James Nicoll Reviews

Gordon R. Dickson’s 1983 The Man From Earth is a collection of short science fiction stories.

1983! Tor Books was a brand-new company, which although nowhere near the behemoth it is today, was busy hoovering up famous… well, established, at any rate… authors. Gordon R. Dickson was one such.

Dickson was one of young me’s go-to SF authors. Early Tor was already on my buy list. So was anything with Jim Baen’s name on it; the title page identifies The Man From Earth as a Jim Baen Presentation.

You’d think I would have read this collection before 2024. I did not. There’s a very good reason for that and that reason is named Donald Allen Wollheim.

Before there was Tor, there was DAW Books. DAW was also fond of offering collection by established SF authors. Unsurprisingly, Dickson was one of DAW’s stalwarts. Among the Dickson collections offered by DAW were the nine-story Ancient, My Enemy, and the thirteen-story The Book of Gordon R. Dickson. The Man From Earth has ten stories, of which four had previously appeared in The Book of Gordon R. Dickson, and six in Ancient, My Enemy. There were no stories in The Man From Earth of which I didn’t own at least one copy¹, so I didn’t purchase the collection. Obviously, not an issue for those of you who weren’t buying DAW books in the 1970s².

Speaking of previous appearances, I think of Dickson as a Campbell author. He was, in the sense that Dickson did sell stories to Campbell, but like any prudent SF author of the time, no doubt aware of the hazards of relying on a single editor whose wife might prove irresistibly attractive³, Dickson sold to other editors as well. Thus, while four of the ten stories appeared in Campbell’s Astounding/Analog, four appeared in IF (one edited variously by James Quinn, two by Frederik Pohl, and one by Ejler Jakobsson), one in Galaxy (Pohl) and one in the short-lived Space Stories (edited by Samuel Mines). Which is to say, Pohl seems almost as likely to have snapped up a Dickson as John W. Campbell. As well, certain themes one might have expected to be correlated to Campbell sales (aliens as enemies, aliens as hapless natives, humans kicking ass through sheer awesomeness) were, if this collection is any guide, part of Dickson’s brand in general, not things he pulled out for Campbell in particular.

The minutiae of publication here distracted me because, alas, for the most part the stories themselves did not. This is Dickson in Very Serious Manly Man mode, with lots of Racial Destiny, eugenics, and not much humour (although there is some). I hoovered this stuff up as a teenager, but it’s not my jam now. Nevertheless, many tales were familiar from title alone and I do have comments, which accompany the stories.

The Man From Earth is out of print. In fact, death seems to have served Dickson quite poorly. He died in 2001, after which only one necrolaboration novel and two collections⁴ appeared. Compare to, say, Dickson’s sometime collaborator Poul Anderson, who also died in 2001, and has had one posthumous novel (by Anderson alone) published, as well as over twenty posthumous collections.

Call Him Lord • (1966) • novelette by Gordon R. Dickson

The spoiled heir to an interstellar empire visits backward Earth for a test whose consequences the unpleasant young man clearly fails to comprehend.

The Prince clearly did not do the reading or he would have understood his companion’s observation ​“Your life is in my hands, Lord,” was a threat and not a quaint rustic way of saying ​“bodyguard.”

Why an emperor? ​“An emperor’s needed, as the symbol that can hold a hundred worlds together.” I too am astounded that this was one of the stories sold to Campbell.

Why Earth? As a repository for all of humanity’s genetic heritage, in case the sample that colonized the stars is woefully incomplete. Dickson was keen on eugenic supermen but also backup plans.

Call Him Lord won a Nebula and was a Hugo finalist so it’s not surprising that Call Him Lord got novel-length sequels. What is surprising is that those sequels were not by Dickson, but rather A. J. Austin and Ben Bova.

The Odd Ones • (1955) • novelette by Gordon R. Dickson

Two stupendously advanced aliens try to comprehend human behavior despite their ignorance of certain vital facts.

I believe this is intended as humour.

“In the Bone” • (1966) • short story by Gordon R. Dickson

A human scout falls afoul of a prodigiously advanced alien, much to the alien’s cost.

Humans Kick Alien Ass Thanks to Sheer Awesomeness is just one way humans prevail over hostile aliens.

“Danger – Human” • short story by Gordon R. Dickson (1957)

How could humanity have repeatedly imperiled the galaxy? Curious alien researchers uncover the answer, despite unambiguous warnings not to do that.

It’s kind of heartening that aliens also interpret ​“under no circumstances do the following as calamity will certainly result” as ​“this is a cool thing that you should immediately do.”

Tiger Green • (1965) • novelette by Gordon R. Dickson

Human scouts resist alien assimilation, something the aliens should appreciate more than they do.

“The Man from Earth” • (1964) • short story by Gordon R. Dickson

Confronted by the whims of an all-powerful space emperor, a resolute human refuses to bend.

Generally speaking, humans and aliens don’t mix much in Dickson (with a specific exception I will get to). This is one of the few cosmopolitan settings I recall from Dickson. Humans appear to be recent visitors, not active participants.

Ancient, My Enemy • (1969) • novelette by Gordon R. Dickson

A guide’s life on a colony world is complicated by a native’s conviction that the guide and the alien are endlessly reincarnating enemies.

This is the exception to the humans don’t mix rule. Aliens share planets with humans when the humans decide to plunk down a colony on their world. This often works out poorly for the aliens.

Modern readers might not be pleased with how Dickson portrays aliens or women in this. Or alien women.

The Bleak and Barren Land • (1953) • novelette by Gordon R. Dickson

Earth’s foolish decision to license a colony on alien world up-ends peaceful human-alien relations on that planet.

The aliens are greatly handicapped in this conflict because they are obligate libertarians.

Steel Brother • (1952) • novelette by Gordon R. Dickson

A young soldier facing implacably hostile aliens finds an unexpected reserve of courage… but not his own.

“Love Me True” • (1961) • short story

What harm could possibly come from letting a space man bring back to Earth the alien pet to whose presence he seems addicted?

1: In the case of the stories in The Book of Gordon R. Dickson, two copies. The Book of Gordon R. Dickson was titled Danger-Human in hardcover. Young me had not learned to check tables of contents before slapping down my ninety-five cents, or I’d have spotted that I’d already acquired the book as a used hardcover in a library sale.

2: As it happens, I stopped collecting Dickson about this time. Tor was involved, but not due to the issue of overlapping collections because that was an issue of which I was already aware (Thank you, Keith Laumer). It was because of 1984’s The Final Encyclopedia, which was an almost 700-page tome in tiny print and boring besides.

3: The irresistible allure of Campbell’s wives might be specifically a George O. Smith issue involving Doña Campbell in particular. Still, why take the risk?

4: One of which, The Best of Gordon R. Dickson: Volume 1, was clearly supposed to be the first volume in a series that has not as yet had a second volume. I will assume that the collection focused on stories from the 1950s and 1960s because later material was reserved for later volumes and not because the editor thought Dickson’s best material was his early work.