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Fantastic Stories Presents: Science Fiction Super Pack #1: With linked Table of Contents
The editors at www.fantasticstoriesoftheimagination.com present Fantasy and Science Fiction from the Present, Past, and Future. The Cold Calculations by Michael A. Burstein, They Twinkled like Jewels by Philip Jose Farmer, Lingua Franca by Carole McDonnell, Dawn of Flame by Stanley G. Weinbaum, Don't Jump by Jamie Wild, Youth by Isaac Asimov, Digger Don't Take No Requests by John Teehan, Lighter than You Think by Nelson Bond, Garden of Souls by M. Turville Heitz, The Variable Man by Philip K. Dick, Starwisps by Edward J. McFadden III, Gorgono and Slith by Ray Bradbury, I Was There When They Made the Video by Cynthia Ward, The Perfect Host by Theodore Sturgeon, That Universe We Both Dreamed Of by Jay O'Connell, The Lake of Light by Jack Williamson, Lies, Truth, and the Color of Faith by Gerri Leen, Hopscotch and Hottentots by Lou Antonelli, No Place to Hide by James Dorr, Industrial Revolution by Poul Anderson, The Visitor by Ann Wilkes, Travel Diary by Alfred Bester, Encounter in Redgunk by William R. Eakin, The Second Satellite by Edmond Hamilton, The Indecorous Rescue of Clarinda Merwin by Brenda W. Clough, Lost Paradise by C. L. Moore, Siblings by Warren Lapine, Gun for Hire by Mack Reynolds, The Answer by H. Beam Piper, Pythias by Frederik Pohl, Arm of the Law by Harry Harrison, The Good Neighbors by Edgar Pangborn, The Intruder by Emil Petaja, The Six Fingers of Time by R. A. Lafferty, An Ounce of Cure by Alan Edward Nourse, The Hoofer by Walter M. Miller, Jr., The Stellar Legion by Leigh Brackett, Year of the Big Thaw by Marion Zimmer Bradley"
- GenresScience Fiction
608 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2013
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Warren Lapine
90 books5 followersWarren Lapine is a speculative fiction writer and publisher.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 1, 2015
Like the companion fantasy volume, this huge anthology only has one story I didn't think was good, and again, it's a piece of Lovecraft fanfiction. Lovecraft's overwrought prose doesn't do much for me even when Lovecraft himself writes it, and much less so when it's attempted by imitators. And Lovecraft's stories at least have something frightening that happens in them; these two stories (in this volume and the other) only have visions of aspects of the Mythos and crazy people ranting, which isn't scary or interesting.
Everything else was good, occasionally even amazing.
Again like the fantasy volume, it more or less alternates between recent stories and classics by the greats of the field. Unlike the fantasy volume, it contains at least two (and perhaps three or four) stories which I'd read before. It's a rare pleasure, though, to find this many excellent stories that are new to me. I do tend to prefer fantasy to SF, and maybe that's why I preferred the other volume slightly, but I enjoyed this too.
"The Cold Calculations" by Michael A. Burstein is a sad story of an AI whose life is messed up by a human. There's a clear nod to "The Cold Equations".
"They Twinkled Like Jewels" by Philip Jose Farmer starts out dystopian and ends up sci-fi horror. It's well told.
"Lingua Franca" by Carole McDonnell is a lovely social SF story which takes as its springboard the way that some people in the deaf community feel about hearing restoration and its impact on their culture.
"Dawn of Flame" by Stanley G. Weinbaum is post-apocalyptic, far from my favourite subgenre, and the protagonist is pigheadedly fighting against a warlord who seems to be doing a pretty good job of reunifying people and creating peace. It uses the trope of a woman so beautiful that men constantly fail their Stupidity save around her, which annoys me.
"Don't Jump" by Warren Lapine is a classic asteroid-miner tale, the kind of "clever engineer" story that dominated the field for so long, but with a post-New-Wave second layer about what's truly important in life.
"Youth" by Isaac Asimov is one that I think I've read before, many years ago (I read a lot of Asimov as a teenager, and that's now 30 years in the past). I certainly tumbled to the twist ending very early on. Asimov has to maneuver awkwardly around his exposition in order to avoid giving the twist away too soon, and I didn't think it was a great story.
"Digger Don't Take No Requests" by John Teehan is in the blue-collar SF subgenre dominated by Allen Steele. The main character kind of gets his resolution handed to him, rather than achieving it through his own cleverness and effort, which reduces the effectiveness of a story with an enjoyable voice.
"Lighter Than You Think" by Nelson Bond is the story I've definitely read before, a jokey mad-science-gizmo-goes-wrong tale in the tradition of Fredric Brown. It was a bit of light fun.
"Garden of Souls" by M. Turville Heitz is a medium-future-Earth tale which asks some good questions about home and family.
"The Variable Man" by Philip K. Dick is set against an interstellar war, but is basically a mad-science-gizmo/clever-engineer story with a bit of politics thrown in. It's better than that makes it sound.
"Starwisps" by Edward J. McFadden III is a kind of psychic/magic powers story, rather a lovely one, though I thought the ending came a bit too easily and the mixture of names from our world with completely made-up names didn't really work.
"Gorgono and Slith" by Ray Bradbury is a bizarre drug-trip story about the author putting together a magazine. I didn't think much of it.
"I Was There When They Made the Video" by Cynthia Ward is a near-future story, written in that very thin slice of time between people being aware of cyberspace and its possibilities and the demise of CD stores. The music club culture is alien to me, so I didn't identify that well with the characters, but the ideas it raises (but only minimally explores) are good ones to think about.
"The Perfect Host" by Theodore Sturgeon is a brilliant piece of writing, despite, or even because of, the author self-insertion. The voices of the different narrators are distinct (Scalzi should take notes), and the sci-fi horror is genuinely disturbing.
"That Universe We Both Dreamed Of" by Jay O'Connell is a hopeful alien-contact story. I liked it.
"The Lake of Light" by Jack Williamson reads as if it was written based on a pulp cover of a scantily-clad woman singing to lobsterlike monsters while two rugged male adventurers await their chance to rescue her. It's about as good as it sounds.
"Lies, Truth and the Color of Faith" by Gerri Lean is another psychic-powers story, well written and poignant as a woman discovers that her lover is using her on behalf of the enemy.
"The Second Satellite" by Edmond Hamilton is a pulp adventure on an undetected second satellite of Earth (yes, I know, it's really just a device to get the heroes to another world, where they defeat the evil race that looks less like them than the other race).
"Hopscotch and Hottentots" by Lou Antonelli shows us a planet colonised by (South African) humans many generations ago, encountering newly arrived people from Earth, and a situation that parallels the history of South Africa - but resolves much more hopefully. I'm generally all for the hopeful ending, but with the setup it had, it fell a bit flat for me.
"No Place to Hide" by James Dorr shows us revenge gone very bad. The science is a bit dubious, but the story is strong.
"Industrial Revolution" by Poul Anderson starts as a club story, becomes the tale of the revolution against the nasty liberal government that hates capitalism, and ends with the hero getting, in my view, the wrong girl.
"The Visitor" by Ann Wilkes manages to do something new with first contact, which is hard. It also has an ending that makes you wonder which parts of the earlier story were accurate.
"Travel Diary" by Alfred Bester is a lovely feat of writing, alternating the kind of dry, high-level political history that you get in academic books with the diary of an oblivious, self-obsessed wealthy airhead travelling around and missing or misinterpreting the political events.
"Encounter in Redgunk" by William R. Eakin is a Southern US story with a lot of emotional power.
"The Indecorous Rescue of Clarinda Merwin: Or, Reader, I Laid My Eggs in Him" by Brenda W. Clough combines first contact with the early-19th-century novel and makes it work.
"Lost Paradise" by C.L. Moore is one of her Northwest Smith stories, involving a kind of time travel and the end of a civilization. It's her usual powerful writing and lush description.
"Siblings" by Warren Lapine is another first-contact story, in which first contact almost goes terribly bad and then goes extremely well. It reminded me of Murray Leinster's "The Aliens", one of my favourite classic stories.
"Gun for Hire" by Mack Reynolds is one I may have read before, or the twist at the end may just be that obvious. It's a time-travel story, a mob hit man abducted into a peaceful future.
"The Answer" by H. Beam Piper is a postapocalyptic tragedy, rather beautifully done.
"Pythias" by Frederik Pohl is a scary tale of what happens when a man develops ultimate power.
"Arm of the Law" by Harry Harrison shows a robot cop cleaning up a backwater town on Mars. It's amusing and has its ideals written all over it in big, bold letters, like most Harrison stories.
"The Good Neighbours" by Edgar Pangborn is a story almost entirely in "tell" mode and without any real characters, and given those limitations it's surprisingly successful.
"The Intruder" by Emil Petaja is the Lovecraft fanfic I referred to earlier.
"The Six Fingers of Time" by R.A. Lafferty I have read before, fairly recently, so I remembered the ending. The journey was still worthwhile.
"An Ounce of Cure" by Alan Edward Nourse is a satire on medicine and its specialization.
"The Hoofer" by Walter M. Miller, Jr. is a blue-collar-SF tragedy, though the SF part is window dressing, and it would have worked just as well without.
"The Stellar Legion" by Leigh Brackett is good old planetary-romance pulp, basically a British colonial boys'-own-paper tale translated to Venus. For what it is, it's good.
"Year of the Big Thaw" by Marion Zimmer Bradley has hints of the Superman origin story. It finishes with the kind of soft ending that Bradley herself famously condemned, which is an unfortunate way to end the volume, perhaps.
The book closes with some repetitious and typo-ridden boilerplate background on the authors, clearly a rush job.
Though I enjoyed some more than others, these stories are, on average, well above average, and they offer a wonderful smorgasbord of SF in many subgenres, representing every decade (except the 1970s) since 1930. There are a lot of them, too, and so I'd say it's worth the price.
Everything else was good, occasionally even amazing.
Again like the fantasy volume, it more or less alternates between recent stories and classics by the greats of the field. Unlike the fantasy volume, it contains at least two (and perhaps three or four) stories which I'd read before. It's a rare pleasure, though, to find this many excellent stories that are new to me. I do tend to prefer fantasy to SF, and maybe that's why I preferred the other volume slightly, but I enjoyed this too.
"The Cold Calculations" by Michael A. Burstein is a sad story of an AI whose life is messed up by a human. There's a clear nod to "The Cold Equations".
"They Twinkled Like Jewels" by Philip Jose Farmer starts out dystopian and ends up sci-fi horror. It's well told.
"Lingua Franca" by Carole McDonnell is a lovely social SF story which takes as its springboard the way that some people in the deaf community feel about hearing restoration and its impact on their culture.
"Dawn of Flame" by Stanley G. Weinbaum is post-apocalyptic, far from my favourite subgenre, and the protagonist is pigheadedly fighting against a warlord who seems to be doing a pretty good job of reunifying people and creating peace. It uses the trope of a woman so beautiful that men constantly fail their Stupidity save around her, which annoys me.
"Don't Jump" by Warren Lapine is a classic asteroid-miner tale, the kind of "clever engineer" story that dominated the field for so long, but with a post-New-Wave second layer about what's truly important in life.
"Youth" by Isaac Asimov is one that I think I've read before, many years ago (I read a lot of Asimov as a teenager, and that's now 30 years in the past). I certainly tumbled to the twist ending very early on. Asimov has to maneuver awkwardly around his exposition in order to avoid giving the twist away too soon, and I didn't think it was a great story.
"Digger Don't Take No Requests" by John Teehan is in the blue-collar SF subgenre dominated by Allen Steele. The main character kind of gets his resolution handed to him, rather than achieving it through his own cleverness and effort, which reduces the effectiveness of a story with an enjoyable voice.
"Lighter Than You Think" by Nelson Bond is the story I've definitely read before, a jokey mad-science-gizmo-goes-wrong tale in the tradition of Fredric Brown. It was a bit of light fun.
"Garden of Souls" by M. Turville Heitz is a medium-future-Earth tale which asks some good questions about home and family.
"The Variable Man" by Philip K. Dick is set against an interstellar war, but is basically a mad-science-gizmo/clever-engineer story with a bit of politics thrown in. It's better than that makes it sound.
"Starwisps" by Edward J. McFadden III is a kind of psychic/magic powers story, rather a lovely one, though I thought the ending came a bit too easily and the mixture of names from our world with completely made-up names didn't really work.
"Gorgono and Slith" by Ray Bradbury is a bizarre drug-trip story about the author putting together a magazine. I didn't think much of it.
"I Was There When They Made the Video" by Cynthia Ward is a near-future story, written in that very thin slice of time between people being aware of cyberspace and its possibilities and the demise of CD stores. The music club culture is alien to me, so I didn't identify that well with the characters, but the ideas it raises (but only minimally explores) are good ones to think about.
"The Perfect Host" by Theodore Sturgeon is a brilliant piece of writing, despite, or even because of, the author self-insertion. The voices of the different narrators are distinct (Scalzi should take notes), and the sci-fi horror is genuinely disturbing.
"That Universe We Both Dreamed Of" by Jay O'Connell is a hopeful alien-contact story. I liked it.
"The Lake of Light" by Jack Williamson reads as if it was written based on a pulp cover of a scantily-clad woman singing to lobsterlike monsters while two rugged male adventurers await their chance to rescue her. It's about as good as it sounds.
"Lies, Truth and the Color of Faith" by Gerri Lean is another psychic-powers story, well written and poignant as a woman discovers that her lover is using her on behalf of the enemy.
"The Second Satellite" by Edmond Hamilton is a pulp adventure on an undetected second satellite of Earth (yes, I know, it's really just a device to get the heroes to another world, where they defeat the evil race that looks less like them than the other race).
"Hopscotch and Hottentots" by Lou Antonelli shows us a planet colonised by (South African) humans many generations ago, encountering newly arrived people from Earth, and a situation that parallels the history of South Africa - but resolves much more hopefully. I'm generally all for the hopeful ending, but with the setup it had, it fell a bit flat for me.
"No Place to Hide" by James Dorr shows us revenge gone very bad. The science is a bit dubious, but the story is strong.
"Industrial Revolution" by Poul Anderson starts as a club story, becomes the tale of the revolution against the nasty liberal government that hates capitalism, and ends with the hero getting, in my view, the wrong girl.
"The Visitor" by Ann Wilkes manages to do something new with first contact, which is hard. It also has an ending that makes you wonder which parts of the earlier story were accurate.
"Travel Diary" by Alfred Bester is a lovely feat of writing, alternating the kind of dry, high-level political history that you get in academic books with the diary of an oblivious, self-obsessed wealthy airhead travelling around and missing or misinterpreting the political events.
"Encounter in Redgunk" by William R. Eakin is a Southern US story with a lot of emotional power.
"The Indecorous Rescue of Clarinda Merwin: Or, Reader, I Laid My Eggs in Him" by Brenda W. Clough combines first contact with the early-19th-century novel and makes it work.
"Lost Paradise" by C.L. Moore is one of her Northwest Smith stories, involving a kind of time travel and the end of a civilization. It's her usual powerful writing and lush description.
"Siblings" by Warren Lapine is another first-contact story, in which first contact almost goes terribly bad and then goes extremely well. It reminded me of Murray Leinster's "The Aliens", one of my favourite classic stories.
"Gun for Hire" by Mack Reynolds is one I may have read before, or the twist at the end may just be that obvious. It's a time-travel story, a mob hit man abducted into a peaceful future.
"The Answer" by H. Beam Piper is a postapocalyptic tragedy, rather beautifully done.
"Pythias" by Frederik Pohl is a scary tale of what happens when a man develops ultimate power.
"Arm of the Law" by Harry Harrison shows a robot cop cleaning up a backwater town on Mars. It's amusing and has its ideals written all over it in big, bold letters, like most Harrison stories.
"The Good Neighbours" by Edgar Pangborn is a story almost entirely in "tell" mode and without any real characters, and given those limitations it's surprisingly successful.
"The Intruder" by Emil Petaja is the Lovecraft fanfic I referred to earlier.
"The Six Fingers of Time" by R.A. Lafferty I have read before, fairly recently, so I remembered the ending. The journey was still worthwhile.
"An Ounce of Cure" by Alan Edward Nourse is a satire on medicine and its specialization.
"The Hoofer" by Walter M. Miller, Jr. is a blue-collar-SF tragedy, though the SF part is window dressing, and it would have worked just as well without.
"The Stellar Legion" by Leigh Brackett is good old planetary-romance pulp, basically a British colonial boys'-own-paper tale translated to Venus. For what it is, it's good.
"Year of the Big Thaw" by Marion Zimmer Bradley has hints of the Superman origin story. It finishes with the kind of soft ending that Bradley herself famously condemned, which is an unfortunate way to end the volume, perhaps.
The book closes with some repetitious and typo-ridden boilerplate background on the authors, clearly a rush job.
Though I enjoyed some more than others, these stories are, on average, well above average, and they offer a wonderful smorgasbord of SF in many subgenres, representing every decade (except the 1970s) since 1930. There are a lot of them, too, and so I'd say it's worth the price.
January 9, 2020
This was a strange anthology. I included stories as old as 1930 and as new as 2013. There didn't seem to be any reason why a story was included. For the authors I was familiar with the story included was not one of their better ones.
March 7, 2024
Average rating 3.7, but 20 of 38 with at least 4 stars means 52% are really good.
THE COLD CALCULATIONS
by Michael A. Burstein 2001
A rather similar title to Asimov's "The Cold Equations" short story. A similarly harsh moral dilemma is presented that is perhaps slightly more topical in this age of AI. Sadly I still far prefer Asimov's story to the extent that this one was ruined for me. 2 stars.
THEY TWINKLED LIKE JEWELS
by Philip José Farmer 1954
The echoes of WW2 caused a form of cultural PTSD which is here exquisitely expressed in a dire warning to any future readers not to forget the lessons of the past. It seems especially apt now in Feb 2024, as I watch - horrified - the antics of some potential voters on both sides of the pond, flirting again with the parasitic wasps and their promises of re-entry into the Garden of Eden. Truth lies in the gutter. A perfect parable which at least will never be trumped.
5 stars.
LINGUA FRANCA
by Carole McDonnell 2004
Humans rob an alien world of their culture and dignity merely by imposing their language on them. Initially interesting but ultimately I remained confused about the message. 3 stars.
DAWN OF FLAME
by Stanley G. Weinbaum 1939
The strange account of the world recovery 300 years after an apocalypse caused by the aftermath of a plague (that sounds like Covid 19v9), and the atomic wars. Amazingly prophetic given that it was written in 1939. 4 stars.
DON'T JUMP
by Warren Lapine 1998
A very short story about a guide and asteroid mountaineer who discovers his lucrative hobby is far more dangerous than he thought.
2.5 stars.
YOUTH
by Isaac Asimov 1952
The master doesn't disappoint with this imaginative story of youngsters encountering an alien visitation. The hilarious final twist included ensures 4.5 stars.
DIGGER DON'T TAKE NO REQUESTS
by John Teehan 2003
Amusingly told story of a charismatic busker on the Moon trying to avoid being deported back to Earth. 4 stars.
LIGHTER THAN YOU THINK
by Nelson Bond 1957
An tongue in cheek tall story. "“Electricaceous,” transmogrification of the polarifity of certain ingredular cellulations. A series of disentrigulated helicosities, activated by hypermagnetation, set up a disruptular wave motion which results in...”. Cool - 4 stars
GARDEN OF SOULS
by M. Turville Heitz 2006
A future dilemma for humanity is examined through the eyes of two disparite employees of the offworld company tasked with enforcing the evacuation of the last remaining recalcitrants from Earth. The old codgers seem to want to risk extinction rather than leave home. (Predicts a pandemic and climate change). 3.5 stars
THE VARIABLE MAN
by Philip K. Dick 1953
Loved it. PKD takes us to an admittedly cartoon like future world poised on the brink of galactic war. Conflict between science and army ensues precipitated by the accidental arrival of a man from the 50s. PKD seems to me to have almost predicted the use of social-media people-power politics, cool thought given the A-bomb fears prevalent when this was penned. 4.5 stars (Read it before.)
STARWISPS
by Edward J. McFadden 2012
A strange sort of mixture of a fairy take and a quest, reminiscent of Jack Vance but ultimately not quite as satisfying. 2.5 stars.
GORGONO AND SLITH
by Ray Bradbury 1940
Too short, infinitely curtailed but still excellent! 5 stars.
I WAS THERE WHEN THEY MADE THE VIDEO
by Cynthia Ward 1997
A young man goes to the last live concert. A life changing event that forces him to reexamine his belief that downloaded people in robot bodies are dead. 4 stars.
THE PERFECT HOST
by Theodore Sturgeon 1948
A very weird and terrible story that reveals itself like a thick fog slowly clearing ghosts from the disparite and disturbed minds of the various narrators. Darkly metaphysical - 4 stars.
THAT UNIVERSE WE BOTH DREAMED OF
by Jay O'Connell 2013
An alien encounter, I know .. yawn right? .....but no ! this one was really very convincing? Loved it ! 5 stars.
THE LAKE OF LIGHT
by Jack Williamson 1931
A crazy story about an Antarctic expedition set a mere 20 years after that incredible idiot Scott finally killed himself and his pals not long after deliberately getting stuck in the pack ice and having to be actually heroically rescued by the Dundonian whaling Captain Mackay on the Discovery. (Apologies for the rant but if you don't believe that read my late dad's Don Aldridge's book "The Rescue of Captain Scott" which got published despite the attitude of the Scott polar research institute). At least no-one actually died in this equally insane an rather dated adventure. 3 stars.
LIES, TRUTH AND THE COLOR OF FAITH
by Gerri Leen 2011
A Navaho woman pilots a spaceship, she uses her ancient skills to plot a course of peace via the spooky web of her ancestors despite the personal betrayal she can sadly foresee. 3 stars.
THE SECOND SATELLITE
by Edmond Hamilton 1930
A classic ripping yarn written when the jet engine was just a baby. Two airmen attempt to find their missing chum by theorising that if they fligh high enough they might encounter an otherwise invisible moon whipping round the earth too fast to see. Yes.. well , frogs might fly but you never know! 2.5 stars for sheer insanity.
HOPSCOTCH AND HOTTENTOTS
by Lou Antonelli 2011
The only time I'd heard of the word Hottentots was in a wonderful song by the brilliant and satirical pianist Frank Lehre, "We'll all go together when we go, every Hottentot n every Eskimo!" , it was an old record of my dad's. Anyway this story educated me a tad more about them, as it relates the similarities of modern humans meeting up with a planet of ancient Star Trek era emigrants. What came next was unexpectedly boring. 2.3 stars.
NO PLACE TO HIDE
by James Dorr 1991
A horrid fate awaits an entity, once a proud pirate, now reborn in space as he seeks his eternal dark hirsute nemesis. 3.3 stars.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
by Poul Anderson 1963
A story about political intrigue in the asteroid belt. It seems to have some sort of reactionary morality at its core, the private enterprise types versus a social justice faction from Earth. The pervy hero defeating the hot babe only to marry his secretary didn't exactly thrill me. 2 stars.
THE VISITOR
by Ann Wilkes 2007
First contact story, sadly rather short but excellent. 5 stars.
TRAVEL DIARY
by Alfred Bester 1958
This one is so hilariously good, effortlessly satirising the British colonial era, tourism, and including time travel paradoxicality that it should get 6 stars but FTL length compression reduced it back to 5 stars.
ENCOUNTER IN REDGUNK
by William R. Eakin 1998
An American UFO abductee describes his experience. This leads to some transcendental revelations regarding why. Actually really good. 4 stars.
THE INDECOROUS RESCUE OF CLARINDA MERWIN
by Brenda W. Clough 1989
If only all the romantic fiction had been like this I would have absolutely adored it. 5 stars.
LOST PARADISE
by C. L. Moore 1936
A time traveler reveals the secret of the moon people. Rather weird story that dragged a bit but was fairly interesting. 3 stars.
SIBLINGS
by Warren Lapine 1995
A short first contact story with a quite creative and uplifting twist. Perhaps I am overly rating this one as to my surprise and amusement I get an honourable mention and a chance of literary immortality, “Our names are quite likely to be remembered right up there with Aldridge and Armstrong.” So 4 stars (from Chris Aldridge).
GUN FOR HIRE
by Mack Reynolds 1960
Mildly amusing rather well imagined short time travel story with a sadly rather predictable ending but nevertheless enjoyable. 3.5 stars.
THE ANSWER
by H. Beam Piper 1959
Another story prompted by the traumatic aftereffects on our collective psyche of the A-bombs dropped on the Japanese that ended WW2. This one is set a decade in the future in a post apocalyptic 1965 where two physicists are once again exploring the implications of e=mc^2. This time it’s ‘negamatter’ aka antimatter at the root of our cat-astrophic curiosity! 3.5 stars
PYTHIAS
by Frederik Pohl 1955
A rather extreme and quite extraordinary moral problem is presented here. 4 stars.
ARM OF THE LAW
by Harry Harrison 1958
Robocop version 0.1 is trialled on Mars. 3 stars.
THE GOOD NEIGHBORS
by Edgar Pangborn 1960
An appalling type of UFO encounter, the likes of which the average contemporary abductee simply seems to lack the imagination necessary to describe. Did Rick n Morty copy this with their giant naked man episode? Black / Dark / very sunburnt humour - 5 stars.
THE INTRUDER
by Emil Petaja 1940
This story starts innocently enough but then spirals into the depths of a profoundly paranoid imagination to reveal a glimpse of the true unlying horror of the infinite. 3 stars.
THE SIX FINGERS OF TIME
by R. A. Lafferty 1960
A different sort of time travel story, tantalizing the reader with a Faustian offer of arcane secret knowledge regarding the most ancient of mysteries. A hilarious and brilliant idea 5 stars.
AN OUNCE OF CURE
by Alan Edward Nourse 1955
Excellent satirical critique of the NHS, a truly wonderful institution and IMHO the pinnacle of civilization (currently on the cusp of being dismantled by a dumb electorate), but it did have its disadvantages as documented herein. Ironically (as it's now 2024 and I'm 66) I recently declined to know if I'm at risk of a heart aneurysm rather than risk my license, needed to support my 90yo Mum live at home. 4 stars.
THE HOOFER
by Walter M. Miller, Jr. 1955
A tragic tale of an average albeit somewhat alcoholic Native American spaceman who came back to Earth to face the music for the sake of his wife and child. Sad. 3.5 stars.
THE STELLAR LEGION
by Leigh Brackett 1940
A rather horribly dated account of the colonisation of Venus by a group of entitled rebel soldiers. Still echoing the horrors of WW2 this story focuses on a small group, one is a traitor and another xenophobe is meant to be a hero. Ethically and ethnically challenged - 2 stars.
YEAR OF THE BIG THAW
by Marion Zimmer Bradley 1954
Marvellous description of a farmers encounter with a UFO. A straightforward guide to dealing with any encounters just too plum strange to be permitted. 5 stars
THE COLD CALCULATIONS
by Michael A. Burstein 2001
A rather similar title to Asimov's "The Cold Equations" short story. A similarly harsh moral dilemma is presented that is perhaps slightly more topical in this age of AI. Sadly I still far prefer Asimov's story to the extent that this one was ruined for me. 2 stars.
THEY TWINKLED LIKE JEWELS
by Philip José Farmer 1954
The echoes of WW2 caused a form of cultural PTSD which is here exquisitely expressed in a dire warning to any future readers not to forget the lessons of the past. It seems especially apt now in Feb 2024, as I watch - horrified - the antics of some potential voters on both sides of the pond, flirting again with the parasitic wasps and their promises of re-entry into the Garden of Eden. Truth lies in the gutter. A perfect parable which at least will never be trumped.
5 stars.
LINGUA FRANCA
by Carole McDonnell 2004
Humans rob an alien world of their culture and dignity merely by imposing their language on them. Initially interesting but ultimately I remained confused about the message. 3 stars.
DAWN OF FLAME
by Stanley G. Weinbaum 1939
The strange account of the world recovery 300 years after an apocalypse caused by the aftermath of a plague (that sounds like Covid 19v9), and the atomic wars. Amazingly prophetic given that it was written in 1939. 4 stars.
DON'T JUMP
by Warren Lapine 1998
A very short story about a guide and asteroid mountaineer who discovers his lucrative hobby is far more dangerous than he thought.
2.5 stars.
YOUTH
by Isaac Asimov 1952
The master doesn't disappoint with this imaginative story of youngsters encountering an alien visitation. The hilarious final twist included ensures 4.5 stars.
DIGGER DON'T TAKE NO REQUESTS
by John Teehan 2003
Amusingly told story of a charismatic busker on the Moon trying to avoid being deported back to Earth. 4 stars.
LIGHTER THAN YOU THINK
by Nelson Bond 1957
An tongue in cheek tall story. "“Electricaceous,” transmogrification of the polarifity of certain ingredular cellulations. A series of disentrigulated helicosities, activated by hypermagnetation, set up a disruptular wave motion which results in...”. Cool - 4 stars
GARDEN OF SOULS
by M. Turville Heitz 2006
A future dilemma for humanity is examined through the eyes of two disparite employees of the offworld company tasked with enforcing the evacuation of the last remaining recalcitrants from Earth. The old codgers seem to want to risk extinction rather than leave home. (Predicts a pandemic and climate change). 3.5 stars
THE VARIABLE MAN
by Philip K. Dick 1953
Loved it. PKD takes us to an admittedly cartoon like future world poised on the brink of galactic war. Conflict between science and army ensues precipitated by the accidental arrival of a man from the 50s. PKD seems to me to have almost predicted the use of social-media people-power politics, cool thought given the A-bomb fears prevalent when this was penned. 4.5 stars (Read it before.)
STARWISPS
by Edward J. McFadden 2012
A strange sort of mixture of a fairy take and a quest, reminiscent of Jack Vance but ultimately not quite as satisfying. 2.5 stars.
GORGONO AND SLITH
by Ray Bradbury 1940
Too short, infinitely curtailed but still excellent! 5 stars.
I WAS THERE WHEN THEY MADE THE VIDEO
by Cynthia Ward 1997
A young man goes to the last live concert. A life changing event that forces him to reexamine his belief that downloaded people in robot bodies are dead. 4 stars.
THE PERFECT HOST
by Theodore Sturgeon 1948
A very weird and terrible story that reveals itself like a thick fog slowly clearing ghosts from the disparite and disturbed minds of the various narrators. Darkly metaphysical - 4 stars.
THAT UNIVERSE WE BOTH DREAMED OF
by Jay O'Connell 2013
An alien encounter, I know .. yawn right? .....but no ! this one was really very convincing? Loved it ! 5 stars.
THE LAKE OF LIGHT
by Jack Williamson 1931
A crazy story about an Antarctic expedition set a mere 20 years after that incredible idiot Scott finally killed himself and his pals not long after deliberately getting stuck in the pack ice and having to be actually heroically rescued by the Dundonian whaling Captain Mackay on the Discovery. (Apologies for the rant but if you don't believe that read my late dad's Don Aldridge's book "The Rescue of Captain Scott" which got published despite the attitude of the Scott polar research institute). At least no-one actually died in this equally insane an rather dated adventure. 3 stars.
LIES, TRUTH AND THE COLOR OF FAITH
by Gerri Leen 2011
A Navaho woman pilots a spaceship, she uses her ancient skills to plot a course of peace via the spooky web of her ancestors despite the personal betrayal she can sadly foresee. 3 stars.
THE SECOND SATELLITE
by Edmond Hamilton 1930
A classic ripping yarn written when the jet engine was just a baby. Two airmen attempt to find their missing chum by theorising that if they fligh high enough they might encounter an otherwise invisible moon whipping round the earth too fast to see. Yes.. well , frogs might fly but you never know! 2.5 stars for sheer insanity.
HOPSCOTCH AND HOTTENTOTS
by Lou Antonelli 2011
The only time I'd heard of the word Hottentots was in a wonderful song by the brilliant and satirical pianist Frank Lehre, "We'll all go together when we go, every Hottentot n every Eskimo!" , it was an old record of my dad's. Anyway this story educated me a tad more about them, as it relates the similarities of modern humans meeting up with a planet of ancient Star Trek era emigrants. What came next was unexpectedly boring. 2.3 stars.
NO PLACE TO HIDE
by James Dorr 1991
A horrid fate awaits an entity, once a proud pirate, now reborn in space as he seeks his eternal dark hirsute nemesis. 3.3 stars.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
by Poul Anderson 1963
A story about political intrigue in the asteroid belt. It seems to have some sort of reactionary morality at its core, the private enterprise types versus a social justice faction from Earth. The pervy hero defeating the hot babe only to marry his secretary didn't exactly thrill me. 2 stars.
THE VISITOR
by Ann Wilkes 2007
First contact story, sadly rather short but excellent. 5 stars.
TRAVEL DIARY
by Alfred Bester 1958
This one is so hilariously good, effortlessly satirising the British colonial era, tourism, and including time travel paradoxicality that it should get 6 stars but FTL length compression reduced it back to 5 stars.
ENCOUNTER IN REDGUNK
by William R. Eakin 1998
An American UFO abductee describes his experience. This leads to some transcendental revelations regarding why. Actually really good. 4 stars.
THE INDECOROUS RESCUE OF CLARINDA MERWIN
by Brenda W. Clough 1989
If only all the romantic fiction had been like this I would have absolutely adored it. 5 stars.
LOST PARADISE
by C. L. Moore 1936
A time traveler reveals the secret of the moon people. Rather weird story that dragged a bit but was fairly interesting. 3 stars.
SIBLINGS
by Warren Lapine 1995
A short first contact story with a quite creative and uplifting twist. Perhaps I am overly rating this one as to my surprise and amusement I get an honourable mention and a chance of literary immortality, “Our names are quite likely to be remembered right up there with Aldridge and Armstrong.” So 4 stars (from Chris Aldridge).
GUN FOR HIRE
by Mack Reynolds 1960
Mildly amusing rather well imagined short time travel story with a sadly rather predictable ending but nevertheless enjoyable. 3.5 stars.
THE ANSWER
by H. Beam Piper 1959
Another story prompted by the traumatic aftereffects on our collective psyche of the A-bombs dropped on the Japanese that ended WW2. This one is set a decade in the future in a post apocalyptic 1965 where two physicists are once again exploring the implications of e=mc^2. This time it’s ‘negamatter’ aka antimatter at the root of our cat-astrophic curiosity! 3.5 stars
PYTHIAS
by Frederik Pohl 1955
A rather extreme and quite extraordinary moral problem is presented here. 4 stars.
ARM OF THE LAW
by Harry Harrison 1958
Robocop version 0.1 is trialled on Mars. 3 stars.
THE GOOD NEIGHBORS
by Edgar Pangborn 1960
An appalling type of UFO encounter, the likes of which the average contemporary abductee simply seems to lack the imagination necessary to describe. Did Rick n Morty copy this with their giant naked man episode? Black / Dark / very sunburnt humour - 5 stars.
THE INTRUDER
by Emil Petaja 1940
This story starts innocently enough but then spirals into the depths of a profoundly paranoid imagination to reveal a glimpse of the true unlying horror of the infinite. 3 stars.
THE SIX FINGERS OF TIME
by R. A. Lafferty 1960
A different sort of time travel story, tantalizing the reader with a Faustian offer of arcane secret knowledge regarding the most ancient of mysteries. A hilarious and brilliant idea 5 stars.
AN OUNCE OF CURE
by Alan Edward Nourse 1955
Excellent satirical critique of the NHS, a truly wonderful institution and IMHO the pinnacle of civilization (currently on the cusp of being dismantled by a dumb electorate), but it did have its disadvantages as documented herein. Ironically (as it's now 2024 and I'm 66) I recently declined to know if I'm at risk of a heart aneurysm rather than risk my license, needed to support my 90yo Mum live at home. 4 stars.
THE HOOFER
by Walter M. Miller, Jr. 1955
A tragic tale of an average albeit somewhat alcoholic Native American spaceman who came back to Earth to face the music for the sake of his wife and child. Sad. 3.5 stars.
THE STELLAR LEGION
by Leigh Brackett 1940
A rather horribly dated account of the colonisation of Venus by a group of entitled rebel soldiers. Still echoing the horrors of WW2 this story focuses on a small group, one is a traitor and another xenophobe is meant to be a hero. Ethically and ethnically challenged - 2 stars.
YEAR OF THE BIG THAW
by Marion Zimmer Bradley 1954
Marvellous description of a farmers encounter with a UFO. A straightforward guide to dealing with any encounters just too plum strange to be permitted. 5 stars
November 24, 2020
3.5 - I purchased this really cheap, and must say it was worth it. I would read a few stories in between reading novels. Some of the stories are really fantastic, others I didn't really get into. The majority I did enjoy though.
June 17, 2024
Some gems, some misses, but you can't complain when the cost is as low as it was!
November 22, 2016
Science Fiction Super Pack 1
No great stories but a hugely entertaining read. There is quite a variety of stories to suit all science fiction fans.
No great stories but a hugely entertaining read. There is quite a variety of stories to suit all science fiction fans.
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