THE H. BEAM PIPER MEGAPACK collects 33 novels, novellas, and short stories by H. Beam Piper, including such classics as LITTLE FUZZY, SPACE VIKING, and "He Walked Around the Horses."
Complete contents:
Introduction: Meet H. Beam Piper Time and Time Again (1947) He Walked around the Horses (1948) Police Operation (1948) The Mercenaries (1950) Last Enemy (1950) Flight from Tomorrow (1950) Operation R.S.V.P. (1951) Dearest (1951) Temple Trouble (1951) Genesis (1951) Day of the Moron (1951) Uller Uprising (1952) Null-ABC (1953) The Return (1954) Time Crime (1955) Omnilingual (1957) The Edge of the Knife (1957) The Keeper (1957) Lone Star Planet (1958) Graveyard of Dreams (1958) Ministry of Disturbance (1958) Hunter Patrol (1959) Crossroads of Destiny (1959) The Answer (1959) Four-day Planet (1961) Oomphel in the Sky (1960) Naudsonce (1962) Little Fuzzy (1962) A Slave Is a Slave (1962) Space Viking (1962) The Cosmic Computer (1963)
Other Works (Not Science Fiction):
Rebel Raider (1950) Murder in the Gunroom (1953)
Note: This is version 3.0 of this ebook, and corrects a number of typos from previous versions.
Henry Beam Piper was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales.
I remember really liking H. Beam Piper's work as a young man. This attempt to reread these stories shows that there really is no going back.
I quickly grew bored of the stale stories involving 1-dimensional manly men doing manly things while women stood by and gazed adoringly at them. Abandoned.
[Scared to reread [book:Little Fuzzy|1440148] lest I hate it now.]
Finished at last! I got this collection ages ago, and have been reading it a story at a time in between other books. It is a collection of (fairly) short stories, mostly sci-if based, some fairly decent, some a bit dull, with a particular emphasis on multiverse theory. Written in the 50s and 60s it is interesting to see a writer’s idea of what the future will be like. Lots of space travel of course, plus mini atomic engines powering everything. Guns feature heavily as does smoking. Apparently there will be a lot of smoking in the future. Oh, and good old fashioned gender roles.
I really enjoyed rereading Piper's "Space Viking" and time travel stories. They are well informed by his understanding of US history in the Civil War and the attitudes of colonizers. The Gunroom Murder was a surprise, I wish there were more stories about Rand.
Space Viking, in particular, seemed to clearly describe the political situation in the United States at present (2022). We can only hope that the future works out better for us than it did in that novel.
It's awesome that these classic sci-fi stories are available in an affordable electronic format. I hope this will make them available for generations to come.
It was fun watching Piper evolve from the stiff, awkward writer he started as in the Forties to the smooth, accomplished author he was in the early Sixties. It's interesting that he never envisioned a future where the characters didn't smoke like chimneys, though.
I love it when a writer can provide entertaining reading non stop. I never have had the pleasure of reading any of Mr Pipers books till now but I intend to find more by this author.
I picked this up largely because I loved Little Fuzzy and the rest of the series when I read them many years ago.
It's very much of its time (1950s-60s). Everyone smokes like a chimney in all conceivable environments, atomic everything yay, sexism, racism and colonialism are givens, and Communism is the great menace. I probably prefer writers to be a little bit less immersed in the zeitgeist than this.
Apart from that, the stories aren't bad, but the elements I've mentioned are so pervasive that there isn't much "apart from that".
This was an excellent compilation of books by H. Beam Piper, although I think the one's dealing with the contact with a new spices were the better ones and the last book which was a "Who Done it" was the best (i didn't spot the killer before it was revealed).
A very good book, the first half are classic science fiction stories many of which I already own in paperback but the entire second half of the book are westerns/horror/mystery/adventure stories I had never seen before. A must read for the completest fan.