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jgwc54e5's review
4.0
An enjoyable collection of stories, full of ideas, some made me smile, and a few surprise endings. My favourites were ‘Perforce to Dream’ where two women discover they’ve been dreaming the same dream and the final story ‘More Spinned Against’ where a women discovers in her husbands spider collection Arachne herself. Other stories concern the nature of heaven ‘Reservation Deferred’, the existence of hell ‘Confidence Trick’ and a society where wheels are the devils work ‘The Wheel’. The title and first story Jizzle is about a very clever monkey. John Wyndham is always a good thought provoking read.
octavia_cade's review
3.0
A collection of stories that is far superior to the appallingly dreadful pulp cover it was saddled with.
In it is a very short story, "The Wheel", and I can't help but wonder if this was an early dry run for Wyndham's truly excellent novel The Chrysalids. The similarity is not so much in character (though the relationship between a young boy and an older relative prefigures that between David and Uncle Axel) but in the theme of post-apocalypse and religious repression. Given that The Chrysalids is one of my favourite books of all time, I found this a particularly interesting story, if one that's unusually heavy-handed for Wyndham. The remaining stories are all enjoyable, if not outstanding or even particularly memorable.
In it is a very short story, "The Wheel", and I can't help but wonder if this was an early dry run for Wyndham's truly excellent novel The Chrysalids. The similarity is not so much in character (though the relationship between a young boy and an older relative prefigures that between David and Uncle Axel) but in the theme of post-apocalypse and religious repression. Given that The Chrysalids is one of my favourite books of all time, I found this a particularly interesting story, if one that's unusually heavy-handed for Wyndham. The remaining stories are all enjoyable, if not outstanding or even particularly memorable.
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