When Worlds Collide
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| When Worlds Collide | |
 First edition published by Frederick A. Stokes |
|
| Author | Philip Gordon Wylie & Edwin Balmer |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Frederick A. Stokes |
| Publication date | 1933 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 344 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
| Followed by | After Worlds Collide |
- This article is about the novel. For the 1951 film adaptation, see When Worlds Collide (film). For other uses, see Worlds Collide (disambiguation).
When Worlds Collide is a 1933 science fiction novel co-written by Philip Gordon Wylie and Edwin Balmer, who also authored the sequel After Worlds Collide (1934). It was first published as a six-part monthly serial (September 1932-February 1933) in Blue Book magazine.
[edit] Plot summary
Sven Bronson, a South African astronomer, discovers that a pair of rogue planets, Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta, will soon enter the solar system. The larger one, Alpha, will pass close enough to cause catastrophic damage. Eight months later, after swinging around the Sun, Alpha will return to pulverize the Earth and leave. It is believed that Bronson Beta will remain and assume a stable orbit.
Scientists led by Cole Hendron work desperately to build ships to transport enough people, animals and equipment to Bronson Beta in an attempt to save the human race. Governments are skeptical, but the scientists persist and develop the technology necessary for the spacecraft, which are built in various countries. Nations like the United States evacuate their coastal regions in preparation for the Bronson bodies' first pass. Tides of hundreds of feet, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes take their deadly toll, and the weather runs wild for more than two days.
The isolated Hendron camp manages to build two ships which take off together with all of the survivors of the camp (after beating off an attack from refugees desperate to escape). One ship makes a successful landing, but without radio contact with any other ships, the crew members assume that only they made it across. They find that Beta is habitable and that there are traces of a native civilization wiped out when, millions of years before, the planet was torn away from its sun.
The sequel, After Worlds Collide, follows the fate of the survivors on Bronson Beta.
[edit] Adaptations and influences
When Worlds Collide had far-reaching influences on the science fiction genre. The themes of an approaching planet threatening the Earth, and an athletic hero and his girlfriend traveling to the new planet by rocket, were used by writer Alex Raymond in his 1934 comic strip Flash Gordon. The 1938-1941 strip Speed Spaulding was more directly based on the novel. The themes of escape from a doomed planet to a habitable one also can be seen in Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's 1938 comic Superman.
The novel was also adapted as the 1951 film When Worlds Collide, directed by George Pal. The film inspired Deep Impact.[1] Another film adaptation is scheduled for release in 2008 by DreamWorks, directed by Stephen Sommers.[2]
A track of the same name "When Worlds Collide" released by the Heavy Metal/Nu Metal band Powerman 5000 may have been influenced by this novel.
In the movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the very first song ("Science Fiction, Double Feature") refers to the film.
[edit] References
- Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 39.
- ^ Could Worlds Collide?. www.time.com (March 19, 1998).
- ^ When Worlds Collide (2008). www.imdb.com.
