The Best of Walter M. Miller. Jr.

I haven't read A Canticle for Liebowitz or Saint Liebowitz and the Wild Horse Woman. Thus this yellow-jacketed reissue was my first brush with the fiction of Walter M Miller. Here we have 14 stories spread over 472 pages, all written between 1952 and 1957. Possibly because of this some of them seem to exhibit more than a passing resemblance to some of Philip K Dick's early short stories. In fact whether or not you like those early Dick tales will probably determine whether or not you like these. Here we have far-future communities who have returned to a Middle Ages existence coming to terms with a giant computer and its robot guardian, post-apocalyptic stories, evil aliens dealing in human cargo, plays where the entire cast is composed of robots, and the story of a world-wide plague which becomes a thinly-disguised meditation on the implications and consequences of intolerance. None of these tales offers anything new or startlingly original, but then they are over 40 years old. They're also well written delightful examples of fifties' SF. And I'll be reading the Liebowitz books when I get a chance.

As the title suggests, this book collects the best short stories and novellas of Walter Miller, Jr., the '50's science fiction writer best known for the brilliant novel "A Canticle for Leibowitz". Miller isn't overly strong on science, so none of these pieces come off as especially dated by recent discoveries, although it's interesting that so many of the technological innovations Miller foresaw have since been realized, albeit in somewhat different forms. The characterization is about what you'd expect from science fiction stories, and of the novellas, only the hero of "Darfstellar" shows real development. Nor is plotting Miller's great strength - too many of the conclusions seem obvious well before the halfway point. As a group, these stories get their punch from powerful ideas - problems that humankind has never solved, but which are likely to get worse in the future. Although Miller doesn't offer any easy solutions, his stories are intelligent and thought provoking, opening up the kind of dialogue that's necessary if these matters are ever to be settled at all. Also noteworthy are his powerful heroines. The overwhelming force of a mother's love drives the folksy "You Triflin' Skunk" and the darker "Vengeance for Nikolai", while "Anybody Else Like Me?" shows a woman driven to fight for her right to privacy. Another common theme is the question of how we define what it means to be human. Miller attacks this problem biologically in the unusual plague drama of "Dark Benediction" and the more-relevant-than-ever "Conditionally Human", and again in a more technological vein with "I, Dreamer". But while these stories are good enough in their way, Miller is most effective when describing the plight of the common workingman. Whether in conflict with technology that replaces him, or with environments that seem determined to destroy him (or at least impinge upon his freedom of action, as in "Dumb Waiter"), Miller's workingman manages to maintain his essential dignity, continues to care about his fellow man, and holds fast to the basic values that separate him from the machine. The best of these stories is "Crucifixus Etiam", in which earthmen working on the planet Mars must choose between a less miserable present and the chance to return home in the future. Miller makes us feel the hero's pain, his terror, and his longing for home, in a way that makes us wonder whether we would be able to make the harsh choices that he makes. Miller's tales often remind us that the true price of human expansion is the hard labor performed by those who are least likely to be compensated for it, and thus proves that true heroism often consists of just doing an unpleasant task that needs to be done - a lesson we should all try to learn. Miller may not be one of the grandmasters of the genre, but this book should please any fan of mid-twentieth-century science fiction.