n a regular basis, the officers of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America will tap a legendary writer within the genre to receive the honor of Grand Master in recognition of lifetime achievement. Recently, a series of tribute volumes has been instituted to further honor the writers so elevated. This book, assembled like the first two by Frederik Pohl, celebrates Lester del Rey, Pohl himself, Damon Knight, A.E. van Vogt and Jack Vance.
The del Rey section offers four stories. "The Faithful" portrays a world where the last human struggles to pass on the half-ruined planet to the modified dog-men and ape-men who will become humanity's heirs. Rendered mortal by the death of his sole follower, the great god Pan finds an unusual trade among men in "The Pipes of Pan." A modern elf named Ellowan must face similar trials of adaptation in "The Coppersmith." Finally, "For I Am a Jealous People!" depicts an alien invasion of Earth backed by God Himself.
Opening the Pohl portion of the book is "Let the Ants Try," wherein a desperate time-traveler, seeking to defuse the warring impulse of humanity, instead wipes them out altogether. "The Tunnel Under the World" offers a pocket universe of sorts, where the same day repeats endlessly and questions of identity are paramount. The ultra-compressed "Day Million" is a slice of life from a thousand years hence. Transcendence achieved despite treachery is the theme of "The Gold at the Starbow's End," where a starship's crew attains godlike powers.
Knight offers five entries. "The Handler" fashions a striking objective correlative for the shams of celebrity. Mixing art, immortality and death, "Dio" reveals the contradictions inherent in an earthly paradise. "Not With a Bang" tracks the ironic fate of the last man and woman on Earth. The invention of an unlimited spacetime viewer utterly remakes society in "I See You." The pain and insanity of a cyborg are examined in "Masks."
A.E. van Vogt's classic first SF sale, "Black Destroyer"--detailing the conquests of the alien Coeurl--opens his section. "Far Centaurus" illustrates why one should never bet against progress, as slower-than-light spacemen find a surprise at their destination. Buried Martian monsters lie at the heart of "Vault of the Beast." The biter bitten sums up "Dear Pen Pal," where a conniving prisoner finds himself ultimately undone.
Due to their length, only three Jack Vance stories are offered. "Sail 25" chronicles the misadventures of some hapless space cadets under the exacting tutelage of the old master Henry Belt. The strange hierarchies and psychologies of an overpopulated world are examined in "Ullward's Retreat." The jinxmen of Faide Keep wage a phantasmagorical war in "The Miracle Workers."
A microcosm of all SF in one volume
Editor Frederik Pohl deserves many accolades for assembling this tribute volume, and the prior ones, with such care and discernment. His introductions are playful yet educational. The reader emerges with clear-cut portraits of the five writers involved in this project. No mean feat, since many of them are better represented by their novels than their stories. In facile, shorthand terms, the honorees emerge, in order of appearance, as the Sentimentalist, the Satirist, the Skeptic, the Shaman and the Sophisticate.
Del Rey's heartstring-tugging proclivities are on display in three of his stories, while even the savage and bitter "For I Am a Jealous People!" cannot resist in its closing line--"He has found a worthy opponent"--a kind of boosterism. Pohl's own Swiftian bent is wellknown and on display here most notably in "The Tunnel Under the World." Nonetheless, this standout story also plays many Phildickian notes. Knight's cool ratiocination emerges most clearly in the remarkable "I See You," but he is not beyond a lowbrow joke in "Not With a Bang." That nonpareil van Vogt does not really get to pull all his famous stop-making-sense tricks in any of his stories here, although "Vault of the Beast" comes close. Finally, Vance's wry urbanity and droll take on the human sideshow is undeniable in both "Ullward's Retreat" and "The Miracle Workers," while "Sail 25" is a tad closer to Eric Frank Russell.
Many synergies, intentional and unintentional, come into play in a volume of this sort. Knight's unimaginative immortals in "Dio" can be fruitfully compared to Pohl's gonzo godlike crew in "Starbow." The satire in Vance's "Ullward's Retreat" can be lined up against that in Knight's "The Handler." The harrowing of humanity by vicious aliens in del Rey's "For I Am a Jealous People!" is mirrored on a small scale by the havoc wreaked by Coeurl in van Vogt's "Black Destroyer." And so it goes, in the great never-ending conversation of science fiction that these very men helped launch, a conversation recapitulated in miniature in this invaluable collection.
