James Nicoll Reviews

Philip Wylie’s 1954 Tomorrow! is a cautionary tale… ABOUT TOMORROW!

Sure, the Communist Russians and their Chinese pawns hate goodness, peace, freedom, and probably puppies as well, and every promise they’ve made in the past turned out to be a barefaced lie. Is that any reason to doubt their current offers of peace? More importantly, suppose the Russians are lying, even though the odds of a thousandth falsehood following nine-hundred-and-ninety-nines lies seems to violate the laws of probability. What can anyone do to blunt the fury of atomic Armageddon if war comes?

Green Prairie, Missouri, arrives at one answer to that question. River City, across the state line in Kansas, embraces its opposite.

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Philip Wylie’s 1972 The End of the Dream is a stand-alone ecological disaster novel.

The date (Old Calendar) was June 6, 2023, and the place, Faraway, New York, again in the Old Geography. 

The 2020s are an age of hope. To reach that point, however, despair and calamity came first. This is why for every hundred people alive in 1970, only one still lives in 2023.

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1963’s Triumph by Philip Wylie is a tale of individual survival in a world of Commietastic Atomigeddon.

Having saved Vance Farr’s daughter Faith following an automobile accident, brilliant Ben Bernman visits Farr at his lavish estate. Faith has only recently become engaged: her fiancé Kit Barlow is in attendance, as is a surprisingly diverse assortment of friends and Farr employees.

Meanwhile, Russian Commies are plotting to enslave the world. Step one: kill everyone.

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