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Kinship With The Stars
A collection of classic stories includes tales of a manhunt for the last wild alien, a planetary economy based on gambling, and a robot in love with literature
- GenresScience Fiction
276 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 15, 1991
2 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Poul Anderson
1,621 books1,106 followersPseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley.
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]
Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.
Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]
Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.
Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 22, 2024
These stories have incredible variety among them. Most of them were from the 1950s, which was near the start of Anderson's writing career (1947-2003).
A Bicycle Built for Brew novella ★★★
Astounding Science Fiction November 1958
A cargo transport star vessel carrying beer is not permitted to leave a planet it docks at, much to the captain's chagrin. The protagonist is the engineer and when the entire crew is arrested he becomes responsible for figuring out how to contact the homeworld in order to effect a military rescue. At 100 pages in length, this story takes up more than a third of the story collection. At first, I didn't care for it. It's a comic fantasy story that Anderson writes in dialect in large part, which for me is two strikes against most any story. But then I relaxed and just read the story for what it was. I stopped placing my expectations on it and found that although it wasn't that funny it was still interesting and I grew to care about how the protagonist solved his problem.
Inside Straight novelette ★★★½
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction August 1955
This is one of several stories in the collection that deals with what I am taking a favorite theme of Anderson's: world conquest. Some intergalactic empire has a large number of planets under its sway and needs another, or has to prevent one from breaking away, or has to stop another potential empire from successfully competing for planets. This story is a about how one planet tries to keep is independence and not become part of an intergalactic empire. Rather than war, they use gambling to try to stay free. How does gambling lead to certain freedom? That's what the story tells us.
The Critique of Impure Reason novelette ★★★
If November 1962
In a world today where AI is threatening to make writers obsolete, this story is remarkably prescient. One AI, a literature-loving robot, doesn't want to do the mining work it's designed and programmed for. Instead it prefers to read literature and philosophize about human nature. It's about to be turned into scrap metal for being useless until our protagonist manages to play a trick on it.
Backwardness short story ★★½
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction March 1958
Story of a confidence man on a grand intergalactic stage. It has a cute ending to keep it from being entirely unremarkable.
Duel on Syrtis short story ★★★1/2
Planet Stories March 1951
An Earth big-game hunter illegally stalks a Martian, but gets more than he bargained for when his prey fights back. Exciting story of survival, but sort of depressing that it happened to begin with.
Uncleftish Beholding essay ★★★★
Analog Science Fiction and Fact Mid-December 1989
This essay is Anderson showing off highly advanced writing skills in a pseudo-scientific essay. Very clever writing about no concept in particular.
Escape from Orbit (1962) novelette ★★½
Amazing Stories October 1962
Meteor shower strikes a lunar expedition, requiring the mission control protagonist to find a rescue plan for the stranded astronauts. This is the basic plot of many an SF story, including the first English-translated Perry Rhodan novel. The story is fine if one hasn't seen the plot before. But I have, so I found it tedious, especially at novelette length.
Enough Rope novelette ★★★★
Astounding Science Fiction July 1953
Wing Alak #2
Poul Anderson wrote a series of three stories for Astounding featuring protagonist Wing Alak, agent for the far future Galactic League Patrol. He works on behalf of a wide ranging 1000 planet Sol III empire that has adopted a pacifist ideology which must be maintained even when dealing with upstarts bent interplanetary military conquest. Wing encounters one such aggressive warmonger and has to find a way to defeat him and yet do so in a way that harms no one.
The Live Coward short story ★★★
Astounding Science Fiction June 1956
Wing Alak #3
Anderson must have felt with this story he had said all he cared to about his character, Wing Alak, because it is a bit of a letdown from the previous entry and the final installment. (I have no idea of the quality of the first story, published in a 1949 Astounding.) Wing has turned bounty hunter for this story and must bring a fugitive wanted for inciting a war to justice. I think Anderson was trying to make a hero out of a person who was an admitted coward and so used deceit to accomplish his ends, but this was not particularly convincing. I found myself rooting for the antagonist to "escape justice."
If you like vintage science fiction and to read some old tried and true ideas being well executed, this collection might be for you. It lacks the nuances or complications of much modern SF, and just tells straightforward stories. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on what you are in the mood for.
A Bicycle Built for Brew novella ★★★
Astounding Science Fiction November 1958
A cargo transport star vessel carrying beer is not permitted to leave a planet it docks at, much to the captain's chagrin. The protagonist is the engineer and when the entire crew is arrested he becomes responsible for figuring out how to contact the homeworld in order to effect a military rescue. At 100 pages in length, this story takes up more than a third of the story collection. At first, I didn't care for it. It's a comic fantasy story that Anderson writes in dialect in large part, which for me is two strikes against most any story. But then I relaxed and just read the story for what it was. I stopped placing my expectations on it and found that although it wasn't that funny it was still interesting and I grew to care about how the protagonist solved his problem.
Inside Straight novelette ★★★½
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction August 1955
This is one of several stories in the collection that deals with what I am taking a favorite theme of Anderson's: world conquest. Some intergalactic empire has a large number of planets under its sway and needs another, or has to prevent one from breaking away, or has to stop another potential empire from successfully competing for planets. This story is a about how one planet tries to keep is independence and not become part of an intergalactic empire. Rather than war, they use gambling to try to stay free. How does gambling lead to certain freedom? That's what the story tells us.
The Critique of Impure Reason novelette ★★★
If November 1962
In a world today where AI is threatening to make writers obsolete, this story is remarkably prescient. One AI, a literature-loving robot, doesn't want to do the mining work it's designed and programmed for. Instead it prefers to read literature and philosophize about human nature. It's about to be turned into scrap metal for being useless until our protagonist manages to play a trick on it.
Backwardness short story ★★½
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction March 1958
Story of a confidence man on a grand intergalactic stage. It has a cute ending to keep it from being entirely unremarkable.
Duel on Syrtis short story ★★★1/2
Planet Stories March 1951
An Earth big-game hunter illegally stalks a Martian, but gets more than he bargained for when his prey fights back. Exciting story of survival, but sort of depressing that it happened to begin with.
Uncleftish Beholding essay ★★★★
Analog Science Fiction and Fact Mid-December 1989
This essay is Anderson showing off highly advanced writing skills in a pseudo-scientific essay. Very clever writing about no concept in particular.
Escape from Orbit (1962) novelette ★★½
Amazing Stories October 1962
Meteor shower strikes a lunar expedition, requiring the mission control protagonist to find a rescue plan for the stranded astronauts. This is the basic plot of many an SF story, including the first English-translated Perry Rhodan novel. The story is fine if one hasn't seen the plot before. But I have, so I found it tedious, especially at novelette length.
Enough Rope novelette ★★★★
Astounding Science Fiction July 1953
Wing Alak #2
Poul Anderson wrote a series of three stories for Astounding featuring protagonist Wing Alak, agent for the far future Galactic League Patrol. He works on behalf of a wide ranging 1000 planet Sol III empire that has adopted a pacifist ideology which must be maintained even when dealing with upstarts bent interplanetary military conquest. Wing encounters one such aggressive warmonger and has to find a way to defeat him and yet do so in a way that harms no one.
The Live Coward short story ★★★
Astounding Science Fiction June 1956
Wing Alak #3
Anderson must have felt with this story he had said all he cared to about his character, Wing Alak, because it is a bit of a letdown from the previous entry and the final installment. (I have no idea of the quality of the first story, published in a 1949 Astounding.) Wing has turned bounty hunter for this story and must bring a fugitive wanted for inciting a war to justice. I think Anderson was trying to make a hero out of a person who was an admitted coward and so used deceit to accomplish his ends, but this was not particularly convincing. I found myself rooting for the antagonist to "escape justice."
If you like vintage science fiction and to read some old tried and true ideas being well executed, this collection might be for you. It lacks the nuances or complications of much modern SF, and just tells straightforward stories. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on what you are in the mood for.
January 3, 2024
DNF, but this is a short story collection so I'm rating it based on the stories I did finish.
Poul Anderson is an excellent writer. He writes good, immensely readable prose, and he builds distinct characters very well, and also knows how to structure a proper story. And I mean it, even! I'm not just trying to be polite! But the topics he writes about are completely uninteresting to me and I was bored the whole way. It's a huge shame, but I can't lie about my feelings.
"A Bicycle Built for Brew"
The longest story encompassing about half the collection. I was going to read this if I enjoyed the other stories, but I didn't so I didn't.
"Inside Straight"
The most engaging story in this collection for my money, about a world that runs its entire economy on betting and an agent from a fascist regime who comes to this world and believes he can conquer it easily since (he believes) the people are just dilettantes obsessed with playing silly games. He's wrong, obviously. I'm sure all the exposition about game theory and so on were even more interesting back when this was first written.
"The Critique of Impure Reason"
Didn't read.
"Backwardness"
This is a pretty funny story, and is about humanoid aliens who land on Earth who turn out to be... not that bright... and a human con artist. As Anderson says in the introduction this relies mostly on one clever idea, and it's executed fairly well I suppose, but it's not that clever or that funny, just perfectly fine.
"Duel on Syrtis"
An unveiled (i.e. not even thinly veiled) story about Space Native Americans (Martians) and their oppressive Space Colonists (humans). The conceit is old and the narrative of a Racist Space Colonist hunting down a Space Native American for trophy was -- I repeat! -- very well written while boring me absolutely to tears.
"Uncleftish Beholding"
A short linguistic joke. It's fine.
"Escape from Orbit"
Again, this is excellently written! The main character and his feelings towards his family and colleagues is well-realized, with a ton of little details to make everything truly come alive. This was also an utter bore, however, and and read like the intro to every American "regular family man who can't figure out his personal life nonetheless saves the world" movie from the 90s.
"Enough Rope"
"The Live Coward"
Two installments featuring the character Wing Alek of a future interstellar police who is not allowed to use force, ever, so has to think of more covert ways to uphold law and order. Interesting premise, and again the characters were very well realized, and I'd love to read a ton of stories on this premise of a morally deeply grey space police force who is not allowed to use force, but the "clever" ways the protagonist solves his predicaments were not... so much clever as transparent ("Enough Rope") and convoluted ("The Live Coward"), and didn't deliver the intellectual delight of a work of fiction being smarter than the reader.
Poul Anderson is an excellent writer. He writes good, immensely readable prose, and he builds distinct characters very well, and also knows how to structure a proper story. And I mean it, even! I'm not just trying to be polite! But the topics he writes about are completely uninteresting to me and I was bored the whole way. It's a huge shame, but I can't lie about my feelings.
"A Bicycle Built for Brew"
The longest story encompassing about half the collection. I was going to read this if I enjoyed the other stories, but I didn't so I didn't.
"Inside Straight"
The most engaging story in this collection for my money, about a world that runs its entire economy on betting and an agent from a fascist regime who comes to this world and believes he can conquer it easily since (he believes) the people are just dilettantes obsessed with playing silly games. He's wrong, obviously. I'm sure all the exposition about game theory and so on were even more interesting back when this was first written.
"The Critique of Impure Reason"
Didn't read.
"Backwardness"
This is a pretty funny story, and is about humanoid aliens who land on Earth who turn out to be... not that bright... and a human con artist. As Anderson says in the introduction this relies mostly on one clever idea, and it's executed fairly well I suppose, but it's not that clever or that funny, just perfectly fine.
"Duel on Syrtis"
An unveiled (i.e. not even thinly veiled) story about Space Native Americans (Martians) and their oppressive Space Colonists (humans). The conceit is old and the narrative of a Racist Space Colonist hunting down a Space Native American for trophy was -- I repeat! -- very well written while boring me absolutely to tears.
"Uncleftish Beholding"
A short linguistic joke. It's fine.
"Escape from Orbit"
Again, this is excellently written! The main character and his feelings towards his family and colleagues is well-realized, with a ton of little details to make everything truly come alive. This was also an utter bore, however, and and read like the intro to every American "regular family man who can't figure out his personal life nonetheless saves the world" movie from the 90s.
"Enough Rope"
"The Live Coward"
Two installments featuring the character Wing Alek of a future interstellar police who is not allowed to use force, ever, so has to think of more covert ways to uphold law and order. Interesting premise, and again the characters were very well realized, and I'd love to read a ton of stories on this premise of a morally deeply grey space police force who is not allowed to use force, but the "clever" ways the protagonist solves his predicaments were not... so much clever as transparent ("Enough Rope") and convoluted ("The Live Coward"), and didn't deliver the intellectual delight of a work of fiction being smarter than the reader.
November 21, 2021
Enjoyed this collection of Poul's early stories. "A Bicycle Built for Brew" was fun and I could hear Herr Syrup's accent through the writing, love when that happens. Who needs Audible? The two Wing Alak stories ("Enough Rope" and "Live Coward") were faves of mine too, wish he would've done a few more with that canny Galactic League Patrolman.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews