Call Me Joe (NESFA Press Collection): Volume 1 of the Short Fiction of Poul Anderson

The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson #1

by Poul Anderson

This book is an eclectic mix of Poul Anderson's short stories. Many of the entries are some of his earliest tales, already displaying the mastery for which he is known and loved. Others see clever tales of time travel or space exploration, and there is even a clever tribute to Sherlock Holmes.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Collections, Aliens

510 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 11, 2009

About the author

Pseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley.

Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.

Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]

Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.


Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. I have not read all the stories in this collection so this review/rating applies only to the stories listed below (I will update periodically as I read more of the entries).

Call Me Joe (6.0 Stars): One of my All Time Favorite stories. Outstanding story about exploring and terraforming the surface of Jupiter through the use of bio-mechanical life forms whose consciousness is controlled via remote control by researchers above the planet. A story of identity and quality of life. Powerful, powerful stuff and an obvious inspiration for the concept used in James Cameron's Avatar.

Prayer in War (4.0 stars): A short poem seeking divine help to keep man safe from himself.

The Man Who Came Early (4.5 to 5.0 stars): Terrific novelette showing a realistic and original take on what might happen if a man from the 20th century found himself a thousand years in the past. This could be called the mirror image of DeCamp's Lest Darkness Fall.

The Sharing of Flesh (4.0 to 4.5 stars): Really good novelette dealing with a lost Earth colony with an unusual custom.

Turning Point (3.0 stars): an interesting short story about a group of traders who come across a primitive world where the inhabitants are a lot more than they seem to be which leads some to worry that they could have a disastrous effect on Earth. Very interesting idea and a great ending but the narrative itself was just okay.

[Michael Fierce]

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Believe me. I had really really wanted to give this book four stars. But I must admit that the fourth one was more to the wonderful production values of NESFA Press rather than the contents.
Why?
Had this book been full of crisp & compact stories like 'Call Me Joe', 'Time Patrol', 'The Double-dyed Villains', 'The Live Coward', 'The Man Who Came Early', 'Turning Point', 'Enough Rope', 'Welcome', and the jewel of them all 'The Martian Crown Jewels', I would have given it all the five stars only for the stories. But the pointless poems, and the overwritten ponderous novellas made for such poor reading that the book took such a looooooooong time to finish.
They ought to make a 'best of' collection, seriously. It would establish how Anderson's ideas preceded and created templates for smarter & sharper stories which came letter.
Until that happens, this is a very good place to begin as far as Anderson's works are concerned.
Recommended.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one, unlike the latter ones, is all SF stories, with some poetry.Some are even in a series, the story of Wing Alak, Patrolman, who works to maintain peace under the rule that he can never cause the death of a sapient being. (Lying like a rug, on the other hand, is allowed, so there is a great deal of propaganda about what they are capable of inflicting.)

Another is one of his Time Patrol stories, the first. The others are all stand alones, including a futuristic copy of Sherlock Holmes, and two different stories about planets populated solely by geniuses, one distinctly grim, the other light.

I warn that it can be a little hard going because even when the story has a happy ending -- and he has an uncommonly high number of sad or bittersweet ones -- the tone can be a bit grim. Not GRIMDARK, there's no massacre here. But like J.R.R. Tolkien, he did much original research into Nordic myth. Tolkien tempered his admiration of the Norse myths with his Christian belief that hope is a virtue, and despair a sin. Anderson doesn't show the tempering. It can be a bit much without spreading them out.

I was particularly taken with "Time Lag", in which a woman is taken captive after a retaliatory raid on her village that killed her husband. The other planet that is out to conquer them was avenging their attempt to defend themselves. Taken to their planet by their leader, the time lag of the title is time dilation, and despite it, she works for her planet. There are also tales about a man trapped by a time machine that only goes forward, a ship that claims to come from another universe, and chess pieces that are intelligent and aware of the rules.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poul Anderson's wife is releasing some of his early works for Kindle. http://www.amazon.com/Call-Me-Joe-ebo... Call me Joe is the first. It is a short story published in the late 1950's in one of the popular science fiction magazines of the time, where I first read it (I think it was Astounding, but I'm not sure). The basic premise is a scientific mission to Jupiter creates a life form that can survive on the Jovian "surface", remote controlled from a moon station. The controlling scientist is a handicapped man who feels the power of the whole, vibrant creature that he controls. Is this beginning to sound familiar? Did James Cameron read this story and let it percolate for 60 years?

As always, Poul Anderson's prose is a joy to read, and the ending, while not a complete surprise, is very satisfying. Read it to see where "Avatar" came from. And for the pleasure of tasting the Master's work.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it's great to see all of Poul Anderson's stories collected, this is going to be massively frustrating. For the projected 6 volumes, that will be over 3000 pages of stories, but the editor has chosen not to arrange in any way. Not chronological, which would give an overview of the development of the writer over the years, nor into any of the groups of stories.
It is presented instead as an attempt at giving an overview of the whole body of work in each volume. This would be fine if any one was being published on its own as a selection, but is just a missed opportunity for a collected works.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Il racconto preso da solo non mi ha fatto impazzire, ma è scritto bene e l'idea mi è piaciuta. Il motivo per cui l'ho letto era il paragone con Avatar e direi che è matematicamente impossibile inventarsi una fila di idee tutte simili come in questo caso.
Una creatura blu aliena (quadrupedi/bipedi, poco importa), ci sta.
Un uomo sulla sedia a rotelle, ci sta.
Una connessione neurale, ci sta.
Gli alieni con il volto da felino e la coda, ci sta.
MA TUTTI INSIEME, NON CI STA!

http://www.libriecaffelatte.com/2012/...

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first of the NESFA republication project gave me a selection of old and new. At last all three of the Galactic Patrol stories are available under one cover.

Others which impressed me were "Genius", where I kept waiting for a twist which was NOT the one that came; and two contrasting stories of men trapped in trip to the future in "Flight to Forever" and "Time Heals".

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved science fiction for 50 years, and have read as much of it as I could get my hands on. If I had to pick just one author's works to be stuck with on a desert island, it would be a tough choice but I would choose Anderson. His full-length series books around characters like David Falkayn, Nicholas van Rijn, and of course Dominic Flandry are some of the best SF anywhere. I was less familiar with some of his short stories until I picked up this collection.

It's hard to summarize such an eclectic group of tales, so I'll just say I didn't find a clinker in the whole bunch. You do start to notice some recurring themes: Anderson's conviction that we were going to suffer an atomic World War III, his penchant for writing about red-haired men and muscular women, his interest in how alien minds might work, and the ever-present habit of characters smoking, even in spaceships and confined quarters. Many of the stories also stay consistent with his talent for envisioning scientifically accurate alien worlds, and describing them in detail, which was probably the feature of his writing that first drew me to his works as a curious boy. He finds clever ways of winding these alien landscapes and conditions into his stories, making them not just clever plot devices but almost characters of their own.

If you like "hard" sci-fi space opera, you need to read this collection. I can't wait to dive into Volume II.

[Merzbau · Rating 4 out of 5]

in his introduction to the book the editor says that there's no order or reason as to how the stories are arranged. it's not chronological, it's not themed, stories that share the same characters or settings aren't grouped together, they're just there. to make matters more annoying the editor doesn't even give a reason as to why he chose to do this. he also states that it would take up too much space to have intros or discussions about the stories. the only info given is a story list at the beginning that tells you when and in what publication each story was published.
i also noticed several cases where words seemed to be missing and of improper or missing punctuation. nothing so bad that you couldn't understand the story but still a distraction.

all that aside, i thoroughly enjoyed the stories. forward thinking hard sci-fi stories that touch on politics, romance, humor, time travel, post-apocalypse, post-earth and more. not all of them are great but none of them are bad. i'm looking forward to reading the other 6 volumes of this series

[André]

Call Me Joe (1957) is a science fiction story by Poul Anderson about an attempt to explore the surface of the planet Jupiter using remotely controlled artificial life-forms. The premise of a paraplegic man whose mind is remotely controlling a blue-skinned alien body also appears in James Cameron's 2009 movie Avatar – similar enough for some to have called for Anderson to receive some form of credit.

[Mcoduti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very fun read considering what was known in 1957 and what is known now. Besides dated perceptions of Jupiter, from the technology standpoint of the story I would've thought this was a current take on the not-so-distant future.

The psychological aspect was stimulating too. I haven't read a book that delved into conflicts of egos in a very long time. The Latin phrase references were fun vocab look-ups as well.

[Eric David Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant stories from one of the masters of Hard SF.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

A to Z Project, Book 14

[Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excelent story!

[Anthony Faber · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series is intended to keep his short fiction available, so it's kind of the opposite of a "best of" collection. Typical Anderson.

[Matt Piechocinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Cameron is a hack.