[Arctic Summer and Other Fiction contains] the remnants of Forster's unpublished or uncompleted novels and short stories…. All these pieces and fragments date from the earliest years of the author's activity, roughly from 1899 to 1914 and show him experimenting with themes and methods of presentation. (p. 94)

Prominent themes throughout the collection are those for which Forster later became well known as an adept in their handling—class differences; the friendship and affection between men, especially younger men; the contrast between two marked types of young men, namely, the 'aesthetic' and the 'conventional' or 'heroic' he-male. Only one of the shorter stories is overtly homosexual and that in a most bizarre and original way, a kind of weird attempt at sci-fi that somehow totally fails to convince at any level. Its chief interest is as a sign of the weakness of Forster's imagination when he strayed from the 'real' world...