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Fantasy Aspects, issue 1, May 1947
Page 3
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FROM FANTASY COMMENTATOR By Francis T. Laney -BACKWARDS: in time Of all the varied dislocations of time utilized in fantasy plots, one of the most fascinating is also one of the least common -- that of a life lived backwards. We have my-raids of conventional time-travelling tales in which the principal characters move forewards, backwards and even sideways in time; but in all these instance the travelling itself is merely one jump in time used largely as a narrative device to transport the characters into an age which the author wishes to depict. But the concept of a life lived backwards from day to day is much less usual. It is also extremely pregnant with emotional dynamite. There are several instances, no doubt, in which "backwards-living" is utilized as a minor incident in a complex plot; of T.T. White's Sword in the Stone trilogy, in which the wizard Merlin in growing younger each day. The pulp magazines also have occasionally used stories with this theme; a recent one being "The Code," by Lawrence O'Donnell which appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, (July 1945). ("The Code" is a fairly good yarn, marred chiefly by a trite ending; the backwards-living character mutating into a completely different species on some other time track, and the story being largely taken up with the physical changes rather than the much more intriguing psychological and emotional alterations in the changes himself.) But to the knowledge of this writer only two incontrovertably first-class examples of the genre have been written: Michael Maurice's Not In Our Stars (1923) and Oliver Onions' Tower Of Oblivion (1921). A comparative critical review of these two novels seems therefore of interest. Not In Our Stars postulates in its first chapter a fatalistic theory of a rigid and predetermined life wherein men are helpless paws of immutable fate. The chief character, Felix Menzies, is deeply interested in the possible effects on earth's time track of meteorites which strike or planet at various angles, and in fact makes a seris of interesting, albeit somewhat unconvincing, demonstrations of his theory with a spinning top and an air rifle. Then---with his girl in his arms, just on the point of accepting his proposal of marriage, Felix Menzies is thrown foreward one year in time by the impact of a nearby meteorite. He awakens the next morning in the death cell on the day of his execution, and is indeed hanged. His next conscious action is awakening in his cell the previous morning. And this it goes----each morning he rises one day earlier. He soon learns that he did indeed marry the girl. Hester Temple, and that in a fit of blind rage he merdered his supposed friend Thorp Saville, who, as might be said in vernacular, was attempting with sucess to beat his time. He also learns that his daily time-jump occurs very early in the day, and feels ---( Page 3 )---
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FROM FANTASY COMMENTATOR By Francis T. Laney -BACKWARDS: in time Of all the varied dislocations of time utilized in fantasy plots, one of the most fascinating is also one of the least common -- that of a life lived backwards. We have my-raids of conventional time-travelling tales in which the principal characters move forewards, backwards and even sideways in time; but in all these instance the travelling itself is merely one jump in time used largely as a narrative device to transport the characters into an age which the author wishes to depict. But the concept of a life lived backwards from day to day is much less usual. It is also extremely pregnant with emotional dynamite. There are several instances, no doubt, in which "backwards-living" is utilized as a minor incident in a complex plot; of T.T. White's Sword in the Stone trilogy, in which the wizard Merlin in growing younger each day. The pulp magazines also have occasionally used stories with this theme; a recent one being "The Code," by Lawrence O'Donnell which appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, (July 1945). ("The Code" is a fairly good yarn, marred chiefly by a trite ending; the backwards-living character mutating into a completely different species on some other time track, and the story being largely taken up with the physical changes rather than the much more intriguing psychological and emotional alterations in the changes himself.) But to the knowledge of this writer only two incontrovertably first-class examples of the genre have been written: Michael Maurice's Not In Our Stars (1923) and Oliver Onions' Tower Of Oblivion (1921). A comparative critical review of these two novels seems therefore of interest. Not In Our Stars postulates in its first chapter a fatalistic theory of a rigid and predetermined life wherein men are helpless paws of immutable fate. The chief character, Felix Menzies, is deeply interested in the possible effects on earth's time track of meteorites which strike or planet at various angles, and in fact makes a seris of interesting, albeit somewhat unconvincing, demonstrations of his theory with a spinning top and an air rifle. Then---with his girl in his arms, just on the point of accepting his proposal of marriage, Felix Menzies is thrown foreward one year in time by the impact of a nearby meteorite. He awakens the next morning in the death cell on the day of his execution, and is indeed hanged. His next conscious action is awakening in his cell the previous morning. And this it goes----each morning he rises one day earlier. He soon learns that he did indeed marry the girl. Hester Temple, and that in a fit of blind rage he merdered his supposed friend Thorp Saville, who, as might be said in vernacular, was attempting with sucess to beat his time. He also learns that his daily time-jump occurs very early in the day, and feels ---( Page 3 )---
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