posted on 22 May 2016

The Space Story Omnibus

When The Space Story Omnibus was published for boys ( and, yes, it was almost certainly for boys) in 1955, the real adventure in space had hardly begun. The first man in space – Yuri Gagarin – was still five years away and there wouldn’t be a manned moon landing until over a decade later. So these stories really were science fiction in the true sense of the word.

Most of the depictions of rockets, space suits and even aliens owe a substantial amount to the cinema of the day – especially Forbidden Planet and Flash Gordon. But there are some important classical literary influences here too – the hand of Jules Verne is easy enough to detect.

Having said that, the key to understanding the content of this book is a knowledge of American comics like Weird Science, Incredible Science Fiction, If and Captain Rocket. Vibrantly coloured in the superhero tradition, these comics imagined space to be full of improbable monster aliens, muscled heroic astronauts with ray guns and figure-hugging space suits and young women with Barbie-esque physiques and fish-bowl helmets.

The Space Story Omnibus tries to strike a less sensational and lurid vision of space by mixing the adventure stories with some factual imagining of our future in outer space – but, understandably, get most stuff wrong. There are, however, a couple of notable exceptions to that – they are right about orbiting space stations and reusable shuttles and that is no mean feat.

I was way too young for this book when it appeared but I can imagine it found its way into the Christmas stockings of many youngsters from 8 or 9 upwards. As was common in these relatively cheap annuals, the production values are bog basic – the quality of the paper is thick and harsh and the binding is held together by glue and hope. Not surprisingly therefore copies that survive in decent condition are rare despite the fact that so many were printed. I picked this copy up in almost perfect condition (although it’s missing a paper jacket ) at a flea fair for pennies – so they are out there if you like a hunt.

Terry Potter

May 2016