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Recently, I have discovered Edgar Allan Poe's science fiction short stories. I have been enjoying them, and I am annoyed that I was not introduced to them until a 6000 level English class. Has anyone else read any of his science fiction stories? What do you think about them?
Posts: 14 | Registered: May 2003
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Well, the stories are naturally rather primitive, but I find them interesting and clever. I particularly like the meditations on cosmology, usually told from the perspective of the dead or a hypnotized individual.
Posts: 55 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I would definitely say that Poe was one of the originators of the genre. His most identifiable SF stories would be Descent into the Maelstrom and The Facts in the Case of M. Vlademar.
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A collection of Poe's science fiction stories is The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe published by Penguin Classics. The publication date is 1976. "MS. Found in a Bottle", "The Unparelleled Adventure of One Hans Pfall", "The Conversation of Monos and Una", "A Tale of the Rugged Mountain", "Some Words with a Mummy", "The Power of Words", "The System of Dr Tarr and Prof. Fether", "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar", "Mellonta Taunta", and "Von Kempelen and His Discovery" are all in this collection. I have only read three of the stories in this collection. I ordered the book a week ago when I saw a reference to it while collecting research for my conference paper. So far my favorite short story is "Some Words with a Mummy". I am just amazed that I have only seen one of the stories in this collection in any other collection of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories. For whatever reason, the editors of most of these collections do not include Poe's science fiction or his comedies. If I would not have taken Poe and his Southern Contemparies I would still not know about Poe's other types of writing.
Posts: 14 | Registered: May 2003
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Thanks for the comprehensive list of Poe's SF stories. I had forgotten MS Found in a Bottle and I hadn't even heard of the rest of these, and I considered myself fairly well read, Poe-wise. I'll have to look for this book. Even if Poe hadn't written science fiction, he would still have had a profound influence on the genre by shaping the format of the short story. In many ways, Poe is a founding father of three major genres--SF, Horror, and Mystery.
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Oliver, I have a very thick collection of Poe's stories--I don't think it includes everything, but it's close. It has all the stories listed here in it.
I found the discussion of galactic rotation (I forget which story it's in; there are some people in a balloon) hilarious, as Poe one by one disposes of the arguments for rotation around a center of gravity with no fixed object--or so he thinks.
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