Edwin Balmer (1883–1959)

A lot of the science in this book is antiquated and the story makes sending an ark to another planet seem so much easier than it would really be, while relegating women to resources possessed by the few surviving men. This is the earlier version of the Seveneves story (Neal Stephenson), and while Stephenson's book is probably more realistic, Wylie's book is far more readable. Another modern version of this story, Aurora (Kim Stanley Robinson) falls somewhere in the middle, far more readable than either Wylie's or Stephenson's book, and with better female characters, but the only one in which humanity succeeds at settling on a new world is this classic version. Maybe modern writers have lost their optimism about mankind emerging out into space, as they have added in the realistic complications that would be involved with such stories in real life.… (más)

4.5 stars
The author, through the voice of his character Cole Hendron, gives an explanation for how Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta came to be approaching our solar system:
".. among the many billions of stars, there are probably millions of suns with planets. It is always possible that some catastrophe would tear the planets away. It would require nothing more than the approach of another star toward the sun to destroy the gravitational control of the sun over the Earth and Venus and Mars and Jupiter and other planets, and to send them all spinning into space on cold and dark careers of their own.
This world of ours, and Venus and Mars and Jupiter and saturn, would then wander throughout indefinite ages - some of them perhaps eternally doomed to cold and darkness, others might, after incalculable ages, find another sun.
It might be assumed, for purposes of explanation of the Bronson Bodies, that they once were planets like our Earth and Uranus, circling about some life-giving sun. A catastrophe tore them away, together with whatever other of her planets there might have been, and sent them into the darkness of interstellar space. these two - Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta - either were associated originally, or else established a gravitational influence upon each other in the journey through space, and probably have traveled together through an incalculable time until they arrived in a region of the heavens which brought them at last under the attraction of the sun. Their previous course, consequently, has been greatly modified by the sun, and as a result, they are now approaching us."
So, cole hendron, along with other top scientists, has to do something about this! Earth is going to be battered into bits! They decide, that there's a chance that they can make it to Bronson Beta, and live there. Only 100 humans will be able to fit in the rocket they have planned to build. The rest will have to perish.
"Very different from its companion up there, but not so different from our world, it seems. It has a surface we can see, with air and clouds and its atmosphere. The clouds shift or disappear and form again; but there are fixed details which do not change, and which prove a surface crust exists. The atmosphere was frozen solid in the long journey through space, but the sun has thawed out the air and has started, at least, on thawing out the seas."

When Bronson Alpha passes by the Earth for the first time, it wreaks havoc on our planet.
"on the night of the 25th, tides unprecedented in the world's history swept every sea coast. There were earthquakes of varying magnitude all over the world. In the day that followed, volcanoes opened up, and islands sank beneath the Sea; and on the night of the 26th the greater of the Bronson Bodies came within its minimum distance from the earth on this their first approach.
No complete record was ever made of the devastation.
Elliot James, who made some tabulation of it in the succeeding months, could never believe all that he saw and heard, but it must have been true.
The eastern coast of the United States sustained a tidal wave 750 ft in height, which came in from the sea in relentless terraces and inundated the land to the very foot of the Appalachians. Its Westward Rush destroyed every building, every hovel, every skyscraper, every city, from Bangor in Maine to Key West in Florida. the tide looped into the Gulf of Mexico, rolled up the Mississippi Valley, becoming in some places so congested with material along its foaming face that the terrified human beings upon whom it descended saw a wall of trees and houses, of stones and machinery, of all the conglomerate handiwork of men and nature - rather than the remorseless or uplifted water behind it. When the tide gushed back to the ocean's bed, its strewed the gullied landscape with the things it had uprooted.
It roared around South America, turning the Amazon Basin into a vast inland Sea which stretched from what had been the east coast to the Andes mountains on the West Coast. The speed of this tide was beyond calculation.
Every river became a channel for it. It spilled over Asia. It inundated the Great plain of China. It descended from the Arctic regions and removed much of france, England and germany, all of Holland and the great Soviet empire from the list of nations..."

Tony Drake, one of the main characters, and Eve hendron's love interest, is standing in the clearing of the complex in Michigan where the rocket is being constructed, looking up into the sky:
"he was standing alone, looking up and checking his mental calculations, when someone stopped beside him.
'what is it, tony?' hendron said.
'Where's the Moon tonight?'
'Where - that's it where? That's what we'd like to know - exactly what happened. We had to miss it, you see; probably nowhere in the world were conditions that permitted observation when the collision occurred; and what a thing to see!'
'the collision!' Said tony.
'When Bronson Alpha took out the moon! I thought you knew it was going to happen, Tony. I thought I told you.' "

The capital of the country is moved to Hutchinson Kansas. Cole hendron has two airplanes at his command, and Elliot james, the diarist in the book, accompanies the expedition to call on the president.
"We explained the situation to the president, and he was delighted to know that we had survived the crisis of the passing. He then continued gravely: 'I believe that Hendron will be successful. You alone, perhaps, may carry away the hope of humanity and the records of this life on earth; and I will return to the tasks confronting me here with the Solace offered by the knowledge that the Enterprise could be in no -' "

An extra ship is built, and the 500 humans that are left in the Michigan encampment are removed. From there place in the heavens, they watch the destruction of their former home.
".. the nebulous atmosphere of Bronson Alpha touched the air of earth, and then the very Earth bulged. Its shape altered before their eyes. It became plastic. It was drawn out egg-shaped. The cracks girdled the globe. A great section of the Earth itself lifted up and peeled away, leaping toward Bronson Alpha with an inconceivable force.
The two planets struck.
Decillions of tons of mass colliding in cosmic catastrophe.
'It's not direct,' Duquesne shouted. 'Oh, god! Perhaps -'
everyone knew what he was thinking. Perhaps they were not witnessing a complete annihilation. Perhaps some miracle would preserve a portion of the world.
They panted and stared.
Steam, fire, smoke. Tongues of flame from the center of the earth. The planets ground together and then moved across each other. It was like watching an eclipse. The magnitude of the disaster was veiled by hot gases and stupendous flames, and was diminished in awfulness by the intervening distances and by the same slowness with which it took place.
Bronson Alpha Rode between them and the earth. Then - on its opposite side - fragments of the shattered world reappeared. Distance showed between them - widening, scattering distance. Bronson Alpha moved away on its terrible course, fiery, flaming, spread enormously in ghastly light."

The rocket carrying Cole Hendron, Tony Drake, and Eve Hendron lands safely on Bronson Beta. They decide to wait throughout the long night till morning, to test the air and the hot Earth beneath the rocket. But one by one, tony, Hendron, Duquesne, even Eve, slip out of the rocket, not able to wait till the morning. Then they realize the other rocket may not have made it. They have a little philosophical conversation about the legacy of mankind:
" 'it is nothing - if we merely continue the earth - here. When I recollect the filth of our cities, the greed of individuals and of nations, the savagery of wars, the horrors of pauperism permitted to exist side by side with luxury and wealth, our selfishness, hates, diseases, filth - all the hideousness we called civilization - I cannot regret that the world which was afflicted by us is flying in fragments utterly incapable of rehabilitation, about the sun. On the other hand, now we are here; and how are we to justify the chance to begin again?' "

Tony Drake and Elliott James make a trip on an airplane to a domed city they had seen in the distance.
"Dimly Tony heard James shouting 'it's magnificent!' And in an almost choked voice he replied: 'they must have been amazing.' in the majestic streets beneath that dome no living thing moved. No lights glowed in those streets where the setting Sun allowed Shadows to fall; no smoke, no steam, no fire showed anywhere, and although their motor made hearing impossible, they knew instinctively that the colossal, triumphant metropolis below them was as silent as the grave."

Well, as it turns out, the other rocket did make it, though just barely. The tubes that contained the atomic force that propelled the rocket, were melting as they approached Bronson Beta, and they were barely able to land. On their way back to their settlement, Tony and Elliott swooped South, to explore a bit more before returning. This trip revealed the little settlement where Reynolds and his group had crashed. They are ecstatic to know that their friends survived.

This book is full of racial stereotypes, and of course misogynistic roles for the women. (Except for Eve Hendron, Who is allowed to be a scientist helping her father.) Tony had had a "Jap servant" named kyto. Well, Kyto gave Tony the surprise of his life, when he approached him one day in their settlement on Bronson Beta:
… (más)

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Title: When Worlds Collide
Series: Bronson Beta #1
Authors: Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 225
Words: 83.5K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia.org

Sven Bronson, a Swedish astronomer working at an observatory in South Africa, discovers a pair of rogue planets, Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta, which will soon enter the Solar System. In eight months, they will pass close enough to cause catastrophic damage to the Earth. Sixteen months later, after swinging around the Sun, Bronson Alpha (a gas giant) will return to pulverize the Earth and leave. It is hoped that Bronson Beta (discovered to be Earth-like and potentially habitable) will remain and assume a stable orbit.

Scientists led by Cole Hendron work desperately to build an atomic rocket to transport enough people, animals and equipment to Bronson Beta in an attempt to save the human race. Various countries do the same. The United States evacuates coastal regions in preparation for the first encounter. As the planets approach, observers see through their telescopes cities on Bronson Beta. Tidal waves sweep inland at a height of 750 feet (230 m), volcanic eruptions and earthquakes add to the deadly toll, and the weather runs wild for more than two days. As a token of things to come, Bronson Alpha grazes and destroys the Moon.

Three men take a floatplane to check out conditions across the United States and meet with the President in Hutchinson, Kansas, the temporary capital of the United States. It is discovered that the entire Southeast region flooded, the Great Lakes rose and emptied into the Saint Lawrence region, and Connecticut has become an island archipelago. All three are wounded fighting off a mob at their last stop, but manage to return with a precious sample of an extremely heat-resistant metal one of them had noticed. This solves the last remaining engineering obstacle, as no material had been found before to make rocket tubes capable of withstanding the heat of the atomic exhaust for very long.

Five months before the end, desperate mobs attack the camp, killing over half of Hendron's people before they are defeated. With the rocket tube breakthrough, the survivors are able to build a second, larger ship that can carry everyone left alive (instead of only 100 of the roughly thousand people Hendron had recruited). The two American ships take off, but lose contact with each other. Other ships are seen launching from Europe; the French ship's tubes melt, causing it to explode in the upper atmosphere. The original American ship makes a successful landing, but it is unknown if anyone else made it. The survivors find that Bronson Beta is habitable. They also find a road.

My Thoughts:

This is the 3rd “Official” time that I've read this book but I know I read it at least once in Bibleschool and two or three times in highschool, so we're talking at least six times. And I realized that I enjoyed it just as much this time as I have in the past, so its rating got bumped up to 5stars.

This is completely a comfort read. It has the 1930's American mindset, so not only is Scyenze going to save humanity, but humanity is going to save itself. And they do a fine strapping job of it, with brawn, panache and manly friendship overcoming even jealous love interests. You don't get stuff like this anymore. I know because of the review for a book that is coming up for Wednesday :-/

Everyone involved is a paragon of virtue. Even when they struggle with wanting to do the wrong thing, they realize it is wrong and fight and overcome it. Scientists are pure of motive and have no underlying idealogy outside of Truth Seeking, just like how we want them to be even today. The men are brawnly and smart, the women kind and gentle.

The disaster is fantastic, I have to admit. When Bronson Alpha passes Earth for the first time and destroys the moon and causes complete havoc on earth, the authors do a fantastic job of describing the cataclysmic occurrences in such an understated manner that it's not horrifying until after you've read it and think about what just occurred. It's described in a macro enough scale that as long as you have a rough idea of world geography (in terms of land masses and bodies of water) then you too can join in on the horrifying fun of it all.

Of course, the absolute nonsense about Bronson Beta having a breathable atmosphere and even having cities that survived is just something you have to put up. Hence the “scyenze” tag. But it's no more fantastic than John Carter waking up on Mars and marrying a Pod Woman Princess.

★★★★★… (más)