What Mad Universe [Hardcover]

Fredric Brown (Author), Tony Fiyalko; (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1981

What Mad Universe -- Keith Winton, editor of a popular science fiction magazine, is spending a quiet weekend at his boss's country estate. It is the day of the first moon shot, and Keith is looking forward to witnessing the explosion of the unmanned rocket, which will signal its landing. But something goes wrong. The rocket plummets to Earth, and a piece lands too close to Keith. When he awakened, he returns to town . . and enters a world as bizarre and intimidating as any created for his magazine.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 186 pages
• Publisher: Nelson Doubleday, Inc. (March 1, 1981)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000JPO8LI
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,768,926 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the top ten all time science fiction classics, December 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: What Mad Universe (Hardcover)

This is a Wizard of Oz type parallel universe yarn for adolescents and adults. Unfairly neglected, it would make a stunning Disney animated film or Broadway musical. It's a delightful grab bag of satire on McCarthyism, science fiction fandom, the publishing world, and adolescent boys with out of control imaginations/hormones. Brown takes the blind tapper from Treasure Island and turns him into something utterly horrifying. He transforms Baum's Tik-tok Man into Mekl, the genius robot. The commies are transmuted into a race of interstellar invaders so horrific that humans can't bear to look at them and must shoot them on sight. The hapless hero just wants to get home (like Dorothy Gale in the first Oz book) but he ends up (like Dorothy in the later Oz books) with something better than home. The parallel world Brown creates is wacky but, like Oz (or Ratty and Mole's riverbank), totally believable if you enter into the spirit of it. I rate this book as one of the top classics of sf's Golden Age; indeed, it's on my personal list of the all-time top ten sf novels, along with Dick's Man in a High Castle, Lieber's The Big Time, Vance's Demon Princes quintet, Heinlein's Friday, etc.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A science fiction classic! Scary, funny, and intriguing!., October 8, 1999

By 

Robert Schwartz ([e-mail]) (Simi Valley,California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Mad Universe (Hardcover)

I read this a Looooong time ago and always hoped I could find it and read it again. It is about more than just parallel universes and chilling "monsters", it is about courage and hope and never giving up. Brown adroitly pulls you into a compellingly crafted story (using some admittedly lagging-edge technology), but you soon forget about that as the hero plunges into a world sort of like ours, but sort of not. Along the way he spins out a theoretical construct about nested, parallel realities, each complete in itself, and varying from its "neighbor" reality by only one tiny detail..... Read it. You'll love it!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It'sa mad, mad, mad universe..., May 27, 2005

By 

Michael Valdivielso (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: What Mad Universe? (Hardcover)

Keith Winton, a Pulp SF magazine editor, was minding his own business, answering a fan's letter, when the first moon rocket exploded right on top of him.
Next thing you know he is on a strange Earth, where having coins minted after 1935 will get you shot as a spy, aliens from the Moon work and play along side Earthlings and mankind is fighting for its very survival against battle fleets from Arcturus.
This is a classic sci-fi story. First printed around 1949 this story has held up very well and is a delightful read on a lazy day afternoon or a few slow hours on a train.