Never In This World

Papa Schimmelhorn #1-2

by Idella Purnell Stone (Editor), Reginald Bretnor (Contributor), Isaac Asimov (Contributor)

Stories of the light fantastic - deliciously chilling, weirdly wonderful, frighteningly entertaining...
This is the stuff that daring dreams are made of...
shapes of things, sounds of things, somewhere, sometime - but NEVER IN THIS WORLD

Contents:

Introduction by Idella Purnell Stone
The Ambulance Made Two Trips by Murray Leinster
Dodger Fan by Will Stanton
Look out! Duck! by Randall Garrett
A Prize for Edie by J.F. Bone
Little Anton by Reginald Bretnor
Dreamworld by Isaac Asimov
Make Mine Homogenized by Rick Raphael
Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot by Reginald Bretnor as Grendel Briarton
Rebel by Ward Moore
Senhor Zumbeira's Leg by Felix Marti-Ibanez
Or Else by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore
Critique of Impure Reason by Poul Anderson

Genres: Science Fiction

253 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1971

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really fine collection of humorous, light science fiction. It has an excellent Murray Leinster story, a little-known Kuttner and Moore collaboration, A Feghoot(!), a great Randall Garrett tale, an Asimov, and other good stuff, some of it pretty obscure. It also has my very favorite humorous story of all time, Will Stanton's wonderful "Dodger Fan."

[Chris Aldridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mindwebs audiobook 52 part 2 is this mini story Dreamworld by Issac Asimov. It’s more of a paragraph than a story and the punch line is a simple joke. It’s very good though.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reasonable mix of humorous Golden Age science fiction stories. Some of the better ones (such as Randall Garrett's "Look out! Duck!") more than compensate for lesser efforts such as Will Stanton's too-obvious satire "Dodger Fan". Other stand-outs include a fun fantasy (but clearly not science fiction) work by Felix Marti-Ibanez and a dated but enjoyable work by Poul Anderson. Downside? We're "treated" to two short-shorts, both shaggy dog stories, one of which is an infamous "feghoot" from Grendel Briatron (an anagrammatically pseudonymous Reginald Bretnor), and the other a throwaway work by Isaac Asimov. One would be fine, but two is over-egging things - and, despite loving the man's work, it has to be said that the Asimov is painfully weak. The book is still well worth a look, but is very much a curate's egg.

[L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. Not all the humor has aged well, and there's a dopey Asimov story we've all read a hundred times before, but not bad.