The Heads of Cerberus

Illustrated with images by Virgil Finlay, from the original editions of Stevens' work.In a career that spanned a mere three years, Gertrude Barrows Bennett (writing as Francis Stevens) published half a dozen books that came to define the genres that followed on. she is most popularly known as the woman who invented dark fantasy, but on the way she also invented a new, creepier kind of dystopian Sci Fi.The Heads of Cerberus is set in a dystopian Philadelphia in 2118. It has been...
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Illustrated with images by Virgil Finlay, from the original editions of Stevens' work.In a career that spanned a mere three years, Gertrude Barrows Bennett (writing as Francis Stevens) published half a dozen books that came to define the genres that followed on. she is most popularly known as the woman who invented dark fantasy, but on the way she also invented a new, creepier kind of dystopian Sci Fi.The Heads of Cerberus is set in a dystopian Philadelphia in 2118. It has been described as:"perhaps the first science fantasy to use the alternate time-track, or parallel worlds, idea."[Groff Conklin] "a pioneering variation on the parallel worlds theme."[Boucher and McComas]"a highly imaginative work, one of the classics of early pulp fantastic fiction [Everett F. Bleiler]"Stevens, to her credit, manages to keep her story taut and suspenseful, at the same time that she injects pleasing snippets of humor here and there, mainly thanks to the character of Arnold Bertram, a portly thief who had tried to rifle Trenmore's safe back home and had also been thrown into the year 2118 as a result. The author presciently posits the coming of a second World War, and yet her Philadelphia of two centuries hence still somehow contains "clanging street cars," shooting galleries, and "movie" theaters. (I love that fact that Stevens puts the word "movie" in quotes; first used around 1911, it must have still seemed a newish, slangy word by 1918!) A pseudo-scientific explanation, at the novel's end, for all the mishegas that had come before goes far in claiming for the book its place of pride in the early sci-fi field. If Stevens' work here can be charged with a fault, however, it is its use of not just coincidence, but double coincidence: Besides the staggering one that opens the book (Drayton just happening to choose to rob a house that, unbeknownst to him, belongs to an old friend), we also have Bertram choosing -- of all the hotel rooms in 22nd century Philly -- our trio's hotel room to rob after he arrives! Once the reader manages to overlook these minor matters, however, a most entertaining and atmospheric read will be in store." [Sandy Ferber, fantasyliterature.com]