Reviews and Comments

A series of short stories set in the same world and a connecting story outside them all. Most of the stories are excellent, but the last is not as strong and the connecting thread remains unresolved. Perhaps this tale continues in the second volume [b:The People: No Different Flesh|5976470|The People No Different Flesh|Zenna Henderson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1261208803s/5976470.jpg|706843]. Each of the episodes would stand alone, and each contains a little more about The People than the previous entries. Each has a slight religious overtone, though no overt discussion of or comparison to any earthly religion ever occurs. Has many similarities to Escape to Witch Mountain.

The only other [a:Zenna Henderson|193296|Zenna Henderson|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1228532638p2/193296.jpg] I read was more than 30 years ago, [b:The Anything Box|491887|The Anything Box|Zenna Henderson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1330709696s/491887.jpg|480089]. This book was chosen on a list of Defining Books of the 60s, and is also included in Ian Sales list of Mistressworks. For me, this was a solid 4 stars.

Isaac Asimov returns to the Foundation series some 30 years later, bringing with him some good twine to reel in his other series (Robots and Empire). He also brings with him the authorial respect and catalog he lacked early on, and that led Foundation's Edge to the NY Times Bestseller list. But was it good?

The first three books were told in pairs of stories, and this has only one, though with two distinct points of view (one for each Foundation). Schemes of both are brought together near Gaia, a great decision point, and a somewhat abrupt ending, likely leading to the next book.

Mostly dismissed were the original Seldon plan (Hari Seldon couldn't foresee the technology, so his plan is no longer important) and free will (with the exception of one character, who thankfully is the protagonist of the next book). The original trilogy was modeled after Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and that connection is also lacking. I found the schemes inferior to the earlier trilogy, and some of the connections to Robots tenuous.

I can completely understand Asimov's fans and publishers clamoring to hear more of the 1000 year interregnum period - the original trilogy covered less than 400 of those years. Unfortunately this book alone is not sufficient, and I worry that the following (and final) book won't add much more.

Stranded on the moon, a team of men have to survive and eke out an existence. Originally published in 1950, some of the science is a bit off, but overall this collection of diary entries reminds me of The Martian and Apollo 13 - but without the potatoes.

Being about a collection of men, some interpersonal stories can and do evolve - from someone stealing food to others wanting to work alone on secret projects. These latter become the key ingredients for survival. The group dynamics really made this story for me, and this is a hallmark of author and amateur radio aficionado John W. Campbell Jr.

Curiously, his wikipedia entry says he stopped writing fiction when he took over as editor of Astounding in October of 1937. I was unable to determine if this novel was written before or after that time.

This "collection" also contains a novella titled The Elder Gods. This was written early in the author's career, and was a fun story in line with many Greek myths and legends.

I greatly enjoyed this fictional collection of letters, primarily because of the humor and the history. Ring Lardner's character Jack Keefe writes these letters as the country bumpkin, ala Mark Twain's Keokuk Post letters. This was apt for ballplayers of the deadball era, who were less educated than today's players. Shoeless Joe is a near contemporary example for Jack.

A lot of the humor comes from the manipulations of Jack by his manager and other players. Lardner emphasizes this by having Jack declare in one letter that he absolutely won't do something and in the next that he is, and of course it was his choice. I also derived quite a bit of humor in Jack's descriptions of left handed pitchers and other players on both teams.

The history of baseball in a two year period, 1913 and 1914, is well told by what happens behind the scenes. When the fictional Jack reports on a game, the outcome is based on a real game played by the Chicago White Sox, and the players he mentions performed as described. This is especially telling when, towards the end of the story, Jack is convinced to participate in the 1913-1914 World Tour. The US stops are covered and, again, accurate, including two games in Seattle and Tacoma cancelled on account of rain.

The only drawback for me was the extensive offseason coverage of Jack's trials, including a repeated discussion of a lease in Bedford. I understand this collection has also been turned into a series of comic strips - I would wager that most of the non-baseball stuff was left out.

The letters were first published in the Saturday Evening Post, and had a large following. The book, reprinting these, sold less well at the time, but it is in that form that this work survives. Highly recommended for fans of baseball's deadball era.

Denny Lanning and his Harvard roommates end up meeting again later in life, rescued at the moments of their death and traveling through time with eight other warriors recruited the same way. Their goal is a battle to decide the cosmic probability in favor of Jonbar, a utopia with (of course) a beautiful woman who visits Denny at points in his life and warns him. The villain is an evil woman (still beautiful) who wants to be immortal in the other probability option. She commands an army of insectoid warriors.

This book was first published as a serial in 1938, and this was the first science fiction concept of a crucial decision point in time travel novels - lookup the Jonbar Hinge on wikipedia. It is well done here, especially since the utopian outcome derives from a scientific mind that is starved of science in the other choice. The scenes of rescued warriors are also well done, even though each is mostly a caricature of their times - incidentally, this concept led to a time traveling role playing game called Timemaster.

After the legion is gathered, they gather information and fight skirmishes against the insects and their evil queen. Once they find out what they need (and where it is located), they stage an all out assault on the queen's palace, dying off one by one in a quest to reach the sacred object. These battle scenes are less well written and harder to follow. The final confrontation also feels a bit rushed. I'm wondering if the author jammed it all into one last episode for other reasons.

Gender bias as one would expect from a story written in 1938; characters are mostly flat though Denny and roommate physicist Wil McLan both grow some. A fairly quick read. Perhaps the story was reworked before being published standalone in 1952; it needed a bit more.

This book is set in a late 1950s where Russia continued to launch Sputniks, improving on the design each time. The most recent launches are even said to be spy satellites. The first few chapters of the book set up this situation and introduce us to the characters.

This is the cold war, the world could end at anytime mentality that I remember as a kid. If there’s any good news, it is that this book is set in a time before we truly had mutually assured destruction, before missiles were quite as good as they later became.

After those first few chapters, the war kicks off and the author develops up a pretty realistic situation, including flash blindness and radioactivity gathering in milk and metals. The author’s background in the office of war information is telling here, and as the situation changes, it remains quite realistic.

After the attack, the small town of Fort Repose Florida is one of the few places that wasn’t bombed, and the winds have kept most of the fallout clear. Cut off from the rest of the country, the novel then tells the story of survival in a post-apocalyptic situation. Unlike other novels in this vein, society mostly keeps going, with looters and outlaws kept to the fringes.

I really enjoyed this book, especially the thought provoking ending. I finished it shortly after landing in Florida for the first time myself, and handed it to a friend who resides there for his edification. Recommended!

James Blish wrote a lot for Bantam's Star Trek books, including most of the 12 collections that covered each episode of the original series. His stories went into more depth than the episode, but usually not in the direction of the character. This book, one of the first original tales published, fits that mold quite well.

McCoy doesn't like the transporter, Scotty loves to talk about the technology, and Kirk must agonize over the decisions. In this case, the decision is which Spock must die, after the first officer is duplicated in a transporter incident. The rest of the story is original, from a space battle scene with multiple Klingon corvettes to a wild conclusion on the Organian homeworld. In addition to a good story, it was a very quick read.

Later tales, including more James Blish and some of the Pocket Books stories, go into more depth and challenge for the main characters. This book is not great but not bad - right in the middle of the spectrum.

The first half of the book, originally a 1953 novella, is a very good story of the evaluation of a planet with intelligent life by a commission of four gentlemen with differing goals. This is very well done and ends with a surprise opinion from one of the four, a Jesuit priest.

In this book, as in Mary Doria Russell's [b:The Sparrow|334176|The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1)|Mary Doria Russell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1230829367s/334176.jpg|3349153] and Dan Simmon's [b:Hyperion|77566|Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #1)|Dan Simmons|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405546838s/77566.jpg|1383900], religion plays a major part. As this book arrived first, one can't help but think the others were influenced by this one - and each was quite good. James Blish wrote other books connected with this one, part of a group called "After Such Knowledge", where he continues to explore the religious theme.

The second half of this book follows a path of politics. The world of Earth the commission left from is described for the first time, and it is a bit different from our own - though definitely a likely future from the perspective of the 1950s. Interactions with (and damage to) this world is not as interesting to read and also not science fiction. The closest we have to that is a description of instantaneous communication (and later vision) that predates LeGuin's ansible by 7 years. These bits of sci-fi are needed for the ultimate ending of the book, and feel forced.

The conclusion, without spoilers, is interesting. While I appreciated the combination of religion and politics, the piecemeal nature of this book was jarring. The first half by itself would rate 4-5 stars, but I can't (in good conscience) rate the entire book so highly.