Publisher's Synopsis
Imagine an alternate reality where the man who gave the world The Jungle Book and Gunga Din and The Phantom 'Rickshaw was a science fiction writer - generations before Hugo Gernsbeck and Amazing; before the pulp SF that dominated the thirties; before intellectually prescient Astounding in the forties and sophisticated literary SF magazines like Galaxy and The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction fifties. Think of it: a world where Rudyard Kipling was a science fiction writer, long before SF as we understand it was invented. Well actually, he was. And the book you have in your hands - Actions And Reactions - is a wonderful example of it. It feels a lot like the sort of sophisticated SF - literary without being precious - we all remember from the Golden Age of Galaxy and The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction. Imagine that. We live in an alternate universe. Rudyard Kipling was an English author and poet, born in Bombay, India, and is best known for The Jungle Book series and is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature. Kipling was one of the most popular writers in English, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English language writer to receive the prize, and he remains its youngest-ever recipient. However, later in life Kipling also came to be seen (in George Orwell's words) as a "prophet of British imperialism." Many saw prejudice and militarism in his works, and the resulting controversy about him continued for much of the 20th century. According to critic Douglas Kerr: "He is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognized as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with." Kipling kept writing until the early 1930s and died of a brain haemorrhage in January of 1936 at the age of 70.