Other editions of book Actions and Reactions

This is a collection of stories and poems by Rudyard Kipling. Most of these come from Kipling's earlier years. The stories are an excellent ideal introduction to the writer. The stories in this collection are all very different from each other; With the Night Mail is the only science fiction; then there’s a fantasy story about a haunted house almost done as a detective story, and in the less-haunted genre, a couple moves into a old manor-house and discovers that the ties of land and blood are stronger than the travels of man. Both An Habitation Enforced and Garm—A Hostage make it clear that if you never fail in your duty you’ll have no trouble. And that you can’t get out of your responsibility to the future, which is contained in your past.

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.It came without warning, at the very hour his hand was outstretched to crumple the Holz and Gunsberg Combine. The New York doctors called it overwork, and he lay in a darkened room, one ankle crossed above the other, tongue pressed into palate, wondering whether the next brain–surge of prickly fires would drive his soul from all anchorages.

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.

Excerpt from Actions and Reactions, Vol. 1 of 2Continental streets that reminded them of their own polyglot cities. In England all men spoke one tongue, speciously like American to the ear, but on crossexamination unintelligible.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

My friend, if cause doth wrest thee, Ere folly hath much oppressed thee, Far from acquaintance kest thee Where country may digest thee... Thank God that so hath blessed thee, And sit down, Robin, and rest thee. —THOMAS TUSSER. It came without warning, at the very hour his hand was outstretched to crumple the Holz and Gunsberg Combine. The New York doctors called it overwork, and he lay in a darkened room, one ankle crossed above the other, tongue pressed into palate, wondering whether the next brain-surge of prickly fires would drive his soul from all anchorages. At last they gave judgment. With care he might in two years return to the arena, but for the present he must go across the water and do no work whatever. He accepted the terms. It was capitulation; but the Combine that had shivered beneath his knife gave him all the honours of war: Gunsberg himself, full of condolences, came to the steamer and filled the Chapins' suite of cabins with overwhelming flower-works. "Smilax," said George Chapin when he saw them. "Fitz is right. I'm dead; only I don't see why he left out the 'In Memoriam' on the ribbons!" "Nonsense!" his wife answered, and poured him his tincture. "You'll be back before you can think."

My friend, if cause doth wrest thee, Ere folly hath much oppressed thee, Far from acquaintance kest thee Where country may digest thee... Thank God that so hath blessed thee, And sit down, Robin, and rest thee. —THOMAS TUSSER. It came without warning, at the very hour his hand was outstretched to crumple the Holz and Gunsberg Combine. The New York doctors called it overwork, and he lay in a darkened room, one ankle crossed above the other, tongue pressed into palate, wondering whether the next brain-surge of prickly fires would drive his soul from all anchorages. At last they gave judgment. With care he might in two years return to the arena, but for the present he must go across the water and do no work whatever. He accepted the terms. It was capitulation; but the Combine that had shivered beneath his knife gave him all the honours of war: Gunsberg himself, full of condolences, came to the steamer and filled the Chapins' suite of cabins with overwhelming flower-works. "Smilax," said George Chapin when he saw them. "Fitz is right. I'm dead; only I don't see why he left out the 'In Memoriam' on the ribbons!" "Nonsense!" his wife answered, and poured him his tincture. "You'll be back before you can think." He looked at himself in the mirror, surprised that his face had not been branded by the hells of the past three months. The noise of the decks worried him, and he lay down, his tongue only a little pressed against his palate.

By this date Kipling had been publishing short story collections for twenty years and his audience was familiar with the format: every four or five years Kipling pulled together the short stories he’d published in various magazines into a one-volume collection, giving it a pithy and evocative title, and often writing poems specially to preface or follow each story.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

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.