I lost track long ago of just how many volumes there are in this series. I have numbers 2 and 4 in my collection but I think there were at least seven...can any reader enlarge on that?Now you would think, seeeing that publication date, that these stories would be dated in language or approach....NOT SO! In fact it's the completely `with-it' approach that stuns me on rereading the eight stories in Number 2. Whether the tale is considering how exactly to define alien intelligence, or what would happen to the last of the 'big' spaceships after the `mini' takes over...or how machines would behave after the last Man dies...or what characteristics and talents will be required in the pioneers we send to colonise Outer Space, every sentence could be fresh from the author's Remington or Underwood, and every story has a social as well as a scientific message as . And they flow smoothly these phrases and paragraphs......as good writing does.Somehow we know these authors read and enjoyed Hemingway! Some of the authors, of course, went on to much bigger, but possibly not better, things..Brian Aldiss, Jack Vance and Lester Del Rey are responsible for the last three stories in this volume, and I see that Arthur C. Clarke heads up Volume 4, the other in my collection.
And from the funniest story in this anthology,"The Railways Up On Cannis", by Colin Kapp,
about the wackiest Army Squad ever, The Unorthodox Engineers, I'd like to leave you with a really great riddle-type- definition: Answer= "Quartermaster"......of course, of course! Read any of the "Out of This World' series, but particularly number 2. You'll love it! |
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