Science Fiction
"Logical fantasy"
Penguin Books 1385

Goodreads: "For the ten short stories collected here, John Wyndham turns his imagination to, among other subjects, body-snatching, time-travel and mind-travel, and the the tricky business of interplanetary colonization."

Good Reads (Cecily):
"Chronoclasm is a thoughtful (non-action) time travel paradox.

Time to Rest is a pastoral tale, where a human loner travels the Martian canals, living a tinker's life.

Meteor is a pre-war adventure. Although basic plot is obvious from the start it presents an interesting slant on how one's insular perspective (life, experience, body) skews one's objectivity and ability to interpret what is around us when we are in an unfamiliar situation.

Survival seems like a cliché, but of course it predates most of the sci fi films it brings to mind - and it has a good twist. Like other Wyndham works, some of the characters express very misogynistic views, albeit perhaps typical of the time. It also has a prescient insight into the power of tabloid media and the power of celebrity (as in Midwich Cuckoos).

Pawley's Peepholes is the story I remembered most vividly from my first reading of this collection. It is a comic slant on time travel, with satire of the media and its approach to "truth".

Opposite Number is about parallel universes, with an original ending.

Pillar to Post is, like Meteor, about disorientation when one cannot even begin to understand one's circumstances, but it is a more complex narrative. It also posits that the end of the world could be that it "just died... of government-paternalism" because there would be so much order, there would be no need to adapt. Life is an accident and maybe survival is too.

Dumb Martian is good because, finally, a man with no respect for women gets his comeuppance.

Compassion Circuit is a very short exploration of the relationship between humans and personal robots.

Wild Flower is completely unlike the others, being rather twee, like its title."