We (1924) by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Book review by Alice C: ‘You look in bad shape. You look as if you’re developing a soul’. I read this dystopian novel in The Second Lockdown. On page 12 we’re told of the Table of Hours, where one’s life, one’s comings and goings, are mapped out in a familiar and comforting timetable and of … Continue reading →

Men Like Gods (1923) by H.G. Wells

Book review by Frances S: Settling down to begin reading Men Like Gods a day or two after The Prime Minister’s 23 March 2020 ‘lockdown’ speech, I was looking forward to escaping into the relative calm of 1921 Sydenham. The novel is divided into three ‘books’. Book 1, The Irruption of the Earthlings, tells how … Continue reading →

Swastika Nights (1937) By Murray Constantine

Book Review by Kathryn R: This novel set some 700 years in the future is by Katherine Burdekin, writing under a pseudonym. Katherine Burdekin wrote feminist dystopian fiction in the 1920 both under her own name and the pseudonym. She also wrote some children’s fiction. The novel describes a world ruled by two superpowers, the … Continue reading →

That Hideous Strength by CS Lewis

This is the third in C.S. Lewis’s Science Fiction trilogy but unlike the first two books which were set on Mars and Venice respectively, this book is set on Earth shortly after the book was written in 1945,  in Edgestow – a Midland University town (possibly modelled on Durham). The protagonists are Jane and Mark, … Continue reading →

Out of the Silent Planet (1938), by C S Lewis

Review by Val H., picking up some points about changing attitudes to religion in the recent post Religion in the middle-brow novels by margaretbennett72. I am not sure how old I was – not very, anyway – when I first read C S Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), but it has … Continue reading →

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells (1896)

H. G. Wells need no introduction, so perhaps shouldn’t be in our collection of fiction from 1900-1950 that needs to be preserved, but his popularity is evidenced in how often he is donated! We have early editions and several Penguin reprints from 1946. The fly leaf of the Penguin states: “This edition of The Island of … Continue reading →

The Scarlet Plague by Jack London (1912)

Review by George Simmers (see his Great War Fiction blog here) First published in London Magazine in 1912, then in book form by Macmillan in 1915. In The Scarlet Plague the human race has been all but wiped out by a devastating epidemic, an apocalyptic theme that has become popular in later science fiction. Jack … Continue reading →