Customer Reviews

Space By The Tale

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By his own account, Jerome Bixby claimed to have written several hundred short stories that were mostly forgettable. There are two exceptions: The science fiction chiller, "It's a _Good_ Life" (_Star Science Fiction No. 2_, 1953) and the comical "The Holes Around Mars" (_Galaxy_, 1954). You may remember the first as an episode on _The Twilight Zone_. Neither of these oft-reprinted gems is included in _Space by the Tale_ (1964), to the detriment of the collection.

Here are the stories that _are_ included: "The Draw" (_Amazing_, 1954),"The Young One" (_Fantastic_, 1954), "Laboratory" (_If_, 1955), "The Good Dog" (_Fantastic_, 1954), "One Way Street" (_Amazing_, 1953-4), "Small War" (_Science Fiction Quarterly_, 1954), "Trace" (_Space by the Tale_, 1961), "Angels in the Jets" (_Fantastic_, 1952), "The Battle of the Bells" (_Imagination_, 1954), "The Magic Typewriter" (_Space by the Tale_, 1963), and "The Bad Life" (_Galaxy_, 1963).

The two most original-- and unpleasant-- stories in the collection are "Angels in the Jets" and "The Bad Life". Both are accounts of descents into madness-- the first on a planet with a hallucinogenic atmosphere, the second on a prison asteroid. I first read "The Bad Life" when I was in high school, and it was hard not to make comparisons between Limbo and the military school that I was attending. I could only hope that I wasn't too much like the hero of the story who retreats into the womb in a bizarre kind of way.

"Laboratory," "One Way Street," and "Small War" are three competent but routine pieces. The first is about a couple of humans who blunder into some alien experiments. The second is about a parallel worlds snafu with an unsettling snapper at the end. The third is a story told by a disgraced spaceman that raises some hard questions about the value of conventional heroism. Would you do what this spaceman did?

The rest of the stories are decidedly minor. "The Young One," "The Good Dog," "Trace," "The Battle of the Bells," and "The Magic Typwriter" are fantasy comedies. The first three are sentimental treatments of supernatural characters. The fourth is an account of a practical joke gone to hell. The fifth reminds me a bit of Charles Beaumont's "Printer's Devil". All are predictable. Also predictable but mildly entertaining is "The Draw," a blend of psionics and western folklore.

This is not one of Ballantine's better collections. But it has one quality that makes it a little appealing to me-- diversity of tone. A lot of collections nowadays are either totally comical or, more frequently, unrelievedly grim. The reader soon gets tired of the stories. Bixby mixes the grim with the whimsical. That is a point in his favor.

Since I enjoyed the movie Man From Earth Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth as he wrote the script, I thought I'd check out his other tales. I enjoy science fiction and this small paperback is no exception. He's no Richard Matheson, but his tales have similar twists and takes. One story is about the "fastest" gun in the West, a mean boy with telekinetic powers; an alien scientist whose experiments go crazy as he tries to prevent a "first contact" situation; and a story of interdimensional travel, where there is another dimension that has never heard of Hamlet (wild stuff!). Some stories do well, others predictable. Can't wait for other shorts written by Bixby.

See also his Star Trek story, "Day of the Dove".