picture 1 of 2 picture 2 of 2 Top |
price:
author: title: |
$3.50
Anderson, Poul STRANGERS FROM EARTH book-date: 1961 | |
publisher:
edn-date: printing: format: cvr art: cvr price: GRADING: |
Baen
1987 Paperback Vincent Di Fate $2.95 Fine- | ||
The original paperback from 1961 is kinda rare - if you want a less fragile copy, this 1987 Baen edition is probably better. | |||
Earthman, Beware Original appearances from 1950 to 1957 - 2 from Super Science Stories, 3 from Astounding, and one each from Venture, Planet Stories, Fantastic Universe. For reasonable story summaries, I again rely on a review by my favorite reviewer (from Analog October 1961): Though "Gypsy" is worth the price of admission, the other seven are also good. "Earthman, Beware" is a portrait of a castaway from a cosmic race - a "wolf child" - brought up on Earth and trying to regain his own people; its ending presents a psychological and educational truth that no one else has shown quite so well. "Quixote and the Windmill" - here in 1950 - is a slight tale with a bitter twist: the extrapolation of the automation problem which is just biting into our society. "For the Duration" is another bit of extrapolation, to the dictatorship that has pulled a wrecked society together after the War to End Mankind, and the kind of people who can overthrow it. "Duel on Syrtis" was in the deceased Planet Stories in 1951. Theme, ordinary - a brutal human hunter out to get a Martian as a trophy. Handling, good, but not what the author would do in 1961. Another gimmick scory - with a punch line that can't be revealed - is "The Star Beast," in which a bored futurian moves into the body of a tiger, just for kicks. "The Disintegrating Sky" is fantasy, and the least of the lot - "we're just actors in someone's story." The closer, "Among Thieves," however, is another lovely bit of political finagelry that recalls some of Anderson's Dominick Flandry escapades. It was here in 1957, and it might make good reading for our State Department." [-P. Schuyler Miller.] |