Sci-Fi Shorts, Volume 3

By: Harl Vincent, Harry Harrison, Evelyn E Smith, Fritz Leiber, Paul W Fairman, Charles L Fontenay

Narrated by: Felbrigg Napoleon Herriot

Sci-Fi Shorts is a collection of classic science fiction stories from the golden age of space fiction. This group of six unabridged short stories by various authors covers such adventures as secret research projects, underground robot organisations, a subjugated Earth, getting trapped in the void, alien minds, and strangers from Jupiter.

©2017 Harl Vincent, Harry Harrison, Evelyn E. Smith, Fritz Leiber, Paul W. Fairman, Charles L. Fontenay (P)2017 Felbrigg Herriot

Table of Contents

This collection contains the following stories:

"Terrors Unseen" by Harl Vincent
"The Velvet Glove" by Harry Harrison
"The Blue Tower" by Evelyn E. Smith
"The Hitch in Space" by Fritz Lieber
"The Beasts in the Void" by Paul W. Fairman
"The Jupiter Weapon" by Charles L. Fauntenay

They are all fairly entertaining old stories with some clever ideas and twists.

Nice assortment of classic Sci Fi pulp stories

Each story rates differently, and some were very good indeed, but the narrator is mediocre. He has a pleasant British accent and reads clearly, but doesn't vary his characters voices or convey much emotion.

The stories themselves are mostly solid picks by mostly noted writers, but also mostly dated by our leaps in modern science and the freedom women have today to be more that the scientist's beautiful daughter in need of rescue.

1. "Terrors Unseen" by Harl Vincent from Astounding Stories, March 1931. One star.
This is the oldest story in the collection, and the weakest. Invisible robots are an intriguing idea, but the story revolves around a hackneyed mobster heist, with rampant racial slurs and stereotypes.

2. "The Velvet Glove" by Harry Harrison from Fantastic Universe, November 1956. Four stars.
This was a fun, gritty tale of sentient and emotionally aware robots enduring the hardships of second-class citizenship, scrabbling for work to keep their power on. It has some mystery and surprise twists along the way to a satisfying end.

3. "The Blue Tower" by Evelyn E. Smith from Galaxy Magazine, February 1958, Four stars.
Is our narrator living in a utopia or just oblivious to manipulation and control? Who can be trusted and what should be done? A psychological thought-provoking tale from E.E. Smith.

4. "A Hitch in Space" by Fritz Leiber from Worlds of Tomorrow, August 1963. Four stars.
An unnerving little tale about two spaceman on a routine inspection tour. When one of them slides from neurotic beliefs into psychosis, how will the other man survive?

5. "The Beasts in the Void" by Paul W. Fairman from Imagination, April 1956. Three stars.
Another psychological sci fi story, where a chartered hunting trip finds savage animals manifesting around their spaceship...and then inside it. Reminiscent of classic Star Trek episodes which solve a mystery by expanding the characters' understanding of life ad intelligence. I got this collection because Paul W. Fairman wrote my favorite children's sci-fi book, "The Tunnel Through Time." under the name of the publisher, Lester del Rey.
I really liked this story but took away an extra star because it was marred by sexist attitudes, like the protagonist slapping a woman because he considered her slutty. Star Trek had a similar macho bent too.

6. "The Jupiter Weapon" by Charles L. Fontenay from Amazing Science Fiction Stories, March 1959. Three stars.
A short, powerful man claims to have been born on Jupiter. Could that explain his abilities or is he an android? Short and brisk, but with a poor understanding of Jupiter as a super-dense "hard" planet, rather than as the gas giant we now believe it to be.

overall, a mediocre Sci-fi stories

If you want to be thorough, so listen to this collection, it's have a few nice ideas with ok stories around them.
but if your time is precious, pass on.
the narrator is not helping to the cause...