Freeway

Walton, Bryce, 1918-1988Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.7

Word count: 29K words
Chapters: 3

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Freeway by Bryce WaltonAuthor: Walton, Bryce, 1918-1988,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Apr 16, 2019

Editor's review

Freeway is a novella by science fiction writer Bryce Walton (1918–1988), released as an ebook by Project Gutenberg in 2019 and catalogued under American and Canadian literature. Walton was active in mid-twentieth-century American pulp magazines, and his work often spanned science fiction and suspense; Freeway is a science fiction story with road imagery, through which readers can sense the rhythm and imagination of genre fiction of that era. The ebook is free and easy to obtain, suitable for reading in one sitting on a commute or in spare moments, and serves as an accessible sample of postwar American science fiction short stories. Note that it is the original English edition, and the Gutenberg version is chiefly a compilation of public-domain text, usually without notes, introduction, or Chinese translation; readers should keep a dictionary at hand and remain open to the narrative conventions of 1950s science fiction. For those studying genre literature or collecting public-domain ebooks, it is a usable primary text rather than a scholarly edition.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Genre readers who enjoy mid-twentieth-century American science fiction short stories and want to broaden their reading
English learners and science fiction writing enthusiasts who need free English source material
Researchers collecting public-domain ebooks or Gutenberg catalogue selections

Not a good fit for

General readers who want a Chinese translation and prefer not to read English
Readers expecting a long, complex world or contemporary science fiction settings
Researchers who need scholarly notes, introductions, and textual collation

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the plot, then read again to notice the era's technological imagination and character development.
Guess unfamiliar words from context first, look them up after finishing a chapter, and avoid interrupting the rhythm too often.
Read alongside other 1950s American science fiction short stories to compare the commonalities and differences of genre-magazine writing.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a short story?

According to the Gutenberg catalogue, Freeway is a short work that can usually be finished in one or a few spare reading sessions; for the exact word count, check the actual ebook content, and look at the table of contents and length after downloading before planning your reading.

What English level is needed to read it?

The work is aimed at general readers, and its sentence structures are not very difficult; a college-level English foundation or the ability to read with a dictionary is sufficient. If you rarely read original English texts, start with short passages and use lookup tools to progress gradually.

Does the ebook include notes or an introduction?

The Gutenberg edition mainly presents public-domain original text and generally does not include scholarly notes, a translator's preface, or a reading guide. For background, consult introductions to the author and mid-twentieth-century American science fiction.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Walton, Bryce, 1918-1988 Author

Bryce Walton (1918–1988) was a twentieth-century American author of science fiction and popular fiction, little known to Chinese readers, with limited publicly available information. Fourteen of his works are held in the collection, covering space exploration, alien civilizations, future warfare, and relations between the sexes, including To Each His Star, Thy Name Is Woman, The Highest Mountain, The Victor, The Mating of the Moons, Strange Alliance, War Game, and Dreamer's World. Judging from these titles, he was skilled at handling interstellar conflict, human choice, and emotional entanglement through tight plotting and an accessible style. His works were aimed at a broad readership and carry the adventurous flavor and speculative bent common to Cold War-era science fiction. Though not part of the established canon, his writing offers a useful sample for studying the popular science fiction landscape of his time.