Incomparable Vintage Planetary Tales
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The Northwest Smith stories in this collection are among my favorite "planetary romances," as they were called at the time. Unfortunately, they are of a kind not written anymore, victims as much of astronomical knowledge as they are changing literary tastes. The other stories in the book are also excellent, especially "Vintage Season," a subtle view of the morality of time travelers.
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To talk about the short story anthology Skyline Worlds, I must first mention an older anthology, Tomorrows Children. This collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories was published in 1966, edited by Isaac Asimov and contains stories by Bradbury, Heinlein, St. Clair, Dick, Asimov and others who went on to acclaim later in their careers. The book is long out of print. Copies, when found, are treasured by science fiction readers who were growing up at the time. (I had a bookseller in NYC locate one for me about 20 years ago as it was my wifes favorite book as a child; the seller could not believe how hard it was to find and apologized profusely when he could only find an old withdrawn library copy from Zelienople, Pennsylvania!)

In a similar vein to Asimovs edited work, we have the collected stories in Skyline Worlds. This collection of science fiction was edited by Sci-Fi author and College Professor Billy Tooma and contains stories by fourteen exciting authors from the New York City area, including Tooma. The stories practically run the gamut of science fiction genre: cryosleep and time travel, zombies and viruses, ghosts and aliens, post-apocalyptic futures and pseudo-historical steampunk pasts. Against these backdrops we meet some intriguing characters. The Copavids, Little Sam, Suzy Potter, President Jeffrey Garwood, Mel the chimney sweep. The writing is highly descriptive across-the-board, bringing the reader quickly into each story and keeping them focused. As each story ends, your brain begins to wander and starts a continuation of the narrative, imagining what might have happened if the plotlines were to continue. (Personally, after listening to Glen Mitchell in Dead Air, I will never hear National Public Radio the same way again!)

Like Tomorrows Children, Skyline Worlds is a wonderful collection of work by some very talented writers who show great future promise. However, it also will probably have a limited number of copies published (Sci-Fi anthologies tend to be that way). I highly recommend picking up a copy for anyone you know who is a fan of good fiction and/or short stories, science fiction or otherwise.
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Another fine collection of Brown's stories, including what was, I think, the first one of his I read, "Placet is a Crazy Place". I have fond memories of reading it in some collection or other while on holiday with my parents as a teenager.

Some of the stories are short gags, others more extended and, sometimes, more serious. There's a good mystery ("Daymare"), too. They're steeped in the feel of the 1950s, particularly in the frequency of reference to the Cold War, fear of nuclear war, and fear of invasion (usually framed as alien invasion).

Fans of Murray Leinster will recognise the decent heroes, and Robert Sheckley fans will recognise the political and social situation, though Leinster places more emphasis on the clever engineer finding the solution (and gives his female characters more important roles), and Sheckley is more cynical about human nature and inclines more to satire than comedy. The comedy here is often that of a classic New Yorker cartoon, but occasionally (as in "Placet") approaches the more bizarre style of an R.A. Lafferty.

Something that struck me about Brown is that, for a science fiction writer, he's sometimes shaky on science. He doesn't appear to know, for instance, that the removal of lightning would also remove thunder, and writes that a Martian day is about two Earth days without, apparently, having looked it up (it's barely longer than an Earth day).

He also shares in the ignorance of his time, making a remark that suggests that Australian "bushmen" are of low intelligence.

Don't go into this collection looking for modern storytelling sensibilities or accurate science. It's a period piece, and needs to be appreciated as such.

I received it from the publishers at no charge, as thanks for pointing out some proofreading errors in the first volume (which have now been corrected).
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This is a collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov, starting with "Darwinian Pool Room" published in the first issue of "Galaxy Science Fiction" in 1950 and ending with "Light Verse" from "The Saturday Evening Post" in 1973 (the anthology itself was first published in 1975.)  The stories are arranged in the order of publication, with a biographical section at the end of each story, telling how it came to be in Asimov's evolving writing career.  So, not only do you get some good SF stories, you also get to peek into Asimov's life behind the scenes -- with a dose of humor.  As a writer myself, I found this to be as valuable as the stories themselves.  (Most of my work is non-fiction but, like Asimov, I also started out writing for obscure pubs that have long since gone under.  So there's nothing wrong with that, all you aspiring writers out there!  Everybody has to start somewhere.)

Many of the early stories were published in rather short-lived SF magazines with small circulations.  Until this anthology, even die-hard Asimov fans would have be hard put to find a copy of some of the back issues.  A few of the stories will also read as technologically outdated.  For example, computers are still using tapes for memory and have mechanical relays instead of printed circuits, etc.  And of course, there are Martians, as was common in the genre before we actually sent probes to Mars.  One story, "Everest," outdated itself before it even got into print, as Asimov himself noted.  Nevertheless, it was and remains a good plot. So, if you can overlook these minor flaws, these tales are still as entertaining as ever.  There's even a "shaggy dog" story that has since been cited in books on humor.  This anthology is well worth reading if you can track down a copy.
2750117
This 1973 original anthology edited by Roger Elwood remains a good introductory book for young burgeoning SF/fantasy fans, as I was when I received this book for Christmas over 30 years ago as an 11-year-old. Stories by Anne McCaffrey -- an original Pern story which I'm not sure has been republished in this exact format -- and lesser-known names like Arthur Tofte, Raymond F Jones and the late lamented Terry Carr, himself a great anthologizer.

My favorite story, which has stuck with me all of these years, is "The Mysteious Gem" by one Claire Edwin Street, a complete unknown to me, about a couple of kids who accidentally pick up the title stone and find themselves caught up in an attempted alien invasion.  If Street published anything else in the science fiction or fantasy genres, I'd love to find it.  Evocative black and white line drawings throughout by Rod Ruth; intro by Ted Sturgeon.  Out of print now I think but easy enough to find used.  My copy has a library binding which has deteriorated somewhat over 30+ years, but the paper is good quality and still very white.
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Although the name "Solar Pons" would have been ideal for a pulp science-fiction character, it actually belongs to August Derleth's extended homage to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. These are essentially Sherlock Holmes stories in all but name, with a lighthearted touch that's usually absent in subsequent writers' attempts to update Holmes. Solar Pons himself could best be described as a happier and kinder Sherlock without the drug addiction. Indeed, reading through these stories I was often reminded of the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce portrayals of Holmes and Watson which similarly smoothed out many of the rough patches that both characters possessed. These are excellent, lightweight and fun short stories that any fan of either Sherlock Holmes or pre-Raymond Chandler mysteries will enjoy.

What a shame it is the original Solar Pons collections are all out of print! This volume contains many of the earliest stories, and while it's apparent that Derleth knew London only from books (we never get the sense of being in London as we did with Doyle), Derleth knew how to write a tight and commercial mystery. As these stories take place between the two World Wars, many elements in them have renewed relevance today. The murder of a corrupt stockbroker in "The Black Narcissius" for example is a set-up that would be right at home in these post-Bernie Madoff times.
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This is a collection of old sci-fi that is fantastic,
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The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer 3: Portraits of a Trickster is the third anthology in a fantastic series that pertains to the many worlds that award-winning author, and Grandmaster of Science Fiction, Philip Jose Farmer, created throughout his career. This book, as well as the series, in general, is very unique in the fact that many writers have sought to expand the worlds created by this gifted writer.

Why?

What is so unique about the worlds created by Philip Jose Farmer?

For starters, you never know what you are going to get when reading about the characters and surroundings that Farmer brought into life with his own words. There is a lived-in quality that you have to read to believe. Very few writers have that gift. Farmer had it in spades.

And because of that gift, various writers who grew up reading Farmer, or those who came to know about him, and his literary accomplishments, later on in their lives, have come to play in these worlds. So to speak.

Here are the contributors to this magnificent book:

Foreword by Frederik Pohl
Peoria-Colored Worlds
Missing the Wit and Creativity by Michael Bailey
Down in Phil Farmer's Basement by Steven Connelly
Over All, After All by Philip Jos Farmer
Of Friendships and Influences
The Holy Spirit of Science Fiction by Bruce Sterling
A Box of Influence by Chris Garcia
Wild Weird Clime by Philip Jos Farmer
To Be, or Not to Be by Tom Wode Bellman
Worlds in Disguise
Trout Masque Rectifier by Jonathan Swift Somers III
Kilgore, Kurt, and Me by David M. Harris
The Many Dooms of Harold Hall by Charlotte Corday-Marat
Desires Denied by Leo Queequeg Tincrowdor
Classic Worlds
Osiris on Crutches by Philip Jos Farmer & Leo Queequeg Tincrowdor
The Genuine Imposter by Rick Lai
The Long Wet Dream of Rip van Winkle by Philip Jos Farmer
Up, Out, and Over, Roger by Philip Jos Farmer
Expanded Worlds
The Wild Huntsman by Win Scott Eckert (Wold Newton story)
Dakota's Gate by Heidi Ruby Miller (Two Hawks from Earth story)
The Last of the Guaranys by Octavio Arago & Carlos Orsi (Time's Last Gift story)
Trickster of the Apes by S.M. Stirling (World of Tiers story)

Each one of these stories have expanded the mythological, and perhaps, cosmological, boundaries of the universe of Philip Jose Farmer. These stories are connecting threads that tie together worlds that Philip birthed into being, never thinking for one moment that others would come after him to continue. In that, Philip Jose Farmer was a lucky man. To have other accomplished writers carry on his work, and yet bring something new to the various mythologies is remarkable, to say the least. In particular, those writers connected with Wold Newton studies such as Win Scott Eckert, Octavio Arago, and Rick Lai. Furthermore, readers will read rare stories from Farmer himself. You can't beat that.

The folks at Meteor House Press, led by Mike Croteau, have outdone themselves with this anthology series.

In a sense, each anthology is a love letter to the mythical worlds created by Farmer, and to Farmer himself.

The Literary Trickster of Words would be very proud.

I highly recommend picking up a copy.

If you're a fan of Farmer, or you're new to his work, there is something in this book for everyone.

And once you are done, pick up a copy of The Worlds of Philip Jose Famer 1: Protean Dimensions and The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer 2: Of Dust and Soul.

You will not be disappointed.
1306636
Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson's _Earthman's Burden_ (1957) is the first-- and, to my mind, the freshest-- collection of Hoka stories. There are six tales in all: "The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch" (_Other Worlds_, 1951), "Don Jones" (original book publication, 1957), "In Hoka Signa Vinces" (_Other Worlds_), "The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound" (_Universe_,1953), "Yo Ho Hoka!" (_Fantasy and Science Fiction_, 1955), and "The Tiddlywink Warriers" (_F&SF_, 1955).

For readers not familiar with the series, it involves an earnest young spaceman named Alexander Jones who becomes a diplomat to an alien race called the Hokas, natives of the planet Toka. They look something like Teddy bears, are intelligent, are highly imaginative, and extremely literal-minded. They cannot distinguish fact from fiction. Thus they may imitate characters from wild west stories, Sherlock Holmes mysteries, pirate adventures or Foreign Legion novels-- always with results that are disruptive to stuffed shirts, bureaucrats, politicians, and the occasional villain. Poor Alex must ride out the chaos as best he can. Somehow he perseveres.

Poul Anderson once noted that we often tend to underestimate writing that was done simply for fun. He has a point. Entertainment value should not be derided, and these early Hoka stories are some of the funniest spoofs of popular magazine stories that I have ever read. _Earthman's Burden_ has become a small classic of science fiction comedy.

The Avon edition also has the bonus of containing the original illustrations by Edd Cartier, which compliment the stories perfectly.
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Full Disclosure: I had access to an advanced copy as well.

I am more of a classic SciFi kind of guy. I love Asimov's myriad of stories, and have also read some Clarke, and some O.S. Card during an excursion into newer SciFi. I have found great joy in those amazing ideas of those giants of the genre back then, who could imagine a future as varied as they wanted, since modern technology had not yet arrived.

Having said that, I was quite surprised by the stories in this book. They are as varied, as interesting, as captivating, and as stimulating as you can expect out of the best anthologies. You have amazing stories by new authors for the genre, and also sine by heavy-weights.

I enjoyed this collection very much, and I dare you to read this and not find a story you loved.

EDIT: deleted extraneous word.
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I first bought this book when it came out in 2005. I loved it then and I love it now. I lent to my friends and inevitably, someone didn't return it -- I have no idea who -- so I ordered another copy.

I co-lead discussion groups for a liberal arts Institute for adult learning in Montreal and I have used particularly Patricia Mische's chapter and Gareth Patterson's among several of the other selections as wonderful material to explore in terms of our human relationship with the whole Earth Household, in Gary Snyder's felicitous phrase. The chapters are wonderfully varied and colourful, both in the style and the personality of the author as well as in the material they write or talk about. A wonderful book for this moment in our planetary history. I recommend it highly.
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Presented in this volume are two stories, both written by Brian Augustyn .  The first, Gotham By Gaslight, features moody -and quite beautiful!- artwork by Mike Mignola and P. Craig Russell.  The featured story imagines a Bruce Wayne/Batman who lived in the late 1880s and confronts Jack The Ripper, who has made the move from London to Gotham City.  The second story, illustrated by Eduardo Barreto, is titled Master of the Future and is a nod toward the Jules Vernes Master of the World, one of the last stories written by the sci-fi pioneer and which features a Nemo-like madman who gets around in -and attacks!- from a fearsome airship.

Both stories are good in their own way, though I felt the stronger of the two stories was Master of the Future.  While I wasn't quite as wowed by the story presented in Gotham by Gaslight (the surprise ending was anything but), I personally enjoyed the art by Mignola and P. Craig Russell a little bit more.

Please don't take that as a knock against the work of Mr. Barreto!

I just happen to be a MIke Mignola fanatic and seeing his pencils inked by also incredibly talented P. Craig Russell is a unique treat.

So there you have it.  I enjoyed the writing in one story a little more than the other and enjoyed the art in the other story a little bit more than the other.

Im quibbling here.  The overall work is definitely worth a look.

Recommended.
2439079
This manual full of charts and maps of the different regions of the night sky is perhaps a bit dated with so many discoveries now in the outer rim of our universe.  It is perfect for a beginning star gazer out in the yard away from lights.  Justin and I could never find Halley's Comet because of the street lights in the small town.  To look at the sky, it is best to be out on a hill top away from all light.

At the Rochester, New York, Strasenburgh Planetarium, there is a 1968 star projector, a double-headed star ball, one end for the Southern Hemisphere, and the other for the Northern Hemisphere.  The ball is full of pinholes patterned after the positions of stars in the night sky with a mercury vapor light from incise the fall to create an accurate map of the stars in total darkness on the rounded ceiling of the dome.  It is computer-controlled.

Here, we have the Akima Planetarium which is even older, but fully functional; it has only one star ball which can be changed according to the season showing the different night sky. Mr. Ferguson explains where the known stars are located and gives a history of why and how the constellations got their names all the way back to antiquity.  He gives a good show for the children as well as the adults.  He always starts with the North Star and goes all the way around the dome with his interesting banter.  During the Fair, for ten days, he presented six shows a day in the Discovery Center located adjacent to the Fairgrounds.

If I were to suggest that you 'don't count your chickens before they're hatched' you might take it the wrong way. However, while it's worth reminding you not to go counting your chickens, it's not needed because they're not going to hatch. Those little chicks could well hatch exactly as you want them to. But there is another even better possibility. They may yet hatch in a way you hadn't even thought it that's preferable to the way you had expected. It's a week when anything could happen so allow a little room for the Universe to be creative.

Some years ago, it was my pleasure to visit the Adler Planetarium in Chicago with my astronomer son, Geoffrey.  As I recall, the oral program was all pre-recorded and on a much larger range than the Strasenburgh and Akima which are smaller.  There's nothing as fascinating as learning (in a fun way) about the planets (poor lost Pluto!), stars and shooting stars in our own universe.
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I received free copies of some stories in this anthology.

Editor and coordinating judge David Farland as well as Sean Williams contribute to this year's short story anthology alongside the quarterly winners of L Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future contest. Essays from Hubbard, Brandon Sanderson, and Tim Powers.

As always, this volume has an eclectic collection of stories with something for everyone:

Engaging idea stories from Baker ("Images Across a Shattered Sea") and Fullerton ("Last Sunset for the World Weary") ask what we do with the information that the world has ended.

Beautifully rendered traditional science fiction from Lasser ("The Star Tree") and romantic fantasy from Julicher ("Swords Like Lightning, Hooves Like Thunder") explore the human condition in the confines of vastly different but vibrantly drawn societies.

Standout steampunk ("Squalor and Sympathy") from Dovey and cyberpunk ("Mobius") from Weber wonder about the larger consequences of making deeply personal sacrifices.

No anthology is complete without a hard-boiled werewolf detective after revenge story, this time masterfully supplied by Frost ("Cry Havoc"), and a coming of age identity crisis that Hivn gives a nice, unsettling twist ("A Glamor in Black").

Jones' improbable, but heartfelt exploration of a mother/daughter relationship in "Dinosaur Dreams in Infinite Measure" is a favorite. Alden's "The Sun Falls Apart" has a winning mixture of post(?)-apocalypse, genetic engineering, and coming of age that especially speaks to this reader.

Large format, color prints in the back of the edition showcase the depth of talent from the Illustrators of the Future winners.
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Perelandra, the second book in C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, was first published in 1943 in Britain by a house called The Bodley Head.

Out of a Silent Planet, a science fiction novel, recounts the space odyssey of philologist Elwin Ransom to Mars, aka Malacandra, by force, at the hands of two evil characters, including one Richard Devine, whom he'd known at university, and Professor Edward Rolles Weston, who ultimately proves himself a veritable embodiment of Satan.

The first of these books is so enchanting that I recalled decades afterward the delight and awe with which I had read the tale as an early teen, and recently therefore decided to reread it. Wonderful, wonderful and again most wonderful.

Suffice it to say from my two star rating of this sequel, Pelelandra does not hold a candle to the first book. It is of course quite famous, and well celebrated, and widely studied. But it is more a Christian allegory than a novel, and the plot line, prose, characterizations, dialogue and everything else suffer for the uncharacteristic flimsiness with which C.S. Lewis constructed them.

In this work, Ransom some years after his sojourn on Malacandra. is bid by the powers that rule there to visit Pelelandra, and he is somewhat implausibly transported via coffin, and lands on the planet's enormous ocean and then swims to one of its many floating islands, whereupon after some time he meets a Green Lady.

Mind you, the transport to Mars (aka Malacandra) is also implausible, in that space travel by space ship was totally unheard of when these novels were written. The difference between that and this, however, among many others, is that Out of the Silent Planet is, while fantastic, entirely believable, in large measure because the characters, environs, description, dialogue, plot and development are so wonderful one wants to believe them, and does. Not unlike the suspension of disbelief one indulges with every one of Lewis' wonderful Narnia books.

No such luck with this mess. The life and conceptions of the one speaking inhabitant of Perelandra are fantastic but not quite comprehensible. Maybe C.S. Lewis did not describe his conceptions of them well enough, maybe they are simply too juvenile or flat. But while there is much fantasy and many of the figures, fruits, landscapes and animal life on Perelandra are original, they are overly simplistic, and somehow, not real enough to believe.

This book, anyway, simply does not provide as compelling a tale as its predecessor, in spite of the fact that it seems Lewis was trying to create here a sort of science fiction, prose version of Paradise Lost. In my opinion it is a complete failure.

The book, later re-released by Pan as&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Voyage-to-Venus/dp/B00M5CHJ32/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Voyage to Venus</a>, has received criticism equally harsh at least from some other readers on Amazon, and for what it's worth, I think my criticism is entirely fair.

Having said all this, I do intend, having come this far, to go on and read the third book in the series,&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/That-Hideous-Strength/dp/B0006XEIRM/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">That Hideous Strength</a>, published in 1945, or at least I will try.

My disappointment in this novel proves one thing to me: no author under the sun can write brilliantly ever time, not even C.S. Lewis.

Final note: unfortunately, on some popular recent editions of Perelandra, Amazon mixes in reviews of both Out of the Silent Planet and That Hideous Strength, as well as triology editions that contain all three novels. That's not fair to readers. Amazon should limit reviews on all editions of Perelandra to discussions of this book alone, not the others, just as iut should limit reviews on Out of the Silent Planet to that book, and so on.
4776594
This slim volume is a loving homage to the pulp magazines of yesterday, complete with reproductions of advertisements for X-ray glasses and Charles Atlas body-building kits. The stories range from contemplative science fiction to seedy noir, and though the quality is a bit uneven, the package as a whole is a pleasing addition to the library of any fan of adventure magazines. Obviously a labor of love by its editor/publisher, this book is an example of the collaborative power of global networks and nostalgia for a simpler time when reading was fun and straight-ahead two-fisted story-telling stalked the land. I look forward to Startling Adventures #2.
3928019
If you are a dyed-in-the-wool Solar Pons fan, you will love this book. In fact, you will probably consider this book a must-have. Otherwise, I don't know.

You see, this book is a compilation of old stories that August Derleth didn't think were good enough to be published, or never got around to polishing up enough to get published. There's a novella-length story, four short stories of the normal type, two short stories written with Mack Reynolds that embrace science-fiction or horror themes, and (for those of you who have read&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/A-Praed-Street-dossier/dp/B0006BTIDS/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">A Praed Street dossier,</a>)  "More from Dr. Parker's Notebooks." There is also an extended and most informative introduction by Peter Ruber (editor, "Arkham's Masters of Horror," etc.) that explains where these stories were found and gives a nice publishing history of Solar Pons stories, including a none-too-brief mention of the problems Derleth had with the Estate of Arthur Conan Doyle and just a little bit of a knock at Basil Copper's editing job on the first edition of The Solar Pons Omnibus.

So the stories in this book are way better than getting no more Pons, but are not totally up to snuff as far as quality is concerned. But if you can't get enough Pons stories, this is the book for you.

Editor Peter Ruber said, "I hope that Augie, in whatever dimension he may be, does not look down upon me too unkindly for publishing what he called his 'youthful indiscretions.' "  I hope not, too; and I can tell you, Mr. Ruber, that a bit more Pons is better than a bit less Pons!

Contents:
Terror Over London (novella)
The Adventures of Greshham Old Place
The Adventure of the Burlstone Horror
The Adventure of the Viennese Musician
The Adventure of the Muttering Man
The Adventure of the Nosferatu (with Mack Reynolds)
The Adventure of the Extra-Terrestrial (with Mack Reynolds)
More from Dr. Parker's Notebooks

This hardcover book can currently be purchased brand-new from The August Derleth Society, until they sell out.