Stellar 4

[james_davis_nicoll]

Stellar 4
edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey
Del Rey (May 1978)
230 pages ($1.95)



The cover shows an alien crying what appear to be tears
of blood, while holding a cup. Art by H.R. Dongen. Illustrates
the Tiptree story but as art doesn't work for me.

We Who Stole the Dream (James Tiptree): The story of
some plucky aliens who escape enslavement and exploitation by
humans at some great cost to themselves, only to discover their
free kin are no better ethically than the humans.

It's a Tiptree. Well written, depressing as hell. I still
have not worked my way through her recent anthology from Tor, although
there it's the contrast between some of her comments in the book and
her eventual fate.

Animal Lover (Stephen R. Donaldson): An animal loving cyborg
discovers a foul plot at a hunting reservation and foils it with much
gore.

Far too long for the story it wants to tell but didn't grate
on me that way Donaldson's first trilogy did.

Snake Eyes (Alan Dean Foster): Flinx and his minidrag help an old
prospector recover some valuable gems and avoid getting whacked by some
reprobates. Lots of double crossing.

A minor Flinx story. Inoffensive.

The Last Decision (Ben Bova): The Sun is going to brighten
slightly, enough to kill a now mostly rural Earth. The Empire can
possibly halt this, at great cost, but the Emperor is not sure he
wants to: his son was killed there for failing to meet the standards
necessary in an Emperor. He's also not sure how to ensure the long
project will be carried out. Eventually, he comes up with a plan to
save the Earth by moving the Imperial court back to the Solar System
from Alpha Centauri.

Interesting [...] if only because it's a sequel to someone
else's story. The dead son was killed in a Gordon R. Dickson story.
Not sure why Bova decided to limit the Empire to NAFAL ships but I
am a sucker for NAFAL backgrounds.

The Deimos Plague (Charles Sheffield): A lawyer, having
ratted out the mob, flees to Mars with two pigs. His disguise
accidentally allows him to survive a plague that kills the rest
of the crew and deliver the pigs [...] carrying the serum
to stop the plague.

Well, I remember liking this series. Sheffield apparently
sat down and made a list of subjects which SF was too genteel to
discuss and then wrote stories about them. I think he calls the
series his sewer series and it's true the protagonists spend a
lot of time up to their chins in human excrement in the tales.
New collection of them is out, although I forget from who.

Assassin (James P. Hogan): a killer travels to Earth to
murder a scientist who fled the tyranny of Mars. The killer is
fairly successful but runs afoul of the scientist's subject
matter: matter duplication. One copy of the killer is sent back
off to Mars, unaware that another version of him is being questioned
by the Terran authorities.

Deadly tedious exposition, cardboard characters. Hogan at
the height of his abilities. It's interesting to contrast this
with an Orson Scott Card story with much the same idea wrt prisoners
in his _Capitol_ collection. Points for not having the plucky rebels
be the default good guys, although I am not entirely certain the
Terrans are so much more ethical.

Again, a bit of a mixed bag. The Tiptree alone justifies the
collection, though.

Comments

[carbonel]

Re "The Last Decision," I read your first paragraph and said to myself that your description made the story sound like a sequel to Gordon Dickson's "Call Him Lord."

And then I read the second paragraph and found out it was. Ben Bova writing Gordon Dickson fanfic?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I believe Bova also wrote two novels in this series.

[daev.livejournal.com]

"We Who Stole the Dream" is the story I point to when people argue that the society at the end of "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" is an Omelas-like utopia. They're the same kind of situation, really.

[traviswells.livejournal.com]

What's your icon from? It looks vaguely familiar.

[daev.livejournal.com]

It's big baddy Asmodeus from the multiplayer role-playing game "Avatar," which sucked down the grade-point-averages of many college students during the '80s at the University of Illinois and anywhere else where the PLATO system could be found! As you can see, Asmo has a box with him, so if you defeat him and disarm the trap, you might find some choice item in there.

[traviswells.livejournal.com]

Thanks thanks.