The Seeds of Time



The Seeds of Time is a collection of science fiction stories (five short stories and five novelettes) by British writer John Wyndham, published in 1956 by Michael Joseph. The title is presumably from Macbeth, Act I Scene III.

Contents

 * A foreword by John Wyndham
 * "The Chronoclasm" (1953), novelette, variant of "Chronoclasm"
 * "Pillar to Post" (1951), novelette
 * "Dumb Martian" (1952), novelette
 * "Compassion Circuit" (1954)
 * "Survival" (1952), novelette
 * "Pawley's Peepholes" (1951)
 * "Opposite Number" (1954)
 * "Wild Flower" (1955)
 * "Time to Rest" (1949), as by John Beynon, Bert #1 series
 * "Meteor" (1941), novelette, as by John Beynon

Summaries

 * "Chronoclasm"
 * a time-travelling romantic comedy.


 * "Pillar to Post"
 * The central character is a paraplegic who was badly injured in a wartime attack. Frequently taking drugs to cope with the pain, he finds himself in a healthy body very far in the future. A complex plot of body-swapping and time travel ensues. It is considered by some people to be the best story in the collection.


 * "Dumb Martian"
 * a satire on racism, featuring an Earthman who buys a Martian wife.


 * "Compassion Circuit":
 * a horror story on the subject of robotics.


 * "Survival"
 * set on a spacecraft marooned in orbit around Mars. A BBC Radio 4 adaption was broadcast in 1989 with Stephen Garlick, Susan Sheridan, and Nicholas Courtney. It was released as an Audiobook in 2007 with the 1981 version of The Chrysalids.


 * "Pawley's Peepholes"
 * another time travel story, this time a comedy in which tourists projected from the future cause chaos in a present-day town.


 * "Opposite Number"
 * which plays with the concept of parallel universes.


 * "Wild Flower":
 * which explores the tension between nature and technology.


 * "Time to Rest"
 * depicting the life on Mars of a human survivor of the destruction of Earth. A sequel "No Place Like Earth" appears in the collection No Place Like Earth (2003), which contains both.


 * "Meteor"
 * in which alien visitors to Earth find themselves on a very different scale to humans.

Adaptations

 * "Dumb Martian" (1962), episode of the series Armchair Theatre and Out of This World, directed by Charles Jarrott, based on novelette "Dumb Martian"
 * "No Place Like Earth" (1965), episode of the series Out of the Unknown, directed by Peter Potter, based on short story "Time to Rest" and novelette "No Place on Earth"