The Science Fiction Stories Of Rudyard Kipling

It is no secret to scholars that 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) was a master and innovator within the genre of the short story. But who ever thinks of Kipling as a pioneer science-fiction (SciFi) writer? And yet he was. Distinguished British SciFi novelist John Brunner assures us of that fact. And in homage to his master he has collected and edited nine Kipling short stories and a poem from KIM and issued them in 1994's THE SCIENCE FICTION STORIES OF RUDYARD KIPLING. *** Not only does Brunner individually frame each story first published between 1893 and 1932 with incisive introductory notes and needed glossary but also, in a general introduction "About Rudyard Kipling" locates the writer convincingly against his times, biography and physical ailments. *** And what a collection we have: a true sea serpent story which no one will believe unless presented as fiction; a thinking, talking steamship whose thousands of rivets, plates and other parts only form themselves into a unified soul during a first Atlantic voyage amid high winds and higher waves; a brand new thinking, communicating train engine that proves its mettle on its first night in service; in the early days of Marconi an effort to communicate wirelessly taps into time and produces a manuscript poem being labored over many decades earlier by young John Keats. *** Then come two intertwined tales: 1909's "With the Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D." and 1912 (written), 1917 (published) "As Easy As A.B.C." Both foresee a world united by ligher than air flying ships, carrying mail, passengers and other cargo. The world of 2000 and later has not eliminated tuberculosis but has virtually stamped out both anarchism and democracy in the name of law and order. *** 1917's "In The Same Boat" assumes that mental horrors can be traced back to a mother's trauma imprinted on her child in the womb: in this case on two affluent, very attractive young adults whose doctors cause them to share an overnight train ride to the west of London. Editor Brunner "can never help wondering whether this was where L. Ron Hubbard stole the idea for the pre-natal traumas that in DIANETICS he termed 'engrams.'" *** This short SciFi anthology races to its conclusion with 1926's "The Eye of Allah," 1932's "Unprofessional" and a poem " The Fairies' Siege -- Enlarged from KIM" (1901). ***What a great romp! Some of the stories are long enough to feel like mini-novellas. But all challenge mind and imagination. Kipling was one of the first poets of machines and the machine age. He showed machines empathizing with their human masters, much as dogs do; but in the case of machines, people do not notice. -OOO-