Scientific "Thriller"

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 129, 3 June 1939, Page 12 (Supplement)

Scientific "Thriller"

THE scientific thriller" invented by Jules Verne and developed by Gonan Doyle and H. G. Wells is always sure of a wide aurlionff* if wHI f»noiij,rh rjnno. Mr. K. C. Shorriff of "Joiiriiov'n End" f;iin«» Ju»<

fro*li pi oof r»f liU \ t ilil v in writing mh*)i a l>ook. ;m<l in "Tin* 1 fr► j»kin* M aliu.seript" (Collanc/.) he has produced a story that should prove mo-t popular. The Manuscript purports to !»• found in the ruins of London and published, far in the distant future, by the Koyal Society of Abyssinia; it is the story of the destruction of Western civilisation. as descrilied bv Kdg.ir Hopkins, who witnessed tin- catastrophe a rut survived it. Hopkins was born in MMMt; the liegintlilig of the storv is set in 1!♦ J.I. when the Itritish Lunar Society, of which h<! was a inerfiber. received the news of an odd slowing-up of the speed at which the moon was revolving round the earth. From that moment the storv move* rapidly with an absorbing

Jo the purely lay mind of the present reviewer, the scientific details of the moon's aberrations would seem to contain more than one "howler"; but even though this be granted, the story carries the reader along sufficiently convinced, if only lie is not of the hyper-critical variety, who will <|tiarr.'l with Keats when he confuses ('ort.cz with Balboa. On the human side of his storv Mr. Sheriff is generally excellent. 11l Kdgar Hopkins he has created a lovable bore with whose fortunes the leader readily identifies

himself. I }if» world r-nn fall about Erlcjar Hopkin.-. }>Nt t lip ruin- will strike him -fill flohatin- whether to writer his haritanis for tlie \\ jK»ultry show.