These four-and-twenty stories, though not by any means of equal merit, reach, on the whole, a good level of excellence. "The Chemistry of Anarchy" is in particular a capital tale. A young man entangles himself in some Anarchist plots, and is delivered by a scientific friend who finally frightens the revolu- tionists out of their wits. Somewhat resembling this is "A New Explosive." The recipient of a terrible secret thinks it best that secret and inventor should disappear together...
Arthur Granger, an aristocratic and unsuccessful novelist, betrays the ideals he prides himself on for the unrequited love of a young woman. And no ordinary woman, she, but an ethereal, goddess-like, nameless agent from a strange world.
a Message Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch;Being a true and faithful account of her Journey to the Interior of the Earth, with a careful description of the Country and its Inhabitants,their Customs, Manners and Government.
A theoretical physicist and a programmer-turned-writer debate the nature of time. Through an imaginative conversation, the physicist explains to his friend that time does not flow, but is an illusion. Fascinated by the idea that the future already exists but he cannot remember it, the writer decides to capture this revelation in a story… although, in some “now” of the universe, he may have already written it.