Forget Me Nearly

Floyd Lee WallaceProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 78K words
Chapters: 8

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. Forget Me Nearly by F. L. Wallace. Author: Wallace, F. L. (Floyd L.), 1915-2004. Language: English. Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature. Release Date: Apr 17, 2010

Editor's review

Forget Me Nearly is a short story by the American science fiction writer F. L. Wallace, digitized and released through Project Gutenberg's free eBook program. Wallace was active during the golden age of mid-twentieth-century science fiction magazines, and his work is known for tight suspense and unexpected premises. This story likewise centers on memory and the uncertainty of identity; the title itself hints at the tension between forgetting and near-memory. As a public-domain eBook, it preserves the rhythm typical of old magazine short fiction: the situation is established at once, information is released gradually, and the ending often turns on a reversal. Readers can see how Cold War-era American science fiction engaged with the mind, memory technology, and individual autonomy, and how early science fiction built complete premises within a limited length. It suits short-story reading practice or English extensive reading in the original. Being a public-domain electronic text, its main barrier is the English original and its period context rather than length or difficulty.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy golden-age American science fiction short stories with plot reversals
English learners who want to practice extensive reading with short original fiction
Researchers or enthusiasts interested in science fiction premises about memory and identity
Teachers looking for free public-domain eBooks to use as classroom material

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer long-form worldbuilding and complex character arcs
Readers who are not comfortable reading English originals and need a Chinese translation
Contemporary readers who find mid-twentieth-century science fiction style alienating

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the direction of the suspense, then revisit key passages to trace how the memory clues are laid out.
Read it alongside other memory-themed science fiction short stories and compare how they approach the premise.
English learners can read the original first, marking unfamiliar words without looking them up, and deal with them after finishing.

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?

It is a short science fiction story, brief enough to finish in one or two sittings. The exact page count varies with the electronic edition's layout, but the overall reading time is manageable, making it suitable as short-story reading practice.

What level of English is needed to read it?

The story was published in the mid-twentieth century. Its sentences are not very complex, but it contains period expressions and science fiction terminology. A reading level of around CET-4 should be enough to attempt it; skip unfamiliar words at first and follow the main plot.

Why does the author credit differ from the author shown in the metadata?

The book was digitized and released by Project Gutenberg, and the author field in the metadata names the project itself, while the actual author of the text is the science fiction writer F. L. Wallace. For citation, use the author credited in the text.

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About the author

Floyd Lee Wallace Author · American · 1915–2004

F. L. Wallace (Floyd Lee Wallace, 1915–2004) was an American science fiction and mystery writer and a mechanical engineer. He was born in 1915 in Rock Island, Illinois, and died in 2004 in Tustin, California. From the 1950s onward he wrote short stories for science fiction magazines such as Galaxy as well as novels. Thirteen of his works are held in this collection, including Delay in Transit, The Man Who Was Six, End as a World, Forget Me Nearly, Address: Centauri, Student Body, Bolden's Pets and Accidental Flight. His writing often starts from the practical details of engineering and technology, combining precise speculation with suspense and reversal, and his subjects frequently involve space travel, mistaken identity and sudden crises. Public information about his life and career is limited, and readers' knowledge of him and his work still rests mainly on these short stories and novels scattered across various publications.