In his exuberant introduction, the inimitable Forrest J. Ackerman expresses not only his own admiration for A.E. Van Vogt, but also quotes a praising review of one of Van Vogt’s stories by none other than a young Ray Bradbury. The theme of this collection is—as the uninspired title specifies—Science Fiction Monsters (giving the impression of a reference book rather than a phenomenal fiction collection) and there are eight of them covering different themes and classified by ol’ Uncle Forry himself.
“Not Only Dead Men” (Genus: Space Monster) – During WWII, a whaling ship equipped with machine guns encounters what at first appears to be a Japanese submarine off the coast of Alaska. Upon closer inspection, the captain and crew are shocked to learn that the vessel is actually an alien spacecraft…
“Final Command” (Genus: Robot Monster) – On a future Earth, a war is brimming between robots seeking equality and their human masters who wish to destroy them, but an alien prisoner of war might hold the key to peace between the two races.
In “War of Nerves” (Genus: Arianoid Monster), the interstellar Earth vessel, Space Beagle, is threatened by a telepathic alien race known as the Riim. After setting the ship on a direct course for a nearby star, the Riim use their powers to spark a mutiny, pitting scientists against the military. Elliott Grosvenor, a scientist with special mental training known as Nexialism, is the only one unaffected by the mental manipulation, but can he devise a way to defeat the Riim before the Space Beagle plunges to its destruction?
“Enchanted Village” (Genus: Martian Monster) describes the travails of Bill Jenner, the last survivor of a doomed expedition to Mars. When Jenner encounters an abandoned village, he soon realizes that it is alive and can adapt to the physiology of its residents… or is it the other way around?
“The Sea Thing” (Genus: Oceanic Monster) drops us on a remote South Pacific island where a shapeshifting creature emerges from the depths, adopts the form of a man, and seeks revenge on a band of shark hunters.
In “Resurrection,” an alien race known as the Ganae arrive on a post-apocalyptic Earth with technology that can revive long dead lifeforms for the purpose of information retrieval. After resurrecting three humans from various time periods—and subsequently killing them—they finally come upon a man with advance capabilities of his own, posing a threat to the Ganae. Uncle Forry provided no genus for this story, but I would suggest Interstellar Monsters.
Saving the best until last, we have “Vault of the Beast” (Genus: Multimorph Monster) in which a shapeshifting android is sent to Earth by an alien race to find a human mathematician capable of liberating a beast, known as Kalorn, from an ancient Martian prison.
The least among these stories, in my opinion, was “Concealment” (Genus: Mystery Monster). A battleship from Earth invades the Dellian star system and encounters a Watcher—a meteorologist who monitors storms in the space lanes and warns approaching vessels. The captain of the ship attempts to interrogate the seemingly feeble Watcher for the location of his homeworld and gets more than she bargained for.
Arguably the most popular science communicator since Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, in collaboration with fellow astrophysicist Donald Goldsmith, delivers an engaging and sometimes humorous account of the origins of the universe, our solar system, our planet, and life on Earth. I read Origins shortly after watching Tyson’s Inexplicable Universe series and reading A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence M. Krauss. As such, some of the material covered in the book (as well as a few of Tyson’s jokes) was review, such as the types and nature of quarks, the expansion of the universe as demonstrated by the Doppler effect (something I learned while watching the original Cosmos as the age of nine), the formation (and naming) of the planets, moons, and asteroids in our solar system (learned in middle school and high school), and a tour of periodic table (it’s been a while!).
Counted among the best of contemporary science popularizers, Dr. Lawrence Krauss presents an edifying and eminently readable guide through the scientific theories of cosmogony, as well as the history of scientific research and discovery on the topic, all to answer the question, “Is there truly such a thing as nothing?”
James Blish presents a science fiction anthology with a thought-provoking and often contentious theme—the future of the arts. What will become of creativity in the age of automation, or after the apocalypse, or when humanity migrates to other worlds? These topics are addressed by such master storytellers as Isaac Asimov, Harry Harrison, Damon Knight, C.M. Kornbluth, Edgar Pangborn, Robert Silverberg, and James Blish.