Stellar 1
James Nicoll
Stellar 1
edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey
Ballantine (1974)
216 pages ($1.25)
The cover art is uncredited as far as I can tell and consists
of a generic SFnal background with large metal 1s everywhere. The look
of the book is utterly unlike the rest of the series.
Introduction: Why Anthologize? (Judy-Lynn del Rey): The mission
statement for the series, there will be only one more introduction as the
series continues, the rather lengthy one in Stellar Short Novels.
The Birch Clump Cylinder (Clifford D. Simak): The return of
a man to the rural college he had hoped he had escaped and the story
of the examination of a piece of alien equipment which has come to
rest in the local woods. The ending is very much telegraphed by
the near juxtiposition of the revelation that the original benefactor
of the collage was *mysterious* and the use of the term 'time engine'
to describe the effects of the engine. In an attempt to turn it off,
two people tangle with it. One gets to play Connecticut Yankee in
President Garfield's Court (Although off-stage) and the other is
thrown into a future where the college has become the sole owner
of the means of FTL transportation.
This is a fairly typical, although minor, Clifford Simak.
Even when dealing with Big Issues, the characters are prone to be
just regular people and the setting rural or small town. I recommend
flipping quickly past the "science" expositions.
Fusion (Milton Rothman): The tale of an experimental fusion
reactor and all the problems which can occur while trying to hit the
breakeven point. Very much based on the late Doctor Rothman's actual
experiences and not, sad to say, much of a story. This would have
made a better nonfiction article. It's a shame, because Rothman
could write ripping yarns, as shown in "Heavy Planet".
A Miracle of Small Fishes (Alan Dean Foster): Here we have a
dying old man who can no longer catch fish because advances in fish
farming and netting mean none of the fish get as far south as his town
(Which must have caused some interesting dislocations in the food chain).
We have his adorable little grand daughter, who dearly wants to see poor
old doomed grand dad get one last bug haul before he goes. We have an
amiable priest with connections. We have a researcher who wants to
stock a new fishery over the objections of politicians whose constituants
would take a minor loss as the breeding stock went uncaught. Will the
little girl's plea sway the hearts of the short sighted politicians?
We pause for injection of insulin.
Really not my thing but a decent enough example of the tear-jerker
problem story. Reminds me a little of the tale about the old man who
petitions the weather bureau for one last snow fall.
The Whirligig of Time (Vernor Vinge): Long after the US
loses WWIII, the top several layers of the corrupt aristocracy
ruling Earth encounter the last active artifact of the USA. Note
for readers: do not poke nuclear weapons with a stick.
Not Hugo material but it's short. Falls into the 'reform
through massive detonation' school of political thought.
Schwartz Between the Galaxies (Robert Silverberg): Schwartz
is an anthropologist in the mid-2100s who makes his living making
speeches about the loss of cultural diversity on Earth. Although
surrounded by technological miracles, he is bored to tears and
fills his time with fantasies about a future with intergalactic
travel where he can hob nob with aliens.
Didn't really work for me. Don't know why, because I generally
liked middle period Silverberg and I really like Yarbro's _Ariosto_
which also contrasts internal fantasy with external reality.
Mr. Hamadryad (R.A. Lafferty): A man who travels in coconuts
witnesses the end of the age of monkeys and the beginning of the age
of cats. Not your pampered, neutered cats either. Bad time to be small
and crunchy.
R.A. Lafferty was unique. For some reason, he didn't seem to
get anthologized much with other authors before Alzeimer's took
him and not at all these days.
Singularities Make Me Nervous (Larry Niven): A starship pilot
uses a black hole located handily near Sol to travel in time. Although
worried that he is merely participating in a causal loop which denies
free will, he discovers that history does not repeat itself.
Eh. Typical Niven short fiction from the 1970s. Competent
enough and quick moving.
The Logical Life (Hal Clement): Laird Cunningham, explorer
of worlds, set out with yet another native guide to discover the
source of the chemicals which form the basis for the ecology of
a sunless Earth-sized world deep in interstellar space.
I really like the Cunningham tales. Laird always figures
out the scientific trick to each new setting, although he often
has to knocked over by the solution to notice it. The aliens tend
to be incredibly reasonable chaps, once one discovers what to trade
them. One of the things I like about the stories is that a lot of
the worlds visited are not mere clones of Earth, something of a
rarity in SF.
Twig (Gordon R. Dickson): A young girl who was raised
by the plant based intelligence running the forest ecology of
a human colony world must grow into a new role as the replacement
for the intelligence as she loses the adult figures around her.
If this were a Laumer, she'd have become the centerpiece
for the world mind with Awesome Mind Powers but this is a Dickson
and things are not so easy. Like many of the other stories, competent
without being astounding.
Over all, a decent enough anthology. Nothing really earth
shattering but all readable, with the possible exception of "Fusion".
Richard Horton
>
> Stellar 1
> edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey
> Ballantine (1974)
> 216 pages ($1.25)
>
>
> The cover art is uncredited as far as I can tell and consists
>of a generic SFnal background with large metal 1s everywhere. The look
>of the book is utterly unlike the rest of the series.
>
> Fusion (Milton Rothman): The tale of an experimental fusion
>reactor and all the problems which can occur while trying to hit the
>breakeven point. Very much based on the late Doctor Rothman's actual
>experiences and not, sad to say, much of a story. This would have
>made a better nonfiction article. It's a shame, because Rothman
>could write ripping yarns, as shown in "Heavy Planet".
>
Joanna Russ, in her review for F&SF, made some nasty comment about
this story to the effect that it was a bunch of coffee cups talking
(presumably held in the cardboard hands of the characters).
> Schwartz Between the Galaxies (Robert Silverberg): Schwartz
>is an anthropologist in the mid-2100s who makes his living making
>speeches about the loss of cultural diversity on Earth. Although
>surrounded by technological miracles, he is bored to tears and
>fills his time with fantasies about a future with intergalactic
>travel where he can hob nob with aliens.
>
> Didn't really work for me. Don't know why, because I generally
>liked middle period Silverberg and I really like Yarbro's _Ariosto_
>which also contrasts internal fantasy with external reality.
>
I was actually pretty impressed by this story. As I recall, it was
Silverberg's last story before his much-ballyhooed "retirement" from
SF. (A retirement that occurred at about the same time as
abandonments of SF by Harlan Ellison and Barry Malzberg.)
> Over all, a decent enough anthology. Nothing really earth
>shattering but all readable, with the possible exception of "Fusion".
>
That's pretty much the way I see it.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
mike stone
>Schwartz
>>is an anthropologist in the mid-2100s who makes his living making
>>speeches about the loss of cultural diversity on Earth. Although
>>surrounded by technological miracles, he is bored to tears and
>>fills his time with fantasies about a future with intergalactic
>>travel where he can hob nob with aliens.
Wasn't there a Fredric Brown short along similar lines? A father is grumbling
about the rubbish in his son's sf comics, then catches the telepathcast to hear
about the Fourth Martian War
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough England
Last words of King Edward II.
"I always said that Roger Mortimer was a pain in the - - - AAARGHH!!!"
Nancy Lebovitz
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> Stellar 1
> edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey
> Ballantine (1974)
> 216 pages ($1.25)
(.....)
>
> Mr. Hamadryad (R.A. Lafferty): A man who travels in coconuts
>witnesses the end of the age of monkeys and the beginning of the age
>of cats. Not your pampered, neutered cats either. Bad time to be small
>and crunchy.
>
> R.A. Lafferty was unique. For some reason, he didn't seem to
>get anthologized much with other authors before Alzeimer's took
>him and not at all these days.
>
I'm not sure what you mean by "much"--he was in a lot of Knight's
Orbit anthologies and frequently had the only good story in Elwood's
theme anthologies. I've seen him in at least one Merril "Best" anthology
and in a Nebula Winners.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
James Nicoll
[examines undefendable assertation on my part]
Look! The Winged Victory of Samothrace!
sf/x: feet running, fading into distance...
Nancy Lebovitz
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <9unvs7$7...@netaxs.com>,
>Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix1.netaxs.com> wrote:
>>In article <9ulivt$fov$1...@panix2.panix.com>,
>>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Stellar 1
>>> edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey
>>> Ballantine (1974)
>>> 216 pages ($1.25)
>>
>>(.....)
>>>
>>> Mr. Hamadryad (R.A. Lafferty): A man who travels in coconuts
>>>witnesses the end of the age of monkeys and the beginning of the age
>>>of cats. Not your pampered, neutered cats either. Bad time to be small
>>>and crunchy.
>>>
>>> R.A. Lafferty was unique. For some reason, he didn't seem to
>>>get anthologized much with other authors before Alzeimer's took
>>>him and not at all these days.
>>>
>>I'm not sure what you mean by "much"--he was in a lot of Knight's
>>Orbit anthologies and frequently had the only good story in Elwood's
>>theme anthologies. I've seen him in at least one Merril "Best" anthology
>>and in a Nebula Winners.
>
> [examines undefendable assertation on my part]
>
> Look! The Winged Victory of Samothrace!
>
> sf/x: feet running, fading into distance...
Lafferty may have given the impression that he wasn't much
anthologized with other people because he wrote so many short stories
and had so many loyal fans that he had a much higher proportion of
solo anthologies than most authors.
mstemper - emis . com
[massive snippage!]
> We pause for injection of insulin.
>
> Really not my thing but a decent enough example of the tear-jerker
>problem story. Reminds me a little of the tale about the old man who
>petitions the weather bureau for one last snow fall.
Speaking of which, does anybody happen to remember name and author for
that one?
[more massive snippage]
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish,
and you can sell him equipment.
Bill Snyder
Stemper) wrote:
>In article <9ulivt$fov$1...@panix2.panix.com>, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
>
>[massive snippage!]
>
>> We pause for injection of insulin.
>>
>> Really not my thing but a decent enough example of the tear-jerker
>>problem story. Reminds me a little of the tale about the old man who
>>petitions the weather bureau for one last snow fall.
>
>Speaking of which, does anybody happen to remember name and author for
>that one?
"The Weather Man," of course. Theodore L. Thomas, IMS.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
James Nicoll
Bill Snyder
Ah, it's good to have confirmation. More and more these days, my
connection to the IMDB keeps turning up long retrieval delays and bit
drop-outs. Shoddy workmanship, if you ask me. And tech support is
totally impossible; they just mumble something about the ways of the
manufacturer being mysterious and then try to change the subject.
James Nicoll
Bill Snyder <bsn...@iadfw.net> wrote:
>On 7 Dec 2001 16:10:39 -0500, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>
>>In article <459674799D26A058.BE030444...@lp.airnews.net>,
>>Bill Snyder <bsn...@iadfw.net> wrote:
>>>On 7 Dec 2001 17:39:34 GMT, mstemper @ siemens - emis . com (Michael
>>>Stemper) wrote:
>>>
>>>>In article <9ulivt$fov$1...@panix2.panix.com>, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
>>>>
>>>>[massive snippage!]
>>>>
>>>>> We pause for injection of insulin.
>>>>>
>>>>> Really not my thing but a decent enough example of the tear-jerker
>>>>>problem story. Reminds me a little of the tale about the old man who
>>>>>petitions the weather bureau for one last snow fall.
>>>>
>>>>Speaking of which, does anybody happen to remember name and author for
>>>>that one?
>>>
>>>"The Weather Man," of course. Theodore L. Thomas, IMS.
>>
>> Yup, at least according to the IMDB.
D'oh! ISFDB, I mean.
mstemper - emis . com
>>On 5 Dec 2001 11:45:49 -0500, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>>>Schwartz
>>>is an anthropologist in the mid-2100s who makes his living making
>>>speeches about the loss of cultural diversity on Earth. Although
>>>surrounded by technological miracles, he is bored to tears and
>>>fills his time with fantasies about a future with intergalactic
>>>travel where he can hob nob with aliens.
>
>Wasn't there a Fredric Brown short along similar lines? A father is grumbling
>about the rubbish in his son's sf comics, then catches the telepathcast to hear
>about the Fourth Martian War
IIRC, "Columbus Was a Dope", by RAH, has a similar theme.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him talk like Mr. Ed
by rubbing peanut butter on his gums.
Paul Fraser
<rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>I was actually pretty impressed by this story. As I recall, it was
>Silverberg's last story before his much-ballyhooed "retirement" from
>SF. (A retirement that occurred at about the same time as
>abandonments of SF by Harlan Ellison and Barry Malzberg.)
None of which lasted. Yeah, I thought Schwartz impressive, too. When I
first read it (as a reprint in Science Fiction Monthly) it blew me
away. One of the few recent (i.e. post age 12) stories that managed to
press the 'sense of wonder' button.
Paul Fraser