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. ( )

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:
( )

great first book, and now onto the the follow up. ( )

A fantastic pre-apocolyptic story. For the most part it kept me entertained and moved along quite well. ( )

I liked it, mind you I was younger then, but that can't be helped! I put it in the same category really as Airport or Hotel ... I thought of them as "disaster" novels, even though the "disaster" sometimes doesn't come 'til the very end. (Most books have a disaster of sorts in them, I now realise--I'd been conditioned by the Hollywood Films then current to think of this as a disaster genre).

Anyway, it's likely still worth reading, though as the years pass older works can sometimes get a bit dated (and others, even older, stay remarkably fresh--Jane Austin, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, the fashions change but the prose is pratically perfect).

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve! ( )

I probably should have written this review three weeks ago when I actually finished this When Worlds Collide/After Worlds Collide omnibus. But I went on tvtropes.org to see how influential the Worlds Collide series actually was, and I've only just managed to escape.

The summary of my findings is… oh God, I don't remember. I ended up somewhere between an Eldritch Abomination and a face full of alien wing-wong and completely lost track of whatever I read at the start. Oh well, I'll just blag it and hope no one notices.

When Worlds Collide is one of those stories that it's easy to feel like you've read before. The basic plot is that Earth is doomed and the best solution seems to be hopping in a spaceship and fleeing. Echoes of this can be found everywhere from Superman through to much more recent science fiction, like Stephen Baxter's [b:Flood|2111634|Flood (Flood, #1)|Stephen Baxter|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347366300s/2111634.jpg|2117042]/[b:Ark|2111628|Ark (Flood, #2)|Stephen Baxter|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347369559s/2111628.jpg|2117036] series. But tropes and clichés have to start somewhere, and many of these disaster story ones started here.

The novels' age may shield them from accusations of clichédom, but it raises another inevitable problem. They were written in the early 1930s, and they often show their age. Both stories edge uncomfortably close to if not racism then at least lazy stereotypes of non-American nationalities. Moreover, depending on how much you read into it, the attitude to women in the stories is either occasionally cringeworthy or downright sexist. But as with all stories from the past it's worth remembering that they simply reflect the cultural norms of the time. Those norms may be unpalatable these days, but as George Santayana famously put it: “Those who cannot remember the past should pick up and old book now and then and be jolly thankful that the world has moved on.”

Once you've adjusted your mental blinkers to deal with the dated elements of the story, it's quite the romp. Sure, the characters have a disarming tendency to launch into page- if not chapter-long soliloquies about this, that, or the other. But so what? Shakespeare did that all the time and nobody says “Gosh, that Shakespeare! His plays are okay, I guess, but there's just so much talking.” The first of the two stories is definitely the stronger, dealing as it does with the worryingly realistic reaction of mankind to news of its impending doom, and the tale of some heroic scientists who struggle to survive. Obviously at least some of them do survive, otherwise there wouldn't be a sequel.

I found the second story, After Worlds Collide, more interesting for what it sets out to do than the story itself, which is somewhat more lacklustre that its antecedent, and hasn't aged nearly as well (some long dead aliens are deduced to be super-advanced because they had… really smooth roads. And steam powered cars that could do 200mph. Wow.). Think back to your favourite disaster novel or film, be it one where Earth and Earthmen survive the disaster (say [b:Lucifer's Hammer|10431656|Lucifer's Hammer|Larry Niven|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1297373905s/10431656.jpg|1842237] or 2012) or one where the species has to flee (say [b:Moonseed|1866449|Moonseed|Stephen Baxter|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348796298s/1866449.jpg|2117020], where the Moon represents our ultimate sanctuary). And then ask the question that my nephew would ask, if he was born yet and could talk: What happens next? This question is usually either glossed over or given a few pages/minutes in the denouement. A vague feeling of “Hey, we survived! Now let's rebuild society and make it better!” is generally given, and that's your lot. Wylie and Balmer do do this at the end of When Worlds Collide, but they also drop enough tantalising questions to warrant a second part to the adventure. Unfortunately the second adventure feels a whole lot more directionless than the obviously very focussed first one. The characters essentially amble around for a hundred and eighty pages finding out a few things here and there. And then its like the authors got bored so, with a couple of pages to go, they wrap up the book's conflict and everyone lives happily ever after the end.

The blink-and-you-miss-it ending to the duology is a bit of an anti-climax given the enormity of some of the ideas present. But if you want to read tales of cataclysm on a planetary scale then you really shouldn't be starting anywhere else.

--

As a side note, When Worlds Collide features a rather lovely gaffe about half way through. Two planets are heading towards Earth, a huge gas giant called Bronson Alpha and a small rocky planet called Bronson Beta. As they approach they become visible in the night sky. At one point, trying to convey a sense of scale, it is said that the gas giant Alpha is as large in the sky as the sun is during the day, while the smaller one, Beta, is only as big as a full moon. My brain accepted this for a few lines then suddenly caught up with the absurdity of it. I'll let you figure it out too. ( )

I probably should have written this review three weeks ago when I actually finished this When Worlds Collide/After Worlds Collide omnibus. But I went on tvtropes.org to see how influential the Worlds Collide series actually was, and I've only just managed to escape.

The summary of my findings is… oh God, I don't remember. I ended up somewhere between an Eldritch Abomination and a face full of alien wing-wong and completely lost track of whatever I read at the start. Oh well, I'll just blag it and hope no one notices.

When Worlds Collide is one of those stories that it's easy to feel like you've read before. The basic plot is that Earth is doomed and the best solution seems to be hopping in a spaceship and fleeing. Echoes of this can be found everywhere from Superman through to much more recent science fiction, like Stephen Baxter's [b:Flood|2111634|Flood (Flood, #1)|Stephen Baxter|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347366300s/2111634.jpg|2117042]/[b:Ark|2111628|Ark (Flood, #2)|Stephen Baxter|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347369559s/2111628.jpg|2117036] series. But tropes and clichés have to start somewhere, and many of these disaster story ones started here.

The novels' age may shield them from accusations of clichédom, but it raises another inevitable problem. They were written in the early 1930s, and they often show their age. Both stories edge uncomfortably close to if not racism then at least lazy stereotypes of non-American nationalities. Moreover, depending on how much you read into it, the attitude to women in the stories is either occasionally cringeworthy or downright sexist. But as with all stories from the past it's worth remembering that they simply reflect the cultural norms of the time. Those norms may be unpalatable these days, but as George Santayana famously put it: “Those who cannot remember the past should pick up and old book now and then and be jolly thankful that the world has moved on.”

Once you've adjusted your mental blinkers to deal with the dated elements of the story, it's quite the romp. Sure, the characters have a disarming tendency to launch into page- if not chapter-long soliloquies about this, that, or the other. But so what? Shakespeare did that all the time and nobody says “Gosh, that Shakespeare! His plays are okay, I guess, but there's just so much talking.” The first of the two stories is definitely the stronger, dealing as it does with the worryingly realistic reaction of mankind to news of its impending doom, and the tale of some heroic scientists who struggle to survive. Obviously at least some of them do survive, otherwise there wouldn't be a sequel.

I found the second story, After Worlds Collide, more interesting for what it sets out to do than the story itself, which is somewhat more lacklustre that its antecedent, and hasn't aged nearly as well (some long dead aliens are deduced to be super-advanced because they had… really smooth roads. And steam powered cars that could do 200mph. Wow.). Think back to your favourite disaster novel or film, be it one where Earth and Earthmen survive the disaster (say [b:Lucifer's Hammer|10431656|Lucifer's Hammer|Larry Niven|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1297373905s/10431656.jpg|1842237] or 2012) or one where the species has to flee (say [b:Moonseed|1866449|Moonseed|Stephen Baxter|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348796298s/1866449.jpg|2117020], where the Moon represents our ultimate sanctuary). And then ask the question that my nephew would ask, if he was born yet and could talk: What happens next? This question is usually either glossed over or given a few pages/minutes in the denouement. A vague feeling of “Hey, we survived! Now let's rebuild society and make it better!” is generally given, and that's your lot. Wylie and Balmer do do this at the end of When Worlds Collide, but they also drop enough tantalising questions to warrant a second part to the adventure. Unfortunately the second adventure feels a whole lot more directionless than the obviously very focussed first one. The characters essentially amble around for a hundred and eighty pages finding out a few things here and there. And then its like the authors got bored so, with a couple of pages to go, they wrap up the book's conflict and everyone lives happily ever after the end.

The blink-and-you-miss-it ending to the duology is a bit of an anti-climax given the enormity of some of the ideas present. But if you want to read tales of cataclysm on a planetary scale then you really shouldn't be starting anywhere else.

--

As a side note, When Worlds Collide features a rather lovely gaffe about half way through. Two planets are heading towards Earth, a huge gas giant called Bronson Alpha and a small rocky planet called Bronson Beta. As they approach they become visible in the night sky. At one point, trying to convey a sense of scale, it is said that the gas giant Alpha is as large in the sky as the sun is during the day, while the smaller one, Beta, is only as big as a full moon. My brain accepted this for a few lines then suddenly caught up with the absurdity of it. I'll let you figure it out too. ( )

The Earth is being side-swiped by a passing gas-giant planet that happens to have a companion satellite of the same size as Earth. The premise is only hokey when you take into account a) the gas giant has an Earth size planet for a satellite; b) the gas giant approaches just near enough the Earth on the first pass to shake up the Earth and allow some people to fly across to colonize the newly warming gas giant’s satellite; c) the gas giant completely destroys the Earth on its return orbit around the sun, before continuing on into space forever; d) the satellite Earth-type planet is caught and manages to stay behind to eccentrically orbit the sun. This scenario is so far-fetched that one is amazed when the various protagonists don’t see anything special about this astronomically impossible occurrence and give zero credence to mention of “divine intervention” from any one, be it God or a superior civilization in space.

Wylie and Balmer have decided to base their story on just this one premise and only ask us to accept the possibility and explore their potential survival scenario with that caveat. So, if we suspend disbelief for a few pages, and accept the stereotyped attitudes of the ‘30s as presented, I think it is a great story. ( )

2 volumes in 1 Separate register ( )

great first book, and now onto the the follow up. ( )

These two books were well written and ahead of their time. Though written in the 1930s they easily match or out perform many SF books of the 1950s when the authors had hindsight of WWII and the atomic bomb.

The stories are fascinating and show very good insight about international relationships. The predictions of the USA and Britain united against Germany and other countries and how it carries over to a new world is interesting.

Some of the prejudice and discrimination of the 1930s is present but it was written for the 1930s audience. The stories are brilliant and still work today. ( )

I read this book back when I was an early teenager and absolutely loved it. So, I thought I would read it again, and was very surprised at how well the novels have stood the test of time.

Sure, it's dated, it was written 80 years ago, and sure a lot of the science is unsound, but it was amazing how many scenes jumped back to me while reading it.

The excitement of the discovery, the possible way out, the handling of the end of times, the discovery of a new world, the technology on the new planet still working. It's written in such a way that the science isn't questioned, and the silly romance only bothers you once in a while, but the ideas patter around in your head long after you're done reading.

Fascinating stuff, and a very fun read. A terrific blast from the past..... ( )

The first time I read this book was when I was around 11-14 (not exactly sure as it was a while ago) and I loved it as my introduction to apocalypse type science fiction (still my favorite kind). I've re-read it once or twice since. ( )

The first time I remember hearing the name Philip Wylie was when the University of Nebraska put out this wonderful edition of When Worlds Collide (which also contains its sequel, After Worlds Collide). The plot of the book is no doubt well-known by now. Earth finds itself in the path of two rogue planets, one of them on a collision course with Earth. Some scientists believe the other planet might just be hospitable enough to allow human habitation, the problem being how to get from here to there. Though both the language and the science in the book is dated, there's a lot about it that still rings true.

However, the reason I most appreciate this book and this edition is it introduced me to Philip Wylie, and after reading it, I hunted down most everything by him I could find. Seemingly almost forgotten today, Wylie was a working writer for more than half a century, who distinguished himself in a number of genres, including science fiction, crime, and social criticism.

Among other things, he wrote the screenplay to the Claude Rains classic, "The Invisible Man." His 1930 novel Gladiator is often credited with inspiring the character of "Superman." His 1934 novel Finnley Wren is a tour de force and an English language masterpiece. Later, during the Cold War, Wylie wrote a number of books featuring a post-nuclear war America, most notably in Tomorrow! Wylie himself became personally involved in Civil Defense initiatives.

But what I find to be the most delightful Wylie are the "Crunch and Des" stories he wrote, mostly for the Saturday Evening Post, that you can now find in a number of modern editions. Telling the tales of a pair of commercial fishermen in Florida, they are guaranteed to bring a smile.

So, in a nutshell, you're ever at a yard sale and see a dog-eared and yellowing book by Philip Wylie, pick it up. You'll be glad you did. ( )

A book written in the thirties, it postulates rocket travel to another planet after the earth is doomed. I have to admit, I couldn't put it down...even though one of the characters, a New York socialite, brings along his "jap" manservant. On to "After Worlds Collide." ( )

One of those rare bits of popular fiction that uses the scientist as role of the hero. For that alone, the other prejudices get a "pass". Elitist? Refreshing, given the elevation of the lawyer, the businessman, and the thief as the paragon of American popular culture. Not for nothing is my moniker named after the book's lead character. ( )

The first novel in this double volume set is an example of the outgrowth of "Assignment in Space." For the longest time, I listed this as my "favorite" book. I took it with me everywhere I went. One time, on a drive from Mississippi to Philadelphia, a passenger picked it up and read it from cover to cover while I drove.

My Childhood collection represents books I remember reading and loving as a young boy. Some are orginal ones I owned, but, unfortunately, most are replacement copies from yard sales, flea markets, and used book stores. I am always on the lookout for a dozen or so, and I am always trying to remember and add new titles. --JJM, 10/15/05