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ISFDB<\/a><\/p>\n Other reviews:1<\/sup> _____________________<\/p>\n Editor, Frederik Pohl<\/p>\n Fiction: Non-fiction: _____________________<\/p>\n Frederik Pohl is best known as a writer but he was also a successful editor for a large part of his life. This part of his career spanned three decades, and had four distinct phases: the first was his editorship of Astonishing Stories<\/em> and Super Science Stories<\/em> in the early 1940s; the second was his editorship of the Star Science Fiction<\/em> anthology series in the 1950s; the third was his editorship of Galaxy<\/em>, If<\/em>, Worlds of Tomorrow<\/em>, etc. in the 1960s; the last was his stint as an editor for Bantam Books in the early 1970s. Pohl picks a traditional story to start the volume, a piece that wouldn\u2019t be out of place in that period\u2019s Astounding<\/em> magazine: Country Doctor<\/em><\/strong> by William Morrison. This begins on Mars when a Dr Meltzer is summoned to what he thinks is an accident at a nearby spaceport. Once he gets there he finds that the ship is okay but that it contains a huge \u201cspace cow\u201d which is sick. The authorities want him to treat it, something which involves getting suited up and descending into the beast\u2019s digestive system:<\/p>\n The two men with him stretched out a plastic ladder. In the low gravity of Mars, climbing forty feet was no problem. Dr. Meltzer began to pull his way up. As he went higher, he noticed that the great mouth was slowly opening. One of the men had poked the creature with an electric prod. This readable and straightforward story largely involves the doctor wandering around examining the innards of the beast until he concludes his investigation. The ending, where (spoiler) the doctor cures the alien, sees the writer pulling a rabbit out of a hat (the solution involves the small creatures Meltzer finds swimming around inside the space cow\u2014its offspring). This is an enjoyable tale for all that, and I wondered whether the story influenced or inspired James White to write his \u2018Sector General\u2019 series. Already the office was a maelstrom. The clattering tickers, blinking boards and racing messengers spelled out the latest, hottest word from markets in London, Paris, Milan, Vienna. Soon New York would chime in, then Chicago, then San Francisco. After this prescient beginning Born gets a call from Loring, a scientist who Born has been funding to build a time machine. Loring says that his experiments have suceeded, and that mice and rabbits sent to the future have returned safely. Born then goes to the lab, and travels two years into the future to get financial information that will enable him to make a fortune. I glanced down my neck secretly at the two snowy hillocks, ruby peaked, that were pushing out my blouse tautly without the aid of a brassiere. I decided they\u2019d more than do. So I turned away scornfully as his vast top-down convertible cruised past my street lamp. I struck my hip and a big match against the fluted column, and lit a cigarette. I was Lili Marlene to a T\u2014or rather to a V-neckline. (I must tell you that my command of earth-idiom and allusion is remarkable, but if you\u2019d had my training you wouldn\u2019t wonder.) After the alien gets in Slickie Millane\u2019s car they go for a drive. When they pull over, it reveals itself to Millane:<\/p>\n As the hand of his encircling arm began to explore my prize possessions, I drew away a bit, not frustratingly, and informed him, \u201cSlickie dear, I am from Galaxy Center . . .\u201d The rest of this amusing piece details Slickie\u2019s multiple shootings of the alien\/femme fatale until there is a climactic scene that involves Millane witnessing a body transformation that forever traumatises him. Probably the best piece in the collection. He found the contraption in a blackberry patch when he was hunting cows. Darkness was sifting down through the tall stand of poplar trees and he couldn\u2019t make it out too well and he couldn\u2019t spend much time to look at it because Uncle Eb had been plenty sore about his missing the two heifers and if it took too long to find them Uncle Eb more than likely would take the strap to him again and he\u2019d had about all he could stand for one day. Already he\u2019d had to go without his supper because he\u2019d forgotten to go down to the spring for a bucket of cold water. And Aunt Em had been after him all day because he was so no-good at weeding the garden.\u00a0 p. 57<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We learn more about Johnny\u2019s domestic circumstances and his harsh treatment before he eventually befriends the dying aliens. After they learn of Johnny\u2019s treatment (by telepathy\u2014they never leave the ship) they suggest an exchange of gifts: the glowing jewel he receives from them in exchange for his broken penknife (spoiler) changes the attitude of his step-parents towards him for the better. \u201cYoung woman in here asking after you, Mr. Lattery. Did she find you? I told her where your place is.\u201d Blah, blah, blah. Eventually, Marjorie gets dumped, and Lattery and Tavia the time-traveller get together. Some of the fluff is swapped for explanations about chronoclasms, changes caused by time-travellers, and how she is pursued by men from the future who want her to return to her own time. Despite all this Lattery and Tavia get married, and we are soon back to the fluff again:<\/p>\n \u201cM\u2019m,\u201d mumbled Tavia. \u201cI think I rather like Twentieth Century marriage.\u201d Meanwhile, Tavia tells Lattery of devices he can \u201cinvent\u201d so he\u2019ll have an income to support them both. It isn\u2019t long before the men from the future turn up: initially it is Dr Colbie waving a white flag (the result of a shooting incident two days later) but his words fall on deaf ears. Then (spoiler) Tavia gets pregnant, and then she disappears. \u201cEvery one of your senses has been reversed. You feel cold for heat, heat for cold, smooth for rough, rough for smooth, sour for sweet, sweet for sour, and so forth. And you see colors backward.\u201d This last twist, the idea that a stimulant would act as a sedative, breaks the story\u2019s logic, as this has nothing to do with the reversed senses Stone supposedly suffers from (this effect would require a completely different biochemistry). \u201cWhat smells purple?\u201d he demanded.\u00a0 p. 113<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So Proudly We Hail<\/em><\/strong> by Judith Merril is a slow burn which has a woman and her partner waiting to board a colony spaceship to Mars. Initially it appears that they have both been accepted as colonists, but we eventually find out that the woman has been \u201cpink-slipped\u201d\u2014rejected\u2014for health reasons. She conceals this from her partner. She didn\u2019t show Will the slips that night. She had to think it through first, decide what to do, how to tell him. Because as soon as the lesson of failure was thoroughly learned for herself, another piece of knowledge took shape within her. The man says eventually says goodbye in a tense, passionate scene, and goes off to induction. The story (spoiler) ends tragically as she runs onto the launch pad during the rocket\u2019s lift off.6<\/sup> \u201cCora,\u201d he said, eating his lunch, relaxing, beginning to enthuse again, \u201cyou know what attics are? They\u2019re Time Machines, in which old, dim-witted men like me can travel back forty years to a time when it was summer all year round and children raided ice wagons. Remember how it tasted? You held the ice in your handkerchief. It was like sucking the flavor of linen and snow at the same time.\u201d He (spoiler) eventually converts the attic into a time machine which takes him back to his past. \u201cDo you feel that you are dreaming now?\u201d Dr. Rasp telepathized gently. The story eventually becomes a duel between the two doctors to break Hooten\u2019s delusion, and Hooten oscillates ever more rapidly between Scott\u2019s sodium pentothal and Rasp\u2019s hypnosis until something finally gives. At that point (spoiler) both the psychiatrists find themselves in the other\u2019s world. The mate was making a routine check of the few, emergency, rarely-or-never-used viewports in the ship\u2019s hull. In the unthinkable event of disaster to the control room\u2014from which the stars were normally viewed\u2014 the ship could be navigated by hand with men at such ports as this, reporting to a jury-rigged control room. The mate was simply verifying that they were ready for use. But he uncovered the stars. And Joe looked. The whole story seems to be an anti-sense of wonder piece, and even when they arrive and land on Pluto months later his time there is quite low-key. \u201cWell, they believe that when they have listed all His names\u2014and they reckon that there are about nine billion of them\u2014God\u2019s purpose will be achieved. The human race will have finished what it was created to do, and there won\u2019t be any point in carrying on. Indeed, the very idea is something like blasphemy.\u201d As the process nears completion the engineers become concerned\u2014not about the monks\u2019 beliefs, but about what their reactions may be when nothing happens. They decide to delay the project until they can arrange to be on the way out of the country when the project finishes. \u201cThere she is!\u201d called Chuck, pointing down into the valley. \u201cAin\u2019t she beautiful!\u201d The first time I read this I hated the ending, which struck me as a religious (irrational) finish to a SF (rational) story. This time around, and having foreknowledge of the ending, I sort of liked it. I still wouldn\u2019t call it a \u201cclassic,\u201d but I thought it well crafted. The last half page in particular is very atmospheric, and the final line stunning. The original wraparound Cover<\/em><\/strong> for the anthology appears to be an early effort by Richard Powers\u2014it is not typical of his later, more abstract, work (apologies for the poor images\u2014if anyone can provide a better scan of this or the next, I\u2019d appreciate it):<\/p>\n When the book was reissued in 1972 it had a new (semi-wraparound) cover by John Berkey, and a modified title:<\/p>\n Publishers, critics and a good many readers have a tendency to think of science fiction as one of the \u201ccategories\u201d of publishing, in the specific sense of the term; like detective stories and Westerns. But unless you can think of The Big Sky as a Western or Hamlet as a whodunit, you can hardly class in a tight little group so widely variant an assortment of stories as justly fit under the common label of science fiction. Later, he goes on to say \u201cyou need be neither huckster nor Wobbly to enjoy science fiction\u201d, so I presume that this is all an appeal to a mainstream audience who have bought the book out of curiosity (although they probably won\u2019t know what a \u201cWobbly\u201d is\u2014I didn\u2019t). Many men have made a life work of editing a magazine; Lester del Rey, very nearly single-handedly, edited five\u2014at least one of them, Space Science Fiction<\/em>, close to the top of its field. Since this occupied fewer than 60 of the 168 hours in a week, he filled his idle time with a writing production schedule which has been known to top 50,000 words over a weekend.\u00a0 p. 34<\/p>\n Tenn\u2019s first science-fiction story was written between watches as a Merchant Marine radio operator just after the war; his second was written within a matter of hours after recovering from the shock of getting an immediate check for the first. That was Child\u2019s Play<\/em>\u2014anthologised, to date, no fewer than six times, with more coming up.\u00a0 p. 88<\/p>\n [Robert Sheckley\u2019s] first story appeared only one year before the original publication date of this collection.\u00a0 p. 151<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Summing up, I\u2019d have to say I found this volume a slight disappointment: I expected, from its reputation, a high quality production but it\u2019s much more mixed than that. Nevertheless, this is an interesting group of stories, especially coming to them from reading an older run of Astoundings<\/em>: you can easily see the improvement in standards over time\u2014they all seem better written and constructed. _____________________<\/p>\n 1. Anthony Boucher & J. Francis McComas, (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1953<\/a><\/em>) provide a brief comment:<\/p>\n Leading the science fiction collections is Frederik Pohl\u2019s Star Science Fiction Stories<\/em> (Ballantine), available both in paperback form and in an unusually inexpensive hardcover edition, and containing fifteen stories never before published in any form, representing most of the top names in the field at the height of their ability\u2014in all, as welcome a bargain as you\u2019re apt to find in the year\u2019s crop. \u00a0p. 90<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Groff Conklin, (Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1953<\/a><\/em>) opens his review with this:<\/p>\n Here, friends, is science fiction\u2019s World of Tomorrow in publishing: an original 35-cent paper-backed anthology of first-rate short stones never before published in any form, magazine or book! True, it\u2019s not \u201creading tapes.\u201d such as we old s.f. fans have been promised in the W. of T., but it\u2019s the next best thing.\u00a0 p. 120<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Conklin then talks in detail about the stories:<\/p>\n [For] my taste, the opener by William Morrison is a bit on the ghastly side, despite a fresh idea and good handling. On the other hand, we have Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore (husband and wife) with a magnificent farce-fantasy on psychoanalysis; and we also have A-class stories by Leinster, Clarke, Kornbluth, del Rey, Leiber (with a bit about \u201cSlickie Millane\u201d that should make a Certain Novelist want to sue for ego-damages!), Simak, John Wyndham, Tenn, H. L. Gold (what a sock ending!), Bradbury (exquisite tale!), and Asimov. (He\u2019s going fantasy, too!) . . . Leslie Flood (New Worlds Science Fiction #29, November 1954<\/a><\/em>) says the anthology is \u201captly named\u201d, and \u201cpractically all of the stories are superior to the general run of anthologies.\u201d He notes that, of these fifteen specially commissioned stories, two, the del Rey and the Sheckley, have been reprinted in New Worlds<\/em>. He says, \u201cI enjoyed every one, and I think you will agree with me that this is a rare science fiction treat.\u201d\u00a0 As for specifics, he adds:<\/p>\n On the light-weight (and lighter), side are Kornbluth\u2019s \u201cDominoes\u201d and Gold\u2019s \u201cThe Man With English\u201d; the broad humour of Fritz Leiber\u2019s hilarious travesty \u201cThe Night He Cried,\u201d and a curious piece by Arthur C. Clarke called \u201cThe Nine Billion Names of God.\u201d I liked the gentle irony of William Tenn\u2019s \u201cThe Deserter,\u201d and John Wyndham\u2019s delightful time-twist in \u201cThe Chronoclasm.\u201d I inhaled with very great pleasure Ray Bradbury\u2019s \u201cA Scent of Sarsaparilla,\u201d and was moved by Simak\u2019s \u201cContraption\u201d and Judy Merril\u2019s poignant \u201cSo Proudly We Hail.\u201d I recommend this collection unhesitatingly.\u00a0 p. 119-120<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Damon Knight (Science Fiction Adventures, December 1953<\/a><\/em>) says:<\/p>\n I remarked about Healy\u2019s New Tales of Space and Time<\/em> that an anthologist working with a single-shot collection of new stories is unlikely to better a good single issue of a top-flight magazine. That still goes; this is a bright, exceedingly readable collection, however, and its four A\u2019s and six B stories make up for five stinkers. The B\u2019s are high B\u2019s; perhaps I ought to explain that I keep the first category for stories that seem to me either absolutely flawless or so near as makes no difference; a great many good stories go into the second compartment for some small logical lapse or element of triteness. Cyril Kornbluth\u2019s Dominoes<\/em> and John Wyndham\u2019s The Chronodasm<\/em>, for example, are beautiful jobs of writing, but their time-paradox plots strike me as stale. William Morrison\u2019s Country Doctor<\/em> is a memorable thing, probably the best work this writer has done yet; several unanswered or badly answered questions about the ailing monster kept me from enjoying it fully. H. L. Gold\u2019s tongue-in-cheek The Man With English<\/em> contains an essential bit of illogic; Ray Bradbury\u2019s A Scent of Sarsaparilla<\/em> and Murray Leinster\u2019s The Journey<\/em> are low-key stories, unimprovable but relatively unexciting.
\nEverett F. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction<\/em>, pp. 295 – 454, 1983
\nAnthony Boucher & J. Francis McComas, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1953<\/a><\/em>
\nGroff Conklin, Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1953<\/a><\/em>
\nLeslie Flood, New Worlds Science Fiction #29, November 1954<\/a><\/em>
\nDamon Knight, Science Fiction Adventures, December 1953<\/a><\/em>
\nRobert W. Lowndes, Future Science Fiction, May 1953<\/a><\/em>
\nSam Merwin, Jr., Fantastic Universe, August-September 1953<\/a><\/em>
\nP. Schuyler Miller, Astounding Science Fiction, August 1953<\/a><\/em>
\nSam Moskowitz, Science-Fiction Plus, May 1953<\/a><\/em>
\nMark Reinsberg, Imagination, September 1953<\/a><\/em>
\nGeorge O. Smith, Space Science Fiction, May 1953<\/a><\/em>
\nGeorge O. Smith, Space Science Fiction, September 1953<\/a><\/em>
\nUncredited, Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1953<\/a><\/em>
\nBud Webster, Anthopology 101: The Pohl Star<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
\nCountry Doctor<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by William Morrison \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nDominoes <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by C. M. Kornbluth \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nIdealist <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Lester del Rey \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Night He Cried<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Fritz Leiber \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nContraption <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Clifford D. Simak \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Chronoclasm<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John Wyndham \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Deserter<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by William Tenn \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Man with English<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by H. L. Gold \u2217<\/strong>
\nSo Proudly We Hail<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Judith Merril \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nA Scent of Sarsaparilla<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Ray Bradbury \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nNobody Here But\u2014<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Isaac Asimov \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Last Weapon<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Robert Sheckley \u2217<\/strong>
\nA Wild Surmise<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Journey<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Murray Leinster \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Nine Billion Names of God<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Arthur C. Clarke \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Richard Powers
\nEditor\u2019s Note<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Frederik Pohl
\nIntroductions<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Frederik Pohl<\/p>\n
\nThe book under consideration, Star Science Fiction<\/em>, is from that second phase, and is the initial volume in the first original SF anthology series (depending on how you view Donald Wollheim\u2019s Avon Science Fiction<\/em>, that is).2<\/sup> Pohl\u2019s series would continue, off and on, through several books and one abortive magazine, until he became editorially involved at Galaxy<\/em> in the late 1950s.3<\/sup><\/p>\n
\nDr. Meltzer reached the level of the lower jaw, and with the fascinated fear of a bird staring at a snake, gazed at the great opening that was going to devour him. Inside there was a gray and slippery surface which caught the beam of his flashlight and reflected it back and forth until the rays faded away. Fifty feet beyond the opening, the passage made a slow turn to one side. What lay ahead, he couldn\u2019t guess.
\nThe sensible thing was to go in at once, but he couldn\u2019t help hesitating. Suppose the jaws closed just as he got between them? He\u2019d be crushed like an eggshell. Suppose the throat constricted with the irritation he caused it? That would crush him too. He recalled suddenly an ancient fable about a man who had gone down into a whale\u2019s belly. What was the man\u2019s name, now? Daniel\u2014no, he had only gone into a den of lions. Job\u2014wrong again. Job had been afflicted with boils, the victim of staphylococci at the other end of the scale of size. Jonah, that was it. Jonah, the man whose name was a symbol among the superstitious for bad luck.\u00a0 p. 8-9<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nDominoes <\/em><\/strong>by C. M. Kornbluth opens with a stockbroker called Born reflecting on the interdependence of world financial markets:<\/p>\n
\nMaybe this would be the day. Maybe New York would open on a significant decline in Moon Mining and Smelting.
\nMaybe Chicago would nervously respond with a slump in commodities and San Francisco\u2019s Utah Uranium would plummet in sympathy. Maybe panic in the Tokyo Exchange on the heels of the alarming news from the States\u2014panic relayed across Asia with the rising sun to Vienna, Milan, Paris, London, and crashing like a shock-wave into the opening New York market again.
\nDominoes, W. J. Born thought. A row of dominoes. Flick one and they all topple in a heap. Maybe this would be the day.\u00a0 p. 26<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nWhen Born arrives he overcomes a number of minor obstacles (against the background of a countdown clock) before he makes it to a library. There he discovers (spoiler) a financial crash is about to happen in the time period he has left. He returns and liquidates his assets.
\nIn a final encounter with a ruined Loring (he has lost his money in the crash and can\u2019t pay for the experimental equipment) we find out that it was Born\u2019s disposals that triggered the crash.
\nThis is a neatly done ironic tale, and one that foresees future flash-crashes.
\nIdealist <\/em><\/strong>by Lester del Rey starts with Paul Fenton waking up and finding himself alone in an Earth-orbiting space station\u2019s hospital bay. He gets up and explores the station, and finds a number of dead people. Some of these have been killed by a missile attack on the station, and some have been shot (there are mentions of a traitor). He later discovers that the majority of the station\u2019s nuclear missiles have been fired.
\nWhen Fenton turns his attention to Earth he sees the results of a nuclear war but also detects survivors\u2014and when he contacts them the various parties want him to help them continue the conflict. Sickened by this he fires the station\u2019s remaining missiles at Earth, and takes the station\u2019s spaceship to the far side of the Moon.
\nI\u2019m not sure this entirely works. First off, the partial amnesia he initially suffers from drags out the process of establishing what is happening (and so feels like padding); second, the response of the people on the ground is nihilistic (though not improbable); finally, the occasional interstitial material about man\u2019s destiny in space is at odds with Fenton\u2019s actions with the missiles. It rather feels as if it was written to push an editor\u2019s buttons (Campbell\u2019s?), but it\u2019s an okay piece overall, I guess.
\nThe Night He Cried<\/em><\/strong> by Fritz Leiber is a merciless parody of the school of writing typified by Mickey Spillane, and has an opening passage you wouldn\u2019t see in the magazines:<\/p>\n
\nThe convertible slowed down and backed up. I smiled. I\u2019d been certain that my magnificently formed milk glands would turn the trick. I puffed on my cigarette languorously.
\n\u201cHi, Babe!\u201d\u00a0 p. 49<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s that\u2014a magazine publisher?\u201d he demanded hotly, being somewhat inflamed by my cool milk glands.
\n\u201c. . . and we are interested in how sex and justice are dispensed in all areas,\u201d I went on, disregarding his interruption and his somewhat juvenile fondlings. \u201cTo be bold, we suspect that you may be somewhat misled about this business of sex.\u201d
\nVertical, centimeter-deep furrows creased his brow. His head poised above mine like a hawk\u2019s. \u201cWhat are you talking about, Babe?\u201d he demanded with suspicious rage, even snatching his hands away.
\n\u201cBriefly, Slickie,\u201d I said, \u201cyou do not seem to feel that sex is for the production of progeny or for the mutual solace of two creatures. You seem to think\u2014\u201d
\nHis rage exploded into action.\u00a0 p. 50<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nContraption <\/em><\/strong>by Clifford D. Simak is about a maltreated orphan called Johnny who finds a crashed flying saucer in the woods. It has that rural setting which is often present in Simak\u2019s fiction:<\/p>\n
\nThis story has good organic development for the most part, something that is spoiled a little by the gimmicky ending.
\nThe Chronoclasm<\/em><\/strong> by John Wyndham is a time-travel tale that, given it takes half the story before this gimmick is out in the open, ends up reading like a refugee from the Saturday Evening Post<\/em>. It opens with a Dr Gobie approaching the protagonist Gerald Lattery (after erroneously referring to him as \u201cSir Gerald\u201d), and warning him that it is imperative that he avoid contact with a young woman called Tavia. Lattery tells the stranger that he doesn\u2019t know anyone of that name.
\nThe story picks up two years later, and details Lattery\u2019s sightings of a striking young woman. These two or three events are padded out with a lot of fluff like this:<\/p>\n
\nI shook my head. \u201cWho was she?\u201d
\n\u201cShe didn\u2019t say her name, but\u2014\u201d he went on to describe her. Recollection of the girl on the other side of the street came back to me. I nodded.
\n\u201cI saw her just across the road. I wondered who she was.\u201d I told him.
\n\u201cWell, she seemed to know you all right. \u2018Was that Mr. Lattery who was in here earlier on?\u2019 she says to me. I says yes, you was one of them. She nodded and thought a bit.
\n\u2018He lives at Bagford House, doesn\u2019t he?\u2019 she asks. \u2018Why, no, Miss,\u2019 I says, \u2018that\u2019s Major Flacken\u2019s place. Mr. Lattery, he lives out at Chatcombe Cottage.\u2019 So she asks me where that is, an\u2019 I told her. Hope that was all right. Seemed a nice young lady.\u201d
\nI reassured him. \u201cShe could have got the address anywhere. Funny she should ask about Bagford House\u2014that\u2019s a place I might hanker for, if I ever had any money.\u201d
\n\u201cBetter hurry up and make it, sir. The old Major\u2019s getting on a bit now,\u201d he said.
\nNothing came of it. Whatever the girl had wanted my address for, she didn\u2019t follow it up, and the matter dropped out of my mind.
\nIt was about a month later that I saw her again. I\u2019d kind of slipped into the habit of going riding once or twice a week with a girl called Marjorie Cranshaw, and running her home from the stables afterwards.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n\u201cIt has risen higher in my own estimation, darling,\u201d I admitted. And, indeed, I was quite surprised to find how much higher it had risen in the course of the last month or so.
\n\u201cDo Twentieth Century marrieds always have one big bed, darling?\u201d she inquired.
\n\u201cInvariably, darling,\u201d I assured her.
\n\u201cFunny,\u201d she said. \u201cNot very hygienic, of course, but quite nice all the same.\u201d
\nWe reflected on that.\u00a0 p. 80<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe story ends with Lattery\u2014remarkably composed given his wife and future child have vanished\u2014writing the letter than caused Tavia to come back to find him.
\nThis is a pretty routine time travel story but it\u2019s of interest for the view it gives of the lost society of the 1950\u2019s which\u2014in some respects\u2014is as fascinating as some of SF\u2019s alien societies.
\nThe Deserter<\/em><\/strong> by William Tenn starts with Major Mardin arriving at a facility that houses the first Jovian prisoner humanity has taken alive. Mardin (who was an archaeologist before the inter-system war began) is there to interrogate the massive, methane breathing alien.
\nMartin is briefed by a Space Marshall\u2014colloquially called \u201cRockethead\u201d\u2014who is an aggressive and over bearing bully, but also a very successful soldier. After brow beating Mardin, the Space Marshall sends him out on a metal chair that hangs above the huge alien, at which point Mardin attaches a tendril to his forehead and comes into telepathic contact with it (we learn during the story that Mardin was one of the first Jovian prisoners, and was interrogated by this method before he was rescued).
\nMardin learns the Jovian prisoner\u2019s personal history, and the reason it allowed itself to be captured\u2014which is to give humanity information to develop a weapon that will stop Jovian society\u2019s increasingly militaristic culture.
\nAs they communicate Mardin\u2019s feelings about the xenocidal Space Marshall break through, and the Jovian questions him further. Mardin gives a brutally honest response. When the Jovian realises (spoiler) what kind of society humanity is, it commits suicide by venting the methane gas in its chamber. This also kills Mardin.
\nThis is a satisfyingly dense story to begin with but it goes downhill with the introduction of the Space Marshall\u2019s character, a comic book version of a military leader. Subtler characterisation would have made this a more effective anti-war story.
\nThe Man with English<\/em><\/strong> by H. L. Gold4<\/sup> is a short gimmick story which starts with a bad-tempered husband called Stone falling off a ladder at his store. He wakes up with a peculiar condition:<\/p>\n
\nStone sat up. \u201cMurderer! Thief! You\u2019ve ruined me!\u201d
\nThe doctor sprang for a hypodermic and sedative. Just in time, he changed his mind and took a bottle of stimulant instead. It worked fine, though injecting it into his screaming, thrashing patient took more strength than he\u2019d known he owned. Stone fell asleep immediately.\u00a0 p. 110<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nStone then has an operation which (spoiler) swaps rather than reverses his senses (synaesthesia5<\/sup>)\u2014as he finds out when he comes round after the operation:<\/p>\n
\nWhen the \u201cone hour to departure\u201d warning sounds, she tells him she isn\u2019t going. He is irritated by what he thinks is her last minute nerves, and goes for a walk.
\nAs the time runs down, we see events from both viewpoints. This involves, among other things, the man having a conversation with another colonist which plants the idea she may be seeing someone else; meanwhile, the woman reflects on the reason for her rejection and why she kept it secret for so long:<\/p>\n
\nIf she told him, he\u2019d stay too. He\u2019d stay at home, and go out to stand in the yard on starry nights. He\u2019d stare at the sky, smoking his pipe, the way he always did\u2014the way he always had\u2014but it would be different. He would stand alone, and his hand would not touch her arm, nor would she be with him. And when he came back into the house, his eyes would avoid her, and he would hate.
\nYou\u2019re going, Will,<\/em> she promised in her heart when she understood that much. It\u2019s the thirst of your soul, and I shall see that you drink, though it drains me!<\/em>\u00a0 p. 125<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThis examination of a disintegrating relationship against the backdrop of the outward urge makes for a welcome change of pace. A good mood piece, albeit it one with a melodramatic ending.
\nA Scent of Sarsaparilla<\/em><\/strong> by Ray Bradbury is a short piece of whimsy where a dreamer\/husband rubs up against his shrew\/wife. The man spends too much time in his attic:<\/p>\n
\nCora fidgeted.
\nIt\u2019s not impossible, he thought, half closing his eyes, trying to see it and build it. Consider an attic. Its very atmosphere is Time. It deals in other years, the cocoons and chrysalises of another age. All the bureau drawers are little coffins where a thousand yesterdays lie in state. Oh, the attic\u2019s a dark, friendly place, full of Time, and if you stand in the very center of it, straight and tall, squinting your eyes, and thinking and thinking, and smelling the Past, and putting out your hands to feel of Long Ago, why, it . . .
\nHe stopped, realizing he had spoken some of this aloud.\u00a0 p. 133-134<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe idea of returning to childhood days is a common theme in Bradbury\u2019s fiction, and I wondered if this is one of the earliest examples.
\nNobody Here But\u2014 <\/em><\/strong>by Isaac Asimov starts with Bill, a computer\/robot scientist, at his girlfriend Mary Ann\u2019s apartment. He briefly talks on the phone to colleague Cliff, who is at the lab which is six miles away. Moments after the call ends, Cliff turns up at the Bill\u2019s girlfriend\u2019s apartment, and both men realise something peculiar is going on. They wonder if this occurrence is connected to the computer they are developing.
\nThe rest of the story takes place at the lab where the two men inspect the computer. They find several modifications to their work (a loudspeaker, extendable metal arms, etc.), and when they start dismantling the device to inspect it more closely, it starts acting defensively, electrifying parts of itself, etc.
\nMeanwhile (spoiler), Mary Ann gets more and more impatient (she and Bill are supposed to be on a date), and when she finally walks out \u201cCliff\u201d tells Bill, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you ask her to marry you, you lunkhead?\u201d Of course, it turns out that it wasn\u2019t Cliff who made the suggestion but the computer.
\nI suppose this is vaguely entertaining, but it\u2019s laboured and rather twee. Barely okay.
\nThe Last Weapon<\/em><\/strong> by Robert Sheckley has three men on Mars searching a dead race\u2019s superweapons. When they find them Edzel starts experimenting to see what they can do. When one of the other men complains, Edzel kills him. Later, after they find a robotic army, Edzel is in turn killed by the third man, Parke.
\nThe story ends with Parke testing a device labelled \u201cThe Last Weapon,\u201d at which point vapour comes out of the box. This coalesces into a pair of eyes and a large mouth floating in the air. It expresses a liking for protoplasm before it eats Edzel\u2019s dead body and then Parke\u2019s living one . . . .
\nThis ending is a weak deus ex machina.
\nA Wild Surmise<\/em><\/strong> by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore opens with Timothy Hooten in his psychiatrist Dr Scott\u2019s office. Hooten is seeing Scott because when he dreams he thinks he is an insect. In his dream world Hooten consults another psychiatrist called Dr Rasp:<\/p>\n
\nTimothy Hooten evaded the psychiatrist\u2019s faceted gaze. He swung his oval body around to stare out the sky-slit at the distant polyhedron of the Quatt Wunkery. Then he waved his antennae gently and clicked his mandibles.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s like a dream, isn\u2019t it?\u201d he said evasively, though naturally not audibly. \u201cImagine building a Wunkery simply to pleat Quatts. Of course they never showed up. That sort of thing could happen only in a dream. Oh, you can\u2019t convince me. This is a dream. Imagine walking around on all sixes.\u201d
\nDr. Rasp scratched a memorandum on his left wing-case.
\n\u201cHow do you think you should walk?\u201d he asked.\u00a0 p. 163<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThis is entertaining once it gets going, but the ending does not convincingly flow from the rest of the story.
\nThe Journey<\/em><\/strong> by Murray Leinster is a coming-of-age story about a young man called Joe, who gets a temporary job on a spaceship to Pluto before starting his adult working life.
\nThe piece largely details, at least for the first half or so, the menial work he undertakes (swabbing the floors, oiling the engines, etc.), the coarseness of the crew and their teasing of him, and the fact that he never sees the stars that surround him\u2014except once, when one of the officers checks an observation port:<\/p>\n
\nHe looked with his own eyes into infinity\u2014past the mate\u2019s head and shoulders, of course. He saw the stars. Their number was like the number of grains of sand. Their color varied beyond belief. For the first time Joe realized that they differed only in brightness and color, because they were all so far away that they were the same size. None was larger than a mathematical point. It was a sight which no man has ever seen save through some such window as the mate had uncovered.
\nJoe gazed with absolute rapture. The mate matter-of-factly made his verification of the condition of the port and the shutters that closed over it outside\u2014the shutters which infinitesimal meteorites might pit with their tiny, violent explosions if they struck. The mate closed the inner plate, making sure that the outer shutters closed with it. He locked it and turned to go on. He saw Joe, dazed and agitated, staring at the metal plate which had just locked out the universe.
\nJoe said, swallowing:
\n\u201cI\u2014never saw the stars before, sir.\u201d
\nThe mate said, \u201cOh,\u201d and went on. \u00a0p. 176<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nIn its last third the story changes into a different type of piece altogether: Joe meets a young woman going from Pluto to Earth. They eventually talk, and later become emotionally involved. Joe wants her to see the stars and the sky; she worries about what she will look like in sunlight. When they finally get to Earth, Joe is initially oblivious to his waiting parents as he and the young woman get off the ship to address these issues. (By the by, there is occasional mention of the worried mother and father throughout the story, and the effect it is having on them physically.)
\nSome of this story, such as parts which address the mundanity of space travel, is quite well done albeit slow moving. However, the separate strands don\u2019t really come together as a satisfying whole, and I wondered if this was a \u2018Will F. Jenkins\u2019 (Leinster used his real name for his slick work) reject.
\nThe Nine Billion Names of God<\/em><\/strong> by Arthur C. Clarke begins with a Tibetan Lama in a computer company office arranging for the purchase of a machine that will enable the monks to print out the nine billion names of God.
\nThe story then fast-forwards three months to two engineers who are in Tibet maintaining the machine. One of them is friendly with one of the monks, has found out why the monastery is undertaking this task, and tells his colleague what he has discovered:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThen what do they expect us to do? Commit suicide?\u201d
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no need for that. When the list\u2019s completed, God steps in and simply winds things up . . . bingo!\u201d
\n\u201cOh, I get it. When we finish our job, it will be the end of the world.\u201d
\nChuck gave a nervous little laugh.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s just what I said to Sam. And do you know what happened? He looked at me in a very queer way, like I\u2019d been stupid in class, and said \u2018It\u2019s nothing as trivial as that.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 p. 192<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe story ends with the pair travelling to the distant airstrip, and catching sight of it in the distance:<\/p>\n
\nShe certainly was, thought George. The battered old DC 3 lay at the end of the runway like a tiny silver cross. In two hours she would be bearing them away to freedom and sanity. It was a thought worth savoring like a fine liqueur. George let it roll round his mind as the pony trudged patiently down the slope.
\nThe swift night of the high Himalayas was now almost upon them. Fortunately the road was very good, as roads went in this region, and they were both carrying torches. There was not the slightest danger, only a certain discomfort from the bitter cold. The sky overhead was perfectly clear and ablaze with the familiar, friendly stars. At least there would be no risk, thought George, of the pilot being unable to take off because of weather conditions. That had been his only remaining worry.
\nHe began to sing, but gave it up after a while. This vast arena of mountains, gleaming like whitely hooded ghosts on every side, did not encourage such ebullience. Presently George glanced at his watch.
\n\u201cShould be there in an hour,\u201d he called back over his shoulder to Chuck. Then he added, in an afterthought:
\n\u201cWonder if the computer\u2019s finished its run? It was due about now.\u201d
\nChuck didn\u2019t reply, so George swung round in his saddle. He could just see Chuck\u2019s face, a white oval turned towards the sky.
\n\u201cLook,\u201d whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.)
\nOverhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.\u00a0 p. 194-195<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nIt occurred to me that the reason so many people liked this when I didn\u2019t is because they perhaps process the religious ending as a sense of wonder one.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Star1originalx600.jpg?resize=625%2C429&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Star1newx600.jpg?resize=356%2C600&ssl=1\")
\nThe only non-fiction items in the book are the Editor\u2019s Note<\/em><\/strong> and Introductions <\/em><\/strong>by Frederik Pohl.
\nThe Editor\u2019s Note<\/em><\/strong> appears to be a revised\u2014or completely new\u2014introduction for the 1961 reprint of the collection as it references a 1931 Jack Williamson serial published \u201cmore than three decades ago.\u201d7<\/sup>
\nThe introduction mentions SF\u2019s addictive qualities, and its breadth:<\/p>\n
\nOne can get tired of cowboys or corpses; it\u2019s hard to tire of a field that can take you anywhere in space, time or the dimensions.\u00a0 p. 1<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe Introductions<\/em><\/strong> are occasionally informative:<\/p>\n
\nTalking of Astounding<\/em>, my hunch would be that the Morrison, Kornbluth, del Rey, Simak, Asimov, and Kuttner\/Moore stories could have appeared in the 1950\u2019s version of that magazine, but not the others. I\u2019d hazard a guess (my knowledge of other magazines of the time is not as good as I\u2019d like) that the Wyndham, Merril, Bradbury, and Leinster stories could appear in mainstream magazines like the Saturday Evening Post<\/em>, or in F&SF<\/em>, and the Leiber (taboos permitting), Gold, and Clarke could have joined them in the latter. The Tenn and the Sheckley seem like Galaxy<\/em> stories (would Campbell have used Tenn\u2019s anti-war or Sheckley\u2019s victorious alien story? Possibly Sheckley\u2019s, given he used Philip K. Dick\u2019s Imposter<\/em>, but I doubt it.)
\nFinally, I note that the majority seem to depend for their overall effect on a gimmick or clever ending.
\nWorth a look.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n
\nOnly a couple of items fell flat on my ear, besides the Morrison. Judith Merril\u2019s seemed in need of cutting, I thought, and Robert Sheckley\u2019s Mars was a bit too much like Bradbury\u2019s Mars.\u00a0 p. 120-121<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe C\u2019s include Clifford D. Simak\u2019s plotless and soupily ruriphile Contraption<\/em>, Judith Merril\u2019s soap-opera So Proudly We Hail<\/em>, William Tenn\u2019s hortatory and humorless The Deserter<\/em>, Isaac Asimov\u2019s \u201cNobody Here But<\/em>\u2014<\/em>\u201d<\/em> and Robert Sheckley\u2019s The Last Weapon<\/em>, the last pair both too trite, for my taste, to be redeemed by occasional flashes of brilliance.
\nThe A\u2019s are wonderful: Idealist<\/em> by Lester del Rey, a world\u2019s-end story written with the quiet competence which distinguishes this writer\u2019s best work; Fritz Leiber\u2019s The Night He Cried<\/em>, an absolutely demolishing satire on a certain \u201cSlickie Millane;\u201d a little gem by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore called A Wild Surmise<\/em>, in which two mutually exclusive psychiatrists, one spectacled, one bug-eyed, wrestle for the soul of a gentleman who does not believe in either of them; and Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s The Nine Billion Names of God<\/em>, about which I will only say that the ending is predictable, but this fact doesn\u2019t matter in the least.\u00a0 p. 120-121<\/p><\/blockquote>\n