Customer Reviews

A Sense of Infinity

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Baen Books has earned the eternal gratitude of science fiction fans by keeping the great SF of the 1950s, 60s, and 1970s alive in complete reissuess of the work of masters like Keith Laumer and James Schmitz. Unfortunately, this collection of the works of Howard Myers probably shouldn't have made the cut. The best stuff in this volume are the three very droll stories about Olivine, Renegade of the Space Patrol. Those are well worth reading for any fan of the 60s-era Analog.

This may sound a little strong, but it is possible to write well and produce "drivel" at the same time.

I read every issue of Analog magazine in the 50's, 60's and early 70's, so I must have read many of the stories in this collection, but I don't remember them. They fit the pattern the editor of analog, John W. Campbell, Jr., was said to be looking for at the time: a "scientific" problem or delemma that the protagonist must solve or overcome. Except that the "science" is at best pseudo-science and the solutions are all contrived. Well written but contrived.

I don't know why I am surprised by that, since Campbell trumpeted something as fact for many months called the "Dean Drive" which violated the laws of thermodynamics and motion (though there are those who still believe that the drive would work), but it is a little unsettling to look back on how naive I was during that time in my life.

The stories about the soul and the "ego field" are perhaps the best examples of this in the book. In my opinion, almost all of this collection would have better appeared first (in modified form) in "Fantasy and Science Fiction" magazine. Also in my opinion, these stories are not Science Fiction at all.