Philip Wylie Books In Order

Publication Order of When Worlds Collide Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Collections

Philip Gordon Wylie was a Massachusetts-based philosophy and science fiction author. Born and raised in Massachusetts, Philip was the son of Edmund Melville and Edna Edwards, a Presbyterian minister and novelist, respectively. His mother died when Philip was only five years old. Philips’s family relocated to Montclair, New Jersey, where he joined Princeton University in 1923, graduating in 1923. His first wife was Sally Ondek, with whom they had a daughter, Karen, who later became the inventor of animal clicker training. Philip divorced his first wife and then married Frederic Ballard.

As a writer of both nonfiction and fiction, Philip’s work includes hundreds of articles, short stories, serials, novels, syndicated newspapers, newspaper columns, and works of social criticism. He also worked as an editor for Farrar & Rinehart, a screenplay writer for various Hollywood films, and an advisor and director of the Lerner Marine Laboratory. Most of Philip’s work contains critical and philosophical views on society due to his interest and studies in biology, psychology, ethology, and physics. Most of his literary works were adapted for the big screen and sold right for adaptation for two other works that were never produced.

Most of Philip Wylie’s books defy easy classification, but his initial literary work greatly influenced 20th-century comic books and science fiction pulp magazines. For example, Gladiator (1930) influenced the comic book, Superman. Additionally, The Savage Gentleman (1932) highly4 influenced the pulp character Clark “Doc” Savage. Wylie mostly applied scientific and engineering principles in most of his works. His book, The Disappearance (1951), tells what happens when men discover all women are missing and vice versa. The novel delves into the double standards of men and women before the women’s movement of the 1970s. It further explores the relationship between men and women and features themes of homosexuality and women’s rights.
First published in 1932, When the Worlds Collide is a book that had a global influence on sci-fi. The influential effects can be seen in Alex Raymond’s 1934 comic strip Flash Gordon and Jack Williamson’s 1934 Born of the Sun short story. Alex Raymond uses the themes of an alien planet on a collision course with Earth and features a scientist, an athletic hero, and his girlfriend traveling to a new planet using a rocket. In 1940-1941, the newspaper comic strip Speed Spaulding was loosely based on Wylie’s book. The themes of escaping a doomed planet to a habitable one can be seen in Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel’s 1938 comic novel Superman.

Due to its influential nature, When Worlds Collide was adapted into a 1951 science fiction/ thriller movie by the same name directed by Rudolph Mate and starring Barbara Rush, Richard Derr, Peter Hansen, and John Hoyt. The movie was a success, grossing box office $1.6 million from an estimated budget of $936,000.

From an astronomical point of view, you would conclude that our planet is a sitting duck. This is because in our simple galaxy, out of millions of galaxies, over 14,000 asteroids are floating in space, not to mention the near-earth comets. Sixty-six million years ago, a 10km asteroid hit Earth, causing massive extinction of the dinosaurs. According to NASA, any object larger than 460 feet that passes within 4.6 million miles of Earth is a potential hazard even when it poses no risk of colliding with our planet.

It is estimated that during the planet’s history, asteroids larger than a kilometer in size have struck the Earth twice per million years, and those larger than five kilometers once per 20 million years. According to some estimates, a space object comes into contact with or bursts on the Earth every 2,000 years, producing 10-megaton blasts like the one that occurred over Siberia in 1908 or the so-called Tunguska incident, which destroyed about 800 square miles of forest. And don’t forget; they are all little pebble-sized flying space rock chunks. What if alien PLANET decided to target the good ol’ Earth? Even worse, what if a Massive planetary system suddenly swung into our near area? When Worlds Collide, a now-classic science fiction book by Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer, was first published in 1933. Starting in the September 1932 edition of the enormously popular Blue Book Magazine and culminating in the February 1933 issue, the book was first published as a six-part serial.

When the novel begins, researchers at a South African observatory have found two celestial bodies that are traveling in the general direction of Earth. The bigger one is called Bronson Alpha, which resembles Jupiter because it is a gas-giant planet. The smaller one, known as Bronson Beta, orbits Alpha and is identical in size to Earth. Because of another discovery—Bronson Alpha is headed straight for Earth—the public is kept in the dark about the reality of the rogue planets. Earth is going destroyed in two years. Before it, the Earth would experience significant tidal and climatic shifts due to gravitational influences, resulting in storms, tsunamis, tremors, and volcanic eruptions.

Of course, Dr. Hendron has a strategy. He imagines a sizable spacecraft, big enough to accommodate several hundred people, taken from Earth right before Alpha collides with Beta. After Earth and Alpha are destroyed, it is hoped that Beta will attach to an orbit around our sun and replace Earth’s orbit. It is hoped that Beta’s Earth-like circumstances will be habitable for humans once thawed because they have been frozen during Beta’s million-year journey across the galaxy. It is hoped that the spacecraft will safely touch down on Beta.
Given that Balmer and Wylie’s story was written before atomic space travel and man’s landing on the moon, its scientific correctness efforts are astounding. It’s hardly hard science fiction, but it’s also not weak. It’s moderately challenging, in my opinion. The work features a number of heroes, but Tony Drake is the one who receives the most attention since he is the typical reader’s Everyman. Tony is a handsome, averagely intellectual man with a respectable career. He also dates Eve Hendron, a renowned scientist and the daughter of Cole Hendron.