Review of Race to the Stars ed. by Leo Margulies and Oscar J. Friend

Slim science fiction anthologies now a piece of history, the idea of picking up a small book for a few cents featuring only a handful of stories is strange to a generation accustomed to doorstopper ‘year’s best’ anthologies and sprawling collections having twenty or more stories from their favorite author.  Gone are the days a publisher thought to re-print a couple of popular selections, hoping to squeeze a few additional cents from fan favorites.  Unless ebooks revive the format, anthologies like Leo Margulies and Oscar J. Friend’s collaborative 1958 Race to the Stars are a thing of the past.

Race to the Stars features four novellas, all published at least a decade prior to being anthologized by Margulies and Friend, and one nearly two: “The City of the Lost Ones” (1949) by Leigh Brackett (better known as “Enchantress of Venus”), “Forgotten World” (1946) by Edmond Hamilton, “The Time Gate” (1941) by Robert A. Heinlein (better known as “By His Bootstraps”), and “The Sun Maker” (1940) by Jack Williamson.  Each story has been reprinted at least four times since, with Heinlein’s in a whopping fifteen different anthologies or collections and re-printed in The Menace of Earth alone twenty-one times. 

Review of "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein

Robert Heinlein was one of the most influential writers of sci-fi in the 20th century.  He published more than thirty novels, several of which won awards, and many more received nominations.  Considered one of the ‘big three’ alongside Asimov and Clarke—the American perspective, that is—Heinlein’s agenda included independence, personal responsibility, freedom, and the influence of religion and government on society.  Stranger in a Strange Land, arguably his most famous book—and perhaps most controversial—is the subject of this review.

Stranger in a Strange Land is the story of Valentine Michael Smith.  The only remaining human of the Mars’ settlers, he is brought back to Earth and kept under wraps by the US State Department.  Raised by Martians, Smith’s cultural perspective is radically different, not to mention he has the ability to control body and mind telekinetically.  As the sole survivor of the Mars missions, Smith is seen as “owning” Mars in the government’s eyes, and is therefore protected and treated as a pawn in larger world affairs by US officials.  Jubal Harshaw, retired attorney-at-law, comes into contact with Smith one day and kidnaps him in the hopes of protecting him from the various social and political interests at work, plugging his own agenda in the process.  Smith, as innocent as a child, is allowed to develop by Harshaw, giving the cultural instincts he acquired on Mars free reign on Earth.  Where these instincts take him flies in the face of all that’s thought “right”, telling Smith’s tragic tale in the process.