Vintage Season is an exquisite novella that is heavily based on science fiction. The plot mainly revolves around the visit of time travelers to an ordinary man Oliver in an unknown American city and can be compared to the current situation in our world. Overall, even though the novel is almost 80 years old, it perfectly captures the detail and nature of people’s lives in the modern world.
To begin with, it is interesting that Catherine Moore decides to call all the crucial points of the history vintage seasons. Naturally, from this essential detail stems the name of the story itself. Still, the similarity of the vintage seasons to the events related to the COVID-19 pandemic is beyond accurate. For instance, the main character, Oliver, believes that the time he lives in is the worst that could possibly happen to him (Turner). Nevertheless, it seems that time travelers think that this point in the past was beyond valuable to the future and their existence (Turner). The line that Kleph, the time traveler, says to Oliver, “There never was a May like it in civilized times,” is hard to understand for him (Moore, p. 81). The whole idea of this period of time being a turning point when The Blue Death (a disease) is defeated, and the cure is developed is unthinkable to him.
To sum up, it seems that Oliver’s beliefs are indeed similar to most people right now because of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the public’s lives. In addition, the whole idea that these exceptionally challenging times for humanity may be crucial for our children and the next generations is unbelievable. Therefore, it makes Vintage Season so gripping and not similar to the stories that were written in those times.
When We Went to See the End of the World is an incredible story that shows the variety of people’s perceptions about their ends of the world. The main characters, Nick and Jane, usually host the parties, but once, they tell their friends about their experience of seeing the end of the world. Naturally, it encourages everyone else to do the same, but what they see on their so-called trip is the most gripping part of this story.
Surprisingly, the visitors of Nick and Jane also were lucky enough to go and witness the apocalypse. However, their stories were considerably different, but before they could accuse everyone of lying about their experiences, the other couple told a secret about them seeing someone special there (Silverberg). It seems that Robert Silverberg’s aim is to make readers think about whether the people were lying about their experiences or it was a matter of the future that was changed as the events happened in the story. In fact, it is safe to assume that every person somehow altered the future, and that is the reason why they saw different ends of the world. Nevertheless, the party’s guests could be focused on winning the contest of the best story of the world falling apart, considering that they could be affected by alcohol and other drugging materials.
To sum up, the idea of people being able to change their own future by performing actions that were not supposed to happen is gripping and amusing. Still, it is possible that the author wanted to show the true nature of humans who see everything as a contest that should be won by them. The arguable plot of the story makes the reader thoroughly think about Silverberg’s aim and his idea for this text.
Works Cited
Moore, Catherine. Vintage Season. Tor Books, 1990.
Silverberg, Robert. When We Went to See the End of the World. Subterranean Press, 2014.
Turner, Leigh. “‘Vintage Season’ – a Story for a Coronavirus Outbreak.” Leigh Turner/Robert Pimm: Novels, Short Stories and More, 2022, Web.