A runaway planet hurtles toward the earth. As it draws near, massive tidal waves, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions wrack our planet, devastating continents, drowning cities, and wiping out millions. In central North America, a team of scientists race to build a spacecraft powerful enough to escape the doomed earth. Their greatest threat, they soon discover, comes not from the skies but from other humans. A crackling plot and sizzling, cataclysmic vision have made When Worlds Collide one of the most popular and influential end-of-the-world novels of all time.
This Bison Frontiers of Imagination edition features the original story and its sequel, After Worlds Collide.
Many of the earlier reviews on this site call for a reissue of the sequel, "After Worlds Collide". Please note: BOTH STORIES, "When Worlds Collide" and "After Worlds Collide", are contained in this paperback version. The title is misleading because it only includes "When..." -- but both stories are there. Other reviewers have correctlly noted that there are some scientific inaccuracies, and some 1930s political and social...
1Report
I discovered this one when I was in 5th grade. Buying it now, 30 years later, I was worried that it just wouldn't hold up. To my delight, it stands up to the test of time magnificently. We've seen movies and TV specials in the past few years on the impact of some cosmic body with Earth (Deep Impact, Armageddon, Meteor). Balmer and Wylie did it decades ago, and did it on a scale and with an attention to (then-current) detail...
1Report
This is a true science-fiction classic. The reason is simple: it is plausible. I first read this story almost forty years ago when I was in junior high school, and in the intervening years, it has lost none of its' fascination for me. I especially was taken by the sequel. The basic story is this: an astronomer discovers two planets from outside the solar system that are on a collision course with earth. One of them is a...
0Report
Probably the best science fiction story of all times! A "gas giant" planet about the size of Uranus was dragged away from its original orbit around its sun in a distant solar system by a passing star, perhaps millions of years ago. Also dragged away was the gigantic planet's satellite, an earthlike planet. The two bodies retain their original orbital influence and wonder for eons, frozen in the absolute zero of space, until...
1Report
I first read this book more than thirty years ago. I have read it many times since and it will always remain on my list of all-time favorites. This is a book in the tradition of Verne and Wells in that it brings many basic scientific principles to life and makes them understandable to the reader.Against the backdrop of universal disaster, Wylie and Balmer manage to tell a story that has real human dimensions. Love, hate,...
0Report