{"id":13914,"date":"2021-12-31T17:19:35","date_gmt":"2021-12-31T17:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=13914"},"modified":"2023-10-06T17:06:09","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T17:06:09","slug":"to-follow-a-star-edited-by-terry-carr-1977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=13914","title":{"rendered":"To Follow a Star, edited by Terry Carr, 1977"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Summary:
\nA mixed bag of a Christmas SF anthology, but it has two very good stories from Arthur C. Clarke (the Hugo winning The Star<\/em>) and James White (his widely anthologised Christmas Treason<\/em>), and good supporting work from John Christopher, Gordon R. Dickson, and Brian W. Aldiss.
\nThe presence of the Robinson and Wolfe stories is a mystery, and I can only assume the Asimov and Pohl are there for their name value.
\n[ISFDB page<\/a>] [Archive.org copy<\/a>]<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nChristmas on Ganymede<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Isaac Asimov \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nHappy Birthday, Dear Jesus<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Frederik Pohl \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Santa Claus Planet<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Frank M. Robinson \u2217<\/strong>
\nChristmas Tree<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John Christopher \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Star<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Arthur C. Clarke \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Christmas Present<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Gordon R. Dickson \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nChristmas Treason<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by James White \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe New Father Christmas<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Brian W. Aldiss \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nLa Befana<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Gene Wolfe \u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Robert Chronister
\nIntroduction <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by Terry Carr<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

I’ve already reviewed all the stories in this Christmas SF anthology either here or on sfshortstories.com, so\u2014if you have read those\u2014skip down to the three dots for the summary comments.<\/p>\n

Christmas on Ganymede<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Isaac Asimov\u00a0(Startling Stories<\/em>, January 1942)1<\/sup>\u00a0opens with Olaf Johnson hanging decorations in the colony\u2019s dome when he and all the other men are summoned to a meeting with their boss: they learn that, thanks to Johnson, the native Ossies (who are the colony\u2019s labour force) have learned about Christmas and will go on strike unless Santa Claus visits. Johnson is nominated to be Santa.
\nThe rest of the story sees the conversion of an anti-grav sled into a sleigh, the capture and sedation of Ganymedean spineybacks for use as reindeer, and the costuming of Johnson:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going anywhere in this costume!\u201d he roared, gouging at the nearest eye. \u201cYou hear me?\u201d
\nThere certainly was cause for objection. Even at his best, Olaf had never been a heartthrob. But in his present condition, he resembled a hybrid between a spinie\u2019s nightmare and a Picassian conception of a patriarch.
\nHe wore the conventional costume of Santa. His clothes were as red as red tissue paper sewed onto his space coat could make it. The \u201cermine\u201d was as white as cotton wool, which it was. His beard, more cotton wool glued into a linen foundation, hung loosely from his ears. With that below and his oxygen nosepiece above, even the strongest were forced to avert their eyes. p. 88<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Johnson\u2019s perilous flight to the Ossies\u2019 camp is made even more dangerous when the spineys wake up en route, but he eventually gets there safely. The Ossies get Christmas tree ornaments for presents (they think the globes are \u201cSannyclaws eggs\u201d), and then demand a visit every year\u2014which to them is a seven-day revolution around Jupiter.
\nThis is an early work by Asimov that\u2019s longer than it needs to be and whose characters are rather cartoonish (one of the prospectors\u2014sorry, colonists\u2014chews tobacco). But it\u2019s a pleasant enough piece that produced a couple of smiles.
\n\u2217\u2217<\/strong> (Average). 5,450 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Frederik Pohl (Alternating Currents<\/em>, 1956) is, partially, an \u201cif this goes one\u201d satire about the commercialisation of Christmas, and begins with the story\u2019s narrator, Mr Martin, recruiting a young woman called Lilymary Hargreave for his department at Heinemann\u2019s store. Her job is to gift-wrap and label shoppers\u2019 Christmas purchases, and it\u2019s here where we get the first dose of satire (apart an earlier mention that this Christmas rush is happening in early September):<\/p>\n

[Lilymary] called me over near closing time. She looked distressed and with some reason. There was a dolly filled with gift-wrapped packages, and a man from Shipping looking annoyed. She said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Mr. Martin, but I seem to have done something wrong.\u201d
\nThe Shipping man snorted. \u201cLook for yourself, Mr. Martin,\u201d he said, handing me one of the packages.
\nI looked. It was wrong, all right. Heinemann\u2019s new wrinkle that year was a special attached gift card\u2014a simple Yule scene and the printed message:<\/p>\n

The very Merriest of Season\u2019s Greetings
\nFrom \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026
\nTo \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026
\n$8.50<\/p>\n

The price varied with the item, of course. Heinemann\u2019s idea was for the customer to fill it out and mail it, ahead of time, to the person it was intended for. That way, the person who got it would know just about how much he ought to spend on a present for the first person. It was smart, I admit, and maybe the smartest thing about it was rounding the price off to the nearest fifty cents instead of giving it exactly. Heinemann said it was bad-mannered to be too precise\u2014and the way the customers were going for the idea, it had to be right.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Lilymary says she can\u2019t complete the job as she needs to go home to her father, Martin does it himself. Then, when she doesn\u2019t come in the day after, Martin goes to her house. There he finds that the father, Lilymary, and the other three daughters are Sabbath observant.
\nThe rest of the story sees Martin romantically pursue Lilymary, which provides a clash-of-cultures situation between him and the family, who have just returned to the United States after a long time in Borneo as religious missionaries. Consequently, they don\u2019t have a TV or dishwasher or any mod-cons, or any interest in them. They also provide their own entertainment and, during an after dinner session, when Martin sings a particularly commercialised version of\u00a0\u2019Tis the Season of Christmas<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cCome Westinghouse, Philco! Come Hotpoint, G.E.! Come Sunbeam! Come Mixmaster! Come to the Tree!\u201d), the atmosphere sours. Then, when he later arranges for the visit of a Santa Claus and the Elves sales team to the house, the relationship breaks down completely. Eventually (spoiler), at the suggestion of his boss, Martin proposes to Lilymary (\u201cWhy not marry her for a while?\u201d), she rejects him, and then he finds out the family is leaving once again for Borneo, so he tries again. He eventually succeeds when he tracks them down to a church service, prays with Lilymary, and then gets religion.
\nThis is okay I guess, but it would have been a more interesting piece if it had concentrated on the Christmas satire and not the boy-wants-girl story.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Average). 8, 250 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Santa Claus Planet<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Frank M. Robinson (The Best Science-Fiction Stories: 1951<\/em>) opens with a spaceship landing on a planet to celebrate Christmas; two of the crew are later sent to a nearby village to greet the humans that settled there previously and invite them to the ship.
\nEn-route the pair are met by the natives, who proffer gifts, and a voice from the sleigh tells them to destroy the gifts and hand over their pistols. After some reluctance the two crew members do so, whereupon the natives break the pistols into pieces. Then they discover that the man who spoke is a recent arrival called Reynolds, who they subsequently take back with them.
\nThe rest of the story consists (apart from another bookend to finish the story) of Reynolds telling of how he came to be on the planet, which starts with him arriving after he damaged his spaceship tubes. While he was trying to repair his ship the natives arrived, and he was drawn into their strange gift giving custom (which is later explained by a friendly female tribe member called Ruth):<\/p>\n

She thought for a minute, trying to find a way to phrase it. \u201cWe use our coppers and furs in duels,\u201d she said slowly. \u201cPerhaps one chief will give a feast for another and present him with many coppers and blankets. Unless the other chief destroys the gifts and gives a feast in return, at which he presents the first chief with even greater gifts, he loses honor.\u201d
\nHe was beginning to see, Reynolds thought. The custom of conspicuous waste, to show how wealthy the possessor was. Enemies dueled with property, instead of with pistols, and the duel would obviously go back and forth until one or the other of its participants was bankrupt\u2014or unwilling to risk more goods. A rather appropriate custom for a planet as lush as this.
\n\u201cWhat if one of the chiefs goes broke,\u201d he said, explaining the term.
\n\u201cIf the winning chief demands it, the other can be put to death. He is forced to drink the Last Cup, a poison which turns his bones to jelly. The days go by and he gets weaker and softer until finally he is nothing but a\u2014ball.\u201d She described this with a good deal of hand waving and facial animation, which Reynolds found singularly attractive in spite of the gruesomeness of the topic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This unlikely gimmick works through a few gift-exchange plot loops until (spoiler) Reynolds runs out of potential gifts, and also realises that Ruth is also going to be poisoned for helping him. He avoids this unpleasant end by giving the impression that he is going to destroy the planet with fire (I think) after they destroy his rocket. The chief concedes before the oil fire Reynolds previously set burns out.
\nThere is another twist revealed at the end (when Reynolds is once again on the visiting ship): Reynolds married Ruth and became the wealthiest man on the planet because they had 15 children, each of which attracted ever-increasing dowries.
\nThis story revolves around an unconvincing and contrived gimmick, the ending is a fudge, and the last twist just adds even more nonsense to what has come before (and seems to be the only reason the sections that book-end the piece are there). Why Bleiler and Dikty (the editors of the \u2018Best of the Year\u2019 anthology where this first appeared) thought it a good idea to use this original story beats me (and I can only assume Terry Carr reprinted it\u00a0for\u00a0Towering Inferno<\/em>2<\/sup>\u00a0name recognition).
\n\u2217<\/strong> (Mediocre). 8,500 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The quality of the stories in this anthology picks up markedly at this point with Christmas Tree<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by John Christopher (Astounding<\/em>, February 1949), which opens with an astronaut called Davies arriving on Earth. After his medical (we learn that space crew get one after every flight), he goes to buy a Christmas tree to take back to the Moon. We subsequently learn that a man called Hans has been exiled there for forty years because of a final health warning, which meant it would be suicide to undertake another trip back to Earth (the story\u2019s gimmick is that no-one can predict how long it will be between an astronaut\u2019s first and final warning\u2014there can be several years between them\u2014and many astronauts take the chance of continuing for a period after the first).
\nAt the nursery, the owner shows Davies around:<\/p>\n

\u201cMajor Davies, I\u2019m delighted to see you. We don\u2019t see many spacemen. Come and see my roses.\u201d
\nHe seemed eager and I let him take me. I wasn\u2019t breaking my neck to get back into town.
\nHe had a glasshouse full of roses. I hesitated in the doorway. Mr. Cliff said: \u201cWell?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019d forgotten they smelled like that,\u201d I told him.
\nHe said proudly, \u201cIt\u2019s quite a showing. A week before Christmas and a showing like that. Look at this Frau Karl Druschki.\u201d
\nIt was a white rose, very nicely shaped and scented like spring. The roses had me. I crawled around after Mr. Cliff, seeing roses, feeling roses, breathing roses. I looked at my watch when it began to get dark.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After Davies explains Hans\u2019 situation to the owner (during which he reveals he has had his own first health warning) he gets the tree for free.
\nWhen Davies eventually gets back to the Moon (spoiler), he and Louie (the part-time quartermaster who helped him smuggle the tree onboard) go to find Hans, but they find that he has passed away. The pair, along with another man, take Hans out onto the surface to bury him:<\/p>\n

Portugese halted the caterpillar on the crest of a rise about midway between Luna City and Kelly\u2019s Crater. It was the usual burial ground; the planet\u2019s surface here was crosshatched in deep grooves by some age-old catastrophe. We clamped down the visors on our suits and got out. Portugese and I carried old Hans easily between us, his frail body fantastically light against lunar gravity. We put him down carefully in a wide, deep cleft, and I turned around toward the truck. Louie walked toward us, carrying the Christmas tree.
\nThere had been moisture on it, which had frozen instantly into sparkling frost. It looked like a centerpiece out of a store window. It had seemed a good idea back in Luna City, but now it didn\u2019t seem appropriate.
\nWe wedged it in with rocks, Portugese read a prayer, and we walked back to the caterpillar, glad to be able to let our visors down again and light up cigarettes. We stayed there while we smoked, looking through the front screen. The tree stood up green and white against the sullen, hunching blackness of Kelly\u2019s Crater. Right overhead was the Earth, glowing with daylight. I could make out Italy, clear and unsmudged, but farther north Hans\u2019s beloved Austria was hidden under blotching December cloud.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story finishes with Davies going to his delayed medical, where he gets his final warning\u2014he is stuck on the Moon. Later, Davies goes to the observatory, where he looks at Earth and thinks he can smell roses.
\nThe science in this story is a bit dated or just plain wrong in some parts (information about the Moon\u2019s rotation, atmosphere, and body-eating insect life, etc.) but, if you can filter that out, it\u2019s a pretty good piece, and an accomplished debut.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Good). 3,200 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Star<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Arthur C. Clarke (Infinity<\/em>, November 1955)3<\/sup> has the chief astronomer of an expedition to an ancient supernova give an account of their completed mission. Their key discovery is that the solar system around the star was home to an advanced civilisation and, before the latter was destroyed, they managed to build a vault on the outermost planet of their system\u2014a memorial to their species. This provides a wealth of information to the expedition.
\nThe discovery also sees the chief astronomer\u2014who is also a Jesuit\u2014struggle with his religious faith from the very start of the story: why would God destroy a whole people in this way? Is this a question a religious person should even ask, etc.?
\nThe story\u2019s final twist (spoiler) comes when the expedition\u2019s calculations reveal that the supernova was the star that shone over Bethlehem over two thousand years ago.
\nThe brooding thoughts of the priest, which are set against the cosmic background of the supernova remnants, make this much more than what would otherwise be a clever gimmick story. That said, and however well done the character study, it is the surprise ending that provides most of the impact\u2014and that\u2019s obviously less effective on re-reading. Still, I wouldn\u2019t quibble with this being described as one of the genre\u2019s classics.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Very good). 2,450 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Christmas Present\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>by Gordon R. Dickson (F&SF<\/em>, January 1958) opens with a young boy called Allan talking to an alien called Harvey about how his mother is decorating a thorn tree for the family\u2019s first Xmas on the planet:<\/p>\n

There was beauty on Cidor, but it was a different beauty. It was a black-and-silver world where the thorn trees stood up like fine ink sketches against the cloud-torn sky; and this was beautiful. The great and solemn fishes that moved about the uncharted pathways of its seas were beautiful with the beauty of large, far-traveled ships. And even Harvey, though he did not know it himself, was most beautiful of all with his swelling iridescent jellyfish body and the yard-long mantle of silver filaments spreading out through it and down through the water. Only his voice was croaky and unbeautiful, for a constricted air-sac is not built for the manufacture of human word.\u00a0 pp. 34-35<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Allan adds that the decorations will make the tree beautiful, and that Harvey will understand what \u201cbeautiful\u201d means when he sees the finished product. However, when Allan goes back to the house on his own, what he sees upsets him, as the tree isn\u2019t the same as the one on the ship out. After his mother consoles him Allan goes out and briefly brings Harvey in to see the tree before taking him back to the water.
\nAllan and his mother wrap their presents later that evening, and he tells her that he wants to give Harvey one of his figurines, a painted clay astrogator, as a Christmas present. His mother tells him it is too late to go out again, so she goes to give the gift to Harvey instead, and also explains to the alien the concept of exchanging presents at Christmas time. Then she asks Harvey about water-bulls\u2014dangerous sea creatures known to attack boats\u2014as her husband will be coming back by river the next day. Harvey tells her their behaviour isn\u2019t consistent (\u201cOne will. One will not\u201d), before adding that his species is \u201celectric\u201d, so the water-bulls don\u2019t bother them.
\nAfter Allan\u2019s mother leaves (spoiler), Harvey swims out of the outlet and swims to a place between two islands where he finds a water-bull; he tells it he has come to make it into a present.
\nThe story closes with Allan\u2019s father returning home the next day by boat. En route he and the other settlers find a dead water-bull floating on the surface and, on closer examination, they find the crushed body of a Cidorian nearby. Allan\u2019s father realises that the dead Cidorian is Harvey, his son\u2019s friend, and asks the other settlers not to tell him about what they have seen. After they leave, there is an elegiac closing passage:<\/p>\n

Behind them, the water-bull carcass, disturbed, slid free of the waterlogged tree and began to drift downriver. The current swung it and rolled, slowly, over and over until the crushed central body of the dead Cidorian rose into the clean air. And the yellow rays of the clear sunlight gleamed from the glazed pottery countenance of a small toy astrogator, all wrapped about with silver threads, and gilded it.\u00a0 p. 42<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I didn\u2019t really buy the ending of this one, which seems to involve an overly disproportionate act in return for a simple gift. But I liked the alien setting, Harvey, and the last passage was still rattling around inside my head days later.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Good). 3,300 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Christmas Treason<\/em><\/strong> by James White (F&SF<\/em>, January 1962) is about a secret group of young children with telepathic and telekinetic powers who attempt to solve the puzzle of how Santa manages to deliver so many presents at the same time:<\/p>\n

Richard shook his head. \u201cNone of the grown-ups can say how exactly it happens, they just tell us that Santa will come all right, that we\u2019ll get our toys in time and not to worry about it. But we can\u2019t help worrying about it. That\u2019s why we\u2019re having an Investigation to find out what really happens.
\n\u201cWe can\u2019t see how one man, even when he has a sleigh and magic reindeer that fly through the air, can bring everybody their toys all in one night . . .\u201d Richard took a deep breath and got ready to use his new, grown-up words. \u201cDelivering all that stuff during the course of a single night is a logistical impossibility.\u201d
\nBuster, Mub and Greg looked impressed. Loo thought primly, \u201cRichard is showing off,\u201d and Liam said, \u201cI think he\u2019s got a jet.\u201d\u00a0 p.7<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After some more discussion, their leader Richard sends the three boys off looking for large caverns as he thinks there is a chance that this is where they may find Santa\u2019s secret toy factories. The boys have the ability to travel to places that closely match what they can visualise in their minds, and it isn\u2019t long before one of them finds something:<\/p>\n

In Liam\u2019s mind was the memory of a vast, echoing corridor so big it looked like a street. It was clean and brightly lit and empty. There was a sort of crane running along the roof with grabs hanging down, a bit like the ones he had seen lifting coal at the docks only these were painted red and yellow, and on both sides of the corridor stood a line of tall, splendid, unmistakable shapes. Rockets.
\nRockets, thought Richard excitedly:\u00a0that was the answer, all right!\u00a0Rockets were faster than anything, although he didn\u2019t quite see how the toys would be delivered. Still, they would find that out easily now that they knew where the secret cavern was.
\n\u201cDid you look inside them for toys?\u201d Greg broke in, just ahead of the others asking the same question.
\nLiam had. Most of the rockets were filled with machinery and the nose had sort of sparkly stuff in it.
\nAll the ones he had looked at were the same and he had grown tired of floating about among the noses of the rockets and gone exploring instead. At the other end of the corridor there was a big notice with funny writing on it. He was standing in front of it when two grown-ups with guns started running at him and yelling nonsense words. He got scared, and left.\u00a0 p.10-11<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Matters are complicated by the children having to return to their houses in different parts of the world to be present for mealtimes and naps, etc. Meanwhile, Richard thinks about a recent visit to a store that had lots of toys in it, and recalls his parents\u2019 conversation as his dad offered to buy his mother a piece of jewellery:<\/p>\n

Then Mummy had said, But John, are you sure you can afford it? It\u2019s robbery, sheer robbery! These storekeepers are robbers at Christmas time!
\nGuards all over the place, Greg\u2019s theory, and storekeepers who were robbers at Christmas time. It was beginning to make sense, but Richard was very worried by the picture that was forming.\u00a0 p.13<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alarmed by the conclusions Richard has reached, the group formulate a plan\u00a0that will ensure children throughout the world get their Xmas presents!
\nThis is both seasonal and charming, and has all the elements you would want in such a story: it is cleverly plotted, amusing, features cute, precocious children, has an appropriate amount of sentimentality, and (spoiler) an ending that involves world peace. A very good novelette.4
\n<\/sup>\u2217\u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong> (Very\u00a0 Good).<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The New Father Christmas<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Brian W. Aldiss (F&SF<\/em>, January 1958) concerns Roberta and Robin, an old couple who live in an automated factory in the year 2388 (Roberta is forgetful, and Robin is the mostly bed-ridden caretaker). When Roberta realises it is Xmas day she goes downstairs to invite three tramps up to the flat (the tramps have an illegal home on the factory floor, but have to block the door every day to avoid being evicted by the \u201cTerrible Sweeper\u201d).
\nWhen the four of them arrive back to the flat, Robin is up and about\u2014and not at all happy to find that Roberta has invited the tramps to spend the day with them. Then a Xmas card arrives for Robin but addressed to \u201cFactory X10\u201d. This causes Robin to become quite agitated because he is the caretaker of SC541, so he orders his wife and the three tramps to go and check the factory\u2019s name on the output gate. On the way there, and back, the four of them discuss the factory\u2019s change of output from television sets to strange metal eggs.
\nThe group eventually return and confirm to Robin that the factory is now called X10. Jerry also reveals that he has bought one of the eggs back with him:<\/p>\n

\u201cI brought it because I thought the factory ought to give us a Christmas present,\u201d Jerry told them dreamily, squatting down to look at the egg. \u201cYou see, a long time ago, before the machines declared all writers like me redundant, I met an old robot writer. And this old robot writer had been put out to scrap, but he told me a thing or two. And he told me that as machines took over man\u2019s duties, so they took over his myths too. Of course, they adapt the myths to their own beliefs, but I think they\u2019d like the idea of handing out Christmas presents.\u201d\u00a0 p. 73<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jerry\u2019s thoughts are met with further belligerence from Robin, and Jerry responds by saying that New Father Christmas will come for him (New Father Christmas apparently takes old people and machines away).
\nWhen the egg later hatches Roberta becomes alarmed, as it looks as if the egg is going to build another factory in the flat\u2014so she stamps on it. Then the group realise that the egg is wirelessing for help, so they flee, only to be caught on the stairs by . . . .
\nThis is a little on the slight side, but the robot factory setting (with its interstitial humans, and the new myths that have arisen) is captivatingly and amusingly done.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Good). 2,100 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

La Befana<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Gene Wolfe (Galaxy<\/em>, January-February 1973) opens with an alien called Zozz arriving at a human settler\u2019s household on Christmas Eve. There Zozz waits for the man of the family, John \u201cBananas\u201d Bannano, to come home.
\nOnce Bannano arrives there are several conversations that run in parallel about (a) the family\u2019s emigration to Zozz\u2019s planet (b) the mother-in-law, who goes into the room next door to avoid Zozz, and (c) a story about a witch eternally dammed to look for the baby Jesus\/Messiah.
\nThe last line draws this together somewhat with (spoiler) the mother-in-law saying she\u2019ll only have to search until tomorrow night.
\nThis is either a simple idea complicated by the various lines of conversation (in one or two places it\u2019s hard to work out who is talking to who), or I missed the point. Either way, I suspect it is a slight piece.
\n\u2217<\/strong> (Mediocre). 1,450 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

The Cover<\/em><\/strong> is a rather bland, monochromatic affair. I presume most hardbacks were destined for libraries, so they probably didn\u2019t have to sell themselves in bookstores.
\nThere is a short Introduction <\/em><\/strong>by Terry Carr where he briefly describes the tension between science and religion that is sometimes found in SF Christmas stories.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

In conclusion, a very mixed bag of an anthology: about half of it is worth your attention; as for the rest, well, it\u2019s hard to see why the Wolfe and Robinson are here, and the Asimov and Pohl are at best, average (were they included for their name value?) I also have a problem with the odd running order. Why would you open the book with three of the longer stories? Why wouldn\u2019t you finish the book with the spiritual and philosophical The Star?<\/em> Why have two of the lighter stories (the White and the Aldiss), and two of the stories that involve death (the Clarke and the Dickson) next to each other? I didn\u2019t have a particularly good opinion of Carr as an editor before this volume, and this won\u2019t shift the dial.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. This was published around the same time as\u00a0Nightfall<\/em>\u00a0and the first \u2018Foundation\u2019 stories (late 1941 to mid-1942), but was written a year or so earlier, as Asimov notes in\u00a0The Early Asimov<\/em>:<\/p>\n

The success of \u201cReason\u201d didn\u2019t mean that I was to have no further rejections from Campbell.
\nOn December 6, 1940, influenced by the season and never stopping to think that a Christmas story must sell no later than July in order to make the Christmas issue, I began \u201cChristmas on Ganymede.\u201d I submitted it to him on the twenty-third, but the holiday season did not affect his critical judgment. He rejected it.
\nI tried Pohl next, and, as was happening so often that year, he took it. In this case, for reasons I will describe later, the acceptance fell through. I eventually sold it the next summer (June 27, 1941, the proper time of year) to\u00a0Startling Stories<\/em>, the younger, sister magazine of\u00a0Thrilling Wonder Stories<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2.\u00a0The Glass Inferno<\/em>\u00a0by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson (1974) was made into a big-budget disaster film called\u00a0The Towering Inferno<\/em>\u00a0(1974), more\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s The Star<\/em> won the 1956 Hugo for Best Short Story (against what looks like a fairly weak list<\/a>\u00a0of finalists).<\/p>\n

4. Christmas Treason<\/em> was quite widely reprinted for a Xmas story, making it into two \u2018Best of the Year\u2019 anthologies and three Xmas ones, as well as others. Its publication history<\/a> on ISFDB.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: A mixed bag of a Christmas SF anthology, but it has two very good stories from Arthur C. Clarke (the Hugo winning The Star) and James White (his widely anthologised Christmas Treason), and good supporting work from John Christopher, Gordon R. Dickson, and Brian W. Aldiss. The presence of the Robinson and Wolfe stories […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthologies-reprint"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-3Cq","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13914"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14884,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13914\/revisions\/14884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}