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LAST UPDATE 8/4/26

Testament of Leaves by Carolyn Ives Gilman, Fairwood Press, 2026, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-958880-30-2

I really like murder mysteries so it should be no surprise that I really like mystery/science fiction crossovers. This is a good one. A linguist is murdered on a remote planet and an investigator arrives to handle the case. He receives a hostile reception from everyone concerned. Most of the local people are very protective of and secretive about their historical past and that gives most of them a good motive to kill a man who was trying to investigate their history. Even the offworlders stationed there had argued with the dead man over matters that they are reluctant to reveal. The detective eventually acquires two allies. One of them is an octopus like pet with a degree of sentience and the other is a recorded version of the dead man's personality with which he can interact. I won't reveal the solution here. 8/4/26

Wave Song by Emma Hamm, 2025, $12.99, ISBN 978-1-963862-04-1

I think this is technically science fiction, although it has fantasy elements. This novella is apparently a prequel to a series of books the author has written about a future in which humans live in mostly harmony with a race of merpeople who dwell in the ocean. This is how the two races met. The protagonist's father is involved with the construction of the first domed underwater city and she goes along with him on a dive, during which she meets one of the mermen. She meets Imber, a warrior, and the two of them begin to interact despite the language barrier. The fact that she cannot breathe underwater proves not to be as insurmountable to romance as one might expect. The story is strong on romance with minimal speculation. It was a pleasant read, but I wasn't intrigued enough to search out the other books. 8/4/26

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter, Doubleday, 2012

One of Pratchett’s rare excursions into science fiction. This was the first in a multi-book series which starts with the discovery of a simple way to visit alternate versions of Earth, none of which have human inhabitants. Millions of people emigrate. But there is a problem. Two artificial intelligences are sent to explore the spectrum of realities and they discover that an entity as big as a continent has evolved on one of them and has learned to move across the spectrum of realities, destroying each Earth that it encounters. They come up with a way to block its passage. 7/30/26

Null Entity by Seth Haddon, Tor, 2026, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-250-36521-7

This is the second half of a story - starting with Volatile Memory, which I have not seen - set in a far future in which humans have spread through the galaxy but use AI modified masks to imbue themselves with supposedly animalistic traits. The two protagonists are in conflict with a corporate dominated society that has minimalized human freedom in favor of profits. There are two main focuses in this. One is the convoluted and often interesting society the author describes. The other is the relationship between the two main characters, which is romantic and sometimes erotic. That said, it is written in second person perspective, which made it impossible for me to immerse myself in the story. I was constantly aware of the author's presence. Your mileage may vary. 7/14/26

Fortress Primeval by Mike Wolfer, ERB, 2025

This is a pastiche set in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Caprona series, an unknown island where dinosaurs still live and where humans go through an unusual developmental progression during the course of their lives. Almost inevitably, the novel has to take the form of a new expedition arriving, breaching the protective wall to enter the interior, and having various adventures involving the natives as well as the dinosaurs. It was in fact so restrictive a setting that the story felt more like a rewrite than an addition to the series. The author makes some efforts in characterization above and beyond what ERB would have done, which makes the build up a bit tedious, and while there are some good scenes, this never felt remotely like a Burroughs novel to me and with a few minor changes it could have been a completely unrelated lost world adventure. 7/12/26

Trumpets from Oblivion by H. Bedford-Jones, Steeger, 2025

This is actually a short story collection with a framing story. The frame is SF - a scientist invents a way to witness events from the past. Some of the stories are SF as well. One involves a giant octopus lurking in the Sargasso sea. One involves a surviving dinosaur, one includes a lost world, and one describes a race of humanoids reptiles living underground. The other stories mostly posit rational explanations for myths like unicorns, dragons, mermaids, werewolves, Norse mythology, and witchcraft. Not bad, overall. The author wrote hundreds of books but this is the first I've tried. 7/11/26

The Crater by James Fenimore Cooper, 1847

Two shipwrecked men have their lives changed when a volcano creates a new, large land mass. They quickly recruit outsiders and create a Utopian society. Alas, the growing island nation attracts dubious outsiders including the dreaded lawyers and the society grows progressively more corrupt. The original founders are removed from power and, disgusted, they return to North America. Some years later they learn that a new volcanic eruption has caused the new land to sink. This was longwinded, very talky, and also very predictable. It was one of the author’s last novels and his only venture into science fiction. 7/10/26

Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley, Dell, 1968

This is another of the other's broad satires. An Earthman is told that he won a galactic prize and has to travel to another world to collect it, but when he arrives, he is placed under arrest due to a clerical error. On top of that, it was a case of mistaken identity and he did not win the prize at all. The protagonist is then sent to a planet which has one gigantic inhabitant who uses pieces of its own flesh to create the appearance of a civilization. Sheckley pokes fun at government, religion, the medical profession, and other parts of the establishment as the character goes through a series of episodic adventures. This would have worked better as separate novelettes because parts are excellent and other parts are just silly. 7/5/26

The Star Treasure by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1971

The protagonist discovers that the secret police on a  colony world have actually quietly taken control of the space forces, giving them a virtually unbreakable hold on the entire planet. He is outraged, but he is not particularly pleased with the rebel movement and decides to chart his own course. This, naturally, makes him a target for both sides. Laumer gets him out of this impossible situation by having him discover that intelligent aliens are secretly living on the planet, and they lend a hand - or appendage. Ok but minor. 7/4/26

Mindswap by Robert Sheckley, Pocket, 1966

The best way to visit Mars in this satirical novel is to swap minds with a Martian, which allows the Martian to visit Earth. Unfortunately the Martian in this case is a criminal and our protagonist finds himself trapped in an alien body. This leads to a series of adventures as he tries to survive in an alien environment that resembles a Graustarkian adventure story. It's intermittently funny but I thought it went on far too long for its content. Sheckley's SF began to veer away from serious tones around this time, and not in a good way. 6/30/26

The Steel Crocodile by D.G. Compton, Ace, 1970

This excellent and under appreciated novel is set in a future Britain where government surveillance and personal freedom have reached a new balance. The protagonist takes a job at a new, somewhat secretive, research institute which has built the most powerful computer in the world. But the computer seems to be capable of creating as well as analyzing, and that causes some initially low key crises. This was my fourth time through and it fascinates me anew on each occasion. The philosophical discussions might drag down a book by an inferior writer but Compton has found the right balance of plot movement and reflection. 6/29/26

The Tenth Victim by Robert Sheckley, Ballantine, 1965

Sheckley's short story, "The Seventh Victim," had been made into a very bad movie despite the intriguing premise - that in the future, people could be licensed for lethal games of hunting down other humans who had also entered the competition. Although this appears to be the novelization of the movie - complete with stills - the story is entirely different, with different characters and situations, although the basic idea was maintained. It's not a bad novel at all and is much better than the movie. Stephen King's The Running Man may have been influenced by this or the short. 6/23/26

Synthajoy by D.G. Compton, Ace, 1968

This is another excellent novel from an author who produced several of them. The title refers to a drug that allows the recording of people's emotional experiences so that they can be played back and shared by others. The story is mainly about the man who invented it and his wife. His intentions were originally benevolent, but they became corrupt as time passed. Most of the story deals with the question of scientific advance and how it almost always mixes good and bad results. The novel is very much character driven and examines tough questions in an intelligent manner. 6/16/26

Journey Beyond Tomorrow by Robert Sheckley, Signet, 1962

This was a short and not very effective satire in which academics in the far future are examining the career of Jones, who lived in the 21st Century and who lived most of his life on a remote island. As an adult, he comes to the mainland where he promptly gets into trouble with the police and meets several idiosyncratic characters. His encounters point out the silly side of government, religion, corporations, courts, the entertainment industry, and modern life in general. He eventually becomes a college professor, among other things, before ultimately returning to his island. Pretty minor. 6/16/26

The World Shuffler by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1970

Lafayette O'Leary returns for a mildly amusing series of adventures when he discovers that his personal world history has changed dramatically, although he remembers the way things used to be. The princess is now a bar maid, but she accompanies him on a series of adventures which inevitably restores the old time line and returns our hero to his satisfactory if not peaceful life style. The humor is rather forced this time, and often repeats situations from the earlier books in the series. Laumer was churning them out pretty quickly at this point and not taking the time to make them memorable. 6/14/26

Time Trap by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1970

A series of anomalies in time set up the plot in this stand alone novel. The protagonist finds himself in an ever changing reality. He encounters enemies from various times in human history, as well as some tentacled aliens. It turns out that a super intelligence is amusing itself and plans to scrap the whole history when he is done, so not only does our hero have to evade his numerous opponents, he has to convince the superbeing to let the human race continue to exist. The humor descends into silliness. This was not a good novel. 6/14/26

The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley, Signet, 1960

The protagonist has had his memories erased when he wakens aboard a starship taking him to a penal colony on another planet. The rules of that society are clearly satirical. The government does not tell the populace what the laws are so that they are constantly breaking them unknowingly, for which they are punished. The established religion is Satanism and there is a very intricate caste system. Drugs must be addictive. People who object to murder are sent for psychiatric treatment. Our hero rebels against the system and eventually escapes the colony, while also triggering a revolution. The conclusion is rather rushed. 6/11/26

Farewell Earth's Bliss by D.G. Compton, Ace, 1966

Two dozen convicts are being sent to a prison colony on Mars. An accident when they land eventually causes more than half of them to die, and the survivors soon realize that they are in a very repressive society that uses hunger to control the convicts. They are each adopted by a family of free people who appear welcoming, but there is an iron fist beneath the welcoming hand and they are clearly second class citizens. There is also a strong and repressive religious element. Compton does a great job bringing his characters to life but the plot never seems to have an end point in mind and the story eventually just trickles to an end. 6/9/26

The House in November by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1970

Although the second half declines in quality, this got off to a good start. The protagonist wakes up one day to find that his community is surrounded by an impenetrable wall. One of his daughters is missing and the rest of the family does not even remember her. There are occasional corpses scattered through the town and it is clear that the population other than our hero has been brainwashed by some sort of alien invader. The revelations are less successful than the set up. Everyone on Earth except for the one town has been killed by the aliens. Our hero is a kind of sleeper guardian placed on Earth to deal with this kind of crisis. Motives are not believable, the invasion makes no sense, and the resolution is just boring. 6/7/26

The Long Twilight by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1969

Through some loosely described mechanism, two immortals exist on Earth, one in prison and one not much better off. They are, it appears, manifestations of the historic conflict between Thor and Loki, not the Marvel comics versions. A mysterious tornado appears over the ocean, apparently permanently, and an artificial intelligence gets out of hand and kills its managers. The two immortals have to resolve their old differences and destroy a sentient war machine to save the world. One of them dies on the last page, which is unusual for Laumer. The Highlander series was probably not influenced by this, but it's possible. This might have been Laumer's best SF novel. 6/7/26

Retief: Ambassador to Space by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1969

This was the third collection of Retief stories and by this point their sameness had really started to become apparent, particularly when read in close proximity. They involve the usual - Retief ignoring his superiors and outwitting various alien diplomats by such deeds as killing a quasi-dinosaur, mud volcanoes, kidnappings, etc. The best of the stories in the series appears in this collection, "Trick or Treaty," in which the maneuvering is more intelligent and realistic than in most of the others. These stories seem to have come very easily to Laumer, which is a shame because some of his other short fiction was very promising. 6/5/26

The Silent Multitude by D.G. Compton, Ace, 1967

This is a disaster novel of sorts. Because of a new spore which has arrived from outer space, all of the concrete buildings in the world have started to collapse. We see this mostly through the experiences of a priest at a cathedral which somehow has managed to escape falling in upon itself. He and several other characters have several adventures in the disintegrating metropolis, although they are mostly low key physically, though psychologically intense. Despite the downbeat atmosphere, this is a very engaging novel. 5/28/26

Assignment in Nowhere by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1968

Brion Bayard returns in this novel, although he is not the protagonist. He rescues another man lost in the maze of parallel worlds, but they are both attacked by a group of men from yet another reality. The new hero is captured and escapes over and over again before allying himself with a man who purports to intend restoring order to the universe. Actually, he is a villain trying to restructure the chaos to his own benefit. Our hero ultimately discovers the truth and foils his plans. Lightweight but entertaining. 5/23/26

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Galaxy by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1968.

A collection of short stories. The best in the collection is "The Body Builders," which is a different approached to the brain transplanted into a machine them that he used in the Bolo series. Other stories include alien movie makers who want their disaster shots to be real, a  trip into alternate realities, the discovery of an ancient, alien, automated weapon system hidden in Central America and the consequences of its discovery, and a group of alien art thieves. Laumer's short fiction varies a lot in quality but they also include some of his best writing. 5/23/26

Immortality Inc by Robert Sheckley, Bantam, 1958

Aka Immortality Delivered and Timekillers. Filmed as a not awful movie. The  protagonist is "killed" in an automobile accident, but wakes up in the distant future. He has to figure out the rules in a world where bodies might die but consciousness continues. Society has radically changed and includes death hunts in which people murder each other just for the thrill of it, knowing that their victims will not truly die. Some of his adventures are humorous but these were left out of the movie because of the clash with its tone. This was a first novel but arguably the best of Sheckley's full length SF. 5/22/26

The Quality of Mercy by D.G. Compton, Ace, 1965

Compton's first novel was a brilliant and complex near future novel of brinksmanship and the pressures of the Cold War. The protagonist - he is hardly a hero - knows that he is participating in the use of biological weapons and is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, but he uses various excuses to deny any guilt. Nevertheless, it affects his personality and he is spiraling toward a personal disaster as well. The character is complex and even though we know he is doomed, and rightly so, we cannot help being sympathetic to his plight. This does not seem to have attracted much attention in the genre, but it was a precursor to several more popular novels. 5/21/26

Enemies from Beyond by Keith Laumer, Pyramid, 1967

This was a tie-in novel to the television show, The Invaders. It actually consists of three longish stories about the secret war between a secret anti-alien organization and the flying saucers piloted by the enemy. The aliens target little things - a commercial ship, a business - and it's hard to make the premise of the show feel even remotely realistic. Laumer does make an effort, but he was doomed from the outset. I hope they paid him well. 5/17/26

Galactic Odyssey by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1967

A very minor book from Laumer. The hero takes refuge in a grain silo that turns out to be a disguised alien interstellar ship, and he is off into the universe for a series of unlikely and sometimes completely implausible adventures. The aliens just happen to speak English, and when he gets marooned on another planet, he just happens to get a ride from another ship that helps him in his quest to rescue a human woman who has been abducted by aliens. Probably written over a weekend. It just goes from one improbable scene to another. 6/17/26

The Day Before Forever and Thunderhead by Keith Laumer, Dell, 1967

Nine by Laumer by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1967

Two novellas together and a collection of shorter tales. The first novella strands a person from our age in the 22nd Century, where he has to evade the secret police and pairs it with a story about a man left alone on a remote outpost world. The collection is more varied and more interesting. The stories include an encounter with a sentient tree, a war with aliens, television drives a woman insane, a brain is transplanted into a high tech tank, an alien ambassador is killed by an ignorant lout, a reclusive genius interferes with government experiments, and a young man discovers that his world is all an illusion. 5/13/26

Super-Cannes by J.G. Ballard, Picador, 2000

This is very marginally SF, resembling Ballard’s earlier High Rise. A community of wealthy professionals in France is actually partly under the control of a psychologist who is using them as a test case. He is quietly encouraging them to commit a wide variety of crimes in order to work off the tension caused by overwork at their jobs. The theory is that by doing so they will become more productive members of society. One of their number recently snapped and killed several of his neighbors before killing himself. The protagonist, who has only recently moved in, has a mistress and when she is murdered in one of their crime sprees, he decides to become a mass murderer himself, with the psychologist as one of his victims. 5/12/26

Howard Who? by Howard Waldrop, Doubleday, 1986

Strange Monsters of the Recent Past by Howard Waldrop, Ace, 1991

Night of the Cooters by Howard Waldrop, Ace, 1993

Custer’s Last Jumpby Howard Waldrop, Golden Gryphon, 2003

Going Home Again by Howard Waldrop, St Martin’s, 1997

The late Howard Waldrop produced a substantial body of out of the ordinary short stories, many of them involving alternate history, the world of professional musicians, homages to old science fiction, Native Americans and other minorities, and many others. You can’t go wrong with any of these books – or all of them. I spent three days reading all of his published fiction. Some of the high spots – “Night of the Cooters” is an alternate look at Wells’ The War of the Worlds, “The Ugly Chickens” suggested the dodos were not wiped out after all, or until recently anyway. “God’s Hook” is forged to catch a leviathan. Senator Elvis Presley envies a musician named Dwight Eisenhower in “Ike at the Mike.” Aircraft are used in the Civil War and Indian Wars in “Custer’s Last Jump.”  A very large collection of his work has recently been published by Centipede Press as Masters of Science Fiction. One of the best short story writers in the field during the last few decades.  The Centipede volume includes most of his best stories and is well worth its price. 5/11/26

The Texas-Israeli War: 1999 by Jake Saunders and Howard Waldrop, Ballantine, 1974

After a limited nuclear war, Texas secedes from a devastated US. They have also kidnapped the President and are holding him hostage. Israel came out of the war unscathed and is providing mercenaries in high tech tanks to the US, which is willing to offer land grants to those who help restore the country. Most of the novel consists of a series of battles as Israeli units fight their way across Texas to complete the rescue. There is some satire along the way – many average Texans are forming into virtual tribes, each adopting some corporate logo as their unifying symbol. This is military SF, with a dose of satire along the way. 5/8/26

Them Bones by Howard Waldrop, Ace, 1984

In the aftermath of a ruinous world war, an expedition is sent into the past. Time travel is, however, not as easy as it might seem. Their scout is stuck in an alternate history where Rome fell early and Christianity never existed. He finds a new home among North American natives and never finds out what happened to the rest of his group. They landed in the 13^th Century, but despite their advanced weaponry, they are beset by various hostile groups who surround them. The third story line is set in 1929 when some archaeologists dig up the skull of a horse with a bullet hole in its head and a brass cartridge nearby. The story is mostly an exploration of the various characters and they never do avert the war. 5/8/26

Platform Decay by Martha Wells, Tor, 2026

The eighth outing of Murderbot, the self aware lethal robot protagonist/narrator of the series. It is essentially one long action sequence, beginning when Murderbot breaches the security of a gigantic ring shaped space station that completely encircles a planet. His mission is to rescue three abducted members of a friend’s family, but complications inevitably arise and he has to save several other people as well. Non-stop action and the usual cleverly sarcastic musings of Murderbot. I have enjoyed this series thoroughly ever since the first book. There is at least one more novel in the pipeline and I plan to watch the television series at the first opportunity. Wells will be on my priority list for any new books, even if they are not in the series. 5/6/26

Hello America by J.G. Ballard, Granada, 1983

Aka Love and Napalm: Export USA.  North America was mostly evacuated after an ecological and social collapse. An expedition from Europe arrives more than a century later and takes a sometimes exciting trip across the continent. The climax comes in Las Vegas, where a madman is considering starting a nuclear war. The expedition members all have different motives for participating. The novel obviously includes a great deal of not always subtle satire about American obsession with individualism and consumerism, and its general disdain for education and social interactions. It’s substantially different from his previous novels, particularly in the characterizations. It was his last unequivocal SF novel. 5/3/26

Double Shadow by Andrew Ludington, Minotaur, 2026, $29, ISBN 978-1-250-34933-0

This is the second in what I believe is an ongoing series involving time travel. I have not read the first, but it's on my wantlist. The protagonist uses a time machine to acquire artifacts that disappeared in the historical record, thereby not upsetting the time line, and delivers them to the Smithsonian. His latest mission is to ancient Rome, where he observes a murder by someone who speaks modern English, evidence if needed that there are other time machines in operation. Things get even more complicated when a time traveling friend requests his help, but when he reaches her, it turns out to be an earlier version of herself who does not recognize him. All of this works out in time - no pun intended - in an adventure that reminded me a bit of the better Time Patrol stories by Poul Anderson, but with more interesting characters. As I said, the first book is on my wantlist. 5/1/26

Planet Run by Keith Laumer and Gordon R. Dickson, Berkley, 1966

Although not overtly offensive or badly written, this was very minor for either author. A retired space explorer is talked into one more mission, staking a claim to a distant and valuable planet. To do so, he and his partner must thwart a bunch of human villains as well as the usual threats of space travel and survival on an alien world. I was particularly disappointed that the supposedly highly experienced protagonist makes so many stupid mistakes that it seems unlikely he would have survived long enough to retire in the first place. 4/28/26

The Time Bender by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1966

Aka Axe and Dragon. Although this is technically SF, it feels like a fantasy novel. It introduced Lafayette O'Leary, who finds himself transported into an alternate world with a relatively primitive technology. It is possibly all an hallucination because he can sometimes change his surroundings through an act of will, although naturally not when it would spoil the plot. The story is light hearted and fast moving, with touches of humor. It seems now quite minor although it was popular at the time of its publication. 4/27/26

The Monitors by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1966

This odd little novel is quite unlike Laumer's other work, and was made into an unfortunately lackluster movie. The Monitors are an alien race who come to Earth in large numbers and who appear to integrate into human society. But they bring civilization to the brink of collapse by the simple process of enforcing all of the laws we have passed, which causes global chaos. It was a satire, of course, but I have always thought it was one of his better books, because he actually thought through the consequences. 4/27/26

Catastrophe Planet by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1967

Aka The Breaking Earth. I have long thought that this was Laumer's absolute worst novel. Earth's crust has broken loose, causing disasters all over the world. The protagonist is attempting to survive the chaos when he finds himself the target of mysterious killers. Before the story is over, he has discovered a secret undersea base and is instrumental in exposing a conspiracy. The plot is so filled with coincidences and improbabilities that I laughed at a couple of them. Who goes scuba driving and takes along heavy power tools just in case he might need them? 4/26/26

Earthblood by Keith Laumer and Rosel George Brown, Berkley, 1966

This collaborative novel appears to be set in the Retief universe, though long after his life. There are references to the Groaci and other elements from those stories. The protagonist is a rare pureblood human in a universe where somehow various lifeforms are able to interbreed. He has a series of adventures in a star traveling carnival, is kidnapped by space pirates, defeats an aggressive robot warship, finds a lot human empire, becomes grand admiral of its military, and becomes involved in a civil war. Fast moving but it feels disjointed and rushed. 4/24/26

Retief's War by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1965

This was Retief's first novel length adventure. Once again he has to labor under several incompetent officials in the interstellar diplomatic corps. They are in danger of allowing another planet to fall under the authority of humanity's arch enemies, the Groaci, but only Retief recognizes the danger and has a plan that will eventually and successfully foil the nefarious aliens. The story starts reasonably well, but soon descends into the usual caricatures and farcical incidents that undercut the serious part of the plot. Readable, but barely. 4/22/26

The Great Time Machine Hoax by Keith Laumer, Pocket, 1965

Aka A Hoax in Time. This was a humorous semi-spoof in which the protagonist discover that he has inherited a secretly constructed super computer which can analyze the past in great detail. This makes it possible to pretend that time travel is impossible. Even if it isn't. But maybe it is. Not very plausible, and not meant to be. Laumer's early novels often had a lighter touch that usually worked pretty well. The ending is rather silly, and the plot doesn't make a lot of sense, but read it as a comic book and it holds up reasonably well. 4/21/26

Galactic Diplomat by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1966

This was the second collection of Retief stories, and there isn't much to distinguish it from the first. The series had already gotten very repetitive by this point, and it was arguably racist at times because some of the aliens were clearly meant to represent "inferior" human cultures. "The Castle of Light" is the best in the collection, but still not particularly memorable. It is free of the polemical bits that had already started to mar the stories. Despite the limitations of the form, Retief would appear many more times. 4/21/26

The Shield of Time by Poul Anderson, Tor,1990

Although this is billed as a novel, it is structured as a series of related shorter works about the Time Patrol. There are two main elements contending with the Time Patrol. The first consists of the remnants of a far future organization that attempted to change history and eliminate the formation of the Time Patrol. Although defeated, some of their adherents are still causing trouble. The other conflict does not involve other people but a mishap in the nature of time itself which changes history so that the Renaissance never happened. The Time Patrol has to go to the past to save the lives of people who wrongly died in the new reality in order to restore the old order. One of Anderson’s better books. 4/12/26

High Rise by J.G. Ballard, Popular Library, 1975

In a very large apartment house in near future London, two thousand residents are split into the same three major classes found in civilization as a whole, with the rich on the top floors and the working class at the bottom. Shortly after it opens, however, a series of minor conflicts and irritations causes the groups to evolve into virtual tribes, who eventually begin to make war on one another. They set out to conquer territory from the other tribes and are willing to kill to get their way. Contact with the outside world is virtually cut off. Personalities change and old societal norms are discarded. The death count steadily rises. Not an upbeat novel – it’s a kind of mirror image of Lord of the Flies. 4/12/26

A Plague of Demons by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1963

Aka The Hounds of Hell. This was the first of several Laumer novels to deal with superhumans, in this case pitted against secret alien interlopers on Earth who have already insinuated themselves into positions of power. It is perhaps most notable for introducing the Bolos, which are human brains inserted into supertanks. Laumer would use the Bolos again and other writers were allowed to incorporate them as well. Our hero eventually organizes people to expel the hidden aliens from Earth after a series of exciting, if rather unlikely, adventures. 4/12/26

A Trace of Memory by Keith Laumer, Berkley, 1962

Although this was a not always successful blend of various elements - aliens secretly on Earth, a man who cannot remember his past, the impact of alien technology on civilization - the pacing is so fast that readers might not notice the cracks in the plot along the way. I remembered enjoying this when it first appeared, and it mostly holds up sixty years later, although it is significantly less substantial that I remembered. For most of his career, Laumer employed a brisk narrative style and frequent surprises, and in some ways he is quite similar to A.E. van Vogt at his best. 4/9/26

Envoy to New Worlds by Keith Laumer, Ace, 1963

This was the first collection of Retief stories. Retief is a member of an interstellar foreign service who has a nitwit for a boss and pursues his own foreign policy. That much still works today, but most of the stories would not currently be publishable. They rely on the idea of the White Man's Burden. The aliens are sometimes portrayed as honorable, but they are almost always stupid compared to humans and easily manipulated. The stories became very repetitive, even within this relatively short collection. 4/9/26

Worlds of the Imperium by Keith Laumer, Ace, 1962

This was Laumer's first novel - actually a novella - and introduced Brion Bayard. He is kidnapped into an alternate reality where the world's history is significantly different. For some reason, his abductors believe that he can be instrumental in protecting their timeline from another which is ruled by a ruthless dictator. But things are not what they appear to be and he finds himself a pawn manipulated by more than one player. The novel was fun but relied a great deal on coincidences, a recurring problem in Laumer's later fiction. The story is enthusiastically written and involves some complexity and it was clear from the outset that Laumer was potentially one of the better writers to appear in the Ace double format. 4/826

Sinister Paradise by Robert Moore Williams, Anson House, 2010

This was a posthumous collections The first story is "The Lost Warship." It is only significant because it may be the first story in which a warship is displaced in time, antecedent of "Hawk Among the Doves" by Dean McLaughlin, the movie The Final Countdown, the works of Taylor Anderson, and others. A World War II battleship passes through a fault in time and ends up in prehistory, but almost immediately sights mysterious, advanced aircraft. They find a malevolent city of humans who have developed aircraft and other wonders but have yet to discover the wheel! Against expectations, they don't find the way back to the present. One of the main characters dies but the other discovers that there are two rival superhumans, brothers, and that one is good and one is evil. It turns out one of the searchers is the hidden superman, who altered his own memories, which is a clever but not plausible conclusion.   "Be It Ever Thus" is a very minor piece about a group of alien children on a tour of conquered Earth. "Thompson's Cat" is about space travelers who find a depopulated planet, then have to solve the mystery of a deadly plague. The title story takes place on a mysterious island that is only intermittently visible and which is populated by castaways from various places. The island is also home to a giant predatory bird. 4/8/26

Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds, Orbit, 2025

This is a detective story set aboard a thirty mile long starship. Two families dominate the society, but one member of each had recently died in a mysterious accident. A woman hires the protagonist to investigate, and the first person he interviews is murdered within minutes. Before long we know that there is some secret about the ship – which may well be stationary in space – and later the protagonist discovers that his own identity is a mystery as well, even to him. He and a disgraced ex-police officer get ever deeper into a dangerous mix of internal politics, threats of murder, and sabotage. A rousing space adventure mixed with the private eye genre, with a tantalizing mystery lurking just out of sight, and some nicely developed characters. 4/6/26

Beachhead Planet by Robert Moore Williams, Dell, 1970

The novel opens with a helicopter full of tourists being shot down by an unlikely two headed alien creature lurking in an abandoned mine near a renovated ghost town. The hero is John Valthor, a scientist who is virtually a clone of Zanthar from the earlier series, which raises suspicions that this was a modified version of a rejected novel. There are even two assistants who closely resemble Zanthar's crew. They are concerned that aliens will arrive on Earth and represent themselves as benevolent while hiding a secret aggressive agenda. The aliens come from other realities rather than other planets. There is a strong theme of mysticism in this novel as well, but it is an inept, implausible, and poorly constructed story that is more talkative than adventurous and never engages the reader even remotely. 4/3/26

Now Comes Tomorrow by Robert Moore Williams, Curtis, 1971

This mediocr e novel is set in the not too distant future, a new fatal disease has begun to spread. Cindy Northcott is diagnosed with it and given three months to live, although an alternate possibility is cryogenic freezing until a theoretical cure is discovered. At the same time, an indigent man has visions of a kind of superhuman force that exists within human consciousness and a scientist obsessed with avoiding death wonders if there might be a possibility of cheating it. Northcott and various others eventually are revived in a future world where humans have transcended their old forms and habits. At this point the story become nearly unintelligible. Curtis books, who published it, did not last long and I always suspected that they never even read the manuscripts they published. Williams would also send them his rambling autobiography, Love Is Forever, We Are for Tonight, which they also published as a science fiction novel even though it is clearly nonfiction. 4/3/26

Zanthar at Moon's Madness by Robert Moore Williams, Lancer, 1968

Zanthar at Trip's End by Robert Moore Williams, Lancer, 1969

Third in the series. All over the Earth, groups of people have begun spontaneously dancing after which they disappear through glass doors that materialize out of nowhere. There are also some strange spheres that fall from the sky whose nature is initially unknown. Zanthar is part of a group exploring the moon and he finds a city of mutant women who hate men. There are also people who can walk through walls and, naturally, Zanthar's nemesis Fu Cong is back to make more trouble. Williams suggests that the universe we perceive is not the real one, or at least not a complete representation of reality, and this vague blend of mysticism and quantum physics is pervasive in his late work. The moon women have mutated and live for thousands of years. Fu Cong gets thwarted and the moon women become somewhat reconciled with males. The story has a comic book feel throughout and even the villains - Fu Cong included - are really not all that villainous. Williams was to bring Zanthar's adventures to a close in his next book. The Final book was no improvement. Fu Cong has made a new discovery, a kind of mental wind that blows people out of their bodies and carries them off to some other plane of reality. Zanthar figures out what is going on and who is responsible and sets out to save the world once again. Along the way, his two assistants are captured - again - and have to fend for themselves in a strange environment until they can be rescued. The metaphysical wanderings are frequent and annoying. Despite the title, this was clearly not meant to be the final book in the series - Fu Cong escapes once more - but either Williams never completed the next or the publisher rejected it. This was also his final book for Lancer and the last few books of his career were split among three different publishers. 4/2/26

Paradox by Douglas Preston and Aletheia Preston, Forge, 2026, $30.99, ISBN 978-1-250-41390-1

This is the sequel to Extinction by the first author alone. It is marginally SF right from the outset because in the previous book, neanderthals were recreated and escaped into the wild and although they don’t play a major part in this book, they are mentioned several times. The sequel is a pretty good mystery/thriller although it has some rough spots. The tension between the investigator protagonist and a priest does not ring true, and if she is such an excellent operative, she would not have made such rookie mistakes – more than once – in dealing with a potential witness and the press. There are also minor errors about police and legal procedures. When someone is brought in for questioning, the police are not obligated to inform them in advance of any incriminating evidence they already have. There is also a legal error about a will that is rather technical and not significant to the plot. The story involves the bizarre murder of a mentally ill recluse who claims to have seen a UFO crash from which he recovered an artifact. It is clear that the killers were looking for something, presumably that artifact. It is connected to the theft of a religious relic in Rome and a UFO enthusiast in California. The solution is clearly SF and pretty obvious almost from the onset, but don’t let that discourage you. Despite its minor faults, this was a very entertaining story. 4/1/26

The Impossible Man by J.G. Ballard, Berkley,

A collection. “The Reptile Enclosure” is a very short tale of a satellite which emits an infrared signal that triggers a suicidal urge that affects thousands of people. “Time of Passage” describes a world where time runs backward. “The Day of Forever” is a psychological study set on an Earth that has stopped rotating. The title story takes place in a future in which the elderly mostly refuse transplants that would extend their lives, preferring to die instead. There are a couple of Vermilion Sands stories. This collection was in some ways a border between his older, somewhat traditional short fiction and his later, often unconventional stories. It was the last to be published as openly science fiction. Ballard's success with the mainstream probably influenced the subsequent changes in emphasis and style. 3/30/26

Time Tolls for Toro by Robert Moore Williams, Armchair, 2014

"Time Tolls for Toro" is a rather hectic story about a gangster who kidnaps a scientist who invented the first time machine in order to escape from the police. Cause and effect are a bit confused along the way. "Find Me in Eternity" was potentially an interesting piece about a man who encounters his immortal ancestor by chance. The set up just doesn't work. The immortal is mistaken for the younger man when he is in an accident and hospitalized, but how would the hospital have known to call the younger man's wife? He wouldn't have had identification linked to her or with her address, and no matter how close the physical resemblance, she would not have been fooled once he regained consciousness. And if he's been so secretive about his longevity, why does he blurt out the whole story to the protagonist without prompting? And if he ages only one year for every thirty, why wasn't something noticed when he was a child? When the rich, elderly man visits the lab where they're studying the older man, he recognizes him as someone he knew decades earlier. But if that's the case, and since he is a frequent visitor, why didn't he previously notice that the protagonist looks exactly like him as well? Williams had clearly not thought through the consequences of his premise. "The World of Reluctant Virgins" opens with what appears to be the first landing on the moon, but the astronauts discover an underground colony of humans who settled there in 1887, thanks to the existence of abandoned cities beneath the surface. The surprise is that the secret of longevity exists on the moon, but it also causes sterility, which poses an interesting problem.. "The Soul Makers" takes place during an apocalyptic world war. Robot brains have been developed but for some reason they cannot be compelled to kill humans. An investigation is launched when several robots go missing and eventually we discover that humanity is doomed by radiation and the robots are creating a civilization that may be able to bring humanity back to life when the radiation has died away.  "The Diamond Images" is a familiar Williams plot. Rapacious men from Earth try to loot a temple on Venus and discover the Venusians have extraordinary powers. "The Metal Martyr" is a very minor story about a robot that thinks it's a man. Two men try to track down a third with more than human powers in "Danger Is My Destiny." They believe he is behind a staged death and assume that he is hiding from some unknown enemy. A boy who could walk through walls turns out to be an alien in "The Way Out." "The Man from Space" is the weakest in the book. A cab driver is secretly helping a clandestine alien invasion, but the aliens aren't what he expects. Most of the author's better stories had been previously collected so this volume is of marginal interest.  3/29/26       

Vermilion Sands by J.G. Ballard, Berkley, 1971

A collection of stories with a common setting, a kind of quasi-artists’ colony. “Prima Belladonna” involves mutated flowers that can be taught to make music. “Venus Smiles” is about a statue that grows and plays cacophonous music. “Studio 5, the Stars” involves a woman who forces a group of local writers to forego their computerized composers and write their own poetry. She appears to have magical powers. “The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista” is about a house programmed to adopt the personality of its residents, with potentially dangerous consequences. “The Singing Statues” are artistic models that generate music. A woman becomes obsessed with one, even though it is a fake. “The Screen Game” pits an insane woman who embeds jewels in insects against a man who believes she killed his mother. “Cry Hope, Cry Fury” involves a woman obsessed with her lost lover who searches for him and breeds land going manta rays. “The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D” describes tensions among artists who sculpt shapes out of clouds. Excellent collection. 3/26/26

The Bell from Infinity by Robert More Williams, Lancer, 1968

The novel opens with a man hearing a phantom bell while visiting a bar on an asteroid. The bell's tones suggest that it comes from beyond infinity and is the instrument of some malign intelligence, although how a simple ringing could be so informative is never explained. The ringing forces him to dance and it is a contagious form of madness. It also forces the blood to rise to the surface of his body and conveys obscure information about death rites and even secret words to its victims - who are variously human, Martian, and Venusian. He dies while contacting Group Nine, a mixed race group whose job is to suppress the development of superweapons. Group Nine is in the area because of reports that a miner brought a secret cargo to the asteroid recently which they think might be a legendary five foot long diamond reported by various miners over the years. Conveniently, they promptly find that diamond themselves - defying the odds and the laws of dynamics - so another explanation is required. The plotting is sloppy throughout. Early on we are told that no human being has ever witnessed the death dance of the Martians, but about halfway through the man who runs the asteroid colony mentions that he has seen it before. The secret cargo is another diamond, actually a device left over from a civilization destroyed when the asteroid belt was formed. A cult of Venusians is using its power which could potentially destroy all of the other planets in the Solar System.   When all transportation off the asteroid is halted, a group of miners walk out through secret passages to the opposite side - which serves no obvious purpose given that there is no food, air, or transportation there - simply so the author can use them to provide information to the good guys, who want to sneak into the colony. The space traveling Venusians don't know what electricity is. The threat is eliminated, the evil Venusians defeated, and civilization is saved from a fate most never knew threatened them. Williams recaptured some of his sense of wonder in this one, but it's still not a very good book. 3/26/26

Terminal Beach by J.G. Ballard, Berkley, 1964

A collection. “The Last World of Mr. Goddard” is an odd fantasy in which a man has a model of his world which he can spy on to learn secrets about his acquaintances. “Deep End” is set on a dying Earth where the last fish dies. “The Subliminal Man” is a satire about a future where planned obsolescence and consumerism are the focus of civilization. “The Time-Tombs” are vaults that contain the digitized personalities of the dead. “Now Wakes the Sea” is about a man who has visions of the ocean overrunning the land. “End Game” is only marginally SF. It describes the relations between a political prisoner and the man assigned to execute him. “Minus One” is a very short piece in which doctors decide a missing psychiatric patient never actually existed. “The Sudden Afternoon” is about a man who has a strange psychological link to a murderer. “The Lost Leonardo” involves the Wandering Jew. The title story is somewhat experimental and involves a man fascinated with the artifacts on an island used for weapons testing. “The Illuminated Man” is set in the same world as The Crystal World and has a very similar though condensed plot. “The Delta at Sunset” is about a man who imagines that he sees snakes appearing daily near his camp site. “The Drowned Giant” is actually just the description of people reacting to finding the body of a giant human dead on the beach, but it is very effective. “The Giocondra of the Twilight Moon” is a non-fantastic story about a temporarily blind man who hallucinates a magical world. “The Volcano Dances” is non fantastic and minor. 3/25/26

Zanthar at the Edge of Never by Robert Moore Williams, Lancer, 1968

The second in this series continued the battle between Zanthar and Fu Cong. Strange creatures begin appearing in fog banks from which they assemble larger creatures from time to time, biting limbs off people they encounter. In addition to the very strange opening scenes and some awkward phrasing, there are numerous grammatical errors. The various characters act totally illogically and inconsistently when confronted with the strange creatures, each of which has countless eyes scattered across its body.             Zanthar, meanwhile, is off exploring other times and worlds thanks to the invention he developed in the first book in the series, so he is not around to help at first. The dialogue is filled with nonsensical phrases like "proof is nothing but silly words walking like a drunkard in the night." The creatures are basically smaller than houseflies, but if that's the case, how can the characters tell that they have lots of eyes when looking at them from a considerable distance, in the darkness, in the fog? The novel, his longest ever, is painful to read. The creatures are eventually revealed to be intelligent aliens looking for a new home. Zanthar eventually helps them find one other than the Earth and there is a remarkably inept attempt to paint them as not being malevolent despite their earlier depredations. His old enemy Fu Cong shows up toward the end, inadvertently gets himself duplicated, and the two versions fight to the death. There is little good to say about this one. 3/25/26

Vigilante 21st Century by Robert Moore Williams, Lancer, 1967

This novel has the same troubling view of vigilantes that we often see today. The police are outgunned by the villains so a handful of citizens decide to take law enforcement into their own hands. Our vigilante protagonist sounds like a nutcase; he's convinced that some intelligence is directing human destiny and that he has been chosen to help steer civilization back in a positive direction by eliminating criminals extra-legally. And this is George Bright, the hero! Williams also embraced the man as killer ape theory, which has been thoroughly refuted since but which was still popular in the 1960s.  Bright survives an assassination attempt by an involuntary killer virtually enslaved by a criminal organization equipped with super weapons. The assassin, a beautiful woman of course, gives him inside information about the organization she formerly worked for while he regales her with lectures about how evil and brutal the human race is. She also says that she "forgot" to assassinate him but doesn't know why, and he says it was the force that protects humanity intervening. The mysticism at this point is so flaky that one could almost call this fantasy rather than science fiction and unfortunately it pops up frequently during the remainder of Williams' career. The bulk of the book alternates between low key battles against villains whose weaponry is essentially magic and lectures about human destiny.  3/22/26

Zanthar of the Many Worlds by Robert Moore Williams, Lancer, 1967

John Zanthar is a brilliant physicist who disappears while standing beside a cyclotron holding a copper hammer. He materializes in a primitive world clearly in the tradition of the Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, where people ride eight legged sabre toothed tigers, or their equivalent. Just after meeting some of the local humans, who think he's a god, he is attacked by humanoids riding small dinosaurs. During the battle he discovers that he has extraordinary strength and can kill the dinosaurs with one blow of his hammer. The obvious parallel to Thor is pretty obvious. Zanthar realizes then that his academic life was shallow and unfulfilled and that he only really lives when he is killing things. Meanwhile, back on Earth, we are introduced to Fu Cong, a brilliant but twisted man who hates the world and lives in a remote Tibetan monastery reputed to be the storehouse of ancient knowledge. Zanthar is captured by his enemies while Fu Cong, who wants the secret of teleportation, kidnaps his two young assistants back on Earth. Both parts of the story quickly deteriorate. Zanthar learns to speak at least two different languages fluently within a few minutes thanks to his superior intelligence. Fu Cong, on the other hand, despite having studied all branches of knowledge from the outside world, thinks that Americans take multiple wives and does not understand common mathematical symbols.  Zanthar escapes but is recaptured by rat men and can only gain his freedom by curing the king of a mysterious disease. Fu Cong's mountain retreat sits on some kind of mystical, pseudo-scientific nexus so that natural laws aren't consistent there. The two assistants figure out what happened to Zanthar and escape Fu Cong by going through the same transference process. Zanthar leads a revolt against the rat men and their corrupt ruler. Fu Cong follows them, becomes leader of the rat men, is defeated by Zanthar, and returns to Earth. Zanthar and friends follow him and that's the end of the opening volume. It's a badly written Burroughs pastiche. 3/19/26

The Second Atlantis by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1965

This a very short disaster novel about the Big One, the earthquake that destroys California. Following the usual pattern of such novels, it jumps from character to character for short sketches about the disaster, and many of the characters only survive for a couple of pages. Among them is a conman prophet who has some genuine psychic powers and who may be a reincarnation of someone who lived in lost Atlantis. Others include a typical family man, a vicious gangster, a spoiled playboy, and a homeless alcoholic. Most of them end up dead. There is only a whisper of a plot as the bulk of the book consists of descriptions of the destruction - the earthquake followed by fires followed by a subsidence that leaves Los Angeles underwater, interspersed with occasionally silly speeches about human destiny. The reincarnation theme contributes nothing at all to the plot except perhaps to justify the title. Despite these cavils, this was one of the author's better written works, though less imaginative.

Crawlspace by Adam Christopher, Nightfire, 2026, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-250-381128-6

This creepy little SF thriller reminded me a bit of the movie Event Horizon. An experimental starship starts off on its virgin flight but soon finds itself marooned in a bizarre kind of space and time trap when something apparently goes wrong with the equipment. But that's not the worst part. A malevolent alien intelligence exists in this realm and is able to enter the ship, terrorizing and even possessing members of the crew. I don't want to give away any of the surprises, but this is a fast paced, suspenseful story that overlaps with the horror genre. I've liked everything I've previously read by this author and this new title extends the streak. 3/15/26

The Star Wasps by Robert Moore Williams, Ace 1963

 This dystopian novella opens with an encounter between the hero - John Derek - and a young woman, and it is illustrative of the thinly veiled misogyny in much of the author's work. Although his female protagonists are generally quite strong, they all accept their inherent inferiority. "Perhaps freedom is not something a woman can really and truly have except in a relationship with a great man. The very nature of her sex makes real freedom difficult for her." He is about to brush her off when she reveals that she too can see the virals, sparkles of light that hover in the air and which the hero asserts can suck the life from a human being. He can see them because he spent several months training himself to see in a higher spectrum - although we are never told what led him to think that this would accomplish anything.  This was so carelessly written that the plot literally makes no sense at times. Although we are told that this future world has suppressed individual freedom and turned everyone into slaves, it appears from the background Williams provides that people are pretty much just as free as they are today. The author presents other assertions as obviously true even though they are not, doesn't explain his wonders, misunderstands physical laws, and portrays his characters as awkward stereotypes who act like self contradictory puppets. Among other things, if the world is so completely controlled, how is it that Derek and his men openly operate a spaceship to their secret base on the moon? The characters frequently gives speeches filled with nonsensical phrases like "Somewhere, in some infinity, in some frequency range, men will grow up!" There are other times when it is impossible to tell who is speaking a particular line of dialogue. This isn't as well written as the Jongor stories he turned out twenty years earlier. 3/13/26

The Lunar Eye by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1984

 The moon people, or Tuanthans, migrated there from Earth in the distant past. She justifies their reluctance to allow human exploration by analogy to Europeans coming to America, but the comparison is bogus since the Tuanthans have a superior rather than inferior technology. He escapes and runs into his "brother", who has been missing for months and claims to have been on the moon. We then switch attention to the brother for a while as he implausibly tries to see the base commander and convince him to halt the project.            Then the Russians launch a moonship, which is destroyed by unknown means before it reaches its goal. The Tuanthans aren't too brilliant, though; they give each other messages by writing encoded scripts on the walls of rest rooms. As further evidence that the Tuanthans are villains, they have "evolved" past the point where they fall in love, although the female protagonist obviously has done so. Our hero pretends to awaken to his real identity in a logically impossible sequence in which he imagines that his life on Earth was a dream, which is nonsense because he would obviously have no memories of having lived on the moon. Then he reveals that he did remember his Tuanthan heritage years earlier, which contradicts what we know of his thoughts during the early chapters of the book. The author seems to have completely forgotten the first third of the novel because he starts talking about how the protagonist chose to become an agent on Earth. In the womb perhaps? Very contrived ending. 3/13/26

Billennium by J.G. Ballard, Berkley, 1962

A collection. “The Concentration City” is set in a metropolis that completely covers the Earth. “Now: Zero” is about a man who can kill people simply by predicting their death in writing. “Chronopolis” is set in a future megalopolis that is dying and has banned all instruments that measure time as being repressive. The title story is one of my favorites. In a ridiculously overcrowded future, two men find an unused room, but end up spoiling their discovery by inviting friends to join them. “The Gentle Assassin” is a clever time travel paradox. “The Insane Ones” takes place in a future where mental health treatment is illegal. “The Garden of Time” is an odd fantasy about flowers that reverse time. 3/11/26

King of the Fourth Planet  by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1962

This short novel is set on Mars, whose inhabitants are assumed to be decadent by the boisterous Earthmen who  have partially colonized that world. The center of their civilization is a mountain artificially carved into seven terraces. The level of civilization is higher as one ascends. John Rolf is a frustrated human who has come to the fourth level to work on his prize invention, a thought reading machine, which he hopes will cause humanity to become more open, honest, and honorable. His research is interrupted by the arrival of a contingent from a commercial organization which is known for its shady dealings. Among their pressure tactics is the presence of Rolf's grown daughter among them, who has become a kind of indentured servant. We also learn that Rolf was once president of this very company and that he resigned when he realized that he had helped create a monster. The daughter is taken prisoner as a threat against him and Rolf uses his machine to disembody himself, but in his immaterial state, he loses interest in the physical world. He still observes, however, and sees that the Earthmen have organized an attack on the mountain, intending to steal its secrets. He also helps his daughter escape despite the risk of staying away from his body for an extended period of time. The humans launch a major attack on the mountain using savage Martians as storm troopers. Rolf and the others move toward the top level where the possibly mythical King of Mars is supposed to live, although no one seems to have ever seen him. Not surprisingly, the blind Martian beggar who appears early in the novel turns out to be the king. There is a confrontation and the king reveals his ability to control matter down to the atomic level through force of will. The bad guys are thwarted and the crisis is averted. Quite slow moving despite the melodrama. 03/9/26

Flight from Yesterday by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1962

 Keth Ard is unemployed in part because he has visions of a time and place that didn't exist, another life almost as real as his present one. He answers an advertisement placed by a curio shop and arrives just in time to rescue a young woman - who also has memories of a past life - from a gang of strange men and women, who seem to be possessed by other personalities and who have a heat weapon never seen before. They also begin seeing another man who appears and disappears at odd moments, never saying anything and apparently not entirely physically present. They take shelter after the initial attack with a psychiatrist, who spends much of the first half of the book speculating rather trivially about the nature of the universe and the human condition. Williams clearly doesn't understand how a psychologist would deal with his patients. They survive another attack, this time when a building which explodes just after they leave, and go into hiding. The woman's brother had previously answered the ad, almost immediately disappeared, but left behind an ancient carved stone with which she experiments, resulting in her being trapped in a comatose state. Our hero follows her into the trance and they both find themselves in ancient Atlantis, while the doctor has to battle with the possessed minions in the present. The tyrant from the past is finally foiled by time traveling priests from his own era. Surprisingly little actually happens in this slow moving story. The mechanism by which they transcend time is clearly magic which makes this Williams' first fantasy novel. It is also another story where the protagonist can tell all sorts of detailed things about another person just by looking at their eyes. 3/9/26

Passport to Eternity by J.G. Ballard, Berkley, 1963

A collection. “Escapement” is about a man caught in a ten minute time loop. “Track 12” is a vignette about a murder and is not really SF. “Thirteen to Centaurus” is about an experiment in human isolation that turns out to be more complicated than was expected by its planners. The title story is one of the few weak stories from this period in Ballard’s career – a twist ending piece about a misguided interstellar vacation. “The Cage of Sand” follows a small group of people who refuse to evacuate Florida when the ocean begins to reclaim the land. “The Watch-Towers” are enigmatic artifacts that float in the air and contain people who study the inhabitants of Earth without interacting. “A Question of Re-Entry” is a longish story about the search for a downed space capsule in South America. 3/6/26

When Two Worlds Meet by Robert Moore Williams, Curtis, 1970

This collection contains two previously collected stories, plus four never previously in book form, all set on Mars. The first and longest of these is "When Two Worlds Meet" and it introduces some elements that Williams later reworked in King of the Fourth Planet. A scientist is posing as a humble electrician in an attempt to discover the secret of Martian technology which is so powerful that Earthmen are allowed on that planet only on sufferance. A woman unwisely ventures into forbidden territory and puts his plan in jeopardy. With the aid of some rebellious slaves, he escapes with some of the technology but an otherwise good story is marred by the contrived ending in which he comes up with three new inventions to save them in a matter of a couple of days.  In "Aurochs Came Walking" a man tries to ferret out the secrets of lost Martian technology despite the animosity of a local witch doctor. "On Pain of Death" is a rather over long piece about humans trapped in a Martian artifact. "The Sound of Bugles" features a Martian race that has the ability to mentally create matter out of nothingness in whatever form they desire. It's the best story in the collection. Williams' work from the 1950s is almost always better than his later efforts. 3/6/26

The Darkness Before Tomorrow by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1961

The story opens with a prologue about aliens secreting monitoring the Earth, then moves to a terribly written scene in which a man finds a woman who has been run over by a vehicle. Her dying words go on for pages and read like a speech. The man, Gillian, is a secret agent who soon finds himself accompanying a strange brother and sister who tell him about a gangster armed with a weapon that causes heart failure. The sister has unreliable telepathic powers. The story never really has a chance to jell. The sister has mentally eavesdropped on someone - human or otherwise – who  is building a hand held death ray and she has a diagram made from memory. They have a friend who works for the gangster and recruit him to spy on his boss during a very unconvincing conversation. Williams does not seem to have given much thought to the flow of the plot and as a result it is nearly incoherent. The sister also has a map that belonged to her father with a mountain circled in red. Might that have something to do with the conspiracy? They assume so, despite a complete lack of anything indicating their father even knew about the alien weapons. They are captured then escape but are kidnapped by the aliens and brought back to the hidden base, which has been taken over by the gangster despite there having been no way that he could have learned of its existence. The aliens, implausibly, come from Mercury. They are stimulating human development because they need help averting a cosmic collision generations in the future. The bad guy gets thwarted. Williams forgets that characters know things and they express surprise when they learn it again. On other occasions they perceive things that they could not possibly have figured out from the evidence available. This one was probably dashed off in a hurry and never revised. The telepathy works when it is convenient for the plot and doesn't work when it is not. Williams was never a brilliant writer but this one is inexcusable. 3/4/26

Walk Up the Sky by Robert Moore Williams, Avalon, 1962

Thal Parker is an Earthman on Venus - a jungle planet - who has struck up a friendship of sorts with an oversized, intelligent snake. He rushes to the rescue when a spaceship crashes near his trading post and discovers that the man he would most like to kill, Sam Helder, is among the survivors. There is also a young woman whom he doesn't know but who insists that she came to Venus specifically to find him. Parker is seriously injured and has to be restored by transfer of various life energies from the snake and the woman into his body in a particularly ridiculous sequence. Helder has come to coerce Parker into revealing the secret of an invention which supposedly cures people of various diseases, but Parker insists that the machine only works if it is stimulated mentally by Parker himself, because of an abnormality in his brain. However, the young woman says that one of his devices cured her of cancer despite his absence.  They also see an apparition of a man walking through the sky overhead and then the wrecked spaceship levitates. It turns out that there is a secret human race with advanced technology hidden on Venus and that Parker is one of them, sent to Earth to gather intelligence, where he suffered a memory loss and forgot his origin. He recovers his memory and learns that his original people are planning to attack Earth. With the aid of a renegade scientist, he thwarts the invasion and ends up with the human girl. 3/4/26

Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb, St Martins, 2026

This whole series is SF by courtesy because it takes place forty years from now in a somewhat different version of our world. Sometimes there are robot servants. In this one a businessman discovers a secret vault in his late father’s house which contains a trove of stolen treasures. He quietly plans to return the things to their owners but before he can do so, he is struck down and killed by an intruder who makes off with a collection of gemstones. Very few people knew of the vault’s existence – mostly family members – but obviously someone else was aware of it, possibly because the father had spilled the beans to one of his mistresses. Eve Dallas is on the case, which has international repercussions. A bit below average for the series. 3/3/26

The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1961

Three hydrogen bombs are detonated in that city without warning. The protagonist waits in a shelter where he encounters an FBI agent who tells him that the area had been flooded with investigators recently, but that no one knew exactly what they were looking for. The agent speculates that it is some inhuman force and reveals that a number of agents have been found mysteriously dead or hopelessly insane. When the bombing ends, he and several others try to evacuate the city only to discover that it is ringed with American troops who fire on anyone who tries to leave without taking a physical examination for some unspecified contamination. They return to the city and take shelter in the laboratory of Dr. Homer Smith, who has been working for the government but who does not know what the menace was. The FBI agent believes that the US military dropped the bombs. They start hearing the  sound of screaming from elsewhere in the city and conclude that the bombing did not eliminate the mysterious threat - but that makes no sense since they know that there is looting and murder going on all around them. Then they learn that many of the survivors are becoming mindless zombies - yes, this is the very first zombie apocalypse novel. But after a couple of days they partially recover, and apparently women are affected differently than men. The horde of zombies is all male except that it is commanded by a woman.  Dr. Smith finds a cure for the "mad molecule", a mutated protein that becomes intelligent and takes over control of human bodies, and they are rescued by an army strike team just as they are about to be overwhelmed. There is a major plot hole that undercuts what might have been an interesting premise. If it is possible to cordon off the city after the bombs and examine everyone, why wasn't this done without dropping the bombs in the first place?  This is arguably  the first novel of a zombie apocalypse. 3/1/26

World of the Masterminds by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1960 

Burke Hartford has traveled to Pluto in search of a mysterious hidden race, or group of races, who manifest themselves as Martians, Venusians, or humans as needed. The primitive inhabitants of Pluto are divided into the green and blue races and they look to this mysterious organization for mediation of their conflicts. Also interested is Cyrus Holm, head of a major interplanetary corporation, whose methods for obtaining information frequently fall outside the law. When one of the alien mediators turns up armed with a mysterious staff of power, Holm's minions try to kidnap him but - with the help of Hartford and two friends - the attempt fails. Hartford's friend Teller then explains his theory that Race X lives hidden on Pluto and has been intervening in the affairs of the other planets since prehistory, training humans like the current mediator, Einer, without revealing themselves. The female character is too naive to be plausible and inadvertently gives away their location to more of Holm's people. The threesome are captured - Einer is killed in the second attack - but it's not clear why since they don't know anything more than Holm does.  Unaccountably, since the bad guys have been listening to their conversation all along, Micki is allowed the freedom of the ship where they are taken while the two men are locked up. Eventually she rescues them - even though we have been told that action is no job for a woman - but in a sequence that doesn't work logically. Even after showing her hand by stealing the power staff, knocking out the chief henchman, and setting them free, she continues to avoid saying anything incriminating because the room is bugged. But she has already verbally committed herself in that same room. They land on Pluto again, using Einer's staff as a guide, and encounter a couple of glowing light globes that appear to be alive. They eventually are ushered into an underground installation where they meet Einer's twin brother and see a spaceship obviously not intended for human operation. Williams gets somewhat confused here because he rhapsodizes that this means that humans are not the only intelligent beings in the universe. Apparently he has forgotten that his story includes intelligent Martians, Venusians, Plutonians, and Jovians. The villains show up and once again Williams treats us to a scene where men with guns massacre a hidden colony of unarmed pacifists. Hartford sneaks out, recruits a small army of blue Plutonians, arms them all with modern weapons - one wonders why he would have such a large arsenal aboard his small spaceship - and routs the enemy. Race X, the glowing balls of light, explain that humanity is now mature enough not to need guidance. This wasn't a bad story despite some lapses of logic, but the villains are too over the top and there are numerous plot elements that were not thought out sufficiently. 2/24/26

To the End of Time by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1960

A collection. The title story involves a small tribe of Venusians who secretly possess technology that allows them to exile their enemies into the distant future. "Where Tall Towers Gleam" is a kind of cryptic fantasy in which two children briefly visit a beautiful city that promptly disappears and which is probably meant as an analogy for heaven. It's not only very minor but contains several topical references that probably won't make sense to younger readers, e.g. saying someone talks like Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.  In "Homeward Bound" two men arguing about the existence of Martian spies on Earth discover that both of them are in fact Martian spies. "When the Spoilers Came" involves a group of humans who arrive at an apparently primitive Martian city to exploit the natives, only to be thwarted by hidden technology. The last minute conversion of one of the characters to the good side is not believable. "Like Alarm Bells Ringing" is the weakest story. A super-race watches over Earth and is surprised when the human race survives near extinction in war. Overall a very minor collection. 2/24/26         

The Voices of Time by J.G. Ballard, Berkley, 1962

A collection. The title story is a novelette set in a future where humanity tends to sleep longer and longer because time might be ending. “Manhole 69” is about an experiment in sleep deprivation that sends three men into a shared coma. “The Waiting Grounds” is a long, enigmatic story about the discovery of an alien monolith whose purpose is unknown. “The Sound-Sweep” is a novelette about a washed up singer whose only friend is a mute who cleans up leftover sounds for a living. “Zone of Terror” posits hallucinations that are contagious. “The Overloaded Man” can retreat into trance states where the world does not exist. Excellent collection throughout. 2/22/26

The Blue Atom by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1958

 This one opens with a series of disappearances and odd sightings involving a glass door that materializes apparently at random emitting a hypnotic blue light. The incidents occur in space and on planetary surfaces all through the solar system. An unofficial group of men who police things away from Earth meets to consider the problem - all male, of course, since women are considered inferior on the frontier. Williams makes this point repeatedly in his stories, although often adding in a competent, even aggressive woman to undercut the premise. In this case she's an archaeologist who tells the council that there is evidence of the existence of a now extinct Earth based race that preceded humans, conquered space, and created the ultimate weapon, which has been rediscovered and is now being tested.         Before she can finish her story, the blue glow engulfs her and she disappears into thin air. The leader of the council survives two attempts on his life by a Venusian native, whom he finally takes prisoner, but the captive subsequently disappears in another flash of blue light. Rather implausibly, no one other than the missing woman knows anything about the ancient race and her records are missing. Then the woman reappears, apparently under mental control by someone claiming to be the last scientist of the ancient race. She/he insists that his people are still alive and that a despotic ruler has been wakened from an age long sleep. The woman then reverts to her own personality and has no memory of what happened after she was taken from the conference room. An attempt to kidnap the protagonist by means of the blue light is thwarted when the woman remembers that she was given a device that neutralizes its effect. She also remembers that the other race is living in a hidden city inside Mercury, so that's where they go next.        The last few chapters go downhill rapidly. There are only two surviving members of the older race in a deserted city filled with killer apes. The scientist knows his ruler is evil but even when he has control of the blue atom, he won't sabotage the government or use it against the ruler - but he will tell the humans about its existence so that they can. None of this makes the slightest bit of sense. 2/20/28

 The Void Beyond by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1958         

A collection of six stories. The title story is interesting because it presents a chauvinistic situation but resolves it in the opposite direction. Space travel is found to bring enervating nausea that cannot be alleviated. Males find it very unpleasant but females almost always die during the experience. When a woman shows up to board a flight to Pluto, the captain refuses to take her but she stows away and eventually reveals that she is a scientist testing a new anti-nausea drug, which in fact works. There's a small crisis involving a meteorite. It seemed improbable that the drug test would be set up without the captain's knowledge and on a long rather than short flight, but otherwise the story is not bad at all. "Refuge for Tonight" is not nearly as good. The US has been depopulated by a bacteriological weapon and invaded. A few refugees find a remote bunker which they think holds nuclear weapons, but it turns out to be a faux bacteriology lab concealing the existence of a working starship. Only one person knew about the ship and he suffers from amnesia until sight of the hero, his assistant years earlier, restores his memory. Very contrived. "The Challenge" involves first contact with an enigmatic alien race which invented a device that computes all possible consequences of any action, leaving them with no sense of challenge, a deep and gnawing fatalism, and thwarted ambition. The humans introduce a variable that interferes with the calculations and the population destroys all of the calculators. TThe Weapon" is rather silly. Earth has been peaceful for centuries when an aggressive alien race shows up and demands surrender. A group of resisters know that an ultimate weapon existed which has been lost, so they go to a museum and find it in a display case! It telepathically transmits fear into its target. They build multiple copies overnight and seize control of the alien fleet. Mediocre. So is the very short "The Stubborn Men," which really has no plot. An experiment with atomic research kills one man but his brother is determined to continue. Finally there is "The Final Frontier." Williams frequently refers to outer space in these terms, or describes it as an enormous ocean, a metaphor common in the genre. The title is rather inappropriate in this case, however. A Martian astrally projects himself to rescue a human friend from some thugs. Their intended victim has invented a revolutionary new space drive, the plans of which he intends to make public, but it is never explained why he failed to do that previously to keep the thugs from following him to his secret Martian retreat. The prose in all these stories is competent and unexceptional, there are occasional flashes of colorful imagery, but the characters are flat and the plots are sometimes poorly thought out. 2/20/26

The Chaos Fighters by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1955

A mildly psychic agent of the Planetary Government named Haldane observies a young woman as she shrinks down to doll size and then disappears after visiting a shop which he has been ordered to investigate. He is subsequently captured himself and wakens in a room accompanied only by his childhood friend, Pete Balkan, who is also a prisoner. They communicate by means of a personal code and the friend indicates that he has become aware of some major forces at work in the solar system, at least three organizations in a power struggle and perhaps a superhuman intelligence whose purposes are unknown. He is questioned about the girl who vanished, then rescued by his old friend, who escapes apparently with the help of the superhuman intelligence, which he calls the Random Factor. Our hero is then sent to a high society social party which his superiors think might provide a chance to discover something about Group C. Group B, which was responsible for his capture, seems to have been eliminated as its leader is found dead from causes unknown. At the party he runs into the mysterious disappearing woman, who introduces herself as Heather. Then his hostess shrinks down and disappears, leaving her jewelry behind, although she conveniently does take her clothing. Heather unaccountably babbles about an invention that makes these disappearances possible, then pleads hysteria when she realizes she has let something slip to Haldane. This is a particularly unconvincing scene, unfortunately. Haldane pretends to be convinced but a few seconds later reveals that he saw her disappear similarly, which makes his previous action inexplicable.  Haldane is soon captured again, but this time he is the one who shrinks and he suddenly finds himself on the moon. He spends several days there in the company of a group of young people who claim to be working in a mine but who have speculative discussions about the power of the mind to shape the future. Then Heather shows up, and her motives are more suspect than ever. Hot on her heels is a gang of bad guys, who are defeated by Haldane with an assist from the local leader's mental powers. They round up the chief villain and announce that a new era in the future of humanity is to start based on several recent discoveries both technical and mental. 2/18/26

Doomsday Eve by Robert Moore Williams, Ace, 1957          

A new world war is raging. Some of the soldiers on both sides report miraculous rescues and escapes at the hands of the "new people", apparently humans who can teleport to anyplace they want, manipulate equipment even when the power is off, and cure serious wounds in seconds. The government would very much like to interview one of the new people but they are elusive. Intelligence officer Kurt Zen thinks that one of the nurses working in the field may be one of them, but while he is investigating he has a momentary bout of euphoria in which he seems to have communed with a kind of racial consciousness.  He follows the nurse into a wilderness area where they are both captured by a band of army deserters. They escape when a mysterious power causes their captors to fall asleep. Zen learns that he himself is one of the new people - mutants - and he is taken to a secret underground base where they are training themselves in various ways. After a prolonged ideological argument - the leader of the new people sees no reason to help either side in the war because he views war as a form of natural selection - the base is attacked by enemy paratroopers. Not very good at all. 2/18/26

The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard, Panther, 1970

This is either a short story collection or a novel depending upon your personal taste. It appeared as several separate “collapsed” novels when Ballard was experimenting with different prose styles. The chief protagonist is variously known as Talbot, Travis, and other names. Some of the other characters die in one story but return in another. There are lots of references to automobile crashes and atrocities in Vietnam and elsewhere, including the assassination of President Kennedy.  Although it is filled with sometimes intense imagery, there is no actually discernible plot, just a wandering through a constantly changing reality.  2/16/26

The Bees of Death by Robert Moore Williams, Armchair, 2011

Originally published in 1949.  A confidence man finds an enigmatic but still functioning device that was buried ages previously by a glacier. The plot then jumps forward and introduces George Graham, a private detective who specializes in debunking fake mediums and similar schemes. He is hired by the daughter of a very rich man to find out what has recently made him so nervous and mysterious. The con man, Featherstone, allows Graham to attend a "seance" in which a translucent flying object that sounds like a giant bee kills and petrifies a small dog.  It is obvious to Graham that Featherstone himself is frightened. That night there are buzzing sounds at Graham's apartment building, so he goes into hiding. His next step is to investigate reports of a petrified cow, which leads him to Featherstone's country home, where a strange addition is being made to the main building. He and his client eventually confront Featherstone, who admits that he has become the pawn of an ancient alien brain, the drall, which uses the buzzing creatures to exert its will. They plot to destroy the drall but it is telepathic and instead turns them into virtual slaves. During a military assault against the building, the power is cut and the humans are able to incapacitate the drall, which they keep alive so that they can extract its knowledge. The end is a bit weak but not mortally.  2/16/26

Beyond the Rings of Saturn by Robert Moore Williams, Armchair, 2011

Originally published in 1951  Crane, the protagonist, is a secret agent aboard a patrol ship whose job is to investigate reports of attacks by a strange apparition that materializes inside ships. Initially he has no idea what to expect but later we learn that there have been numerous reports describing the phenomenon accurately, which contradicts the original statement. Saturn, we discover, is a rainy planet inhabited by intelligent alligators whose violent society has been subjugated by humans, who now dictate local laws. A female spy is interviewing one of the locals when he spontaneously reveals the entire plan for rebellion, even shows her a secret military base, and reveals a previously undisplayed power of mental control. There's no explanation for why the Saturnian would reveal the secret and then abduct her. Meanwhile, Crane's ship is disabled and he has to crash land on the planet after one of the silliest scenes in all of science fiction wherein the agent, the captain, and the executive officer all act inexplicably. Immediately after the crash, the female spy breaks free and runs toward them and they are astounded to see a human woman - which makes no sense since they are within sight of a large human base. Then we are told that the government knows about the Saturnian mental abilities because of past incidents, even though we were previously told otherwise. The male agent has a hand weapon that causes enormous explosions, but at one point he considers using it on the bridge of a spaceship! They escape from the Saturnians but Crane is immediately put in charge of a military operation against the apparitions, who are another alien race whose ship is disguised to look like an asteroid. The Saturnians have a sudden, inexplicable change of heart and help fight the mysterious aliens. This is an astonishingly bad story, not even remotely up to the author's usual modest standards. 2/16/26

Conquest of the Space Sea by Robert Moore Williams,, Ace,1955

Jed Ambro is assigned to the large human base on Pluto which is preparing to launch robotically controlled spaceships into the void beyond the solar system. While working with one of the robot pilots, Jed spots an alien spaceship and starts to report it, but he is hypnotized telepathically and loses all memory of the encounter. Ambro is then summoned to the private dome of Konar, a mysterious, powerful, and unsavory character. For no apparent reason and without conscious volition, Ambro tries unsuccessfully to kill him. Hours later, he emerges with no memory of anything that happened during the interview.  He is then questioned by a senior technician who appears to know more than he lets on, during the course of which conversation the experimental robot apparently becomes self aware and resistant to orders it does not wish to obey. Before anything can be made of that, the mysterious ship reappears outside the dome, refuses to communicate, and is fired upon by the base's military personnel. The ship has a crew of three humanoids from a far system. They believe themselves inherently superior to humans, who think differently because of a warp in space that encompasses the solar system. One of their kind has been living secretly among humans for three centuries, but we are not told who he or she is. When their captain tries to communicate telepathically with his home world, some nearby intelligence warns him off and burns out the telepathic portion of his brain.  Williams starts to throw in one device after another during the second half. Ambro's mind is taken over by the aliens, who use him to suppress the will of other people at the base. Konar tries to control him for his own purposes. A supposedly benevolent and idiosyncratic old engineer reveals that he has a secret agenda of his own. The middle of the novel begins to feel very much  like inferior A.E. van Vogt. The aliens come across as comic book villains, not very bright despite their technology, and with the emotional level of disturbed children. With the aid of the alien spy, who has gone native, the human prisoners seize control of the alien ship. The closing chapters are particularly badly written, unfortunately. 2/16/26

To Watch by Night by Robert Moore Williams, Armchair, 2012

Originally published in 1946. This is another variation of the aliens are hidden among us. Don Reed sees a man unsuccessfully attempt to shoot a woman, after which they both vanish into thin air. He recognizes the woman as a fellow reporter named Nita Ayers with whom he is secretly in love but when he confronts her later she denies everything. Then news arrives concerning a naked man found in a field and for no discernible reason she immediately faints. She is assigned to cover the story and he insists on accompanying her, both rather implausible circumstances because the story is too minor to send one major reporter on an extended trip to cover it, let alone allow a second to go along as well.  The naked man wore only a bracelet but it is a match for one that Ayers is wearing. Reed also sees a dog run from something invisible and then die after an unseen presence stabs it through the heart. Ayers is oddly reluctant to interview the mystery man, who doesn't speak English anyway, so Reed goes to see him alone. Right after he leaves, Ayers enters the cell and the young man is found mortally wounded. Although she is arrested, Reed believes her innocent and in a weak moment she makes allusions to a hidden world, the Dark Ones, and an invisible creature that murdered the young man. Then she refuses to explain any further, insisting that it is for Reed's protection that she remains silent. Ayers promptly disappears from her cell and after a few days only Reed is still interested. He runs an ad in the newspaper which is answered by a note from Ayers and a package containing a bracelet. He then narrowly escapes being killed by Harker, who appeared originally to be just a crackpot, but who turns out to be a powerful enemy. Fortunes go back and forth for a while and finally Reed is able to turn the tables on Harker, who is identified a an agent for an ancient intelligence, presumably the Devil, although no name is ever used and there is an attempt to rationalize everything. This was a blend of Lovecraft, Christian mythology, and superscience and despite occasional rough spots, above average for the pulps. 2/12/26

The Huntress of Akkan by Robert Moore Williams,.Armchair, 2015

Originally published in 1946. This novella was obviously influenced by the adventure stories ofTalbot Mundy. Two Americans go to Burma to find a missing friend. He turns up, babbles about a mysterious temple and a trip to Heaven, then is killed by a floating ball that burns a hole through his body. They in turn are taken prisoner and forced to pass through a kind of dimensional portal into a world where hunting is the ultimate pleasure and humans are the most desirable prey.     The newcomers find a small colony of displaced humans who are trying to puzzle out the advanced technology of their captors. They volunteer to sneak into the alien city and steal some of the floating balls, which can be directed by thought waves. Instead he confronts the local princess and within minutes has talked her into divesting herself of her technology, after which she falls tearfully into his arms. She takes him to her decadent city where he quickly talks her into outlawing hunting and organizing an effort to rebuild their civilization, but naturally there is a contingent of hunter who are unwilling to accept the changed state of affairs. The first half of this one is a fairly good adventure story but it deteriorates steadily from the point where the two of them meet and never recovers. 2/12/26

The Crystal World by J.G. Ballard, Berkley, 1966

This came out while I was in college and it made an immense impression on me at the time. This was my third reading, after a gap of about thirty years, and it holds up very well. Various characters interact in Africa where a strange anomaly in time on a galactic scale has caused the local forest to begin crystallizing. The contagion can also transform human beings, some of whom welcome it. No one saves the world, there are no scenes with scientists and politicians drafting plans, and the violence seems almost random. There is no real explanation about what is happening. That all said, it is an impressive if tightly focused look at an event that may or may not be a catastrophe. 2/10/26

Survivors from 9000 B.C. by Robert Moore Williams, Armchair, 2013 (originally published in 1941)

This novella opens with Don King, who periodically suffers mental attacks during which he remembers events from the distant past, and who occasionally feels a long dead personality supplanting his control of his own body. After encountering another man suffering from the same condition, he consults a psychiatrist who suggests that he is reincarnated from a past life. The two troubled men are drawn to board a sailing ship bound for the Azores, but the ship is attacked by a giant robot octopus directed by a mysterious vessel. They are the only survivors and are taken to a hidden island whose ruler is King's apparent twin. King realizes that he is reincarnated, but from a man who has traveled through time. The entire island, part of Atlantis, was moved forward to escape a natural disaster. The ruler, however, fears the presence of his duplicate and has him imprisoned where he is befriended by the inevitable local woman not in sympathy with the cruel tyrant. She helps them escape using a cloak of invisibility created by a caste of scientists now believed extinct and there are several battles and escapes before the evil ruler uses telepathy to control King and nearly kill them all. It's not clear why he failed to do this sooner. At the last minute, the supposedly extinct band of scientists reappear, sever the telepathic bond, and after some more fighting and a brief chase, King finally outsmarts the ruler and takes his place on the throne. The story feels almost like fantasy and the plot and writing are occasionally crude, but it is still readable.

All One Universe by Poul Anderson, Tor, 1996

A collection of some of Anderson’s later stories, plus a play and some essays, each accompanied by a brief introduction that is sometimes more interesting than the story. “The Voortrekkers” is the only story I particularly liked. Some of the essays were of interest. The play did absolutely nothing for me. Anderson had shifted away from short stories somewhat by this point in his career. The novels were longer and the stories tended to be shorter. Since I always that he was best at novella length, it’s not surprising that I grew increasingly disappointed with his writing during the 1990s. 2/7/26

Jongor Fights Back by Robert Moore Williams, Popular Library, 1951

The third and final Jongor novelopens with our three heroes still trying to escape from Lost Land. They are promptly attacked by the Muros, except that Williams apparently forgot their name and calls them Murtos this time. Jongor escapes but Ann and Alan are captured once again. Jongor receives a glancing blow on the head during the fight which causes partial amnesia; he doesn't remember the Hunters and therefore feels no urge to rescue them. Then he encounters two American hunters camped in the area - Lost Land sure doesn't seem to be very lost. The Americans are villains searching for the Murto city and they take Jongor captive when he refuses to guide them there. he Murtos are even stupider than usual and they really aren't an effective enemy for Jongor because they are so easily fooled. Jongor and the Hunters escape separately but both are pursued and the Hunters get separated. Williams seems also to have forgotten that the Hunters used rifles against the Murtos earlier because the monkey men are stunned when the two Americans demonstrate their use. Jongor gets his memory back, and is reunited with the girl and her brother. The bad guys of both camps are thoroughly defeated. This is the weakest of the three, does nothing to advance the story, and shows strong evidence of having been hastily written. 2/7/26

The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, edited anonymously, University of Minnesota, 2025

This is an odd little book. Apparently Toho studios commissioned a story as the basis for the first Mothra movie. This is it, a novella in three parts, each by a different writer. More than half of the book is a very long essay about the history of the film and the prose version, and I actually found that more interesting than the story itself, which is pretty much the same as the movie plot. Mothra was always a "good" kaiju and would later become a sometimes ally of Godzilla. The destruction if brings to humans is usually justified by events. 2/5/26

The Burning World by J.G. Ballard, Berkley, 1964

Aka The Drought. Although this disaster novel features drought rather than flooding, it is very much like The Drowned World. Pollution prevents the oceans from evaporating properly, rain drops off to nearly nothing, and the world slowly begins to turn into a desert. A handful of people stay behind when their outpost is abandoned, with most people emigrating toward the coasts. They eventually decide to follow, but the coastal communities are so horrible that they eventually come back. There is some violence between them and scavengers competing for the small water resources remaining, but the point is that they are psychologically evolving to adapt to the new circumstances.

The Return of Jongor by Robert Moore Williams, Popular Library, 1944.

Second in the Jongor series.  Jongor intended to escort his two companions back to the outside world, but a message from the queen of the Arklans - whose existence has not been previously mentioned - distracts him. Ann and Alan Hunter are captured by cannibals who already have two prisoners, Morton and Schiller. Jongor rescues them all with the aid of a controlled dinosaur, then tells them that he feels obligated to help Queen Nesca resist attacks by the Muros whom Jongor routed in the first book. They all agree to go with him, but the two new characters clearly have a secret agenda.   There is a party of Muros in the area, accompanied by a centaur, the product of ancient Murian genetic technology. This time it is revealed that the Muros have a device that allows them to influence the minds of humans and they lure Ann out of the encampment and capture her. She subsequently escapes on her own, after learning that the message that started the current chain of events was a fake. The whole party ends up in the city of the Arklans, who all turn out to be centaurs, but the schemer who tried to trap Jongor has bribed the populace into overthrowing and killing their queen. Despite his best efforts, Jongor cannot save the queen, who decides that her people are doomed. The city collapses as the humans escape - minus Schiller, who was a treasure hunter and who betrayed them, and Morton, whom Schiller murdered. The presumption is that the centaur people will now die out. This is far inferior to the first story. The plot makes little sense. Why don't the Murians use the crystal on Jongor? If Jongor knew of their powers, why didn't he caution his companions? What are lions doing in Australia? How does Ann suddenly understand the Murian language?

The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard, Berkley, 1962

Solar storms have raised the temperature on Earth so high that civilization has retreated to the poles. Most of the world is reverting to a kind of Triassic Age jungle and rising oceans have inundated most of the land. A small outpost including scientists and soldiers is about to be abandoned but it appears that the human psyche is beginning to adjust to the new conditions and that humanity may be evolving into something else. A few of the characters decide they want to remain in the jungle, but they have to deal with a band of murderous thugs who are still trying to amass a fortune that no longer has any real meaning. This holds up well although it is no longer such an obvious break with traditional SF. 2/3/26

Jongor of Lost Land by Robert Moore Williams, Popular Library, 1940

This is really just a novella, and in fact most of Williams' novels are quite short. The story opens with a small expedition consisting of Ann Hunter, her guide, and another man facing a revolt of their bearers in the wilds of Australia, although it feels so much like Africa that the setting seems incongruous. The bearers attack them after a mysterious voice that shakes the very ground orders them to do so, but the threesome drive them off with the aid of a mysterious savage, Jongor, whom the third man unaccountably takes a shot at, which alienates him for a few chapters. Hunter is there because her brother disappeared exploring the wilderness in search of a rumored Lost Land and her companion is a cowardly type who seems to have deserted the missing man at a crucial moment. Jongor, on the other hand, is the son of a couple killed by local inhabitants following a plane crash and, like Tarzan, he has grown up in the wild. His real name is in fact John Gordon. He follows the diminished party and watches as they are attacked by pterodactyls after unwisely choosing a mountain pass. Jongor, who possesses an amulet that allows him to mentally control dinosaurs, uses one of them to rescue the party from the pterodactyls. He warns them about the Muros, who apparently can send tornadoes to pursue their enemies. A disagreement arises within the party and Jongor leaves in a huff, but doesn't go far. The outsiders are captured by a race of monkey people – the Muros - from a ruined city who have airships similar to those on Barsoom.    The leader of the monkey people finds Hunter attractive, which is par for the course though biologically nonsense. She is, however, to be sacrificed to the sun god. The companion gets involved in a power struggle among the Muros and in the aftermath Hunter escapes but becomes trapped between the Muros and the pterodactyls. Jongor shows up in the nick of time and steals a crystal from the Muros that allows them to control the pterodactyls just as his amulet controls the other dinosaurs, which is all rather convenient. Jongor then reveals that he knows where Hunter's brother is, and provides no real explanation of why he didn't say anything sooner. The guide turns out to be a crazed anarchist. The story ends with the three survivors setting off for civilization. Although hardly a classic and with some relatively serious plot holes, this is a pretty good Burroughs pastiche. Williams was certainly a better writer than most of his contemporaries in the 1940s pulps. Minor glitch. Williams at this point believed that ventriloquists could literally throw their voices.  1/31/26

The Wind from Nowhere by J.G. Ballard, Berkley, 1962

Aka Storm Wind. This was Ballard’s first novel, a disaster story, and one for which he would later express disdain. It is in fact very much unlike the work that followed. The premise is that worldwide winds begin to steadily build, making air and sea travel impossible and eventually destroying most buildings. It’s well written but not particularly interesting. The middle third is mostly descriptions of collapsing buildings and other individual disasters. A military officer is stranded in France with a journalist. A man hoping emigrate to Canada is stuck at the house of a friend who happens to be a government official, hence a source of inside information. Ok but atypical. 1/29/26

For Love and Glory by Poul Anderson, Tor, 2003

This is an expansion of material Anderson contributed to a series of anthologies set in more or less Isaac Asimov inspired future worlds. It is however a very Andersonlike story. A young woman is involved in space exploration, specifically attempting to find functioning technology left over by the Forerunners, an ancient alien race which vanished before the present star traveling races left their home worlds. She has a sometimes reliable, sometimes not partner, and is opposed by agents of an alien race that want exclusive use of what might give them an edge in displacing humans from areas they currently dominate. Okay, but padded. 1/28/26

The Starfarers by Poul Anderson, Tor, 1998

The final book set in the world of the Maurai is one of the better of the author’s late books. A starship with ten crew is sent to investigate indications that another race has star travel. Since they cannot exceed the speed of light, the mission will take many years. They succeed in finding one race – centaurs – who have actually abandoned star travel, and another that is still active. There is a mutiny before they return to Earth where more than ten thousand years have passed. Unable to integrate with the current society, they set off for one of the colony worlds hoping to find a more congenial place to settle. A few slow sections but basically a good adventures. 1/23/26

Dialogue with Darkness by Poul Anderson, Tor, 1985

A collection of some of the later stories by Anderson. The longest is the novella “A Chapter of Revelation” in which an apparent miracle ends a war, but sets off a wave of fanaticism that is even worse. “Sister Planet” is also depressing. Humans plan to exploit Venus despite its effects on the intelligent inhabitants. Star travel alters human physiology in another story and a man wakens from suspended animation to be cured of a fatal disease, and discovers he has contracted another. The stories are all fairly readable, although occasionally long winded. They also tend to be depressing in their implications. Anderson seems to have begun to have doubts about humanity’s future late in his career. 1/23/26

The Fleet of Stars by Poul Anderson, Tor, 1997

The final book in this series was even more bloated than its predecessors. The Ais on Earth have concocted a plan to keep humans quiescent. They leak information that there are rival alien civilizations nearby and that conflict with them is inevitable. The independent colonists on both the moon and in another star system are meant to be manipulated into stealing the information and ceding some of their independence, but the downloaded personality of an old libertarian leader proves that this is all just a manipulative hoax. There are about two hundred pages in which almost literally nothing happens as Anderson gives us a grand tour of his future history, with side dishes of political lecturing. 1/20/26

The Stars Are Also Fire by Poul Anderson, Tor, 1994

Earth and most of humanity is now ruled by a kind of AI mixed with human personality uploads. The moon is determined to remain independent, but is crippled by their relatively unimpressive financial situation. The story is split between two centuries – the one in which the lunar colony was originally established and had to overcome physical and political obstructions. The second is much later when similar efforts must be undertaken to prevent their being absorbed into the human dictatorship that controls the solar system. The colony in another social system from the last book is not a factor. Bloated, tedious, crippled by libertarian propaganda and straw man arguments. 1/18/26

Harvest the Stars by Poul Anderson, Tor, 1995.

The third of the four books in the series is a novella, an odd arrangement given the substantial length of the other three. The lunar colony is struggling to maintain its independence of the AI dominated Earth as well as providing aid to their colony on an asteroid. To this end, they need to steal a shipment of antimatter. Their agents blackmail and Earthman into helping, while the AI minds suspects something and embody an investigator to look into the matter. This was actually fairly good – it isn’t burdened with the constant lectures that plague the others in the series, and there is also an effort to show that neither side is completely good or completely evil. 1/18/26

Where the Axe Is Buried by Ray Nayler, Farrar, 2025

This dystopian novel about a future in which the state uses technology to control minute details in the lives of its citizens was painful to read, not because it's not very well written, but because it feels connected to what is going on in the country at the moment. The novel has some elements of positive thinking, but the odds are tremendously against the few rebels, and frankly most people would accept the status quo and not fight it. The west and east have different form of authoritarianism, but it doesn't matter at the end, and both civilizations are rushing toward collapse. 1/14/26

Inconstant Star by Poul Anderson, Baen, 1991

This consists of two novellas from the shared world Kzin series created by Larry Niven. They reminded me a bit of the Flandry series. A human space crew enters a new system and is surprised by the existence of a Kzin base, which immediately attacks them. They escape in their shuttles and one is stranded on an inimical planet while the other manages to retake their ship and destroy the alien base. They are then hired to find a missing man accused of collaborating with the Kzin, find a dangerous artifact, rescue him from the Kzin, and then defeat an alien warship.  Quite readable. 1/13/26

Harvest of Fire by Poul Anderson, Tor, 1993

The first of four books in a rather dull and depressing future history. Earth has succumbed to a theocracy which wants to merge humans with machines and use artificial intelligence to control the future. A libertarian space company objects, steals a copy of an important downloaded personality, and eventually flees to a distant star to set up a “free” society. It’s way too long, the climax comes 100 pages before the end, and it is riddled with mini-lectures. I also had to wonder why, if the libertarians, were so opposed to artificial intelligence guiding humanity they placed such importance on stealing the AI to lead them to freedom.  1/13/26

The Midas Legacy by Andy McDermott, Dell, 2016

I read the many earlier books in this series some years ago but it somehow dropped off my radar. Most of the installments involve the consequences following the discovery of Atlantis by the husband and wife protagonists. They investigate another aspect of this as they discover that an ancient Atlantean made a secret visit to the Himalayas. They retrace his footsteps and find a cave guarded by monks which holds the secret of King Midas, which then sets them on a series of adventures around the world. This is a very long novel although it seems much shorter. It is unabashed pulp style adventure but not unpleasant reading, as close to a lost world novel as we are likely to see in these more sophisticated times. There's another in the series which I will be ordering. 1/7/26

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