Customer Reviews

Crossroads of Destiny and Others

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I make it a point to collect nearly everything H. Beam Pipe, and this is a great collection of his shorter stories.

Piper was a very good writer and definitely a product of his time. His books are heavy on individualism and self-reliance, combined with old-fashioned space opera of the best sort. Some stories are clunkers but most are at least enjoyable and a couple are superb, showing clearly early ideas he expanded on later in his novels.

A great collection of stories from a sadly deceased author. Recommended.

With the transition of much of H. Beam Piper's work into the public domain publishers like Aegypan Press have finally begun to bring Piper's work back into print and for that fans of Piper owe them a debt of gratitude. This collection provides an introduction to some of Piper's most unusual tales. The title story illustrates the parallel worlds idea upon which Piper's Paratime setting is based without any appearances by the Paratime Police who are central to the yarns contained in The Complete Paratime. "Hunter Patrol" is an odd, chilling, and sometimes silly telling of the classic science-fiction "what if you could change the past" time travel tale that uses a theme popularized decades later in the film Groundhog Day. "Dearest" is a mystery yarn of sorts about an aging gentlemen who is assisted in his struggles with conniving would-be heirs by a supernatural entity. "The Return," co-authored with John J. McGuire, chronicles the encounter of survivors of a nuclear war with an isolated community that has chosen a rather intriguing pre-war fictional character as their moral compass. Perhaps the best thing about this collection is the first-ever reprinting of "Rebel Raider," Piper's historical account of Confederate guerilla John Singleton Mosby.

Finally, this book uses the cover art from the May 1959 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories in which Piper's "Hunter Patrol" was first published which is an odd choice because this is _not_ an illustration from that story!

Also recommended by Piper are Uller Uprising, Murder in the Gunroom, Time Crime, Four-Day Planet, Little Fuzzy, Space Viking, and The Cosmic Computer.

H Beam Piper (1904-1964) is a typical sci-fi and fantasy writer of the '50s & early '60s, not very successful yet with an interesting production of short stories and some novels in his late years.
He mainly wrote about alternate universes that are in touch & mingling with our present one. Time displacement (not exactly time travel, at least in these five stories) is another axis of his production.

With "Crossroads of Destiny" the reader get in touch with five tales written between 1947 and 1959.
The author makes side references among the tales creating the illusion of a larger backdrop that encompasses all of them (including the various universes!)

"Time & Time Again" (1947) is his first published account and establishes one of his trademark issues: at some point into the future an atomic war is fought. Here the hero is displaced to his previous thirteen year's old self and from there an interesting drama emerges, very compact and neatly solved and is one of the best of this collection. This same scenario is fully developed in Ken Grimwood's opus "Replay" which I strongly recommend.

"He walked Around the Horses" (1948) is a treat for all history buffs, an alternate Napoleonic Europe without Napoleon is deluged over a baffled British diplomat of the time.

"The Mercenaries" (1950) is the weakest IMHO of the series.

"The Return" (1954) shows a post-holocaust scenery with some delicious details referring to well known character. This one has the full taste of those years' sci-fi short stories that were published in "Galaxy", "Mas Alla" or "Astounding Science Fiction.

Finally "Crossroads of Destiny" (1959) exhibit an interesting anecdote evolving around a strange character and a stranger dollar-bill. Here the reader may perceive Beam Piper evolution as a writer.

This book is a very good starting point to appreciate the author's style and themes.

Reviewed by Max Yofre.