Love Not Human

This little book jumped into my shopping cart one evening at the supermarket back around 1980. I think it detected someone with time on his hands and a need to have an impression made on him. Also, the wire rack it was living in made a horrible screech when it was rotated, and I suspect the book wanted to rest in some more serene environment. I don't know if it found that, but it now has the company of the several other copies I bought over the years for lending out. The title exists in two different covers that I am aware of. Most of the stories in this book are passable SF shorts, while one was probably included to let us know that even good writers have their embarrassing moments. Two stories have lived with me nearly every day since I first read them. I regularly host reading parties, and these two stories were staples for a while, but their emotional impact on me has only increased over the years, and I am no longer able read them in public. It's not that they are sentimental, but that they both illustrate true greatness in unexpected places. "Black Charlie" begins with the question "So, what is art, you ask." And then he tells you. Dickson apparently knew he had done something better than good with this story, because he expanded it into a short novel called "Alien Art". This is unfortunate, because the short story is on my short list of great stories, while I have never been able to finish the novel. "The Christmas Present" is another great story. This one is about what we don't know and therefore can't possibly understand, and what we therefore understand instead.

I bought it for the cover illustration, in about 1983; a painting of a diver confronting a Plesiosaur underwater. It was for one of the many stories in the collection by various sci-fi authors. I started with that story (the final one) and found it was about a diver who meets an intelligent Loch Ness monster that cares for his injuries from an accident. I went on to read the other stories, and soon learned the meaning of the title. All of the sci-fi stories feature a love bond between a human and some non-human being or intelligence. One was about a boy and his telepathic "man-o'-war" creature. It's been about 18 years, but some of the stories have really stuck. I also like to read fiction in short bursts which made this book a great selection for me. Many stories by the big names of sci-fi: Piers Anthony, Isaac Asimov, and many more.