Customer Reviews

A Nice Day For Screaming and Other Tales of the Hub

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_A Nice Day for Screaming and Other Tales of the Hub_ (1965) is a collection of a half-dozen stories by James H. Schmitz. Each story is said to depict events occuring on a single day in the center of the galaxy in the year 3500 A.D. I doubt if the stories were originally written according to this plan, but it is not a bad unifying idea for a collection. Magazine publications spanned from 1961 through 1965. One story was published in _Amazing_, while the other five are from _Analog_. Five of the stories are well-crafted entertainments, but the sixth is something special.

I will discuss the stories in the order in which they appear in the book. "A Nice Day for Screaming" is about an experimental Navy ship that ventures into pseudospace and encounters... _something_. "The Winds of Time" is some hugger-mugger about a lost space freighter, a mysterious machine in the hold, and a couple of nasty aliens on board. "The Other Likeness" is about a circle of unusual secret agents on an unusual mission. Schmitz frequently has fun with futuristic spy stories involving deep covers, disguises, devious plots, and exotic weapons. "The Tangled Web" involves more double-crosses on the spaceways, this time with assorted groups of heroes and scoundrels in search of some deadly jewels called the star hyacinths. "The Machmen" pits some human scientists against some supermen who seem invincible. Of course, we know whose clocks will be stopped. But we don't know exactly how it will be done.

We are left with "Balanced Ecology," the last story in the book. At first glance, it seems to be a simple tale about a day on a diamondwood tree farm. But take a closer look. This story is a model of a biological hard science fiction tale. Schmitz has developed a colorful and fascinating ecosystem in loving detail, with all of its parts carefully worked out. There is, I believe, a tiny little scientific slip at the end. But it is a tiny slip, and it allows a better ending. Let me make it clear about this story. It deserves to be placed beside Hal Clement's "Proof," James Blish's "Surface Tension," Poul Anderson's "The Longest Voyage," and Theodore L. Thomas's "The Weather Man". It lifts the book from the category of "good entertainment" to something better.

I will close with an irrelevant note. The title for the fourth story comes from the oft-quoted lines: "Oh, what a tangled web we weave/ When first we practice to deceive." These lines are frequently attributed to Shakespeare. While I admit they sound a bit Shakespearian, they originally were written by Sir Walter Scott in a poem called _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_. In any event, they are certainly appropriate for that story.

This is a book of Sci Fi short stories which I read back in the 60s

while I was in Jr High School. Some of the stories had an environmetal

flavor which sat well with me and seemed ahead of the times.

In one story, the young protagonist works with the intelligence in the

forest to out wit loggers who want to cut all the valuable "diamond-wood"

on a distant planet. Great for teen readers and maybe adults also.