, not realism, philosophic subtlty or character development. Most of the science is hopelessly outdated, of course, but the curiousity, rationalism and courageous willingness to challenge common sense speak clearly to true seekers of truth of any generation.If you love good stories and scientific curiousity, you should read these works. You can find them free on the Internet, but these have been formatted for convenience on an e-reader. You can pay a little more for better physical editions, and in some cases for better electronic editions. So this is a decent compromise choice.