Mindspan

by Gordon R. Dickson

What do you do when you're being misunderstood by an alien race whose weapons are meaner than yours? If diplomacy fails, then good old human cunning is the only alternative.

Miss Prinks • (1954)
Fleegl of Fleegl • (1958)
Show Me the Way to Go Home • (1952)
Rex and Mr. Rejilla • (1958)
Who Dares a Bulbur Eat? • (1962)
The Faithful Wilf • (1963)
A Wobble in Wockii Futures • (1965)
Sleight of Wit • (1961)
Operation P-Button • (1970)
Soupstone • (1965)
Ballad of the Shoshonu • (1961)
Catch a Tartar • (1965)
A Matter of Technique • (1958)

Genres: Science Fiction, Collections, Short Stories

288 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1986

About the author

Gordon Rupert Dickson was an American science fiction author. He was born in Canada, then moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota as a teenager. He is probably most famous for his Childe Cycle and the Dragon Knight series. He won three Hugo awards and one Nebula award.

Reviews

[StarMan · Rating 2 out of 5]

VERDICT: 2.5 stars. Not terrible, but the stories were sillier than expected, or perhaps dated. The aliens acted pretty human-ish (contrary to claims otherwise in the preface).

But if you like tales where square-jawed dudes outwit aliens (and the ladies, sometimes), you might like this. There is some light comedy in MINDSPAN (no laugh-out-louds for me). I prefer more realistic SF.

[Colvet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly this book was kind of rough for me to get through. Towards the end I was only reading in 20-30 page chunks before getting bored or tired, which is rare for me. I usually can slam 100 pages in a sitting even after a long day of work if the writing is executed well.

I enjoyed the concept of having a short story collection aimed at communication barriers in alien space travel. However, I got bored of the repeating structure of each piece by the third story and wanted more commentary on the xeno-linguistics. One or two characters wayfare the universe, they meet a bunch of aliens from distant planets, they learn how to communicate, they are all involved in some travel difficulties, and then they part ways after finding a solution together. That is the synopsis of pretty much every story in this collection. I enjoyed the story arcs of Tom and Hank, but the others were utterly forgettable in my opinion. Happy to be done with the book so I can move on to other titles. Not the best from Mr. Dickson in the slightest...his full length novels are much better in my opinion.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories was both enjoyable and, at times, silly. Definitely a product of its time, with each story written for sci-fi pulp magazines, where the readers expected cleverly written light stories with quick resolutions. While some of the stories could have hid anecdotal social commentary, the bulk of this collection was more episodic, taking more from westerns or spy novels with a sci-fi slant on it it. You could have inserted any 40s-50s hero-type and changed the setting to something more terrestrial with little difficulty.

Regardless, none of the stories take themselves too seriously and the bulk of the book was good, clean fun (if you excused the aforementioned “product of their time” parts). Don’t go into this expecting Heinlein or Herbert, but do expect to enjoy 20-40 pages of interesting little stories.

[Al "Tank" · Rating 3 out of 5]

A number of short stories revolving around 3 main characters (1 per set of stories).

Some of the stories are quite clever. The rest are okay. I wasn't bored, but didn't get that kick in the pants I get from a really great book (like from Heinlein or McCaffrey). Still, it wasn't a waste of time.

[Charlie Pasta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heck yeah. This was the most fun short story compilation I've read in quite some time. I love that Dickson is clearly capable of good hard sci fi but is clearly much more entertained by stuff like talking dogs and embarassed mammoths.

[James]

What do you do when you're being misunderstood by an alien race whose weapons are meaner than yours? If diplomacy fails, then good old human cunning is the only alternative.

[Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories involving human/alien interactions. The writing is very good and the tales are funny and whimsical.

[SciFiOne]

Short stories.