Star Science Fiction Stories No. 3

Star Science Fiction #3

by Frederik Pohl (Editor/Contributor), Jack Vance (Contributor), Ray Bradbury (Contributor)

With this 2rd collection, STAR Science Fiction Stories demonstrates again the qualities that have made it the outstanding anthology series in its field.
-Writing charged with the excitement of new ideas, informed with knowledge of the discoveries that may soon change our lives.
-Freshness & originality that can be found only in a collection of all new stories, never before published here in either magazines or books.
The latest stories of recognized masters, the startling fiction of brilliant newcomers--they all make their appearance in STAR Science Fiction Stories, the showcase of sf at its best.
It's Such a Beautiful Day by Isaac Asimov
The Strawberry Window by Ray Bradbury
The Deep Range by Arthur C. Clarke
Alien by Lester del Rey
Foster, You're Dead by Philip K. Dick
Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo? by Gerald Kersh
Dance of the Dead by Richard Matheson
Any More at Home Like You? by Chad Oliver
The Devil on Salvation Bluff by Jack Vance
Guinevere for Everybody by Jack Williamson

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories

186 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Frederik George Pohl, Jr. was an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy magazine and its sister magazine IF winning the Hugo for IF three years in a row. His writing also won him three Hugos and multiple Nebula Awards. He became a Nebula Grand Master in 1993.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Star was an anthology series edited in the 1950s by Frederik Pohl that were comprised of original science fiction stories. It was the first such book series, and remains as one of the best ever produced. The authors in this third volume included Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Lester del Rey, Philip K. Dick, Gerald Kersh (one of his few true science fiction appearances), Richard Matheson, Chad Oliver, Jack Vance, and Jack Williamson. Clarke's The Deep Range is something of a classic. My favorites were Vance's The Devil on Salvation Bluff, Dick's Foster, You're Dead, and Williamson's Guinevere For Everybody.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Star, under the direction of writer Frederick Pohl, was an acclaimed sci-fi anthology series filled with original stories. After reading this one, I can see why the series got such good reviews. This is an excellent example of science fiction in the early 1950s -- and a fun read, to boot. It's my favorite of the series so far.

We have a few masters of the genre in here, including Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick. There's also a Ray Bradbury and Lester del Rey, but they're rather lackluster.

This is actually the fourth entry in the Star series. There was a book of three novellas, which Pohl hoped would start another series, but apparently it never caught on.

Pohl's humorous introductions to each story are often just as good as the story ... sometimes better. Don't skip them.

Selections:

* "Editor's Note" by Our Editor. "The pleasures of an anthologist are many and mostly immoral." Oookaaaay ....
* "It's Such a Beautiful Day" by Isaac Asimov. Although there's robots in here (called mekkanos), this is not part of the Good Doctor's robot story cycle. This is a self-contained little story of a future world where nobody goes outside. They travel with an apparatus called a Door, which works like the transporters in Star Trek. However, this story proceeded Star Trek by more than ten years.
* "The Strawberry Window" by Ray Bradbury. One of Bradbury's Mars stories, although self-contained. A Mars colonist knows his wife wants to go back to Earth, so he brings some part of Earth to her. Rather poetic bit of fluff about why humans need to colonize other planets.
* "The Deep Range" by Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke imagines a world where whales are used as cows, with porpoises as dogs. I'm not sure Clarke realized how intelligent whales are/were, or how fragile the seas actually are. Here, the enemy is a ... Greenland Shark?
* "Alien" by Lester del Rey. Despite the title, this has nothing to do with the awesome 1979 Ridley Scott film. Two guys have their boat sunk by a UFO, then they fight for survival against the alien. Kinda predictable.
* "Foster, You're Dead" by Philip K. Dick. Devastating look at American consumerism in a sci-fi cloak. Set in 1971 ... although I wouldn't have minded learning practical things like making knives, or having tables that took away the dishes for you, 1971 turned out to be not all that much different from the 1950s. Still, this look at a boy who just wants his family to have a bomb shelter like all the other families in town, dammit, still packs a powerful punch.
* "Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?" By Gerald Kersh. Unlike all of the other stories in this collection, this one had been previously published in England. Set just after WWII, an English reporter meets a most unusual Corporal.
* "Dance of the Dead" by Richard Matheson. Set in the 1980s some unspecified time after WWIII, because everybody in the 1950s was convinced WWIII would happen at any time. 1987 music was described as "a frenzy of twisted dissonances." Hey, now.
* "Anymore at Home Like You?" By Chad Oliver. An alien crash lands in California, and is caught by the natives. Things aren't what they seem in this delightful little story.
* "The Devil on Salvation Bluff" by Jack Vance. Religious humans try to colonize a planet and turn it into Earth II. The natives have other ideas. Seems like this story was inspiration for R. A. Lafferty.
* "Guinevere for Everybody" by Jack Williamson. Set in 1997, a computer-run business comes up with an idea to sell women in huge vending machines. But humans aren't taking this lying down ... so to speak.

[Kadin · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It's Such A Beautiful Day" by Isaac Asimov = 5 stars
"The Strawberry Window" by Ray Bradbury = 5 stars
"The Deep Range" by Arthur C. Clarke = 3 stars
"Alien" by Lester del Rey = 4 stars
"Foster, You're Dead" by Philip K. Dick = 5 stars
"Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo" by Gerald Kersh = 5 stars
"Dance of the Dead" by Richard Matheson = 3 stars
"Anyone at Home Like You?" by Chad Oliver = 4 stars
"The Devil on Salvation Bluff" by Jack Vance = 2 stars
"Guinevere for Everybody" by Jack Williamson = 3 stars
Average rating = 3.9

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know I'll sound like a boomer when I saw this, but they just don't write sci-fi like they used to. I used these stories as a palette cleanser of sorts between all the other books I was reading and they were honestly perfect for that. I almost need decompression time after I read to let go of the world I was just in, and these helped massively...by being jarring and strange and pretty thought-provoking for stories of ~15 pages or less. Science fiction of this era was an absolute fever dream and I love it so much. I found an early edition of this book at Goodwill, leather-bound with beautifully yellowed pages. A new member of the permanent collection for sure.

[Richard Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not every story in this collection is a five starrer but no anthology that includes Philip K Dick's magisterial dystopia 'Foster, You're Dead' can reasonably be given a lesser rating. If there's a better satire on the fear of nuclear war being used as an instrument of social control, I want to know about it.

Elsewhere, the very fine descriptive writing in Matheson's 'Dance of the Dead' is, 67 years on, marred by a racism in the description of African-American music that may, at the time, have been neither conscious nor intentional but which has led to the piece as a whole dating rather badly.

There's good, solid, competent writing from Asimov, Bradbury and Arthur C Clarke and a turn from Jack Vance that does the 'earth settlers underestimate apparently primitive aliens' thing better than LeGuin managed in 'The Word for World is Forest', twenty-odd years later.

It's a caution to think that, of the ten authors appearing here, at least eight are, close to 70 years on, still known and that four, Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke and Dick, are still in print. This from a genre that was thought of as ephemeral and transitory.

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

3.5/5 (Collated rating: Good)

"Ballantine Books’ illustrious science fictional program started with a bang–Star Science Fiction Stories. According to Mike Ashley’s Transformations: The Story of Science-Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970 Frederik Pohl’s anthology series of original (mostly) stories was “intended as both a showcase of Ballantine’s authors and a lure to new writers.” Paying better rates than [...]"

[Johnny · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very enjoyable array of character stories based around things to do with science fiction. I found most of the short stories quite forgettable

[George Kasnic · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sought out this book having read an earlier one in the series. This is classic sci-fi, as old as I am, found on thrift books. Every story is a home run, a heavy hitting line up of giants of the genre, some prior to their anointment. Good writing complemented by amazing prescience, which is the acid test of science fiction.

[Julian White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Less battered paperback copy - with the 3 intact; SBN (predates ISBN) 345027191095 © 1954

An interesting 'historical' artifact - the introduction refers to young/new authors such as Philip K Disk and Jack Vance... and of course all are now dead (not too surprising after 66 years!) - and several authors' names I don't recognise. I can only remember one story I'd read before - the Clarke Deep Range - and since others are from Asimov, Bradbury, Matheson that's saying something. My tolerance for Dick's work - and that of Vance, in fact - is low so these 'early' stories work perhaps because the later style is what I dislike.

A note - the Star anthologies were published for several years (6) - and #1 included what I regard as one of, if not the, best short stories ever, Arthur C Clarke's The Nine Billion Names of God.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent collection of short science fiction stories by established authors.

[Catwall · Rating 5 out of 5]

very intertaining, published in 1954, many of the authors of these short stories also wrote for The Twilight Zone tv show