James Nicoll Reviews

1976’s King and Joker is the first volume in Peter Dickinson’s Princess Louise alternate history duology.

Britain’s Princess Louise takes a closer look at her family (and its closest retainer) seated around the breakfast table. She comes to an appalling realization.

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Brian W. Aldiss’ 1976 Galactic Empires Volume One and Volume Two delivers what the title promises: two anthologies whose unifying theme is galactic empires.

Almost all of the stories could be considered vintage even by the standards of 1976.

Galactic Empires was well suited for my purposes this week, and not just because the two volumes fit nicely into the unused space in my shoulder bag.

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Fritz Leiber’s 1970 Swords and Deviltry is the first of seven or eight Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser secondary-world sword and sorcery books, featuring… Leiber’s adventurous duo, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Set in the other-dimensional world Nehwon, the series chronicled the adventures of seven-foot-tall barbarian swordsman Fafhrd and the more diminutive sorcerer’s‑apprentice-turned-adventurer¹, the Gray Mouser.

But first! Explanations! Perhaps a bit confusing.

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1974’s The Hounds of Skaith is the second volume in Leigh Brackett’s Ginger Star trilogy.

Having rescued his adopted father Ashton and humiliated Skaith’s Lords Protector, Eric John Stark faces another challenge: surviving the consequences of his actions.

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James Blish’s 1958 A Case of Conscience is a Hugo-winning science fiction novel. It is part of a thematic trilogy, After Such Knowledge, about which more later.

No sooner did Haertel give humans faster-than-light drives¹ than humans discovered that they share the universe with aliens as intelligent as humanity. Aliens such as the Lithians.

Father Ruiz-Sanchez is part of a four-man UN team assigned the task of assessing recently contacted Lithia. Is the planet and its highly intelligent natives an opportunity for Earth to exploit? Is it a deadly menace? Or perhaps someplace to ignore…

Jesuit Ruiz-Sanchez fears it is a deadly menace. He also fears his reasoning will not sway his teammates.

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1979’s Murder and Magic collects four of Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy alternate-universe fantasy mysteries.

As a surprising number of characters find cause to ponder, Richard the Lionhearted’s change of heart following his near-death on the battlefield led to eight centuries of success for the Plantagenets. Another consequence was the codification of magic, which led to a powerful Angevin Empire spanning France and England, a New World dominated by the Angevins, and a Europe torn between the noble Angevins and the expansionistic Poles.

Humans of our technological, scientific 1964, as well as humans in Garrett’s feudal, magical 1964, display all of the usual human vices. When these lead to murder, it is the task of investigators like Lord Darcy to uncover the villains. And perhaps to see justice done.

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1978’s Lifeboat Earth is the second volume in Stanley Schmidt’s Kyyra series. Whereas the first volume was a novel, Lifeboat Earth is a fix-up, composed primarily of novelettes.

With the wavefront from the Milky Way’s exploding core only eighteen years from Earth, the only way out is to equip Earth with a propulsion system provided by the alien Kyyra and flee for the Andromeda Galaxy.

The plans exist! The technology exists! The only impediment is the inefficient governments running the Earth. By the time the dithering officials make a decision, the Earth will be dead.

Clearly the only reasonable solution is for Henry Clark, the World Science Foundation’s Lieutenant Commissioner of Grants, to appoint himself Earth’s supreme autocrat.

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“Breakaway” was the debut episode of the first season of the science fiction television show, Space 1999. Directed by Lee H. Katzin and written by George Bellak, ​“Breakaway” aired 4 September 1975.

John Koenig (played by Martin Landau) is dispatched by the World Space Commission to Moonbase Alpha to ensure that the upcoming Meta probe is launched on schedule. The rogue planet Meta will not be in reach of terrestrial spacecraft for long, and certain telemetry signals demand investigation.

The impediment Koenig has sent to resolve is a viral outbreak. As he will soon discover, the problems plaguing the Meta program are far more serious than a simple disease outbreak.

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1977’s Some Summer Lands is either the fourth or the fifth book in Jane Gaskell’s Atlan series^1. Either way, Some Summer Lands is the final book in the series².

Cija! As alluring as Helen of Troy, innocent and ignorant, she is fated to be her kingdom’s doom. So far in this series, doom hasn’t arrived.

At least not until this volume.

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Again, Dangerous Visions is the second installment in Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions original speculative fiction series.

Again, Dangerous Vision’s remit was to reprise Dangerous Visions’ remit: present readers with stories that could not be published in the staid magazines and anthologies of the era. ADV would do this on a vaster scale than Dangerous Visions.

Having not read Again, Dangerous Visions since 1979 or 1980¹, I had only the vaguest of memories of this work. The reread was a journey of rediscovery.

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