The Petrified Planet

The Petrified Planet is an anthology of three original science fiction stories, edited by the un-credited Fletcher Pratt and published by Twayne in 1952. It was the first in a series of planned "Twayne Triplets," "a series of books to be produced by the 'joint efforts' of a scientist and a trio of writers."[1] No further editions of the anthology were issued, although each of the stories was later republished.

The Petrified Planet
Dust-jacket from the first edition
Authoredited by Fletcher Pratt
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesTwayne Triplets
GenreScience fiction
PublisherTwayne
Publication date
1952
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages263 pp
OCLC317781825
Followed byWitches Three 

Contents

Reception

J. Francis McComas reviewed the anthology unfavorably in The New York Times, saying "the book has not the slightest trace of coherence or consistency" and "the stories themselves [do not] come remotely near their authors' usual standards."[1]

In his review, reprinted in In Search of Wonder, Damon Knight faulted the high-concept format: "The trouble is that, no matter how interesting the background may be, there’s probably at most only one dramatic way of using it in a story, and when you toss it up for grabs the best thing that can happen is that one out of three writers will use it effectively. The trouble is, further, that shoehorning the postulated background into three different stories does not unify them but makes them mutually contradictory."[3]

References
  1. "Spaceman's Realm", The New York Times Book Review, March 8, 1953, p.25
  2. ISFDB bibliography
  3. Knight, Damon, In Search of Wonder, 1956.
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