The Halfling And Other Stories

A great collection, right on 4.75. It could use an introduction, and an odd error, the last story is left off the Table of Contents, but still in the book, which is the far better way around to have that problem. There are many strong stories to be found here, the title story being one of the notables, along with the Eric John Stark story. Halfling and Other Stories : The Halfling - Leigh Brackett Halfling and Other Stories : The Dancing Girl of Ganymede - Leigh Brackett Halfling and Other Stories : The Citadel of Lost Ages - Leigh Brackett Halfling and Other Stories : All the Colors of the Rainbow - Leigh Brackett Halfling and Other Stories : The Shadows - Leigh Brackett Halfling and Other Stories : Enchantress of Venus - Leigh Brackett Halfling and Other Stories : The Lake of the Gone Forever - Leigh Brackett Halfling and Other Stories : The Truants - Leigh Brackett Catmen cult girl dance of revenge. 4 out of 5 Girlbot love verboten. 3.5 out of 5 Dark star rediscovery beastmen fryup. 3.5 out of 5 Greeny's racist whitey flood revenge seeding. 4 out of 5 Dog remnant rare space friends. 4 out of 5 Stark goes looking to find a lost friend he thinks is in trouble, and ends up fomenting a slave rebellion, among other things. 4 out of 5 Transuranic memories. 3.5 out of 5 Space kids go home. 3.5 out of 5

This is, as you can see by the title, a compilation of short stories. It is probably the first non-Star Trek Sci-Fi book I read as a child and hooked me on the story-telling capabilities of Leigh Brackett. The stories pretty much cover the gamut of man-vs-machine, man-vs-god, man-vs-man. They also address racism, slavery, the despair of being only human in this immense galaxy and the hope and delight in being human in this immense galaxy. The writing style is haunting. The titles are evocative. Try "The Lake of the Gone Forever", "All the Colors of the Rainbow", "The Citadel of Lost Ages" or my personal favorite, "The Shadows". These stories still make me laugh and cry and I am now 38 years old. I hope the publishers will wake up and do a reprint of this book someday.