The Survivors Story [2/5] see Updates for others.

That was pretty good collection. The title story isn't really sci-fi although it does start off as a sort of knockoff of Earth to the Moon but ultimately, like several of the stories, its actually just a social commentary.

A number of the tales are about the benefits of a close-knit social group over the larger society. There's also a good bit of humour here and there and some really dark humour in two of stories. The final story the Survivors Story is actually quite experimental too.

I like the style of writing also but it can be a bit confusing at times due to the age of the stories. First half of the collection was better than the second IMO too.

Four christmas stories and a thanksgiving one if your looking for something seasonal.

Note: I read the gutenberg version and (as of this post) the story Ideals is garbled there due to part of it originally being in two columns. I fixed that and a small typo and added the story One Cent to the contents page from which it was missing and hyperlinked the contents while i was at it.
Fixed version can be found HERE . ( )

The Brick Moon is a short science-fiction story in which a group of American researchers attempt to solve “the longitude problem” by building and launching a second moon into space that people can use as a reference point when calculating their location. It is perhaps unintentionally hilarious for a 21st-century reader, but for me that’s part of its charm. ( )

This collection of short stories attracted me because of the title of the first story The Brick Moon, which according to the science fiction encyclopaedia is the first known depiction of an artificial satellite. Published in 1869, it is a mixture of science, speculative fiction and morality although the science is not plausible science, but for the readership of the mid nineteenth century this might not have been an issue. It is well written and as a piece of speculative fiction it works well; with enough realism to make it seem possible.

A group of friends have an idea of launching into space an orbiting artificial moon to aid sailors calculating longitude. It must be brick so as to withstand the heat of air friction when launched (the word satellite is not used at this time). The artificial moon would be a rough sphere 200 feet in diameter and the interior would be a mainly hollow space with interconnected brick supports. The brick moon is launched by means of stored water power through a flywheel contraption that has been patiently constructed over a period of some months. When finally constructed the engineers and workers shelter inside the moon in an exceptional cold spell of weather and wake up to find themselves launched into space.

There are seven other stories, all quite different but none have the same kind of imagination as found in the Brick Moon. I enjoyed Crusoe in New York which has an atmosphere all of its own; a kind of claustrophobia arising from a family living in a house constructed specially in a space between a church wall and another dwelling in the heart of New York. The Lost Palace also has an air of mystery telling the story of a lost carriage when a train jumps a ravine.

Edward Everett Hale was an American author, historian and Unitarian minister and was recognised early on as something of a child prodigy where literature was concerned. He wrote 'The man without a Country' which was intended to strengthen the Union Cause in the North. Throughout his life he contributed short stories, articles and sermons to various publications. Some of the stories in this collection are worth a read and I rate them as 3 stars. (free on the internet) ( )