Customer Reviews

The Works of H. Beam Piper (32 books) (Illustrated)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Sci Fi publishers have been trying to disguise short story collections as novels for some time but to call this 32 "books" is flat-out misrepresentation. I knew that when I bought it, inasmuch as dear old H.Beam never wrote 32 books in his abbreviated career. But that doesn't make the misrepresentation any better.

Having said that, it is still a worthwhile collection, although I think the Table of Contents should have been better edited to make clear which are stories, which novellas and which are novels. It's a shame Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen is not included.

Little Fuzzy is here but Lord Kalvan is missing. Many of his other "time" stories are represented as well as some non-science-fiction tales. Of particular interest to me was the short biography of Mosby.
H. Beam Piper has the ability to tell a story simply and clearly and yet deal with subjects that can be convoluted and twisted.
If you are a returning reader, you will feel at home immediately. If you are a new reader, settle back for some fun.

I have been collecting H. Beam Piper stories for a number of years. This is a wonderful collection of short stories and novels that I had not seen in print (read them all). While the title states this is 32 books, most are short short stories. Also, due to an editing error, where a short story does not have a break. It also includes a 33 book, the novel Space Viking. The books are: Little Fuzzy, The Cosmic Computer, Space Viking, and the Uller Uprising. It contains a couple short books, Four Day Planet, and Lone Star Planet. The remainder are a set of hard to find short stories. If you are an H. Beam Piper fan, this is a good one for your collection.

Found another misleading item: I didn't get a Table of Contents with mine. Maybe you don't get a TofC when you buy it for your 'Kindle for PC' ...

This Kindle book contains 32 of H. Beam Pipers stories. As has been pointed out, this is definitely NOT the complete works - for example, though it does contain Little Fuzzy, it does not contain its sequels - Fuzzy Sapiens and Fuzzies And Other People. Also, Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen, the greatest of the Paratime stories is also not here. Therefore, I do think that calling it "The Works of H. Beam Piper" is a little to large of a claim.

On the other hand, when you consider the price, you are getting a lot of great Piper stories - including Uller Uprising (a personal favorite) and Murder In The Gunroom, Piper's excellent mystery story. As for me, I think that this is a very good collection, and I am glad to have it...it's not just "The Works."

This collection of H. Beam Piper is a very good representation of the man's work. My only complaints are 1) The monospace type is a bit distracting, and 2) I have to echo another reviewer in that it is difficult to navigate around books already read because there is no index that will allow you to go quickly to selected pieces. But heck, for the price, I guess it's worth it. Second hand book sellers are asking three times Amazon's price for just "Junkyard Planet" or retitled as "The Cosmic Computer". I recommend Piper as a nice easy read that is not real heavy on the science and more on characters.

If you want to know how much text you are buying in a Kindle book then look at the kilobyte count, not the title. Many Kindle book titles are misleading, but blame the publisher that provided the information, not Amazon. Amazon just converts to Kindle manuscripts data provided by the publisher they got it from. They aren't even allowed to spell-check the manuscripts without the publisher's approval. That explains why you find so many misspellings, lost words or lines, or misplaced paragraphs, etc. Amazon is not allowed to fix them without going back to the publisher. Why the publishers provide such inferior manuscripts is an open question, but if you want to complain go to the Kindle feedback site (forum) and gripe there. As far as content goes, H. Beam Piper had a relatively short career and no time to write 35 novels. What you are getting is a few novels, some novellas, and some (mostly lengthy) short stories (one of which won a Hugo). H. Beam Piper was one of the best writers of SF during the '50's and early '60's, so you are getting high quality content (most of which was published in Astounding/Analog). The contents, which is still a lot, is well worth the price.

Great to find some of H Beam Piper's books available again but NO TABLE of CONTENTS. It does not include "Kalvan of Otherwhen" probably his best book and instead includes "Murder in the Gunroom" one of is worst. Navigating it without a table of contents is almost impossible.

Boycott ebooks that lack a table of contents!

There's no question H. Beam Piper was a very good writer who could put out an engrossing story. But after a while you get tired of the "Confederacy was right, slavery is good, liberals are evil and stupid, and colonels with guns are always right while academics and politicians are fools" themes. In some stories you can ignore it but after a while his writing becomes more obnoxious than pleasant. Unless, of course, you really believe all slavery is good, the South should have won, and all liberals, leftists, government officials (except the military), and such are fools and worse...