The Fourth Science Fiction Megapack by John Gregory Betancourt

The Fourth Science Fiction Megapack Reviews

• 
  Charles van Buren

  A balanced collection of the old and the new
  
  Review of Kindle edition
  Publication date: April 25, 2012
  Publisher: Wildside Press
  Language: English
  ASIN: B0085TK53K
  
  Most of the sci-fi I have been reading for the past couple of years is space opera, military sf, fantasy and similar genres. This volume reminded me of why I began to read sci-fi in high school. The older Isaac Asimov story was a welcome reintroduction to one of the old masters whose work I have not read in a very long time. The stories are a balanced collection of the old and the new.
• 
  F.R.

  As usual, I've reviewed each tale as I've got to it:
  
  Zora and the Land of Ethic Nomads by Mary Turzillo
  The struggles of your average family on Mars, as they suddenly find themselves perched on the dusty red precipice of catastrophe. It’s a tale with great ideas, but seems curiously reluctant to develop them – instead just rounding them off neatly to make itself nothing more than a shaggy dog story.
  Mary Turzillo – an author I’ve never read before – seems to have written a great many stories about Mars, and I wonder if this will work better in the context of her other work. On its own however, it’s distinctly lacking.
  Evocative title though.
  
  Food for Friendship by E.C. Tubb
  In the future man will travel to far off worlds where he will undoubtedly learn to hate them and then have his hunger to get away exploited by unscrupulous bosses.
  Here we have two down and outs who love nothing better than to bitch and whine about their circumstances. All the way through you just know their ending is going to be a kick in the belly.
  
  The Life Work of Professor Muntz by Murray Leinster
  It’s definitely an amusing idea to make the protagonist of a tale about overlapping parallel universes be a not too bright delivery man who is totally oblivious of what’s happening to him. And I suppose it’s witty to cast this story as almost academic report into the incident. Yet the tale itself never goes anywhere further than those (admittedly good) two ideas. Clever, but insubstantial and unaffecting.
  
  Tiny and the Monster by Theodore Sturgeon
  This breezy tale of a super powered dog, the couple he can communicate with and their wise cracking chaperone seems like some long lost Disney live action movie. (I’m liking Mary Tyler-Moore and Dean Jones for the casting!) It has a certain charm to it though, however the adolescent in me wishes that once they’d repaired its spaceship, the alien had enslaved the human race rather than rewarding us. That would have been a nice taste of bitter after the saccharine.
  
  Beyond Lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick
  A story about conquest, colonisation and just desserts (as well as, I suppose, just main course). I’ve read a few Philip K. Dick novels and so this was more straightforward than I was expecting – but without a doubt entertaining and pointed.
  
  Pictures Don’t Lie by Katherine MacLean
  It’s a great idea to have humans and an alien race communicate with each other through the transmission of television dramas. As the way most of us encounter extraterrestrial is through television and movies (and okay, stories like this) – why shouldn’t we use these same broadcast dramas to actually communicate with aliens? This is proper old fashioned science fiction – spaceships and cutting edge research, alongside cathode ray TVs, smoking in laboratories and actual paper newspapers – and it’s a lot of fun with a hell of an ending.
  
  The Big Trip Up Yonder by Kurt Vonnegut jr
  That’s the problem with the one day invention of anti-aging, anti-death drugs – everybody will end up with unwieldy families. There will be no space at home, no space to move to and even 103 year old men will end up being hassled by their grandfathers.
  As one would expect from Vonnegut: a witty, insightful and all round excellent tale.
  
  Storm Warning by Donald A Wollheim
  It takes a lot of talent to write an interesting and gripping story about weather fronts, and it also must take a curious mind to create a tale of alien invasion which concentrates on elements and gasses and concepts that our human narrator can only just stretch his mind to understand.
  Definitely one worth a slow and careful re-read one day.
  
  The Application of Discipline by Jason Andrew
  On the one hand we have here a rather dry work of fiction about an ethics debate amongst academics; on the other we have a talking orang-utan, telepaths and an actual duel to the death. I’m not sure all these elements coalesce though and at the end we just have a particularly polite and well mannered surrealism – and politeness and good manners are not necessarily what you want from your surrealism.
  
  Tom the Universe by Larry Hodges
  Or ‘The Delusional Adventures of an Accidental God...’
  Even though this is at its aching heart a story about eternal love and the pain of betrayal, it does feel like the aims of this particular deity – particularly when compared to the size and scope of a whole universe (or even to any nearby hill of beans) – are particularly small. Yes, revenge stories always, by law, have to end badly, but since this one takes place over billions of years you’d have thought that the protagonist would have gained a greater sense of perspective.
  
  Wild Seed by Carmelo Rafalá
  In which scientist Karlyn ano-Kerr finds herself assailed by rampant techno-babble.
  Actually I’m in no position to say whether the concepts under-pinning this tale have any basis in your real science, but there is a hell of a lot of terminology – a plethora of jargon – and once you parse through it all there doesn’t seem to be much of a story at all.
  
  Tabula Rasa by Ray Cluley
  A cousin I suppose to ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ – a love story where characters, for economic reasons, choose to have their memories sold on. What I liked about this was the real economic pressures these people seemed to be under. How our narrator – an academic – is paid so little in his normal job, he’s forced to sell cherished memories of the woman he loves. The thing is once he sells them, he won’t be able to remember them anymore.
  It would be a drastic decision to take, but with financial woes bearing down on you, who wouldn’t consider selling some long ago memory of an ex-lover, or some student holiday or a friendship from school? It’s an interesting question – how much of your past can you lose before you stop being you?
  
  The Eyes of Thar by Henry Kuttner
  So here we have an old fashioned hodge-podge of a yarn. Clearly the author wants to write a story of a cowboy, Native Americans and ghosts of the old west, but rather than slap his feet on Arizona soil and write that story, he’s just set the whole thing to Mars. He can’t disguise what he wants to actually write though and so it feels like a particularly ill thought out genre mash-up.
  
  Regenesis by Cynthia Ward
  The fact that this tale centres around a broadcast from Google-Fox means that any satire isn’t going to be subtle. But that’s fine. Sometimes you need a full on attack, rather than a clever discourse which is just too oblique. Fashion, genetics and religion are the targets here – although it’s too short to be anything other than scattershot.
  
  Not Omnipotent Enough by George H. Scithers & John Gregory Betancourt
  There’s a theme throughout this volume of academics becoming incredibly powerful – having fantastic mental abilities, actually becoming a god, or – as here – rising to the level of intergalactic emperor. But then I guess that science fiction is the triumph of the nerdy and bookish (and i do count myself amongst that number) over any and all obstacles.
  What particularly appeals to me about this story is the way history repeating itself is used to the character’s advantage. The history professor will truly inherit the cosmos as he understands plots and machinations like few others – and certainly more than some faceless bureaucrat who just knows today.
  
  Plato’s Bastards by James A. Stewart
  A disturbing case of paranoia, but is it paranoia if they actually are out to get you? This is an all encompassing horror story, which feels like its sweat drenched and twitching with nerves in every sentence. It’s made worse by the fact that you can see much of its horror is just our reality slightly bent.
  
  Pen Pal by Milton Lesser
  What a weird, yet brilliant story. A woman seeking marriage answers a personal ad from a man with so much more experience than her – but the experience isn’t quite what she was expecting. Maybe the ending is a little pat, but the character’s journey is vividly real and you could easily apply the same story to this internet dating age.
  
  The Arbiter by John Russell Fearn
  I incline towards any story which includes a sentence beginning “Shelby Doyle, President of Earth, voted into office by common consent” – it pleases me to think that this planet’s one day democratically elected overlord will have a blandly efficient name like ‘Shelby Doyle’. Beyond that there’s not much more to this story than: Democracy + Progress = Good; Dictatorship + Inertia = Bad – but surely we know that, right?
  
  The Grandmother-Granddaughter Conspiracy by Marissa Lingen
  The nature of memory on an alien planet. Perhaps the slightest story in the whole volume, but at least it’s short.
  
  Top Secret by David Grinnell
  An amusing sketch of a tale, wherein a hapless tourist inadvertently finds something mysterious at the heart of Washington D.C. The fact that his proof comes down to a mysterious coin means it feels exactly the kind of thing which would be presented as fact by a spooky voiced man on one of those cheap UFO documentaries.
  If only those shows and those witnesses had someone as entertaining as David Grinnell to write for them.
  
  Living Under Conditions by James K. Moran
  Our protagonist observes that his world is like a dream, and that’s just what this story feels like – with up being down, and 5 being both lower and higher than 12. There’s a depressing reality at the heart of this though. If we did suddenly find ourselves in a world where both gravity and time failed, some “dumb middle aged white men in suits” would try to monetise it.
  
  Sense of Obligation by Harry Harrison
  Flash Gordon couldn’t be any more the obvious touchstone here if the central character was named Dash Morgan.
  A great athlete and champion of his world is recruited as an agent by a secret organisation and sent to deal with an inter-planetary conflict that could result in the destruction of two planets. At stake is nuclear Armageddon, the destruction of a peaceful utopia, as well the annihilation of a race of man which has evolved to fit in to a remarkable degree with his adopted home. You can see how much they need a hero, as the moment he arrives at his base he has to get down to some very serious admin.
  There are some pacing problems here then – as the middle section of this story consists of a long and increasingly tedious march across some dessert, before the aforementioned paperwork. That detail is totally bizarre. Yes, an inter-galactic James Bond would need to read documents and fill in forms, but there’s no need for the author to actually focus on him studiously reading documents and laboriously fill in forms. Although, maybe we should be thankful that there isn’t a whole chapter devoted to the finding of new staples.
  Fortunately this follows an exciting start and leads into a heart racing finish. Okay, some of the dialogue and gender politics may raise some eyebrows, but this is for the main good old fashioned, boy’s own sci-fi.
  
  Angel’s Egg by Edgar Pangborn
  The opening passages of this tale suggest a more paranoid, 1950s, reds under the bed type tale than the one we actually get. Instead it’s a pretty and dream-like story of a bookish bachelor living with an alien who he perceives as an angel. It’s pleasant enough, but lacks true tension and drama.
  
  Youth by Isaac Asimov
  Just as it seems incredibly likely to me that if an alien spaceship were to land to in Central Park, the plot of the original ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ would play out and some over-eager American soldier would shoot the first creature to emerge; so it seems likely that if intelligent, but small creatures crash landed here, some young boys would swiftly cage them up with thoughts of making money of them. An amusing and charming tale which builds to an elegant twist, even if everyone does speak as if they’re a character in a 1950s TV show.
  
  Anthem by Ayn Rand
  So, my first ever reading of Ayn Rand and she doesn’t let me down in the strident shouting of her views. In terms of this story itself then there’s a lot for most people to agree with – man shouldn’t be totally subservient to the state; man shouldn’t have his individuality stifled; man should be free to choose who he falls in love with. Yet when we get to the final two chapters, where our hero escapes the nightmarish communist state and embraces freedom, then some of the implications are a tad troubling. It’s a case of a man escaping the pit of vipers, letting a few others also escape said pit, but ignoring anybody who might need a bit of a hand getting out.
  It’s mostly well written (ok, until the preachy bits at the end), which given her literary reputation I wasn’t really expecting; and I have to say that it’s an incredibly well captured world. Having done all that hard work though, it would have been great if it hadn’t turned it into the most unsubtle political tract which is all fury and slogans.
• 
  Tim

  Interesting mix of sci-fi tales, some better than others. Honestly, I'm not a big sci-fi fan but figured I'd give this a try and it worked out pretty well for me in the short story format. Wildside Press Megapacks have to be the best bargain available, and anyone interested in them might want to check out the Goodreads group Wildside Press, a list of them is available there.
  3-1/2 stars.
• 
  Jan

  Well, well, well - I found this collection of short stories a pleasant read. Good bang for your bucks. All stories were "consumable", most of them entertaining. I was not a big fan of the angel story, though it was written well.
  I was a bit afraid of the Ayn Rand story, because I personally disgust her philosophy and think she was a really unpleasant person. That's probably because me and the people who like her (like the american (neo) conservatives) are fundamentally incompatible. However, though her story was highly formulaic and predictable (because of her philosophy), it wasn't as bad as I thought.
  
  So, overall I would actually recommend this sci-fi short story collection (there's one longer story in it as well).
• 
  Martin

  This is a mixed bag, some great stories, and some I didn't enjoy, but being short stories you never get bogged down in a dull one for long.
• 
  Patiscynical

  The Fourth Science Fiction Megapack
  
  There were a couple of excellent stories, a few good ones, and the rest were mediocre.
  But at $0.99, it's still a great deal. And really, some of you will like stories I doubt didn't, and dislike the stories I loved.
  What I enjoy most is rereading stories that I read and enjoyed from my youth, though finding new authors and stories to enjoy is great fun too.
  Results: a good deal and some good stories. There were some issues with formatting, and proofing also. This was mentioned in the book's description, and it was definitely noticeable, so if that is a big problem for you, you may want to skip this particular edition.
• 
  Loretta

  A very mixed bag. Some oldies that kinda showed their age, some oldies that were quite thought provoking, a bunch of middle-aged fine but unremarkable stories. I enjoyed the Harry Harrison novella quite a lot (made me want to go back to the Stainless Steel Rat), while also cringing at the sexism. And then there was the Ayn Rand story which uuugggghhhhhh and blecccchhhhh.
• 
  Sotolf Flasskjegg

  This was a good mix of stories, some really good, some just meh, but it was just nice getting to read many different kinds of stories from different kinds of people. All in all I'm ysquite happy that I read it.
• 
  Ricky Kimsey

  Good Mixture
  
  This volume has a good mixture of established names in the science fiction genre along with some relative newcomers. There's a little bit everything from pulp sf to more thoughtful pieces. Whatever your taste there's probably be a story you will like here.
• 
  David Osborne

  Another good collection.
  
  As always, a good collection of public domain science fiction. And (again) yes, these are all available for free but I'll pay 99 cents for the editing and curation.
• 
  Andrea Swinsco

  As with most anthologies there is a mx of mediocre stories with the occasional very worthwhile piece. The trouble is you have to work your way through everything to find those gems.
• 
  Al Philipson

  5 out of 25 stories were decent. The other 20 were a waste of my time.
• 
  James King

  Great collection.
  
  Excellent group of stories both old and newer, including an Ayn Rand that was the best of her's I have read (partially because it was the shortest).
• 
  John Harvey

  An anthology of fine stories!
  
  Stories old and new, at least to me, one or two I have read before others were new to me, I enjoyed them all!
• 
  Anthony Faber

  Middle of the road collection.
• 
  Bookbear

  Collection of SF stories. Old ones, and newer ones. I gave up about half-way through. I only liked the one by Katherine MacLean and by Kurt Vonnegut.
• 
  Bill Borre

  “The Big Trip Up Yonder” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - This story is a satire based on the consequences of science lengthening the human life span.
• 
  Michelle Swanson

  Some hit and misses not a bad collection of stories .
• 
  Shrikrishna

  Mixed bag. Good variation of themes
  
  The stories are very different. Some of the sci fi themes, I encountered for the very first time.
  
  On the other hand, since this is an anthology, and some authors are obviously better than others, at times, I found myself having to push myself through pages. I have to note, however, that even in these cases, the overarching narratives were interesting enough that I didn't want to skip them altogether
  
• 
  Noor Jahangir

  A collection of sf stories by legends and rising stars, including two of the greatest, Asimov and Philip K Dick.
  The general theme of the stories seem to be first contact with alien races, but if you are expecting something in the vain of Spielberg's Close Encounters, than think again. Each of the stories takes its own approach to the concept, often portraying humans as the advanced alien race, or as a space-fairing race coming into contact with new species and entities, like in Beyond Lies the Wub, by Philip K Dick, where the humans barter for a large porcine creatures with the locals but get more than they bargain for. There are other tales too, such as The Life Work of Professor Muntz by Murray Leinster, which is a time travel story and The Big Trip Up Yonder by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., a cautionary tale about the dangers (or the lack of them) of the fountain of youth.
  The Megapacks are generally some of the best sf stories curated by some of the biggest names in Sf and will definitely entertain, amuse and challenge the stereotypes of sf.
• 
  Jim Kratzok

  Some of the stories in this collection were ones I've read before over the years while others were brand new to me. Some were clunkers while others were fantastic. I don't plan to review each story but will say that Angel's Egg by Edgar Pangborn was superb! Youth by Isaac Asimov had a twist at the end I didn't expect. Tiny and the Monster by Theodore Sturgeon was a cute little story. Most of the others were readable and some were enjoyable. A number were really pretty dated.
  
  All in all it was a pretty decent collection. Especially for the price.
• 
  Doppelganger

  There are some solid short stories in this collection and I'd recommend it to those into classic sci-fi. As you'd expect, some are better than others and despite a couple stinkers, there are gems to be found here. Two of my favorites were Issac Asimov's "Youth" and E.C. Tubbs "Food for Friendship". The latter was really short and I found myself wanting it to be much longer! At the prices these e-books go for, they're definitely worth checking out.
• 
  jersey9000

  I have already reviewed the the first three of these sexy compendiums, so not much new to say. Again, these stories are skewing newer, so becoming more my speed. Like the last Megapack, some good stuff, some great stuff, some okay stuff. My favorite in this bunch is Food For Friendship. Reminded me of a twilight zone episode. If you liked the others, you'd dig this for sure.
• 
  Storm Chase

  Absolutely fantastic collection of short stories! Seriously, if you're working and just don't dare pick up a novel,in case it keeps you up all night, check this iut. My fave is the Kurt Vonnegut story.
• 
  Cade

  As anthologies can be, this was a very mixed bag. The quality of the stories varied considerably. There were a few good ones, but overall, I wasn't too impressed. The description says it is a combination of classic and modern sci-fi, but it seemed to be almost all older material.