Wanderers of Time

Introduction BEFORE THE TRIFFIDS ...

To those who have enjoyed The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes and other John Wyndham novels, it may come as a surprise to know that he was writing imaginative fiction with conspicuous success forty years ago. His novels, The Secret People and Stowaway to Mars (both recently republished by Coronet Books), delighted tens of thousands of readers when they first appeared in the 1930s as serial stories in a popular weekly as well as in volume form. Most of his shorter stories, however, first appeared in a magazine specialising in 'science fiction' (a term he detested) which was published in the U.S.A., which offered the only receptive market for most of his work in this genre. Writing under his own name, John Beynon Harris became familiar to readers of Wonder Stories as a contributor of thoroughly convincing tales in which the motivating idea, however fantastic, was always subservient to the narrative and the characters as believable as the background, however exotic.

Not until 1937. when the British magazine Tales of Wonder began to cultivate this restricted field, were more than a few hundred readers on this side of the Atlantic able to enjoy such stories as you will find in this volume. And soon afterwards came Fantasy, to widen still further the international circle of admirers who knew him equally well as John Beynon.

In the days before the world had heard of Wernher von Braun or Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the concept of space-travel was derided by all but the readers and writers of science fiction. To John Beynon the notion was part of his stock-in-trade. which he replenished by listening to the debates of the British Interplanetary Society, then a mere handful of enthusiasts. In 'The Last Lunarians,' with its visions of lunar diggings. he anticipated today's Moonwalk activities with an accuracy which would seem uncanny if we did not know how well he did his research—among speculations as well as facts. Hopefully, the disastrous turn of events in 'Derelict of Space' will be avoided; but the idea of salvaging vessels which have come to grief in the interplanetary void is not inconsistent with recent orbital crises which have kept the whole world in suspense.

The mythical kingdom of 'Spheres of Hell' might seem, now, even more remote. Yet the irony is still to be relished, and I have been tempted to include it here because, for sheer artistry combined with originality, it has always appealed to me as among the finest examples of John Beynon's work. In 'Child of Power,' for which he used the pseudonym Wyndham Parkes (derived from two of his middle names), those who are familiar with The Midwich Cuckoos may recognise a near-relative of those remarkable children. But perhaps the most startling of all his creations are the insectile machines you will encounter in 'Wanderers of Time,' one of his more ambitious tales which takes us into the future to a time when man is no longer the dominant creature on this planet. Here is a story which will never cease to evoke the essential quality of wonder which is the basis of all good science fiction.

Walter Gillings

Ilford, Essex May 1972