1972: From This Day Forward (Brunner, John)

Ripe talent offers diverse pickings (4/5)

Aside from Entry to Elsewhen (1972), I haven’t been exposed to much of Brunner’s short work. Entry to Elsewhen was hit and miss (with once big, big miss) and made me leery of pursuing a larger Brunner collection of shorts. Being a big Brunner fan, however, led me to enthusiastically pick up From This Day Forward, with its thirteen morsels of Brunner talents between its covers. It thought it’d be a nice treat to end the year 2012 with a menagerie of Brunner-generated ideas to inspire my own writing in the coming year. Thankfully, many of the stories range from pretty good to great, and even the sestina at the conclusion is ripe with imagination.

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The Biggest Game (1956, shortstory) – 4/5 – Royster is a narcissistic predator of rich, lonely women. Proud of his body and skin, he seeks women with husbands away, to coddle the women into including him in their living wills. Recently, at the gym, out at night, and outside his home, he has seen mysterious men in black watching him. On his date, spinning a tiger hunting story, Royster bores the lady and soon leans in for the kiss only to hear a shriek and commotion. His eyes widen. 12 pages

The Trouble I see (1959, shortstory) – 2/5 – Having premonitions of coming trouble since a young age, Joe is able to assume a “good boy” aura while stealing petty cash for a perfect gambling streak. Bored with small town life, he steals the money from a bar and heads to the city to make something of his premonitions. His style impresses a widower and eventually makes him heir to his fortune while the man’s daughter receives a trust fund. One day, Joe’s luck turns sour as he experiences fear—a rarity for Joe. 10 pages

An Elixir for the Emperor (1964, novelette) – 3/5 – Saved from a certain death in an arena of wolves, Apodorius walks free from Rome care of Caesar’s reprieve. To show his gratitude during a time when longevity elixirs being sought in the kingdom, Apodorius offers his much researched concoction, only to be fed his own mixture. Stabbed and pushed into the river, Apodorius returns to Rome a younger man and offers to mix the elixir again with the wealth of a Roman senator—the same who had fed it to him. 21 pages

Wasted on the Young (1965, shortstory) – 5/5 – Human society has become so rich that every person is allowed a 30-year free credit period to spend as they see fit. Some lavish lifestyles fizzle over time, but Hal Page is a party animal who throws ridiculously expensive parties with exorbitantly priced foods and destroyable relics. His 300-year debt to society is allowed to continue until his 32^nd birthday when he’s notified of his credit off-cut. To stave the massive debt, he considers suicide. 13 pages

Even Chance (1965, shortstory) – 3/5 – In northern Burma during WWII, a plane crashed and its pilot inspired the Kalang tribespeople as he sailed down on white wings (a parachute). Years later, the village men sick and depressed, a boy searches for the white men and discovers a UN inoculation team who discern that the now passed out boy is struck with radiation poisoning. The Burmese government brings helicopters in, but the UN staff gather that the boy was in contact with something alien. 13 pages

Planetfall (1965, shortstory) – 3/5 – Stranded on Earth, Lucy dreams of the cities which dart amid the galaxy. Forever confined to his interstellar city, save from the one day of leave he currently has on Earth, Valeryk dreams of the open space and infinite possibilities Earth has to offer. Lucy and Valeryk meet atop a knoll, exchange ideas of romanticism for each other’s life. With time winding down, romantic visions can be shared or shattered. 17 pages

Judas (1967, shortstory) – 4/5 – Karimov sits in the steely back pew waiting for the mass of the metallic wheel to come to a close. Having spoken with the steely God before, Karimov requests God’s presence to the priest, who ignores his urgency and is attacked by Karimov for his disobedience. About to leave the church, a steely voice beckons Karimov to the altar, where his confession is heard, yet no penance shall be served. 8 pages

The Vitanuls (1967, shortstory) – 4/5 – Barry Chance from the WHO visits a maternity ward in India to witness the “patron saint” obstetrician named Dr. Ananta Kotiwala. Having been in the medical practice for sixty years and retiring on the next day, his love for the profession and the respect from his colleagues and has drawn the WHO’s attention because of their recent anti-aging drug. Destined to be a sunnyasi, Kotiwala may be a loss. 20 pages

Factsheet Six (1968, novelette) – 4/5 – Selectively sent to hundreds of investors and other business people, a recent factsheet, the fifth being the most recent, outlines injuries and deaths caused by faulty consumer products. Published by a single unknown person outside of any official capacity, the information is invaluable to a magnate like Mervyn Grey. His eager search for inclusion to this list and the specific name of its printer leads him from the Bahamas to London. 27 pages

Fifth Commandment (1970, shortstory) – 5/5 – Simply one of the seven hundred ninety-two Retirees at Kannegawa, Philip Grumman isn’t content with the retirement lifestyle. A hydroponics engeineer after the war, he and his wife were a childless couple and Philip reflects on this as he sees his friends in the retirement community are also childless. Consulting the doctor directors, Philip gets an impossible answer to his rather innocuous question. 17 pages

Fairy Tale (1970, shortstory) – 4/5 – Penning a letter to his professor friend seven years after the occurrence, Barnaby Gregg recounts his impossible tale while camping in Dartleby, Devonshire. While asleep, Barnaby hears his milk jug being disturbed and sees a miniature man of sorts, who becomes inebriated on the swills he takes. This leads Barnaby to a cave where another fairy spins an extraterrestrial tale of planetary envy and solar rapture. 13 pages

The Inception of the Epoch of Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid (1971, shortstory) – 5/5 – Across the city of New York, four people put into motion their plans. Timed to cause great panic yet announced on the news as mere accidents, their greater plan of war retribution has begun. Free-fall ball-bearings, exploding gas tanks, and a subway gas attack are only three methods which the shadow organization will implement for just revenge on a country’s war and a people’s ignorance. 7 pages

The Oldest Glass (1972, poem) – 4/5 – A sestina about the alluring and truthful nature of the mirror and its earliest counterpart—water. Considering that the reflection is also a reverse image of its source, a mirror at once represents reality yet skews it; a ship’s departure from port, thence, also becomes its arrival from at sea. The lexical repetition of the six end-words reads: “All men, set back, long water.” 2 pages

1973: Deep Space (Silverberg, Robert)

Beyond Sol lie the immensity and the inexplicable (4/5)

Robert Silverberg’s Deep Space anthology aims to distance science fiction from its terrestrial roots, where stories on Earth tend to feel dated due to the progress scientific advancement. Composed of eight stories set in deep space, these stories aim to probe the “inexhaustible treasure trove of virtually unbound possibility” (8) which lay in the “uncharted and all-encompassing realm of infinity known as deep space” (8).

I had read this anthology five years ago and kept it on my shelves because I gave it a 4-of-5 rating, yet I couldn’t recall any of the stories in the collection. To refresh my memory and rediscover the wonders of stories set in deep space, I read some of the stories like the first time yet others beckoned a distant memory like a forgotten flavor or familiar tune. There aren’t any out-right duds in this collection, where Silverberg’s own story is among the weakest and Chad Oliver with the best.

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Chad Oliver: Blood’s a Rover (1952 - novella) – 4/5 – With a great machine guiding the fate of mankind and his galaxy, Conan Lang is an Agent who abides by its directives. He is sent to a planet named Sirius Ten to lift the underdeveloped humanoids there by planting fertile seeds of fruits and corrupted seeds of the resulting agricultural society. Only a pawn in the greater game, his wizened age brings about questions which only the machine can answer. 60 pages

Jack Vance: Noise (1952 - shortstory) – 4/5 – Howard Evens has been rescued from solitude on a planet with his lifeboat as shelter. His existence on the planet is characterized by the passage of untimed days, the revolutions of a number of suns with varying colors, and the wispy figures which haunt his vision. Alone, besides his visions of specters and villages, rescue was once his hope, not his fate. 17 pages

Harlan Ellison: Life Hutch (1956 - shortstory) – 4/5 – His ship disabled and knocked out early in the fleet’s battle with an alien space flotilla, Terrence seeks shelter in an asteroid’s “life hutch” where he’ll await rescue, but the robotic attendant strikes him down as he enters. The smallest movement beckons the brutal force of the robot even after three days. His broken ribs make him suffer, awaiting death on the floor listening to the bussing of the robot’s circuitry. 15 pages

Damon Knight: Ticket to Anywhere (1952 - novelette) – 3/5 – Falk is a stowaway on a frigid freighter bound for the surface of Mars. Convinced that the world was going to pits and everyone with an “analogue program” was going to become a maniac, Falk looks to the alien relic on Mars—an interstellar transportation system. The hollow cuboid of topaz diamond has been testes but deemed unreliable, yet it’s still Falk’s desire to travel the stars alone. 32 pages

Robert Silverberg: The Sixth Palace (1965 - shortstory) – 3/5 – Bolzano stole a computer and gave it to Lipescu for the sole reason of loading as much information onto the machine as possible. With this hoard of answers, Lipescu steadies himself to approach the robotic guardian of a fabulous treasure which many have died in front of. After answering eighteen questions flawlessly, he is killed, so Balzano’s turn is next, where he answers with Zen-like detachment. The gate opens, the treasure is his… 15 pages

Gordon R. Dickson: Lulungomeena (1954 - novelette) – 4/5 – The conflictual Kid accuses his elder of dishonesty about his history of gambling and, more painstakingly, about his home of Lulungameena. To intermediate, a Dorsai man places himself between the two but concedes the mediator position to a visitor to the asteroid where they are on their ten year stay—a naturally honest member of the Hixabrod species. This conflict may tear them apart or resolve it all together. 24 pages

Terry Carr: The Dance of the Changer and the Three (1968 - shortstory) – 3/5 – The distant planet of Loarra is filled with exotic metals which Earth-based company Unicentral would really like to take advantage of. Loarra is also home to an energy-based lifeform whose pulses of light and color can be filtered for a sort of translation. The mediator/translator for the mining expedition recants a famous Loarra tale of sacrifice and avenging, yet also tells how the company lost forty-two of its men. 21 pages

A.E. van Vogt: Far Centaurus (1944 - shortstory) – 4/5 – In 2180, the first interstellar ship leaves Earth for Alpha Centauri with four men aboard with each using “Eternity”, which keeps them in stasis for scores of years at a time. But one man has perished within fifty years of the 500-year journey. The group psychology shifts even though each man awakes by himself for a period of less than a day. On arrival, radio signals are detected and an escort is sent. Their hosts are generous yet unwilling. 28 pages

1965: Space Lords (Smith, Cordwainer)

The faults and triumphs of absurdity and poetry in SF (3/5)

Last year in 2011, I picked up the novel Norstrilia (1975) to discover why it was held in high regard among older science fiction readers. After grudgingly completing the novel and surmising that only nostalgia could provoke such admiration for the novel, I gave it a sold two-star rating and suggested to myself that a collection of short stories by Cordwainer Smith may hold some redemption. Here is where I stared down my copy of Space Lords and swore at it not to annoy be as much as Norstrilia did in the prior year: absurdity springing up everywhere, bad poetry and ballads spread throughout, and a plot direction with less bearing than a drunk giraffe.

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Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons (1961, novelette) – 4/5 – Benjacomin Bozart, the Senior Warden of the Guild of Thieves on the planet Viole Siderea, has been training for two hundred years along with three hundred thousand people to rob the riches from the wealthiest planet of Norstrilia. His tourist disguise gives him access to a calm people, but the secrets divulged are unknowingly laced with subterfuge of their own. All his planning is null is he meets the psychotic minks of Mother Hitton. 24 pages ----- This is when absurdity can be effective, when one absurd plot is supplanted by another even more absurd countermeasure. It’s silly and bit scary, but nevertheless effective.

The Dead Lady of Clown Town (1964, novella) – 1/5 – Descending from the New City to a realm of surreal underpeople and a bodiless computer, the human therapist Elaine is oblivious to her prophetic stature to the Old City denizens of human-form: rats, bears, goats, snakes, and bison. Through doors and meeting a wider cast of eccentric characters both human and underhuman, Elaine finds herself back on Earth entwined in fate and mentality with the once dog underhuman D’joan. 77 pages ----- Absurdity typically has a difficult uphill battle with aimlessness, and here is where aimlessness rears its head and leaves the reader asking for logical progression and direction.

Drunkboat (1963, novelette) – 2/5 – Lord Crudelta, of the Instrumentality, straps Artyr Rambo on a rocket, tells him his love is dead or dying, and leaves him to his own means to get to Earth. A hospital on Earth finds Rambo on their grounds without a ship and without clothes. He mindlessly ignores hospital attire and performs swimming strokes on the room’s floor, while the doctors are baffled. When Lord Crudelta comes to Earth, his dirty actions are apparent. 32 pages ----- The “how” is usually regarded as a null point when the “why” overshadows an absurd plot. But here even the “why” fails to produce on more levels than one.

The Ballard of Lost C’mell (1962, novelette) – 3/5 – Lord Jestocost is inspired like no one else to help the underprivileged underpeople and he has just found his ticket to benevolent emancipation using his telepathy. C’mell utters the name “Ee-telly-kelly” during her father’s funeral and Lord Jestocost summons her to divulge the same name of her people’s secret leader. Once ethereally summoned, the two strategize how to develop the underpeople’s rights under the noses of the Lords. 21 pages ----- It’s at all typical when as absurd story has a good humanistic thread woven into it, but the non-corporeal leader of the underpeople seems too whimsical to be dramatic.

A Planet Named Shayol (1961, novelette) – 4/5 – Mercer has committed a heinous crime against the imperial family and is sent to an orbital hospital to prepare for the tough life on the prison planet of Shayol. The deprivation on the planet is experienced by all who reside there, all their needs taken care of by the skin-piercing dromozoa. Once locally infected, each site grows a human limb or organ, which is lopped off and sent back to the hospital. Death is their only hope. 38 pages ----- Here’s an excellent horror/absurd story where the horror builds dramatically only to be deftly cut short of a decent ending. Best story in the collection!

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On the subject of bad poetry and ballads, Cordwainer Smith has this to say in his epilogue:

“One last word about the bits of incidental verse. I am one of the most minor poets of America, but I thoroughly enjoy incorporating it into science fiction. I am not happy about the 1960s and with the terrible divorce which now exists between poetry and people in most of the English-speaking world. Something is wrong. Perhaps the poets. Perhaps the people. Perhaps you. Perhaps me” (206).

He may like to rhyme and perform repetition, but those are about the only poetry skills the man possesses. He says he “used Chinese, Persian, and Japanese verse forms with English words and rhythms” (206) but much of this was probably lost on the reader.  Then again, I guess it depends on why the reader is reading the book. If it’s for nostalgia, then the poetry may be a brilliant addition to the wonderfully absurd stories, but if you’re approaching the short story collection with a perceptive and discerning eye, then the quality of the stories may match the quality of the poetry.

A fantastic cover by Jack Gaughan (Pyramid Books, 1968)!

I’ll skip any more Cordwainer in the future but I will preserve this copy on my shelves for the two haunting tales which sandwich the lesser tales between them.

1969: Gentle Invaders (Santesson, Hans Stefan)

Humor and Emotion: how these monsters are different (4/5)

Aliens are often depicted as malevolent despots, unscrupulous pillagers, conniving bureaucrats, or savage warriors. It’s refreshing to see aliens in the spotlight at truly benevolent caretakers or maintaining an innocuous presence. Perhaps these latter two extraterrestrial dispositions don’t provide as much cinematic grandeur as the former three, but their seemingly innocent temperament easily allows for humor and emotion to bubble up through an author’s creative talents; the stories in Gentle Invaders generally follow this line of thought.

Rear cover synopsis:

“The Alien is most often described by science fictionists as a horror-inspiring monster with insidiously evil intentions.

Our monsters are different.”

Monsters are often synonymous with aliens because of their projected grotesqueness and wildly exotic physiology. But nearly have the stories in this collection feature humanoid aliens. Food for thought:

How many of the people you see around you every day, the anonymous people that just look a little odd somehow, the people about who you think briefly that they don't even look human--the queer ones you notice and then forget--how many of them aren't human at all in the sense that we understand that word? (Brackett, p.53)

It’s interesting to note that the first four stories are all by female writers: Sasha Miller (1933- ), Leigh Brackett (1915-1978), Miriam Allen deFord (1888-1975), and Zenna Henderson (1917-1983). The editor, Hans Stefan Santesson, either understood that women do have a place in the science fiction community (seeing their important stories through the 50’s and 60’s) or the editor found that the women better understood the benevolent of innocuous disposition of the aliens he had in mind. Sadly, the male writers (William Tenn, Mack Reynolds, and Eric Frank Russell) steal the show with their wowing stories.

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Sit by the Fire (Myrle Benedict, 1958) – 2/5 – Crotchety old Uncle Rebel lives in the hills and don’t see much of anyone at all. A young girl, shy yet svelte, approaches his out of the blue and, out of kindness, lures her to stay in his cabin. The local boys take an interest in her but she cowers to Uncle Rebel when she explains her reluctance with the natives and details her own odd physiology. 9 pages ----- Myrle Benedict (pseudonym for Sasha Miller) completely penned the story in phonetic southern drawl with abbreviated words and “a-“ intensifier prefixes (i.e. a-sittin’, a-runnin’”). The first story isn’t one that grabs the reader because it’s the human who appears gentler than the alien girl, who acts as a catalyst for Uncle Rebel’s caring. Perhaps the notion of alien’s approached country-bumpkins was silly in the 1950’s, but the reader will soon see that this idea tends to be the norm of the era.

The Queer Ones (Leigh Brackett, 1957) – 4/5 – A small town newspaper owner, doctor, and county health officer visit a remote family. One boy whose features are dissimilar to the rest of the rest of the family also has an odd internal structure. When the doctor is killed and the newspaper owner befriends another of the odd-looking children, the secret of the aliens’ hilltop encampment is slowly exposed, but the investigators may be fighting for more than their lives. 37 pages ----- Another small town is at the center of the alien incursion, but this story involves the more respectable citizens of the town. It’s a straight forward mystery of who the boy’s father is and why the aliens have set up a camp on the hilltop of their community. The ending is a tad dark when compared to the rest of the Gentle Invaders entries, but it wraps up nicely enough.

Freak Show (Miriam Allen deFord, 1958) – 4/5 – Rasi’s revolting image makes her perfect for the local freak show circus. Her mask makes her approachable and her secret mission is to see the land in order to render the humans docile before her species land on Earth to make another home for themselves. Rasi’s carnie subterfuge seems to fail and her species plight of nomadic drift may continue. 10 pages ----- Miriam would have been 70 years old at the time of this story’s publication, a remarkable feat for a woman who started to write science fiction in her 60’s. When thinking of Golden Age sci-fi, one recalls the sense of wonderment but not subtle finesse. Given the circus theme (a lá Sturgeon’s The Dreaming Jewels [1950]), both its lead-up to the conclusion and the conclusion itself were a stroke of intelligent follow-through.

Subcommittee (Zenna Henderson, 1962) – 3/5 – The Linjeni’s landed on Earth with vague intentions. Someone shot first and now the ships are being slaughtered by the humans. The truce is at a standstill with their request for the oceans, but when asked if they want the oceans, they desist. The wife of the major in charge of the negotiation cares for their son at their home just near the glass barrier of the Linjeni. Splinter, the son, digs under the dome to more closely understand the Linjeni. 21 pages ----- Zenna has an insight into what would most likely happen during an alien intrusion. The inhumane, disconnected attempt at a concrete understanding undermines the gentler humanistic attempt to bridge vague gaps of understanding in order to find what each species share. This story is more heart-warming than the others but weakens under its predictability.

Unnatural Act (Edward D. Hoch, 1969) – 4/5 – When the aliens come to America in October 1989, the first physical examination of the species reveals a distinct lack of sexual organs. While all the other facts of the aliens were released, the American government-backed Society for the Suppression of Salaciousness is leery of the truth, which is soon revealed in a metropolitan New York newspaper and the backlash of the puritan people is both extreme and deadly. 9 pages ----- This story was previously unpublished and remains the most conversational of all the stories. It’s cheeky in its implication in modern contexts but may have been shrewder when taken into the context of the seemingly innocent collection of science fiction tales. The fact that the aliens’ sex organs were also part of its vocal organs conjured images of “unnatural acts” from the puritan populace.

The Night He Cried (Fritz Leiber, 1953) – 3/5 – A sultry woman signals a passing car and reveals herself to be from Galactic Center where she urges the man of his wayward human passion of extracurricular coitus. The man shoots her in the abdomen, but her alien physiology allows her to strip the car’s chromium for a dress and her seven tentacles reform to the “seven extremities of the human female” (99) anatomy. Reformed, the vixen attempts to seduce the same man but this time in his own home when his own girl is there. 8 pages ----- Not the strongest Leiber story I’ve read, and I do like my Leiber short stories! This story has a straight forward alien seduction but its motivation is a bit vague to pull it off successfully. I’d say the story has more of a shock factor going for it more than anything really creative.

The Martians and the Coys (Mack Reynolds, 1951) – 5/5 – A hick Kentucky family (Maw, Paw, Hank, Zeke, and Lem Coy) live for shootin’ coons and making moonshine though Lem’s fancies shootin’ himself a Martian (or a “Martin” as he calls them). As if answering a prayer, Baren Darl and Seegal Wan confront the human with their English skills and three advanced weapons for destroying all of humanity, unless Superman stop them: the I.Q. Depressor, a poison called nark, and the lepbonic plague fleas. 12 pages ----- Another country bumpkin meets the aliens plot, but this one is more fun than all the others combined. Mack Reynolds is known for his Socialist science fiction, which is usually as off-putting as the last 10% of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle Socialist tirade. Thankfully, the fresh alien perspective of the incursion onto hick territory puts smiles on faces.

Quiz Game (Frank M. Robinson, 1953) – 4/5 – Having descended onto an Indiana farm, a Hoosier professor is tasked with compiling and limiting questions to ask the small, green, and scaly aliens who now appear to be dying in the university’s chemistry lab. Self-interest requests of cancer cures and atomic fissionables top the list, but considering their rate of mortal decay, sociological and government questions come next. Given their alienness, perhaps even these are unsuitable for a species on its deathbed. 12 pages ----- Much like Zenna Henderson’s story, Robinson takes the approach of seeing humans as being too self-absorbed to see the clarity of the situation. Are humans in such despair that questions must be direly put forth to alien visitors?

Dear Devil (Eric Frank Russell, 1950) – 5/5 – Visiting a post-apocalyptic Earth, a crew of Martians find little to hold their interest before moving onto Venus, except for the poet aboard who voluntarily stays indefinitely. The telepathic poet, Fander, molds the blossoming mind of a young boy and eventually starts a thriving village which is eager to save humanity. His noble cause has seen the community expand and its technological prowess surpasses the poet’s non-technical mind, for years… then decades. 34 pages ----- As gentle as an alien comes, Russell’s story highlights the possible benevolence of an alien species, not through the eyes of a scientist or bureaucrat, but through the eyes of an artists, a poet. His “humanistic” outlook fosters the growth of the human community and while he has very little to teach in technical regards, the human brain can live and learn. Beautiful (and republished a number of times).

Party of the Two Parts (William Tenn, 1954) – 5/5 – The Gtetans are notoriously petty criminals and one named L’payr has just been accused of his 2,343rd felony for selling pornography to adolescents. The amoebic alien flees to remote, fledging Earth in order to procure fuel for his stolen ship.  The only possession worth trading, and not getting caught in trading technology to the humans, is his pornography. The biology teacher who buys the lewd alien material publishes it in a textbook and becomes ensconced in galactic law with L’payr. 20 pages ----- The silliest of the stories in the collection is also one of the most detailed in terms of perspective. The story is written from the point of view of “Stellar Sergeant O-dik-veh, Commander of Outlaying Patrol Office 1001625” to “Headquarters Desk Sergeant Hoy-veh-chalt, Galactic Patrol Headquarters on Vega XXI” (157). It covers so much alien physiology and galactic law to make the entire story silly on absurd on ridiculous; the perfect ending to the collection!

1965: Monsters (van Vogt, A.E.)

Each monster as beastly and unique as the last (4/5)
From July 14, 2010

My first van Vogt novel was the Voyage of the Space Beagle, which was brilliantly written even though the whole "space monster" theme was a repetitive cliqued idea. But van Vogt proved that each monster can be just as weird and frightening as the last. Indeed, he continues his fine "space monster" tradition in this collection, where, again, each proceeding monster is as original and well thought as the last. I was expecting some cheesy storylines as one would often find from 1940s sci-fi thrasher movies, but van Vogt surprised me when he took a mature stab at all these stories. A fine collection!

The stories are all written around 1945, with 1939 ("The Sea Thing") being the earliest and 1950 ("War of Nerves" and "Enchanted Village") being the latest. Your initial suspicions would rest on generically scary squid- or ant-based aliens with slimy skins and evil intentions. Guess again.

Monsters (1965) was later republished as The Blal (1976) with exactly the same stories in exactly the same order. The only difference is The Blal's addition of giving each monster its own classification through a "genre." For the sake of cinematic drama, I've also included the genre of each monster to give it that special B-Grade sci-fi quality.

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[Space Monster] Not Only Dead Men (1942, shortstory) - 4/5 - Frog-like, benevolent race of aliens coyly renders the human whalers assistive in the hunt for the great galactic space monster hidden in earth's oceans. 28 pages

[Robot Monster] Final Command (1949, shortstory) - 3/5 - Robots assisting humans in their lives prove to be equal in humanity to the humans themselves; if only they could be aware of the fact and find the means to meet that equality. 29 pages

[Avianoid Monster] War of Nerves (1950, novelette) - 4/5 - Grosvenor of the Space Beagle is back to psychically manhandle the bully avian monsters light years away with the assistance of the ship's gear and his specialty in Nexialism. 29 pages

[Martian Monster] Enchanted Village (1950, shortstory) - 5/5 - A first person pure narrative about a man shipwrecked alone on Mars where his only possible source of shelter and sustenance is an abandoned organic alien village. 20 pages

[Mystery Monster] Concealment (1943, shortstory) - 3/5 - The Watcher senses an approaching Earth starship and attempts to suicide as his warning to Fifty Suns is shot off, but the crew capture him to find the origins of his people. 20 pages

[Oceanic Monster] The Sea Thing (1939, shortstory) - 3/5 - Island stranded shark hunters confront the supposedly island shark god, which poses as a man yet can revert to a shark at will. 39 pages

[Revivified Monster] Resurrection (1948, shortstory) - 3/5 - Character laden alien craft encounters vertebrate bipedal species who have an unknown apocalyptic past which they try to revive through resurrection, yet through ignorance, too. 23 pages

[Multimorph Monster] Vault of the Beast (1940, novelette) - 4/5 - Transdimensional xeno-morph takes the shape of various humans in order to bring a talented mathematician to Mars to unlock the prime number secured vault of a mysterious entity. 32 pages

1993: Impossible Things (Willis, Connie)

Heaped with awards: some justified, some too whimsical (4/5)

There are those who enjoy a lengthy novel sopped in plot building and emotional candor--I am among them. I mentally swam in Doomsday Book (1992) and lounged along side of To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998). Willis has a knack for bring out emotion in the pages and also lightly layering humor along side it all. She’s had me smiling, laughing, and concentrated all in a small number of pages. The woman can write, as is obvious from the number of nominations and awards given to both of the books above. The exact some emotional and emotional nuances found in these two novels are also found throughout this short story collection (which actually won an award for “best collection”). Most of the stories are great, but a few find the author indulging in some whim or another. Many of the stories themselves are award winner, too!

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The Last of the Winnebagos (1988, novella) – 5/5 – David McCombe is a photojournalist reporting on the last Winnebago RV, a dying breed on the American highways which have increasingly outlawed such behemoths. The elderly owners strike up conversation about dogs, reminding David of his last dog Aberfan and the circumstances of its death. David then becomes involved in the “Society’s” investigation into a dead jackal on the highway, a crime which caries a heavy penalty in a world devoid of canines. 63 pages ----- An interesting vision of the future, where dogs have all died and the roads are dominated by semis hauling water to parched landscapes. An extrinsically interesting story morphs into an unsettling intrinsic depth of empathy and forgiveness. A great start to the collection and the most emotional story in the mix.

Even the Queen (1992, shortstory) – 5/5 – The Liberation social movement has freed women of their monthly burden with the help of the drug ammenerol. Traci’s mother calls her with concern that her granddaughter Perdita has become one of the Cyclists, a group of women who accept their menarche and the subsequent cycles. A lunch meeting is made in order to dissuade Perdita from the pains of the Cyclists, but the meeting simply becomes a mix of innocent curiosity, male domination conspiracy, and menstrual reminiscing. 22 pages ----- The humor here is welcome after the soppy previous story. The two generations of women conversing about their experiences with menstruation with the new generation gasping in disgust and forwards awkward questions is added fun.

Schwarzschild Radius (1987, shortstory) – 4/5 – Travers visits a retired university biology teacher and WWI veteran because he has personal knowledge of Karl Schwarzschild (of a black hole’s Schwarzschild’s Radius fame) whom with he served with in the trenches. As the radio operator and medical practitioner, the veteran had access to the disillusioned physicist near the time of his death, but also at the time of his correspondence with Einstein. The Doppler effect of a shrinking black hole projects itself on the memory of the events. 23 pages ----- Like much of the collection, the present time is blurred with memories. The two interweave and the result is hard to unravel, but the war story and the physics story here are more easily unthreaded. Not as emotional as “Winnebagos,” but equally as unsettling.

Ado (1988, shortstory) – 5/5 – Before teaching Shakespeare in the high school English class, the teacher must first go through each of Shakespeare’s works line-by-line in order not to offend any of the hundreds of organization who find one line or another offensive to their race, sex, trade, clan, profession, etc. One student even protests the works as the work of the devil, so when the student’s get their Hamlet, its reduced to a paltry few lines. With political correctness… nobody wins. 10 pages ----- Viewing political correctness gone horribly wrong, Willis paints a realistic nightmare of competing interests, petty squabbles, and dense red tape. Love this story!

Spice Pogrom (1986, novella) – 3/5 – In the Japanese orbital named Sony reside humans and their alien guests, the Eahrohhs. The Japanese translation team has difficulty between the alien tongue, English and their won. One alien, a compulsive shopper and hoarder named Mr. Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh, is moved by NASA into an already crowded apartment, where even the stairway has residents sleeping. The translation difficulty, wanton sub-letting, compulsive shopping, and alien antics drive the leaser a tad mad. 97 pages ----- Slapstick comedy on the pages with long, derisive dialogue and a jumbled cast, this story is the hardest to follow. What’s supposed to be a comedy and love story just turns into a random jumble of people and items, but what I gathered in between, some passages were great.

Winter’s Tale (1987, novelette) – 2/5 – A two decade absence renders vague the memories of the wife and children of a returning man. Accepting the form of the man but partly hesitant of the actions of him and his men, the family rejoin but are yet rejoicing. At a later time upon his deathbed, the same man, imposter to the position of husband and father in the family, outlines the inheritance to the members of the same family that has adopted his person and prose. 28 pages ----- Something about Shakespeare. I’ll leave it at that.

Chance (1986, novelette) – 4/5 – Elizabeth’s husband’s recent job as associate dean at her old university correlates with a Tupperware party at a neighbor’s house brings back to many memories of her life and love in college that she finds herself hallucinating. At the university applying for a job, Elizabeth sees versions of her old self, her old roommate, and the love she lost. Through the alumni organization, she learns that her love interest from yesteryear is now dead from suicide, she wonders what she could have done differently. 38 pages ----- As in “Schwarzschild,” the blurred division between memory and reality is difficult to establish. With some silly nuances amid the emotional toll Elizabeth experiences, the contrast is weird. By now, the university theme is making an appearance.

In the Late Cretaceous (1991, shortstory) – 4/5 – The Paleontology department of a university comes under the eye of the dean’s visitor, Dr. King, a educational consultant with a rather unique vocabulary with words like “impactization,” “innovatizing,” and “ideating.” King aims to “do some observational datatizing” to assess the modern relevance of the program. The Paleontology professors are at a loss of words and draw parallelisms with the extinction of the dinosaurs and the evolution of mammals. 17 pages ----- A cheeky story chronicling the eminent demise of the department by the hand of a jargon-spewing consultant… I’m sure we all know the type and can sympathize with the dread the department must feel.

Time Out (1989, novella) – 4/5 – A quantum time travel experiment is scheduled at a grade school where the test subjects are students. The blind participants are those who are working with the eccentric Dr. Young. When chicken pox breaks out in the school, circumstances escalate and the present time becomes as confusing and opaque as the past. When lost love and reminiscing veils visions of the future, the doctor’s test results hinge upon the mysterious grey box with a simple on-off switch. 59 pages ----- Again, the blurred line between memories and reality, but this time even the past-present becomes blurred. Not as blurry as “Schwarzschild” but the resulting mixture is a wreck to unravel, but in the end the threads are pulled taught.

Jack (1991, novella) – 5/5 – Amidst the rubble and fire of Chelsea are the volunteer wardens who sight the location and find the survivors of the WWII bombing. One new volunteer has an uncanny ability to seek out bodies buried beneath the rubble. Without a shout of despair or rapping of desperation, Jack quickly becomes known for his peculiar talent, but another volunteer, also named Jack , is more intrigued with the man’s elusive nature when dawn rises—Jack discovers a man with no documentation. 61 pages ----- The best story in the collection! The eerie setting of blacked-out London during bombing raids and planes and bombs buzzing overhead compound the rising fear of the mysterious man named Jack. Is he a spy, a murderer, or something else entirely? Real gripping stuff here!

At the Rialto (1989, novelette) – 2/5 – At a hotel in Hollywood, a convention for the International Congress of Quantum Physicists is being held. Between the ditzy receptionists and implacable seminars, the bizarre effects and behaviors of the quantum world manifests itself in the seemingly chaotic relationships, conversations, and choices made among the physicists. With Benji, Bing Crosby, Charlton Heston, Donald Duck, and Red Skeleton all being mentioned… expect chaos and only chaos. 28 pages ----- Something about Hollywood. I’ll leave it at that.