Space odysseys: A new look at yesterday's futures

By Brian W. Aldiss

Book Overview

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 038507851X
• ISBN13: 9780385078511
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: Doubleday
• Length: 266 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.

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Brian W. Aldiss states in his introduction that _Space Odysseys_ (1976) is an anthology that is a follow-up to _Space Opera_ (1974). Before touching on the odyssey theme, it might be worthwhile to note that a fair number of these odysseys are also space operas. Perhaps the purest one-- certainly the kind of story that Wilson Tucker had in mind when he coined the term-- is Ross Rocklynne's "The Empress of Mars." It is an adventure in the manner of Edgar Rice Burroughs from a 1939 _Fantastic Adventures_. It has all the trappings of hundreds of stories from _Amazing_, _Fantastic Adventures_, and _Planet Stories_ at this time, though it is better written than most of them. You wouldn't want to have a lot of these stories in your anthology, but one or two of them can provide a certain amount of thumping good fun. Other space operas include Leigh Brackett's "The Lake of the Gone Forever," Poul Anderson's "Star Ship," and an excerpt from E.E. Smith's "Galactic Patrol." Like Aldiss, I find the Smith passable fun but hardly great literature. And the Anderson has a heroine who is so irrationally stupid that she deserves to be kicked in the arse all around the planet. Instead, alas, her feelings are spared. She will probably marry the hero and make his life miserable for many years to come. But the Brackett is a tightly told and haunting adventure that clicks on all cylinders. Aldiss divides his odysseys into four types of quests: the search for knowledge, the search for illusion, a pinch of otherness, and a search of scale ("a human is the smallest thing..."). There is also a short story-- "Night Watch" by James Inglis-- that serves as an envoi, dealing with the theme of the final quest. The stories in the first group are the Smith, the Brackett, Isaac Asimov's "Reason," and Arthur C. Clarke's "The Sentinal." The Clarke story was the basis for _2001: a Space Odyssey_ (1969) and appropriately opens the book. The stories in the second group include Alfred Bester's "Time is the Traitor," Philip K Dick's "The Impossible Planet," and Frank Belknap Long's "The Unfinished." The stories in the third group include the Rocklynne, James Tiptree, Jr.'s "And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side," and F.M. Busby's "I'm Going to Get You." The stories in the last group include the Anderson, Robert Abernathy's "Strange Exodus," Bryce Walton's "To Each His Star," and Walter M. Miller,Jr.'s "The Big Hunger." Aldiss reports that the Anderson and the Abernathy appeared back to back in the same issue of _Planet Stories_. Here once again we have the curious sensation of reading stories that were selected with taste and affection-- but which weren't meant to be taken too seriously. We are meant to enjoy them; and I find, on the balance, that I do.