From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written
In article <111cadi$5hg$
2@reader1.panix.com>,
James Nicoll <
jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
In article <111c45a$2hhj0$12@dont-email.me>,
BCFD 36 <bcfd36@cruzio.com> wrote:
In another thread, the subject of Keith Laumer's Bolo stories was
brought up. So I started looking them up to see if the title that
reminded me of something was what I was remembering. Close, but not
quite. I digress.
In the process of looking up the short stories, I came across some books >>in PDF, a couple of anthologies and maybe a novel: A Plague of Demons
(the novel that I originally spelled Daemons due to my Comp Sci
background intruding), The World Turned Upside Down (anthology with The >>Last Command and also A Gun for Dinosaur, Who Goes There?, St. Dragon
and the George, The Cold Equations, A Pail of Air among a bunch of
others whose titles I did not recognize), and The Big Show (all Laumer >>stories).
I've started working my way through The World Turned Upside Down. So
far, they are OK to good, but nothing great yet. The Last Command was >>close to great, but... I don't know. But good enough I remembered the
plot pretty well after at least 50 years. So, maybe great?
I reviewed that for SFBC years and years ago.
I will post it here tomorrow, if tomorrow is less Monday-like.
Here is it, properly formatted. Because it was written to
help determine if the SFBC wanted to buy this, it is full of
spoilers. No, fuller than that.
On the whole I liked it. However, it was used as a sort of memorial for
Baen. I think a better approach would have been to do what Harrison
did for Campbell and commission one last story in series first published
by Baen.
Most of these stories are pretty good, with the inevitable duds outnumbered
by the gems. All are dated in some way or another but generally not in ways that interfere with the pleasures of reading them (Aside from some notable sexism here and there). My only worry is that a lot of these have been anthologized many times and potential customers may already own anthologies with these particular stories in them.
[Note: the stories have individual prefaces and in some cases afterwords. Generally, Eric Flint writes them but on occasion Jim Baen does as well]
Preface: An explanation of how this book came to be and what its purpose is.
Arthur C. Clarke, Rescue Party: Well-meaning aliens journey to a doomed
Earth to rescue a few humans, only to discover after some exploration that
all of the humans are gone, off on an ambitious (although low tech)
attempt to reach the stars in generation ships.
[A classic in the old Astounding style]
Robert A. Heinlein, The Menace From Earth: A lunar teen deals with some unwanted romantic competition in the form of a young, sophisticated
woman from cosmopolitan Earth. [Something less than a classic. RAH
shouldn't have tried his hand at teen girls, I think]
[Added in 2026: my Young People liked this]
Rick Raphael, Code Three: Law and order on the super-duper highways
of the future involves very large, very fast police cruisers and a
large body count thanks to Mr. Newton. [Light weight, very much of
a specific time in terms of how it handles race and sex but not
entirely without a certain overcharged charm]
Robert Sheckley, Hunting Problem: Three humans on a world that is
(unknown to them) occupied by ethereal aliens are the subjects of a
hunt. Only the alien hunters' lack of anatomical knowledge spares
the humans' lives. [A minor but amusing Sheckley]
A.E. Van Vogt, Black Destroyer: A human exploration ship is faced with
a superhuman predator from a decayed civilization. They defeat it using
its cultural blinders. [Another old standard. It is not clear to me why
the humans decide to commit genocide at the end of the story but it was
a different time]
Fritz Leiber, A Pail of Air: Earth has been cast into interstellar space
and a family of survivors struggles to survive in the aftermath. Their persistence is rewarded with the discovery that there are other, better-equipped, survivors. [Short but quite good]
Robert Ernest Gilbert, Thy Rocks and Rills: A fellow sells a mutant bull
for bullfighting and fights a duel himself. He uses trickery and cunning
to prevail, as does the bull. In the end the game is fixed and neither
can win. [This was ok. Not really my thing and too much exposition about things the characters should have already known]
L. Sprague de Camp, A Gun For Dinosaur: A hunting guide advises a would-be dinosaur hunter with a tale of a hunt that went terribly wrong. [Another
old classic]
James H. Schmitz, Goblin Night: Telzey finds herself in a retelling of
The Most Dangerous Game, stalked by a carnivore controlled with the mechanically amplified psionics of a bitter crippled genius. [In
general, I don't like the Telzey stuff but this was not too bad]
C.M. Kornbluth, The Only Thing We Learn: Earth falls to the star-barbarians but in time the civilized offspring of the barbarians will themselves be victims of a similar process. [Oddly, I had not read this one. Standard
moody Kornbluth]
Wyman Guin, Trigger Tide: An off-worlder persists in his mission to
end a war by killing the local Leader, hampered by unique local
conditions. [This didn't really work for me]
Murray Leinster, The Aliens: What is initially hostile contact between
humans and mysterious aliens turns into a cooperative struggle to
survive. [I'd have picked First Contact but as Flint points out it
has been collected many many times. On the other hand, a lot of the
other stories in here have also been anthologized multiple times]
Michael Shaara, All The Way Back: The first human interstellar explorers
meet a representative of a galactic federation. He explains some local mysteries to the humans, including the revelation that humans are the
remnants of a once great race whose terrible actions required their extermination, an order that is, rather sadly for the humans, still
in effect. [This is, I suppose, the flip side of the situation in
Rescue Party]
Keith Laumer, The Last Command: Road engineers accidentally activate a long-abandoned Bolo, a supersized tank. When the radioactive Bolo goes
on a rampage under the impression the old war is still on, an elderly
veteran gives his life to guide the machine away from the city. [This
is one of a small handful of good Bolo stories]
John W. Campbell, Who Goes There? Explorers contend with a hellishly
adaptable alien, barely defeating it with the help of the local
climate. [I amm inclined to say this was JWC's best]
Ross Rocklynne, Quietus: Birdlike aliens investigating a nearly dead
Earth stumble across a man and his pet bird but just as the man is on
the verge of finding the last woman, one of the aliens kills him to
prevent him from hurting the bird. [It's better than his puzzle stories,
in any case]
Fredric Brown, The Answer: By building a computer able to answer the
question of whether or not there is a good, researchers create the God
they are looking for. [A classic short-short]
Isaac Asimov, The Last Question: Superficially similar to the Brown,
this details various stages in computer evolution; each step being
confronted with the desire by humans to have the laws of thermodynamics reversed. In the end, the computer is able to reset the universe,
chosing the first words of Genesis when it does so. [Another classic]
C.L. Moore, Shambleau: Northwest Smith rescues what seems to be a
beautiful young alien woman, only to be enslaved by her vampiric psi
powers. He seems doomed to be consumed by the monster but a friend shows
up just in time to save him. [Northwest, you genre-blind man-whore]
Tom Godwin, The Cold Equations: Stupid girl stows away on a courier
ship. Because the ship lacks the reaction mass to reach the target world
with her aboard, she is ejected into space. [I am sure it is possible to
write a story that accomplishes what this one is trying to do (and I just thought of an example: To Build a Fire) but this particular story is
riddled with contrived plotting to force the story in the direction the
author wants.]
[For some reason, the order of Shambleau and The Cold Equations is
reversed from the order it appears in the ToC]
Poul Anderson, Turning Point: Humans are confronted with the problem of
what to do about a recently contacted alien race, one that is backwards technologically but far smarter than humans. In the end, they decide to assimilate the aliens into human society. [One of many stories in this
that prompted "Oh, yes. *That* story," with the very first sentence.
Unlike a lot of the others, this hasn't been collected all that often.
I don't think it has been anthologized since the 1970s, at least not in
a form I encountered]
Lee Gregor, Heavy Planet: A native of a high gravity world encounters
a crashed space ship build by now-crushed low gravity worlders.
[Competent and oft collected]
H. Beam Piper, Omnilingual: Archaeologists on dead Mars discover the
Rosetta stone needed to decipher the Martian language in the form of scientific texts. [Yet another old classic, and yet another story that
has been collected multiple times]
Christopher Anvil, The Gentle Earth: Aliens worried that Earth might
some day be a threat invade. Although hampered by their astounding
ignorance of phenomena like snow, bad weather and volcanoes, they
slowly drive back the forces of Earth, only to sign what will clear
be a disastrous armistice with the humans. [Boy, was this a stupid
story. Standard Anvil Poor Dumb Aliens stuff]
Chester S. Geier, Environment: Explorers looking for a lost colony
find mysterious alien cities whose contents transform the humans into something far more ethereal than humans. [Eh]
Jack Vance, Liane the Wayfarer: Liane agrees to accomplish one small
task to win a woman he lusts after, but fails rather horribly.
[Amusing]
P. Schuyler Miller, Spawn: Seeds from space transform various objects
(gold, a dead man) into horrible Things that fight for supremacy over
the Earth. In the end the spores' own limitations bring them down.
[I thought this was a real stinker]
Gordon R. Dickson, St. Dragon and the George: An American, transported
to a fantasy world and trapped in the body of a dragon, fights evil in
order to earn a trip home for himself and his sweetie. [Amusing, cousin
to the de Camp and Pratt Enchanter stories, I think]
Theodore Sturgeon, Thunder and Roses: Atomic war has killed the Western Hemisphere and left the Eastern one badly damaged. American soldiers
are given a chance to take their enemies with them into extinction but
one among them decides to give the future a chance, and destroys the
mechanism of retaliation. [Another old classic and a strong note to end on]
--
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