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Star Science Fiction #3
Star Science Fiction Stories, No. 3
Science Fiction
186 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1955
About the author
Isaac Asimov
4,365 books28.2k followersWorks of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles,
The Foundation Trilogy
(1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.
Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.
Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).
People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.
Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.
Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...
Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.
Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).
People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.
Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.
Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 27, 2021
Star was an anthology series edited in the 1950s by Frederik Pohl that were comprised of original science fiction stories. It was the first such book series, and remains as one of the best ever produced. The authors in this third volume included Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Lester del Rey, Philip K. Dick, Gerald Kersh (one of his few true science fiction appearances), Richard Matheson, Chad Oliver, Jack Vance, and Jack Williamson. Clarke's The Deep Range is something of a classic. My favorites were Vance's The Devil on Salvation Bluff, Dick's Foster, You're Dead, and Williamson's Guinevere For Everybody.
April 5, 2026
Star, under the direction of writer Frederick Pohl, was an acclaimed sci-fi anthology series filled with original stories. After reading this one, I can see why the series got such good reviews. This is an excellent example of science fiction in the early 1950s -- and a fun read, to boot. It's my favorite of the series so far.
We have a few masters of the genre in here, including Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick. There's also a Ray Bradbury and Lester del Rey, but they're rather lackluster.
This is actually the fourth entry in the Star series. There was a book of three novellas, which Pohl hoped would start another series, but apparently it never caught on.
Pohl's humorous introductions to each story are often just as good as the story ... sometimes better. Don't skip them.
Selections:
* "Editor's Note" by Our Editor. "The pleasures of an anthologist are many and mostly immoral." Oookaaaay ....
* "It's Such a Beautiful Day" by Isaac Asimov. Although there's robots in here (called mekkanos), this is not part of the Good Doctor's robot story cycle. This is a self-contained little story of a future world where nobody goes outside. They travel with an apparatus called a Door, which works like the transporters in Star Trek. However, this story proceeded Star Trek by more than ten years.
* "The Strawberry Window" by Ray Bradbury. One of Bradbury's Mars stories, although self-contained. A Mars colonist knows his wife wants to go back to Earth, so he brings some part of Earth to her. Rather poetic bit of fluff about why humans need to colonize other planets.
* "The Deep Range" by Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke imagines a world where whales are used as cows, with porpoises as dogs. I'm not sure Clarke realized how intelligent whales are/were, or how fragile the seas actually are. Here, the enemy is a ... Greenland Shark?
* "Alien" by Lester del Rey. Despite the title, this has nothing to do with the awesome 1979 Ridley Scott film. Two guys have their boat sunk by a UFO, then they fight for survival against the alien. Kinda predictable.
* "Foster, You're Dead" by Philip K. Dick. Devastating look at American consumerism in a sci-fi cloak. Set in 1971 ... although I wouldn't have minded learning practical things like making knives, or having tables that took away the dishes for you, 1971 turned out to be not all that much different from the 1950s. Still, this look at a boy who just wants his family to have a bomb shelter like all the other families in town, dammit, still packs a powerful punch.
* "Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?" By Gerald Kersh. Unlike all of the other stories in this collection, this one had been previously published in England. Set just after WWII, an English reporter meets a most unusual Corporal.
* "Dance of the Dead" by Richard Matheson. Set in the 1980s some unspecified time after WWIII, because everybody in the 1950s was convinced WWIII would happen at any time. 1987 music was described as "a frenzy of twisted dissonances." Hey, now.
* "Anymore at Home Like You?" By Chad Oliver. An alien crash lands in California, and is caught by the natives. Things aren't what they seem in this delightful little story.
* "The Devil on Salvation Bluff" by Jack Vance. Religious humans try to colonize a planet and turn it into Earth II. The natives have other ideas. Seems like this story was inspiration for R. A. Lafferty.
* "Guinevere for Everybody" by Jack Williamson. Set in 1997, a computer-run business comes up with an idea to sell women in huge vending machines. But humans aren't taking this lying down ... so to speak.
We have a few masters of the genre in here, including Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick. There's also a Ray Bradbury and Lester del Rey, but they're rather lackluster.
This is actually the fourth entry in the Star series. There was a book of three novellas, which Pohl hoped would start another series, but apparently it never caught on.
Pohl's humorous introductions to each story are often just as good as the story ... sometimes better. Don't skip them.
Selections:
* "Editor's Note" by Our Editor. "The pleasures of an anthologist are many and mostly immoral." Oookaaaay ....
* "It's Such a Beautiful Day" by Isaac Asimov. Although there's robots in here (called mekkanos), this is not part of the Good Doctor's robot story cycle. This is a self-contained little story of a future world where nobody goes outside. They travel with an apparatus called a Door, which works like the transporters in Star Trek. However, this story proceeded Star Trek by more than ten years.
* "The Strawberry Window" by Ray Bradbury. One of Bradbury's Mars stories, although self-contained. A Mars colonist knows his wife wants to go back to Earth, so he brings some part of Earth to her. Rather poetic bit of fluff about why humans need to colonize other planets.
* "The Deep Range" by Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke imagines a world where whales are used as cows, with porpoises as dogs. I'm not sure Clarke realized how intelligent whales are/were, or how fragile the seas actually are. Here, the enemy is a ... Greenland Shark?
* "Alien" by Lester del Rey. Despite the title, this has nothing to do with the awesome 1979 Ridley Scott film. Two guys have their boat sunk by a UFO, then they fight for survival against the alien. Kinda predictable.
* "Foster, You're Dead" by Philip K. Dick. Devastating look at American consumerism in a sci-fi cloak. Set in 1971 ... although I wouldn't have minded learning practical things like making knives, or having tables that took away the dishes for you, 1971 turned out to be not all that much different from the 1950s. Still, this look at a boy who just wants his family to have a bomb shelter like all the other families in town, dammit, still packs a powerful punch.
* "Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?" By Gerald Kersh. Unlike all of the other stories in this collection, this one had been previously published in England. Set just after WWII, an English reporter meets a most unusual Corporal.
* "Dance of the Dead" by Richard Matheson. Set in the 1980s some unspecified time after WWIII, because everybody in the 1950s was convinced WWIII would happen at any time. 1987 music was described as "a frenzy of twisted dissonances." Hey, now.
* "Anymore at Home Like You?" By Chad Oliver. An alien crash lands in California, and is caught by the natives. Things aren't what they seem in this delightful little story.
* "The Devil on Salvation Bluff" by Jack Vance. Religious humans try to colonize a planet and turn it into Earth II. The natives have other ideas. Seems like this story was inspiration for R. A. Lafferty.
* "Guinevere for Everybody" by Jack Williamson. Set in 1997, a computer-run business comes up with an idea to sell women in huge vending machines. But humans aren't taking this lying down ... so to speak.
April 14, 2024
"It's Such A Beautiful Day" by Isaac Asimov = 5 stars
"The Strawberry Window" by Ray Bradbury = 5 stars
"The Deep Range" by Arthur C. Clarke = 3 stars
"Alien" by Lester del Rey = 4 stars
"Foster, You're Dead" by Philip K. Dick = 5 stars
"Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo" by Gerald Kersh = 5 stars
"Dance of the Dead" by Richard Matheson = 3 stars
"Anyone at Home Like You?" by Chad Oliver = 4 stars
"The Devil on Salvation Bluff" by Jack Vance = 2 stars
"Guinevere for Everybody" by Jack Williamson = 3 stars
Average rating = 3.9
"The Strawberry Window" by Ray Bradbury = 5 stars
"The Deep Range" by Arthur C. Clarke = 3 stars
"Alien" by Lester del Rey = 4 stars
"Foster, You're Dead" by Philip K. Dick = 5 stars
"Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo" by Gerald Kersh = 5 stars
"Dance of the Dead" by Richard Matheson = 3 stars
"Anyone at Home Like You?" by Chad Oliver = 4 stars
"The Devil on Salvation Bluff" by Jack Vance = 2 stars
"Guinevere for Everybody" by Jack Williamson = 3 stars
Average rating = 3.9
July 25, 2023
I know I'll sound like a boomer when I saw this, but they just don't write sci-fi like they used to. I used these stories as a palette cleanser of sorts between all the other books I was reading and they were honestly perfect for that. I almost need decompression time after I read to let go of the world I was just in, and these helped massively...by being jarring and strange and pretty thought-provoking for stories of ~15 pages or less. Science fiction of this era was an absolute fever dream and I love it so much. I found an early edition of this book at Goodwill, leather-bound with beautifully yellowed pages. A new member of the permanent collection for sure.
January 25, 2021
Not every story in this collection is a five starrer but no anthology that includes Philip K Dick's magisterial dystopia 'Foster, You're Dead' can reasonably be given a lesser rating. If there's a better satire on the fear of nuclear war being used as an instrument of social control, I want to know about it.
Elsewhere, the very fine descriptive writing in Matheson's 'Dance of the Dead' is, 67 years on, marred by a racism in the description of African-American music that may, at the time, have been neither conscious nor intentional but which has led to the piece as a whole dating rather badly.
There's good, solid, competent writing from Asimov, Bradbury and Arthur C Clarke and a turn from Jack Vance that does the 'earth settlers underestimate apparently primitive aliens' thing better than LeGuin managed in 'The Word for World is Forest', twenty-odd years later.
It's a caution to think that, of the ten authors appearing here, at least eight are, close to 70 years on, still known and that four, Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke and Dick, are still in print. This from a genre that was thought of as ephemeral and transitory.
Elsewhere, the very fine descriptive writing in Matheson's 'Dance of the Dead' is, 67 years on, marred by a racism in the description of African-American music that may, at the time, have been neither conscious nor intentional but which has led to the piece as a whole dating rather badly.
There's good, solid, competent writing from Asimov, Bradbury and Arthur C Clarke and a turn from Jack Vance that does the 'earth settlers underestimate apparently primitive aliens' thing better than LeGuin managed in 'The Word for World is Forest', twenty-odd years later.
It's a caution to think that, of the ten authors appearing here, at least eight are, close to 70 years on, still known and that four, Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke and Dick, are still in print. This from a genre that was thought of as ephemeral and transitory.
March 10, 2025
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
3.5/5 (Collated rating: Good)
"Ballantine Books’ illustrious science fictional program started with a bang–Star Science Fiction Stories. According to Mike Ashley’s Transformations: The Story of Science-Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970 Frederik Pohl’s anthology series of original (mostly) stories was “intended as both a showcase of Ballantine’s authors and a lure to new writers.” Paying better rates than [...]"
3.5/5 (Collated rating: Good)
"Ballantine Books’ illustrious science fictional program started with a bang–Star Science Fiction Stories. According to Mike Ashley’s Transformations: The Story of Science-Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970 Frederik Pohl’s anthology series of original (mostly) stories was “intended as both a showcase of Ballantine’s authors and a lure to new writers.” Paying better rates than [...]"
March 16, 2024
A very enjoyable array of character stories based around things to do with science fiction. I found most of the short stories quite forgettable
May 16, 2025
I sought out this book having read an earlier one in the series. This is classic sci-fi, as old as I am, found on thrift books. Every story is a home run, a heavy hitting line up of giants of the genre, some prior to their anointment. Good writing complemented by amazing prescience, which is the acid test of science fiction.
April 23, 2020
Less battered paperback copy - with the 3 intact; SBN (predates ISBN) 345027191095 © 1954
An interesting 'historical' artifact - the introduction refers to young/new authors such as Philip K Disk and Jack Vance... and of course all are now dead (not too surprising after 66 years!) - and several authors' names I don't recognise. I can only remember one story I'd read before - the Clarke Deep Range - and since others are from Asimov, Bradbury, Matheson that's saying something. My tolerance for Dick's work - and that of Vance, in fact - is low so these 'early' stories work perhaps because the later style is what I dislike.
A note - the Star anthologies were published for several years (6) - and #1 included what I regard as one of, if not the, best short stories ever, Arthur C Clarke's The Nine Billion Names of God.
An interesting 'historical' artifact - the introduction refers to young/new authors such as Philip K Disk and Jack Vance... and of course all are now dead (not too surprising after 66 years!) - and several authors' names I don't recognise. I can only remember one story I'd read before - the Clarke Deep Range - and since others are from Asimov, Bradbury, Matheson that's saying something. My tolerance for Dick's work - and that of Vance, in fact - is low so these 'early' stories work perhaps because the later style is what I dislike.
A note - the Star anthologies were published for several years (6) - and #1 included what I regard as one of, if not the, best short stories ever, Arthur C Clarke's The Nine Billion Names of God.
October 26, 2008
Decent collection of short science fiction stories by established authors.
March 9, 2021
very intertaining, published in 1954, many of the authors of these short stories also wrote for The Twilight Zone tv show
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews