captain's logue

Title: The Runaway Skyscraper

Author: Murray Leinster

Year of Publication: 1919

Reading this 41 page book was quite interesting. The story was good but peculiar which is a good thing. The year of publication says 1919 but that is the original publication the version I read was from 1969. There have been around 10 other versions of this first-rate book and my hypothesis is that since new technology and advances in science have been made since each sequential publication that the story might have changed a little bit since the first one. Let me give you an example in my version the main character uses a cell phone which wouldn’t have been invented for another 60 some years when the fist story was made.

The story takes place in a skyscraper in Manhattan. The time it takes place is most likely whenever the book was written for they never directly state the time. The story begins when the metropolitan clock stops and begins to move backward. The two main characters, Arthur and Estelle, begin to notice how soon it got dark out. When they look outside they make a remarkable discovery, there building is moving backwards through time. When it arrives at its destination in time it is apparent that they arrived way before the first colonists. Now Arthur must lead the two thousand people to find food for their survival as he tries to fix the time problem.

The really cool thing about this story is how they came to be traveling through time. There was an earthquake which should have caused the building to sink in the 3rd dimension (space) but instead it falls through in the 4th dimension(time). The majority of this book is in the past where the people have to figure out how to survive. It is interesting to read how Murray Leinster writes a mob of people who have just been sent back in time. It is just as how you would expect them to which is weird considering that people who have just time travel might react differently to people who have say been through a fire.

All things considered I herby award The Runaway Skyscraper by Murray Leinster 4.55 stars!!! To breakdown this score there was 2.30 stars for the time travel and how it worked, 0.95 stars for the humour, and 1.30 stars for the ending. If you would like to buy The Runaway Skyscraper by Murray Leinster it is available at Amazon.ca
, Amazon.com
and chapters along with Barnes & Noble.