The Seeds of Time
1956 sci-fi collection by John Wyndham
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The Seeds of Time is a collection of science fiction stories (five short stories and five novelettes) by British writer John Wyndham, published in 1956 by Michael Joseph.
 First edition | |
| Author | John Wyndham |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Richard Barton |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science Fiction |
| Publisher | Michael Joseph |
Publication date | 1956 |
Contents
- A foreword by John Wyndham
- "The Chronoclasm" (1953), novelette, variant of "Chronoclasm"
- "Pillar to Post" (1951), novelette
- "Dumb Martian" (1952), novelette
- "Compassion Circuit" (1954)
- "Survival" (1952), novelette
- "Pawley's Peepholes" (1951)
- "Opposite Number" (1954)
- "Wild Flower" (1955)
- "Time to Rest" (1949), as by John Beynon, Bert #1 series[1]
- "Meteor" (1941), novelette, as by John Beynon
Summaries
- "Chronoclasm"
- a time-travelling romantic comedy.
- "Pillar to Post"
- The central character is a paraplegic who was badly injured in a wartime attack. Frequently taking drugs to cope with the pain, he finds himself in a healthy body very far in the future. A complex plot of body-swapping and time travel ensues. It is considered by some people to be the best story in the collection.[2]
- "Dumb Martian"[3]
- a satire on racism, featuring an Earthman who buys a Martian wife.
- "Compassion Circuit"
- a horror story on the subject of robotics.
- "Survival"
- set on a spacecraft marooned in orbit around Mars.
- "Pawley's Peepholes"
- another time travel story, this time a comedy in which tourists projected from the future cause chaos in a present-day town.
- "Opposite Number"
- which plays with the concept of parallel universes.
- "Wild Flower"
- which explores the tension between nature and technology.
- "Time to Rest"
- depicting the life on Mars of a human survivor of the destruction of Earth. A sequel "No Place Like Earth"[1] appears in the collection No Place Like Earth (2003), which contains both.
- "Meteor"
- in which alien visitors to Earth find themselves on a very different scale to humans.
Adaptations
- "Dumb Martian" (1962), episode of the series Armchair Theatre and Out of This World, directed by Charles Jarrott, based on novelette "Dumb Martian"
- "No Place Like Earth" (1965), episode of the series Out of the Unknown, directed by Peter Potter, based on short story "Time to Rest" and novelette "No Place on Earth"[1]
- A BBC Radio 4 adaption of "Survival" was broadcast in 1989 with Stephen Garlick, Susan Sheridan, and Nicholas Courtney.[4] It was released as an Audiobook in 2007 with the 1981 version of The Chrysalids.[5]