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I tried but wasn’t able to finish before book club. At least now I can finish on regular speed since I am no longer rushing to finish!

First appearance of Lazarus Long in this collection of stories, yet he’s been alive through all of them!

What?!?

Ridiculous, fun, at times disturbing, and great insight into the mind of a cat!

"Misfit" (1939). A math savant is discovered among a crew of air miners on an asteroid. His family on Earth refused the Covenant (last seen in the previous story). Just when the story was going somewhere it ends. Weird.

🤯

"Coventry" (1940) shows a post-2nd-revolution Earth with some space sprinkled in at the end just for fun, starring a man who gives into violence and is given choice of exile or brainwashing.

Hilarious and captivating!

Resting this book is making me want to read 1984 again.

"If This Goes On--" (1940). Ok this one is going to stick with me. At least, as long as we are in our current political situation in the United States, with a fascist cult leader who uses religion, moral issues, propaganda, and lies, as divisive 'us vs. them' wedges for political gain, and who actually became president, twice. Heinlein basically predicted the current Trump era of American politics.

Part of the way through "If This Goes On--" I dropped the book and it split in half. This poor front coverless, back coverless, nearly exhausted spine glue and Scotch(TM) tape mended volume is really trying to hold itself together long enough for me to finish it, so it can earn its rest in the paper recycler. "Don't worry, she'll hold together. (Come on baby, hold together!)"

"The Menace from Earth" (1957) - a charming story about a tour guide that gives zero-g flightsuit experiences to space tourists!

A little catching up to do of stories I skipped reviewing:

"The Black Pits of Luna" (1947). I barely recovered losing (and finding) a son at the zoo. This guy does that on the Moon!

"--We Also Walk Dogs" (1941). This story wandered oddly. Bribing a scientist to implement a gravity altering technology for a government conference!

"Searchlight" (1962). Somebody ELSE got lost on the Moon. Music saves the day!

"Abdication" by A. E. Van Vogt and E. Mayne Hull (1943). Double crossed in outer space, with invisibility cloaks and goggles that let you see people wearing invisibility cloaks.

"The Hurkle is a Happy Beast" by Theodore Sturgeon (1949). An alien whose powers of invisibility are reversed on Earth, visits an Earth middle school classroom.

An excerpt from _The Skylark of Space_ (a novel) by Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D. (1928). Wow! A nearly 100 year old science fiction story. It was one of my favorites in the collection. Astronauts face off against a vastly superior alien who can control matter at the atomic level, but, much like a Star Trek replicator that doesn't have the pattern, the alien is mystified and can't control human physiology.

“Science Fiction, The Sprit of Youth” by illustrator Frank R. Paul (1939) is the very first World Con guest of honor speech. Interesting from an historical perspective for sure.

"The Meaning of the Word 'Impossible'" by Willy Ley (1967), a speech he gave. Proving that the impossible is... possible!

"Sanity" by Fritz Leiber (1944). Up is down. Left is right. Sanity is insanity. And vice versa.

"The Long Watch" by Robert Heinlein (1949) which sounded so familiar, until I realized why--I already read this story as part of Heinlein's story collection, The Past through Tomorrow. c.f. https://www.goodreads.com/user_status... . My thoughts remain the same as before!

"The Prophets of Doom" by Hugo Gernsback (his World Con guest of honor speech in 1952) is a funny little speech where Hugo (the man the Hugo Awards are named after) belittles predictions across human history.

"Dust" by Lloyd Eshbach (1939) definitely suffers scientifically from having been written well before we humans figured out how to get to the Moon and back. I love how "neo-hydrogen" saves the main character's bacon from the infestation that befalls his spacecraft (that is Earth to Moon and back to Earth worthy).

"The Monster" by Lester del Rey (1951). Shades of the novel, Frankenstein, and also Asimov's early Robot stories, but set in a future society where humans are trying to wage war using expendable and short-lived constructs.

“Dog Star” by Arthur C. Clarke (1962). Short. Sweet. Dogs are humans’ best friends, even humans living on the moon.

“Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell — what a treat to stumble across the story that The Thing (the movie) is based upon without knowing ahead of time that was the case! The movie is much better. The story is mostly talking and actually white boring. 😆