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sjstuart's review
3.0
These are all Hugo winners, but not all are standard sci-fi.
I found it curious that four of the six stories (and close to 90% of the words, since all four are novellas) were centered around war. Not only that, but the good guys in each story were conflicted rationalists who saw the need but were reluctant to fight, and these were contrasted against a group of outright pacifists who refused to take up arms. Clearly these stories were shaped to some degree by the Vietnam War, even though all were written before the anti-war sentiment had really begun to ramp up.
Several of them barely qualify as science fiction, though. Strand some humans on a planet, several thousand years after an apocalypse or abandonment, and you're free to assume that their civilization is at any (pre-technological) level you like. One of the stories is essentially a western, one features caricatures of English landed gentry, and one is basically medieval fantasy, complete with dragons.
I enjoyed the two shorter works considerably more: [a:Harlan Ellison|7415|Harlan Ellison|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1206546229p2/7415.jpg]'s '"Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman", a lyrical and playful critique of our obsession with time, and [a:Larry Niven|12534|Larry Niven|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1182720933p2/12534.jpg]'s "Neutron Star", an old-fashioned science mystery.
I found it curious that four of the six stories (and close to 90% of the words, since all four are novellas) were centered around war. Not only that, but the good guys in each story were conflicted rationalists who saw the need but were reluctant to fight, and these were contrasted against a group of outright pacifists who refused to take up arms. Clearly these stories were shaped to some degree by the Vietnam War, even though all were written before the anti-war sentiment had really begun to ramp up.
Several of them barely qualify as science fiction, though. Strand some humans on a planet, several thousand years after an apocalypse or abandonment, and you're free to assume that their civilization is at any (pre-technological) level you like. One of the stories is essentially a western, one features caricatures of English landed gentry, and one is basically medieval fantasy, complete with dragons.
I enjoyed the two shorter works considerably more: [a:Harlan Ellison|7415|Harlan Ellison|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1206546229p2/7415.jpg]'s '"Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman", a lyrical and playful critique of our obsession with time, and [a:Larry Niven|12534|Larry Niven|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1182720933p2/12534.jpg]'s "Neutron Star", an old-fashioned science mystery.
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