Jaywalker

Rocklynne, Ross, 1913-1988Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

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.Jaywalker by Ross RocklynneAuthor: Rocklynne, Ross, 1913-1988,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jan 24, 2016

Editor's review

Jaywalker is an English-language short science fiction work by Ross Rocklynne published in the mid-twentieth century, now reissued as a public-domain ebook by Project Gutenberg. Rocklynne excels at building a suspenseful premise within a limited space, then advancing the plot through crisp dialogue and action, giving readers a complete reading experience in a short time. The book is brief and moderate in language difficulty, suitable as an introduction to early English science fiction. Its value lies not in an elaborate world but in presenting the typical rhythm and imaginative approach of short fiction in the science fiction magazines of that era, making it useful both for studying the evolution of genre literature and for practicing English extensive reading. Read it as a "period specimen," noting how the author creates tension with minimal setup and how science fiction of the time approached technology, society, and individual choice.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who want to finish a complete English short story in fragmented time
Beginners interested in mid-twentieth-century short science fiction
Learners who need English extensive reading material and prefer tightly plotted texts
Genre literature enthusiasts studying the writing style of early science fiction magazines

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a long, complex world and deep character development
Readers who need a Chinese translation or bilingual reading
Readers impatient with old-fashioned science fiction pacing

Reading tips

Read through once for the plot, then revisit how the opening setup plants seeds for the ending.
Mark unfamiliar words without looking them up, then after finishing focus on the key words that affect comprehension.
Compare with other public-domain science fiction short stories from the same period to see how narrative conventions differ.
Write a three-to-five-sentence English summary after reading to check whether you grasped the core conflict and ending.

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 Project Gutenberg catalog information, this is an English-language short science fiction work; the ebook is short and can be read in one sitting or a few, rather than a long novel requiring sustained commitment.

How difficult is the English?

The text is a mid-twentieth-century popular science fiction short story with fairly uncomplicated sentence structure, though it includes some period expressions and science fiction terminology. Readers with intermediate English reading skills can finish it with a dictionary.

Why doesn't the recommendation describe the specific plot?

Because the available materials only provide the author, language, and publication information, with no reliable plot summary. To avoid inventing content that isn't in the book, the recommendation focuses on the work's genre positioning and how to read it.

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

Rocklynne, Ross, 1913-1988 Author · American · 1913–1988

Ross Rocklynne (1913–1988) was an American science fiction writer active during the Golden Age of Science Fiction, whose work appeared frequently in magazines such as Amazing Stories. He wrote mainly short stories and novellas, often building his plots around time, dimensions, and space, and was skilled at setting up ingenious premises and surprising turns within a limited length. His representative works, Sorry: Wrong Dimension and Jaywalker, both reflect his interest in the interplay between spatial and temporal dislocation and everyday situations: the former creates drama through the gap between dimensions, while the latter draws a science fiction premise out of an ordinary scene. Rocklynne was not the most dazzling star of his era, yet he won readers with steady output and clever ideas. Public information about his life and the full range of his work is limited, and few of his writings have been translated into Chinese; readers generally encounter him through Golden Age magazine anthologies.