Turning On

by Damon Knight

Brilliant invention, a rich sense of humour, an equal facility for describing ideas and technologies - these are the ingredients of Knight's extraordinary talent as an SF writer. This collection of stories takes the reader from the death bed of the last man on earth to the unlikely demise of a vegetable vampire - and proves that Knight was at the top of his form.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, and critic.
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "Resilience", was published in 1941. He is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", which was adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was a recipient of the Hugo Award, founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop, and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop. Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife Kate Wilhelm.

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Semper Fi - 3.5/5 - An interesting mid-60s story about the burgeoning virtual reality market. Brings up a few interesting things that are semi-prescient to the current AI and terminally online people that plague the world today

The Big Pat Boom - 4/5 - Silly little story about some tourist aliens who value some particularly bizarre items and drive up a market for them

Man in the Jar - 4/5 - An Earthman traps an alien in a jar that he suspects is a specific hidden type that can create diamonds. The perfect kind of story for the short form

Mary - 2.5/5 - It's a story of a young woman in, what is alluded to, a post-apocalyptic (maybe dystopian) society. She falls in love with some guy but it's semi-forbidden apparently. However there isn't any kind of punishment for them being in love, people around them just say they can't be together without ever really explaining why. Inevitably, the stakes feel toothless and this genre has be walked so many times that this will end up being very forgettable

Auto-Da-Fe - 3/5 - The last man on Earth who has lived many centuries is being cared for by super intelligent dogs in his elderly age. The dogs themselves only have one male left but need the permission of the man to breed. He's an asshole so you can imagine that it doesn't go well

To the Pure - 2.5/5 - A terrible man bullies an alien visiting Earth to fix a piece of equipment. He's a dick to his wife as well but he does get some comeuppance in the end

Eripmav - 4/5 - Extremely short story of a space mission that ran into a creature that is essentially a vampire plant. It was pretty interesting and I wish it would have been longer

Backward, O Time - 3/5 - Humans live their lives in reverse. It's pretty interesting as a concept and some of the individual moments are pretty clever but when they are all put together into an overall story it's way too absurd

The Night of Lies - 3/5 - The last 4 humans alive after an alien invasion (or are they?) celebrate their survival

Maid to Measure - 2/5 - Weird, slightly horny story. Maybe about witches or something

Collector's Item - 2.5/5 - Last man on Earth story. It's fine, but I'll forget it by tomorrow

A Likely Story - 2/5 - A science fiction writer is going to a dinner party with other science fiction writers and a bunch of inexplicable stuff occurs. The attendants of the party are mostly thinly disguised versions of actual SF authors and it feels like it was written for them more than a random reader

Don't Live in the Past - 3.5/5 - A police officer in a long running dystopian society is sent back, and then becomes stuck, in time to investigate things that happened early in the regimes existence. It's an interesting idea but he had some weird and goofy stuff thrown in that really brings the story down.

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing too terribly interesting...and again (like with Far Out) a bit too much emphasis on puns and suchlike smirky trivia. Like the annoying "Eripmav." "Backward O Time" although a well-trodden path has an interesting effect--like Zelazny's "Divine Madness" (I think it was called). The thing about pats was too obvious. "Mary" uncharacteristic high-toned fantasy. All in all, looked like they came out of some fan's insider newsletter.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Damon Knight, the man who wrote, among other things, "To Serve Man," came out with this collection of short stories very early in his career, which I suppose may be as good an excuse as any. There are one or two passably interesting stories here, but as a whole they portray dull premises and uninteresting characters with half-baked prose. Disappointing.

[Scott Golden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Half of this book, the substantive stories, reappears in "The Best of Damon Knight"; the other half -- slight but interesting shorter pieces -- serve as above-average filler. Even at his most pedestrian, Knight still wrote better than half the SF field of his time. Recommended.