Time and Stars

Time and Stars is a collection of science fiction short stories by Poul Anderson, published in 1964.

Not to be confused with Of Time and Stars.
Time and Stars
Dust-jacket from the first edition
AuthorPoul Anderson
Cover artistThomas Chibbaro[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fiction
Published1964 (Doubleday)
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages249
ASIN B0000CM9GM

"Dangerous universe: Faced with machines that think by and for themselves, super-intelligent space beings bent on a suicidal course and a galaxy teeming with dangerous alien life, man had to invent new weapons, new defenses - or perish from the universe."[2]

Contents

Source[3]

  • "No Truce with Kings": A war story set on a future, semi-primitive Earth with aliens
  • "The Critique of Impure Reason": A robot will not work because it is infatuated with modern literature and literary criticism
    • Original Appearance: If, November 1962
  • "Escape from Orbit": Astronauts stranded in orbit around the moon
  • "Eve Times Four": Space traveler Lothario is stranded on a planet with three beautiful women
  • "Turning Point": A first contact story that gives a haunting portrait of the price of giftedness and the loss of innocence
    • Original Appearance: If, May 1963
  • "Epilogue": A crew of humans return to Earth after a long absence, finding it has been taken over by a kind of transistor-based ecology of machines; a lack of understanding between the robots and the humans leads to tragedy
    • Original Appearance: Analog, March 1962

Reception

Algis Budrys in the February 1965 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction said that "what Anderson needed in Time and Stars was an editor". He disliked "Eve Times Four" and "No Truce With Kings" but liked the others, calling "Escape From Orbit" "a beautifully done piece of work like nothing I have seen in the field before".[4] In February 1966 Budrys named the book the best collection of his first year as reviewer for the magazine, and "Escape from Orbit" the best short story.[5]

References
  1. isfdb
  2. From the back cover of the 1975 Manor Books paperback edition
  3. Review, Paul Camp, Amazon.com, 25 February 2010
  4. Budrys, Algis (February 1965). "Galaxy Bookshelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 153–159.
  5. Budrys, Algis (February 1966). "Galaxy Bookshelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 131–139.
  • Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 1.
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