The Pleasures of a Futuroscope - Hardcover

Dunsany, Lord

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0972164480 ISBN 13: 9780972164481

Publisher: Hippocampus Press, 2003

Synopsis

Lord Dunsany, Irish master of fantasy, was the author of more than a dozen novels, hundreds of short stories, poems, and essays, and dozens of plays. And yet, his last major work, The Pleasures of a Futuroscope, has remained unpublished until this edition. In this powerful and moving novel, written in 1955, a futuroscope--a device that allows a viewer to see into the near or distant future--reveals an awful fate for humanity: a nuclear holocaust has destroyed nearly all human life on the planet. The great city of London is now merely an immense crater, filled in with water from the Thames. The pitiful remnants of humanity have been reduced to a Stone Age existence. The narrator, obsessively looking through the futuroscope, focuses upon the plight of a single family in their struggles to survive and fend off the many enemies, both animal and human, that surround them. When one of their number is kidnapped by a band of gypsies, we can only wonder at her fate in this brave new world of the distant future. Gripping, horrifying, touching, and fascinating, The Pleasures of a Futuroscope shows that Lord Dunsany retained his literary powers undiminished to the end of his life.

About this title

About the Author

Lord Dunsany (1878-1957) was the author of The Gods of Pegana (1905), A Dreamer's Tales (1910), and many other volumes that have made him a legend in the realm of fantasy. Such novels as The King of Elfland's Daughter (1924) and The Blessing of Pan (1927) cemented his reputation. In The Curse of the Wise Woman (1933) and later works, he drew upon the people and heritage of his native Ireland, while such plays as The Gods of the Mountain (1911) and The Queen's Enemies (1916) commanded the British and American stage for decades.

From Publishers Weekly

Apparently written in 1955, this last novel by Irish fantasist Dunsany (1878-1955) doesn't rank with such early masterpieces as The King of Elfland's Daughter, but it offers its own rewards. Methery, the inventor of the futuroscope, a device that allows one to view the future, first appeared in one of Dunsany's Jorkens stories, "The Two-Way War." Here the unnamed narrator, a retired English journalist, borrows Methery's futuroscope simply for fun, as the title suggests. In a set-up that anticipates today's "reality" TV, the narrator watches a family 500 years in the future as they cope with the aftermath of a nuclear strike on London, regularly noting his breaks in the present for dinner, teatime and bedtime. Dunsany's descriptions of sylvan beauty are as lovely as anything he ever wrote, but some readers may find the elegant exposition, with its long paragraphs and sparse dialogue, too old-fashioned. This restrained apocalyptic novel, warning of the dangers of technology, will likely win over only established fans. Joshi's illuminating introduction is a plus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hippocampus Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0972164480
• ISBN 13: 9780972164481
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200