More Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction

Dann, Jack (editor). "More Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jewish Lights, 1999. Even More Amos Lassen "More Wandering Stars" is the sequel to the highly successful "Wandering Stars", an anthology of Jewish fantasy and science fiction. The stories here deal with such themes as mothers, aliens and demons, the Messiah and all of the stories are by good writers--Horace L. Gold, Jack Dann, Woody Allen (yes, Woody Allen), Harlan Ellison, Isaac Bashevis Singer and others. The book is good -just not as good as its predecessor. Most of the stories deal with fantasy and not science fiction. Several of the stories do require a little education in Jewish history and culture. Unlike the previous volume in which all of the stories were good, there are several here that are only fair. I do not know if I would have wanted to read this book if I were not doing so because of the book group that I am a member of but now that I have, I can recommend it.

I must admit that I didn't enjoy this anthology as much as its 1974 predecessor, "Wandering Stars." Maybe that's because I read "Wandering Stars" way back in the 70s, when I was like a thirsty man in the desert, delighted to find anything F & SF with a Jewish theme. "More Wandering Stars" I just read for the first time this weekend, (somehow I missed it in 1981), and my expectations are now higher. Hence the four star rating -- it's a good read, but not as good as its predecessor. There is very little science fiction here -- most of the pieces are more like fantasy, and some would be difficult to distinguish from ordinary Jewish folklore. I.B. Singer's "The Last Demon" is one of these, as is "The Celestial Orchestra" by Howard Schwartz, which is really a re-telling of a classic tale by the 18th-century Hasidic Rebbe, Nachman of Breslov. Don't get me wrong -- there is some good speculative fiction included. I especially liked "Phyllis Gotlieb's "Tauf Aleph" (named after the last and first letters of the Hebrew alphabet), about a robot programmed with the entire corpus of Jewish knowledge and sent to the planet of the last Jew in the universe. (That one is definitely SF). In "Dress Rehearsal" by Harvey Jacobs, a group of aliens are learning English from a Jewish actor -- with humorous results, but you need to know some Yiddish to get the jokes. The same is true of Isaac Asimov's intro, where he slips into the Yinglish patois of his Jewish upbringing, to give us a tongue-in-cheek SF analysis of the Bible. On the more serious side, there's "Warm Dark Places" by Horace L. Gold, which is a sort of sequel to his "Trouble With Water" in the previous "Stars" anthology. But, whereas "Trouble" is rather humorous, "Dark Places" is a creepy little tale. Then there's "Camps" by Jack ("Yankele") Dann, where a hospital patient keeps having nightmares about life in a concentration camp -- a place where he has never been, in this life at least... (Readers of my own books on cases of reincarnation from the Holocaust should note that Dann's story was published in 1979, only three years before my first case in 1981. I find that rather eerie.) Quite a few of these stories require a modicum (or more) of knowledge about Jewish history and culture in order to understand the themes or, in some cases, the satire. "Leviticus: in the Ark" is one such, where a man is chosen each year to be locked in the Ark at the front of the synagogue where the Torah scrolls are kept. No, folks, there is NO such a ritual in Judaism, and never has been. The tale is an allegory for loss of faith. Ditto for "The Pagan Rabbi." In the case of "Forcing the End" by Hugh Nissenson, it helps to know the story of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai -- which Jack Dann has thoughtfully provided in his intro to the tale. As for the rest of the stories, most of them didn't do it for me. Harlan Ellison's "Mom" was a hackneyed disappointment, because the "Jewish Mother" stereotype is so outdated

I enjoy science fiction short stories and I enjoy stories with a Jewish view, so this seemed like a perfect collection for me. It was. I found it interesting to see what these different writers, from Woody Allen to Isac Bashevis Singer and Harlan Ellison, came up with for a Jewish sci-fi story. As with any story collection some are better than others. Some basic knowledge of Judaism and Jewish history helps to understand some of the stories.