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A Pocketful of Stars
- GenresScience Fiction
318 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
About the author
Damon Knight
586 books100 followersDamon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, and critic.
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "Resilience", was published in 1941. He is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", which was adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was a recipient of the Hugo Award, founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop, and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop. Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife Kate Wilhelm.
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "Resilience", was published in 1941. He is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", which was adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was a recipient of the Hugo Award, founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop, and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop. Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife Kate Wilhelm.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 30, 2014
For some reason i really enjoy the Jews in space short stories. There is another one of them here, written by Carol Carr. Funny as...
May 6, 2020
Some good and some very good stories. Stories from well-known and little-known SF authors. Includes the saddest science fiction dog-story I've ever read - "Pelt".
January 7, 2026
If you had a feeling that sci-fi writers couldn't get published if they didn't know the right people, your feeling was correct. Anthology editors like Damon Knight and Terry Carr relied so heavily on stories shopped in writer's conventions that they rarely looked anywhere else to fill their books. For all my griping about Gardner Dozois, he at least filled his anthologies by reading anything he could get his hands on.
The Milford Mafia was the nickname given to those in the Milford Science Fiction Writers' Conference in Milford, Pennsylvania. It started in 1955 and stopped in 1972. Wikipedia states that it moved to the UK that year ... thousands of miles away from Milford. It's last incarnation still goes on.
Stories range in date from 1958 to 1971. Two of them appear in print here for the first time. All of the stories have revealing introductions, if not by the author, then by Our Editor.
Selections:
* "Introduction" by Our Editor. He gives a history of the Milford Science Fiction Writers' Conference from it's start in 1955 to January, 1970. He also makes a tactless observation about Judith Merrill resigning over a policy change.
* "Windsong" by Kate Wilhelm/Mrs. Damon Knight. Typical bullshit from the wife. If it wasn't for hubby, she'd have been a failed writer, which is what she (mostly) deserved to be.
* "The Intruder" by Ted Thomas. Dull, pointless time travel story where someone goes to all the trouble of going back in time just to camp out and kill trilobites. He then goes apeshit at seeing a patch of algae on land. What an arsehole.
* "An Honorable Death" by Gordon R. Dickson. The first decent story in the book. A party celebrating humans going into space and conquering planets. A native chief wishes to dance at this party.
* "The Burning" by Theodore R. Cogswell. The author's two page intro is full of enough bitchiness to make your eyes cross, especially to Judith Merrill. The story itself is ... well ... it's set in a post-apocalyptic future and it's short. Not much else goes on.
* "Harry the Tailor" by Sonya Dorman. This was originally published in Cosmopolitan, of all places. Although it's a good story, it's not sci-fi. It's a love story set in a Bronx dry cleaners.
* "Fifteen Miles" by Ben Bova. This was part of a series of stories about Chester A. Kinsman. You really need to first read "Test In Orbit" (1965) in order to figure out what's going on. Bova gives away the ending to this story in his intro. Thanks for nothing, Bova.
* "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison. This award-winning chilling tale of the future has one of the best titles EVER. Unfortunately, this can be found in a hundred other anthologies. However, if this is your first time, lie back and think of England. This story has not one, but TWO introductions. Ellison gains his crown as the nastiest SOB in speculative fiction, and Our Editor goes to new levels of spite. Giants with feet of clay, indeed.
* "The Winter Flies" by Fritz Lieber. Um, yeah ...
* "Sun" by Burt Filer. This is (I think) the first time the story was published. And hopefully the last time.
* "The Horars of War" by Gene Wolfe. This has a difficult beginning, but keep with it. It'll all make sense in the end. That Our Editor declined this story for his Orbit series is baffling.
* "Hop-Friend" by Terry Carr. This was unusual in that the story had already been sold before Carr brought it to the Milford Conference to be torn apart. It was written before it was determined that there was no life on Mars. A Martian keeps showing up in a human colonist's life. One of the best stories Carr ever wrote.
* "A Few Last Words" by James Sallis. His first published story, and does it show. Poorly written, convoluted end of civilization story, punctuated by a speeding car killing the last dog in town. Fuck you, Sallis. Sallis claims the story is really about his marriage falling apart. Sure.
* "This Night, By My Fire" by Joanna Russ. Good luck figuring this out.
* "Look, You Think You've Got Troubles" by Carol Carr. Incisive parody of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? A Jewish girl loves a Martian boy.
* "Unclear Call for Lee" by Richard McKenna. McKenna left a few unpublished stories when he died. His last story was supposed to've been the one in 1968's Orbit 3 anthology, also edited by Knight. Now this is McKenna's final story. It's incomplete, so (unless you're a McKenna superfan) skip.
* "The Last Command" by Keith Laumer. Laumer brought this sci-fi war story to the Milford Conference to be critiqued as a joke, because he'd already sold it.
* "Pelt" by Carol Emschwiller. Told in the point of view of a human's gun dog, it chronicles a hunter taking a new alien pelt from an icy planet. One of the onky decent stories in this book.
* "Masks" by Our Editor. This first appeared in Playboy. It is incredibly disturbing, although it was meant to be so. WARNING: A puppy is killed and dismembered. This story can be found in much better anthologies.
* "The Sources of the Nile" by Avram Davidson. One of the most mind-numbingly dull pieces of crap Davidson ever wrote ... which seems somehow all the more appropriate for this anthology.
The Milford Mafia was the nickname given to those in the Milford Science Fiction Writers' Conference in Milford, Pennsylvania. It started in 1955 and stopped in 1972. Wikipedia states that it moved to the UK that year ... thousands of miles away from Milford. It's last incarnation still goes on.
Stories range in date from 1958 to 1971. Two of them appear in print here for the first time. All of the stories have revealing introductions, if not by the author, then by Our Editor.
Selections:
* "Introduction" by Our Editor. He gives a history of the Milford Science Fiction Writers' Conference from it's start in 1955 to January, 1970. He also makes a tactless observation about Judith Merrill resigning over a policy change.
* "Windsong" by Kate Wilhelm/Mrs. Damon Knight. Typical bullshit from the wife. If it wasn't for hubby, she'd have been a failed writer, which is what she (mostly) deserved to be.
* "The Intruder" by Ted Thomas. Dull, pointless time travel story where someone goes to all the trouble of going back in time just to camp out and kill trilobites. He then goes apeshit at seeing a patch of algae on land. What an arsehole.
* "An Honorable Death" by Gordon R. Dickson. The first decent story in the book. A party celebrating humans going into space and conquering planets. A native chief wishes to dance at this party.
* "The Burning" by Theodore R. Cogswell. The author's two page intro is full of enough bitchiness to make your eyes cross, especially to Judith Merrill. The story itself is ... well ... it's set in a post-apocalyptic future and it's short. Not much else goes on.
* "Harry the Tailor" by Sonya Dorman. This was originally published in Cosmopolitan, of all places. Although it's a good story, it's not sci-fi. It's a love story set in a Bronx dry cleaners.
* "Fifteen Miles" by Ben Bova. This was part of a series of stories about Chester A. Kinsman. You really need to first read "Test In Orbit" (1965) in order to figure out what's going on. Bova gives away the ending to this story in his intro. Thanks for nothing, Bova.
* "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison. This award-winning chilling tale of the future has one of the best titles EVER. Unfortunately, this can be found in a hundred other anthologies. However, if this is your first time, lie back and think of England. This story has not one, but TWO introductions. Ellison gains his crown as the nastiest SOB in speculative fiction, and Our Editor goes to new levels of spite. Giants with feet of clay, indeed.
* "The Winter Flies" by Fritz Lieber. Um, yeah ...
* "Sun" by Burt Filer. This is (I think) the first time the story was published. And hopefully the last time.
* "The Horars of War" by Gene Wolfe. This has a difficult beginning, but keep with it. It'll all make sense in the end. That Our Editor declined this story for his Orbit series is baffling.
* "Hop-Friend" by Terry Carr. This was unusual in that the story had already been sold before Carr brought it to the Milford Conference to be torn apart. It was written before it was determined that there was no life on Mars. A Martian keeps showing up in a human colonist's life. One of the best stories Carr ever wrote.
* "A Few Last Words" by James Sallis. His first published story, and does it show. Poorly written, convoluted end of civilization story, punctuated by a speeding car killing the last dog in town. Fuck you, Sallis. Sallis claims the story is really about his marriage falling apart. Sure.
* "This Night, By My Fire" by Joanna Russ. Good luck figuring this out.
* "Look, You Think You've Got Troubles" by Carol Carr. Incisive parody of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? A Jewish girl loves a Martian boy.
* "Unclear Call for Lee" by Richard McKenna. McKenna left a few unpublished stories when he died. His last story was supposed to've been the one in 1968's Orbit 3 anthology, also edited by Knight. Now this is McKenna's final story. It's incomplete, so (unless you're a McKenna superfan) skip.
* "The Last Command" by Keith Laumer. Laumer brought this sci-fi war story to the Milford Conference to be critiqued as a joke, because he'd already sold it.
* "Pelt" by Carol Emschwiller. Told in the point of view of a human's gun dog, it chronicles a hunter taking a new alien pelt from an icy planet. One of the onky decent stories in this book.
* "Masks" by Our Editor. This first appeared in Playboy. It is incredibly disturbing, although it was meant to be so. WARNING: A puppy is killed and dismembered. This story can be found in much better anthologies.
* "The Sources of the Nile" by Avram Davidson. One of the most mind-numbingly dull pieces of crap Davidson ever wrote ... which seems somehow all the more appropriate for this anthology.
September 5, 2023
Isn't it weird how science fiction dates? I loved this book when I bought it in 1974, but now it's just 'meh'. Even the stand-out story, Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream now feels very old hat. Oh well.
July 11, 2020
Good solid anthology.
February 22, 2021
A fine collection of US sf from the mid-fifties to sixties. But for a collection representing the famous Milford SF Writers Workshop of yore, not quite as stellar as I would have hoped.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews