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Starhunters #3
Bluebloods
Stories by Roger Zelazny, Harlan Ellison, Poul Anderson, Sterling Lanier, and Gordon R. Dickson highlight inter-species cooperation, as humans and aliens hunt together
- GenresScience Fiction
280 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1990
36 people want to read
About the author
David Drake
315 books889 followersDavid Drake is an American author of science fiction and fantasy literature. A Vietnam War veteran who has worked as a lawyer, he is now one of the major authors of the military science fiction genre.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 24, 2024
A security team with preternatural powers tracks a starfaring rebel; a scholar of art searches for an alien artist; a deadly being haunts the reflections in the mirror; a big-game hunters seeks his last and greatest trophy; sailors try to escape from a strange island cult; a starship crew goes on a long, lonely journey to the galactic core.
Men hunt things and things hunt men, sometimes for different values of "hunting". A good enough capstone to the set, but this one did not grip me quite as well as he previous two. All the same, there's some good stuff in here. "The Horn of Time the Hunter" is, I think, my favorite of the lot, especially for its portrayal of how the characters deal with the crushing immensity of their displacement in time as they fly at near light-speed away from human civilization. "Black Charlie" was also good, although it seemed more detached from the anthology's overall theme.
Men hunt things and things hunt men, sometimes for different values of "hunting". A good enough capstone to the set, but this one did not grip me quite as well as he previous two. All the same, there's some good stuff in here. "The Horn of Time the Hunter" is, I think, my favorite of the lot, especially for its portrayal of how the characters deal with the crushing immensity of their displacement in time as they fly at near light-speed away from human civilization. "Black Charlie" was also good, although it seemed more detached from the anthology's overall theme.
November 16, 2024
Four stars, based on three very strong stories by Zelazny, Lanier, and Drake himself.
"The Furies" by Roger Zelazny. 5/5 stars. Drake leads off with this classic, which also appeared in Four for Tomorrow (a very strong collection itself, containing "The Graveyard Heart", the Nebula-winning "The Doors of his Face, the Lamps of His Mouth," and "A Rose for Ecclesiastes," besides "The Furies.") While not perfect, I rate it 5 stars for style and energy, and also because it is probably the strongest story in this anthology.
"The Mirror" by Arthur Porges. 2/5 stars. An effective horror story, but pales in comparison to the better stories here.
"Private Eye" by Henry Kuttner. 1/5 stars. Feels too long & I've never been a fan of stories in which a hen-pecked spouse murders his/her partner.
"The Road" by Nigel Kneale. 0/5 stars. This is a script for a television show, not a story. And it doesn't seem to fit the theme, either. Why was it included here?
"Final Trophy" by Harlan Ellison. 3/5 stars. The final twist falls a bit flat, but Ellison knew how to write effective prose, even at less than his best.
"The Horn of Time the Hunter" by Poul Anderson. 2/5 stars. The original title of this story in 1963 was "Homo Aquaticus," which seems to fit better. The eponymous horn seems to serve no purpose here except to provide an excuse for a poetic title.
"Soldier Key" by Sterling Lanier. 4/5 stars. This is my favorite of the Brigadier ffellowes stories that I've read so far. And it got me thinking about crabs as antagonists in fiction. There is Robert E. Howard's "People of the Black Coast," William Hope Hodgson's "From the Tideless Sea," and William Meikle's Crustaceans, that I can think of offhand. There is a fair body of crab-based horror out there...go figure!
"The Red Leer" by David Drake. 5/5 stars. Another solid entry by Drake himself, who wrote so many great horror stories in the 1970s. Extra points for writing short introductions to each of the stories in this anthology; as usual, they were well-considered and insightful.
"The Furies" by Roger Zelazny. 5/5 stars. Drake leads off with this classic, which also appeared in Four for Tomorrow (a very strong collection itself, containing "The Graveyard Heart", the Nebula-winning "The Doors of his Face, the Lamps of His Mouth," and "A Rose for Ecclesiastes," besides "The Furies.") While not perfect, I rate it 5 stars for style and energy, and also because it is probably the strongest story in this anthology.
"The Mirror" by Arthur Porges. 2/5 stars. An effective horror story, but pales in comparison to the better stories here.
"Private Eye" by Henry Kuttner. 1/5 stars. Feels too long & I've never been a fan of stories in which a hen-pecked spouse murders his/her partner.
"The Road" by Nigel Kneale. 0/5 stars. This is a script for a television show, not a story. And it doesn't seem to fit the theme, either. Why was it included here?
"Final Trophy" by Harlan Ellison. 3/5 stars. The final twist falls a bit flat, but Ellison knew how to write effective prose, even at less than his best.
"The Horn of Time the Hunter" by Poul Anderson. 2/5 stars. The original title of this story in 1963 was "Homo Aquaticus," which seems to fit better. The eponymous horn seems to serve no purpose here except to provide an excuse for a poetic title.
"Soldier Key" by Sterling Lanier. 4/5 stars. This is my favorite of the Brigadier ffellowes stories that I've read so far. And it got me thinking about crabs as antagonists in fiction. There is Robert E. Howard's "People of the Black Coast," William Hope Hodgson's "From the Tideless Sea," and William Meikle's Crustaceans, that I can think of offhand. There is a fair body of crab-based horror out there...go figure!
"The Red Leer" by David Drake. 5/5 stars. Another solid entry by Drake himself, who wrote so many great horror stories in the 1970s. Extra points for writing short introductions to each of the stories in this anthology; as usual, they were well-considered and insightful.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews