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Reviews in Project: Because My Tears Are Delicious To You (573)

Full Stock of Thoughts

New Voices: The Campbell Award Nominees  (New Voices, volume 1)

 Edited by George R R Martin 

13 Jul, 2025

Because My Tears Are Delicious To You

11 comments

George R. R. Martin’s 1977 New Voices: The Campbell Award Nominees is the first in a series of anthologies that assemble stories by Campbell Award (now the Astounding) nominees. That it was the first is made clearer on the Jove/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich1 mass market paperback, whose title was changed to New Voices I: The Campbell Award Nominees.

But first, context.

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Off To A Foreign Land

The Steel, the Mist, and the Blazing Sun

By Christopher Anvil  

6 Jul, 2025

Because My Tears Are Delicious To You

8 comments

Christopher Anvil’s 1980 The Steel, the Mist, and the Blazing Sun is (almost) a stand-alone post-apocalyptic proto-military SF novel.

The atomic unpleasantness left half of North America as slag lands1, and left Europe untouched but a Russ dependency. The Russ even established colonies on the North American east coast. It seemed unlikely that the invaders would ever be forced to leave. After all, the Russ have (dwindling) stores of Old Stuff, whereas the descendants of American and Canadian survivors make do with far more primitive equipment.

Recent events proved that the Russ were curiously vulnerable. Under Arakal, King of the Wesdem O’Cracys2, the North American savages somehow overcame their technological and ideological impediments, outmaneuvered their enemy, and drove the Russ high command from North America.

What next?

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The Alan Parsons Project

To Walk The Night

By William Sloane  

29 Jun, 2025

Because My Tears Are Delicious To You

3 comments

William Sloane’s 1937 To Walk the Night1 is a stand-alone cosmic horror novel.

Berkeley Bark” Jones visits Dr. Lister, the man who was effectively Bark’s father. Bark has two grim tasks: to deliver to Lister the ashes of Lister’s son Jerry, and to explain to the doctor the events leading up to Jerry’s suicide.

It began with a burning astronomer.


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Rule the World

The Delikon

By H M Hoover  

22 Jun, 2025

Because My Tears Are Delicious To You

5 comments

H. M. Hoover’s 1977 The Delikon is a stand-alone young adult science fiction novel.

Humanity ventured to the stars in quest of what they assumed to be their great destiny. The alien Delikon, having taken humanity’s measure, swiftly conquered the short-lived upstarts1. As humans were clearly incapable of moderating their own behavior, the Delikon constructed a capital city on Earth, Kalidor, from which they set about shaping humans to conform to civilized standards.

A very long time later, the rigid caste system appears eternal.


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A Hero’s Welcome

The Heirs of Babylon

By Glen Cook  

8 Jun, 2025

Because My Tears Are Delicious To You

16 comments

Glen Cook’s 1972 The Heirs of Babylon is a stand-alone post-holocaust novel.

Two centuries earlier, Germany was reduced from one hundred million people to one hundred thousand. The survivors’ descendants are concentrated in the Baltic Littoral. Germany and the neighbouring nations were lucky. Some nations, such as China, were extirpated1.

The Baltic Littoral’s people live hand-to-mouth. Little can be spared to rebuild. Blame the perfidious Australians.


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While I Was Sleeping

The Long Loud Silence

By Wilson Tucker  

1 Jun, 2025

Because My Tears Are Delicious To You

6 comments

Wilson Tucker’s The Long Loud Silence (1952, 1954) is a stand-alone post-apocalyptic novel.

The enemy struck without warning. Major cities like Chicago were incinerated with atomic bombs. Lesser cities and towns did not rate atomic weapons. Instead, bombs delivered weaponized diseases.

Millions died… east of the Mississippi. The enemy’s weapons could not reach the west. Therefore, those twenty-two states were spared.

Good news for Corporal Russell Gary, who wakes from a bender to discover that he is one of the survivors. Bad news for Gary, who wakes from a bender to discover that he is one of the survivors… on the wrong side of the Mississippi.


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The Easier It Looks

The Continent Makers

By L. Sprague de Camp  

4 May, 2025

Because My Tears Are Delicious To You

14 comments

L. Sprague de Camp’s 1953 The Continent Makers is a collection of his early Viagens Interplanetarias stories.

In the wake of World War Three, Brazil became Earth’s foremost power1. Thus, it fell to Brazil to deliver relativistic star flight. First contact with the surprisingly large number of alien civilizations in neighboring star systems was followed by the formation of the Interplanetary Council.

Why was the Interplanetary Council needed, when contact, being sublight, was a matter of years and decades? In part, so that technologically backward, aggressive cultures do not get their hands on starships and nuclear weapons. However, there is another consideration.

Let us discuss Planets of Hats.

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