Customer Reviews

Angels and Spaceships

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Frederic Brown not only writes readable interesting prose, he is conceptually ahead of his time, as all science fiction writers should be. What differentiates him from most science fiction writers is that his point of departure from strict science is much more sophisticated than most writers. He stimulates your thinking on cognitive science with his one page story on solipsism and blows your mind with his advanced understanding of the physics of relativity as a planet orbiting a double star eclipses itself. His strong connection to the linotype, while an interesting stimulating way to introduce the artificial intelligence world into a story is so far outside most peoples normal experience that it might lose some. A writer today would certainly use a computer instead of a linotype machine. Concepts of scale and the human's place in universe are artfully introduced in one of the many great stories in this classic of fantasy and science fiction.

The synopsis on the jacket reads, in part;

"Have you heard of the linotype machine which came alive and made a slave of the printer? Or about the time the earth was surrounded by radio-type waves which cut off electricity and forced people to go back to the horse and buggy days? Or the little boy who beat the Devil with a water pistol? Or of Yehundi, a new type of genie in the bottle, who did anything and everything for his master? Or of the Celestial Compositor who didn't pay attention to his business and who made the life of one earthling very miserable indeed.

Fredric Brown tells about these and many other equally intriguing events in this collection which includes both stories of fantasy and science fiction, and some stories that are a mixture of both. But into whatever category they fall, all bear the stamp of the master's far-ranging imagination and zany humor."

Later published in paperback as Star Shine.