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The Frozen Planet and four other science-fiction novellas
The Frozen Planet and four other science-fiction novellas (never published in book form before)
Includes:
- the frozen planet (1961) - keith laumer
- growing season (1959) - f.l. wallace
- cinderella story (1961) - allen kim lang
- the quality of mercy (1960)- daniel keyes
- gleaners (1960) - clifford d. simak
Includes:
- the frozen planet (1961) - keith laumer
- growing season (1959) - f.l. wallace
- cinderella story (1961) - allen kim lang
- the quality of mercy (1960)- daniel keyes
- gleaners (1960) - clifford d. simak
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
3 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Keith Laumer
498 books225 followersJohn Keith Laumer was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force and a U.S. diplomat. His brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz (also mentioned in Keith's The Other Side of Time).
Keith Laumer (aka J.K Laumer, J. Keith Laumer) is best known for his Bolo stories and his satirical Retief series. The former chronicles the evolution of juggernaut-sized tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. In an interview with Paul Walker of Luna Monthly, Laumer states "I had no shortage of iniquitous memories of the Foreign Service."
Four of his shorter works received Hugo or Nebula Award nominations (one of them, "In the Queue", received nominations for both) and his novel A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966.
During the peak years of 1959–1971, Laumer was a prolific science fiction writer, with his novels tending to follow one of two patterns: fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superman protagonists, self-sacrifice and transcendence or, broad comedies, sometimes of the over-the-top variety.
In 1971, Laumer suffered a stroke while working on the novel The Ultimax Man. As a result, he was unable to write for a few years. As he explained in an interview with Charles Platt published in The Dream Makers (1987), he refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis. He came up with an alternative explanation and developed an alternative (and very painful) treatment program. Although he was unable to write in the early 1970s, he had a number of books which were in the pipeline at the time of the stroke published during that time.
In the mid-1970s, Laumer partially recovered from the stroke and resumed writing. However, the quality of his work suffered and his career declined (Piers Anthony, How Precious Was That While, 2002). In later years Laumer also reused scenarios and characters from his earlier works to create "new" books, which some critics felt was to their detriment:
Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn't seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisnart mélange of past books.
-- Somtow Sucharitkul (Washington Post, Mar 27, 1983. p. BW11)
His Bolo creations were popular enough that other authors have written standalone science-fiction novels about them.
Laumer was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the U.S. magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News and Flying Models, as well as the British magazine Aero Modeler. He published one book on the subject, How to Design and Build Flying Models in 1960. His later designs were mostly gas-powered free flight planes, and had a whimsical charm with names to match, like the "Twin Lizzie" and the "Lulla-Bi". His designs are still being revisited, reinvented and built today.
Keith Laumer (aka J.K Laumer, J. Keith Laumer) is best known for his Bolo stories and his satirical Retief series. The former chronicles the evolution of juggernaut-sized tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. In an interview with Paul Walker of Luna Monthly, Laumer states "I had no shortage of iniquitous memories of the Foreign Service."
Four of his shorter works received Hugo or Nebula Award nominations (one of them, "In the Queue", received nominations for both) and his novel A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966.
During the peak years of 1959–1971, Laumer was a prolific science fiction writer, with his novels tending to follow one of two patterns: fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superman protagonists, self-sacrifice and transcendence or, broad comedies, sometimes of the over-the-top variety.
In 1971, Laumer suffered a stroke while working on the novel The Ultimax Man. As a result, he was unable to write for a few years. As he explained in an interview with Charles Platt published in The Dream Makers (1987), he refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis. He came up with an alternative explanation and developed an alternative (and very painful) treatment program. Although he was unable to write in the early 1970s, he had a number of books which were in the pipeline at the time of the stroke published during that time.
In the mid-1970s, Laumer partially recovered from the stroke and resumed writing. However, the quality of his work suffered and his career declined (Piers Anthony, How Precious Was That While, 2002). In later years Laumer also reused scenarios and characters from his earlier works to create "new" books, which some critics felt was to their detriment:
Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn't seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisnart mélange of past books.
-- Somtow Sucharitkul (Washington Post, Mar 27, 1983. p. BW11)
His Bolo creations were popular enough that other authors have written standalone science-fiction novels about them.
Laumer was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the U.S. magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News and Flying Models, as well as the British magazine Aero Modeler. He published one book on the subject, How to Design and Build Flying Models in 1960. His later designs were mostly gas-powered free flight planes, and had a whimsical charm with names to match, like the "Twin Lizzie" and the "Lulla-Bi". His designs are still being revisited, reinvented and built today.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 7, 2020
CONTENTS
▪️"The Frozen Planet" - Keith Laumer
▪️"Growing Season" - F. L. Wallace
▪️"Cinderella Story" - Allen Kim Lang
▪️"The Quality of Mercy" - Daniel Keyes
▪️"Gleaners" - Clifford D. Simak
The first thing to note is that despite what is listed here on Goodreads and also is printed on the cover, the title of this book is not The Frozen Planet and other science-fiction novellas; the correct title, as given both on the title page and in the copyright information, is The Frozen Planet and Other Stories.
I was able to locate some of the pertinent information not given in the book itself on the science fiction and fantasy website ISFDb. The book does not list the editor, the cover artist, or the original sources for the stories. ISFDb lists all the stories as having been published originally in If in the years 1959-1961, all during the period when H. L. Gold was editing the magazine. The editor of the book is Samuel H. Post; the cover artist is Richard Powers.
It was never easy to predict the quality of stories by Keith Laumer. A few would be fine and some would be very poor. Laumer was principally known for his series of routine adventures featuring Retief, the universe's toughest diplomat. These were rarely anything special, but they were evidently quite popular. "The Frozen Planet" is a routine Retief tale, with somewhat more violence than usual.
F. L. Wallace was an author who was so closely associated with Galaxy, another science fiction magazine that was edited by H. L. Gold, that he was one of the ten frequent contributors of fiction to the magazine who were pictured on the cover of Galaxy's second anniversary issue in October, 1952. I believe that he is largely forgotten now, though. His story "Growing Season" tells of a man who is traveling on a spaceship that is looking for planets that would be useful to humanity. His job, to which he is intensely dedicated, is to tend a combination of plant and machine which supplies food for the ship's crew. Someone seems to be trying to sabotage his efforts, but he does not know who or why.
Allen Kim Lang, still living at the age of 91 as I am writing this in 2020, has a comic story about aliens among us, "Cinderella Story." An Earth woman in the employ of the United States government goes to work undercover at a most peculiar bank. She becomes closely involved with aliens, some with sinister intentions and others who are purely benevolent. This results in major changes in her life, including her sudden horror at the thought of eating lobster. This is a very lightweight story, with one major flaw; the engaging character of Treasury Department employee Monitor J-12 suddenly disappears halfway through the story, when readers would still expect him to return.
Daniel Keyes will forever be known as the author of one of the most famous stories in the history of science fiction, "Flowers for Algernon," which was later expanded into a Nebula Award-winning novel of the same title. "The Quality of Mercy" is a more traditional science fiction tale, but one with strong horror elements as well. Two very different brothers, the usually meek Paul and the more unruly Vic, are the sons of the man who was the principal designer of the Dispatcher, the allegedly infallible computer that makes some of the most important decisions for humanity. One of the chief functions of the computer is deciding when people should be put to death, so that their body parts may be used by others. Vic is aware that the Dispatcher has been making serious mistakes (the horrible details of which are deliberately queasily funny). He intends to destroy his father's invention and requests Paul's help.
I think that Clifford D. Simak's time travel tale "Gleaners" is the best story in the book. Time travel is run - far from smoothly - by an agency beset with problems. Some of this reminded me of Connie Willis's time travel series, in which things frequently go awry. The principal character is one of the people in charge in the agency, trying to make decisions that will affect not only the time travelers but the entire world. The end of the story, while perfectly appropriate, is surprising and most satisfactory.
I don't think that any of the stories are really bad, although the Laumer story is certainly uninspired. I think the Keyes story and particularly the Simak are quite good.
▪️"The Frozen Planet" - Keith Laumer
▪️"Growing Season" - F. L. Wallace
▪️"Cinderella Story" - Allen Kim Lang
▪️"The Quality of Mercy" - Daniel Keyes
▪️"Gleaners" - Clifford D. Simak
The first thing to note is that despite what is listed here on Goodreads and also is printed on the cover, the title of this book is not The Frozen Planet and other science-fiction novellas; the correct title, as given both on the title page and in the copyright information, is The Frozen Planet and Other Stories.
I was able to locate some of the pertinent information not given in the book itself on the science fiction and fantasy website ISFDb. The book does not list the editor, the cover artist, or the original sources for the stories. ISFDb lists all the stories as having been published originally in If in the years 1959-1961, all during the period when H. L. Gold was editing the magazine. The editor of the book is Samuel H. Post; the cover artist is Richard Powers.
It was never easy to predict the quality of stories by Keith Laumer. A few would be fine and some would be very poor. Laumer was principally known for his series of routine adventures featuring Retief, the universe's toughest diplomat. These were rarely anything special, but they were evidently quite popular. "The Frozen Planet" is a routine Retief tale, with somewhat more violence than usual.
F. L. Wallace was an author who was so closely associated with Galaxy, another science fiction magazine that was edited by H. L. Gold, that he was one of the ten frequent contributors of fiction to the magazine who were pictured on the cover of Galaxy's second anniversary issue in October, 1952. I believe that he is largely forgotten now, though. His story "Growing Season" tells of a man who is traveling on a spaceship that is looking for planets that would be useful to humanity. His job, to which he is intensely dedicated, is to tend a combination of plant and machine which supplies food for the ship's crew. Someone seems to be trying to sabotage his efforts, but he does not know who or why.
Allen Kim Lang, still living at the age of 91 as I am writing this in 2020, has a comic story about aliens among us, "Cinderella Story." An Earth woman in the employ of the United States government goes to work undercover at a most peculiar bank. She becomes closely involved with aliens, some with sinister intentions and others who are purely benevolent. This results in major changes in her life, including her sudden horror at the thought of eating lobster. This is a very lightweight story, with one major flaw; the engaging character of Treasury Department employee Monitor J-12 suddenly disappears halfway through the story, when readers would still expect him to return.
Daniel Keyes will forever be known as the author of one of the most famous stories in the history of science fiction, "Flowers for Algernon," which was later expanded into a Nebula Award-winning novel of the same title. "The Quality of Mercy" is a more traditional science fiction tale, but one with strong horror elements as well. Two very different brothers, the usually meek Paul and the more unruly Vic, are the sons of the man who was the principal designer of the Dispatcher, the allegedly infallible computer that makes some of the most important decisions for humanity. One of the chief functions of the computer is deciding when people should be put to death, so that their body parts may be used by others. Vic is aware that the Dispatcher has been making serious mistakes (the horrible details of which are deliberately queasily funny). He intends to destroy his father's invention and requests Paul's help.
I think that Clifford D. Simak's time travel tale "Gleaners" is the best story in the book. Time travel is run - far from smoothly - by an agency beset with problems. Some of this reminded me of Connie Willis's time travel series, in which things frequently go awry. The principal character is one of the people in charge in the agency, trying to make decisions that will affect not only the time travelers but the entire world. The end of the story, while perfectly appropriate, is surprising and most satisfactory.
I don't think that any of the stories are really bad, although the Laumer story is certainly uninspired. I think the Keyes story and particularly the Simak are quite good.
November 8, 2015
I read the book in the 1960's.
Includes:
- The Frozen Planet (1961) - Keith Laumer
- Growing Season (1959) - F.L. Wallace
- Cinderella Story (1961) - Allen Kim Lang
- The Quality of Mercy (1960)- Daniel Keyes
- Gleaners (1960) - Clifford D. Simak
Includes:
- The Frozen Planet (1961) - Keith Laumer
- Growing Season (1959) - F.L. Wallace
- Cinderella Story (1961) - Allen Kim Lang
- The Quality of Mercy (1960)- Daniel Keyes
- Gleaners (1960) - Clifford D. Simak
October 23, 2015
Short novels, relaxing. Especially the last "Gleaners" by Clifford D. Simak was good.
October 27, 2022
5 Classic space adventure stories. Real pulp fiction stuff but still a very enjoyable read.
August 14, 2023
weird, funny little concepts, but the characters are all Off
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews