Once a Greech

Evelyn E. SmithProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 57K words
Chapters: 6

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.Once a Greech by Evelyn E. SmithAuthor: Smith, Evelyn E., 1922-2000,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Mar 16, 2010

Editor's review

Once a Greech is a short work by Evelyn E. Smith published in the mid-twentieth century and reissued as a public-domain ebook by Project Gutenberg. Smith often wrote science fiction shorts with a vein of the absurd and satirical, and this one likewise opens from a light premise, moving forward through dialogue and situational contrast; it is short and reads quickly. Its value lies in showing the typical shape of a short story from the early science-fiction magazine era: it does not rely on a grand worldview but uses a clever assumption to produce comic effect while also gently mocking human social habits. Readers should not expect hard-SF technical detail or rigorous worldbuilding; the point is the feel of the language and the rhythm of the humor. It suits reading as a selected SF short, as material for a genre-literature course, or as light reading on a commute. One caveat: the electronic edition has no introduction or notes, so readers who want to understand the work's place in SF history will need to consult relevant genre-literature materials themselves.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy early science-fiction shorts and satirical humor
Genre-literature fans who want to understand mid-twentieth-century SF magazine work through a short story
Intermediate to advanced English learners who need light English texts for extensive reading practice
Organizers of SF courses or reading groups looking for short discussion material

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting hard-SF premises, technical detail, and worldbuilding
Readers who prefer long continuous narratives and are uncomfortable with the leaps of short fiction
Beginner readers who need detailed author biography and annotations

Reading tips

Read it through in one sitting first, then go back over the dialogue to see how humor and contrast are built through the rhythm of the language.
After reading, look up common patterns in mid-twentieth-century SF magazine shorts and compare them with this text's satirical technique.
If using it for extensive English reading, mark unfamiliar colloquial expressions and gather them into a short vocabulary list.
For a reading group, read this alongside another satirical SF short from the same period and discuss variants of genre convention.

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 story hard science fiction?

No. It is closer to a light SF short with absurd and satirical coloring; the focus is not on technical premises or scientific extrapolation but on situational contrast and comic dialogue. Readers who come expecting hard SF may find the premise insufficiently rigorous; read as a genre satire, it is easier to enter.

Can I understand it without background knowledge?

You can follow the basic plot and the humor, since it is short and the scenes are concentrated. But the book has no introduction or notes; to understand its place in the SF magazine era, you will need to supply your own general knowledge of mid-twentieth-century SF shorts. On a first reading, focus on the characters' dialogue and the situational reversals.

Is it suitable for English learners?

It suits intermediate to advanced English learners for extensive reading. The text is not long and has a good deal of dialogue, so it offers exposure to the feel and colloquial expression of mid-twentieth-century English short fiction. Some wording and sentence patterns, however, carry period features; beginner learners may need a dictionary and should focus on following the plot rather than reading closely sentence by sentence.

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

Evelyn E. Smith Author · American · 1922–2000

Evelyn E. Smith (1922–2000) was an American writer of science fiction and mystery fiction, born in New York, who also worked as a crossword puzzle constructor. In the 1950s she published numerous short science fiction stories in magazines such as Galaxy Science Fiction and Fantastic Universe. Her representative works include "The Blue Tower," "The Venus Trap" and "The Doorway," along with "The Most Sentimental Man," "Collector's Item," "The Princess and the Physicist" and "The Man Outside"; seventeen of her works are held in this collection. Her short stories often treat alien contact, gender relations and consumer society with wit and humour, showing neat plotting and a satirical edge. Under the pen name Delphine C. Lyons she also wrote Gothic romances and the "Miss Melville" mystery series. Public information about her life is limited, and discussion of her work focuses mainly on these magazine stories and her genre fiction.