Customer Reviews

Spider Island: The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume Four

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I just finished the fourth book in this series, Spider Island. Most of the stories span from the mid to late 1930's, and one can clearly see Mr. Williamson's writing begin to mature when compared to earlier volumes in the series, especially volume one.

This book has it all: sci-fi, rockets, time travel, parallel universes, mystery stories disguised as scifi, and even a little humor. A couple of the stories do not date well, but still overall this is one that's staying in my collection.

Recommended.

As a collector of golden age SF, I hoped to like this, but I couldn't take it seriously.

These stories were written in the 1930's for the pulps. The prose is way over the top as suited the venue at the time. The target audience was poorly educated, young and unsophisticated. They wanted cheap thrills and they got it with the pulps.

I wish Haffner Press good fortune with their efforts. The series is attractively bound on quality paper and will be a find for collectors. I did notice a few word substitutions few readers are apt to notice. Given the size of the task, the prose is quite clean.

If you enjoy being told rather than shown and enjoy colorful adjectives and radio play quality melodrama, you'll find this a treasure trove. But if you want to be entertained while reading well crafted prose, look instead to: Campbell, Van Vogt, Vance, Asimov, Pohl, Silverberg, Tiptree, Leiber, Kornbluth, Russell or Bester.