I got thos in the mail tpday. It is such a pretty cover. It is bright and i really want a ostet size copy of it to frame. I dont even know what the book os about, but it is pretty.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Star Light Star Bright - Harcourt Brace ... A beautifully illustrated book of songs, rhymes, poems and stories for young kids.

This is a solid, if not spectacular, collection of short stories. The problem is, based on the two Bester novels I've read, I expect spectacular. I expect him to bend language to his will and plunge headlong into experimentation and emerge with gems. In this collection, only one story explores those aspects of his writing that I've most enjoyed in the past. For the rest, they were entertaining, but I don't really expect them to stay with me in the same way The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man have.

Story by story:

"Adam and No Eve"

This is an entertaining take on the "last man on earth" tale, with a twist, hinted at in the title - no one else to repopulate the earth with. In fact, it goes beyond that into being a "last living thing on earth." The ending is entertaining, the cataclysm that led to the destruction of all life on earth a frightening look at hubris.

"Time is the Traitor"

This is one of my favourite stories in the book, other than "The Pi Man." In the future, corporations and governments and everything, really, have grown so complex that almost no one can hold all the aspects of a large problem in their head and come up with a sensible answer. No one, that is, except for John Strapp. Naturally, his services are in great demand. There's only one problem. He keeps murdering men named Kruger. This one is entertaining and engrossing.

"Oddy and Id"

"Oddy and Id" is entertaining, but a bit too straightforward for Bester. A young man named Oddy has industrial-strength luck, and four college professors think they can use that to save the solar system. His luck has other plans....

"Hobson's Choice"

After a nuclear cataclysm, one statistician notes a statistical anomaly - the population keeps going up. And it really shouldn't. What he finds when he checks it out in person is a lot of fun. And I like the ambiguous ending.

"Star Light, Star Bright"

This story is way too similar to "Oddy and Id," as far as I'm concerned. It's perhaps the better of the two, but the two tread more or less the same ground with more or less the same results.

"They Don't Make Life Like They Used To"

A last-two-people-on-earth tale, except they're not sure they like each other very much, and at least one of them is probably lying. The vision of a deserted New York is interesting, but the story is a bit too cute sometimes.

"Of Time and Third Avenue"

A man accidentally buys a year almanac for forty years in the future, and a time traveller must convince him to give it up, unread. This one is twisty enough that it thoroughly satisfied me. I mostly but not quite guessed the ending, but the discussion over knowing the future was worth the price of admission.

"Isaac Asimov"

A magazine piece Bester wrote on Asimov, it's short and entertaining.

"The Pi Man"

This is the best story of the bunch, the one where Bester comes closest to the kind of writing that I've so enjoyed before. The Pi Man is buffeted by patterns, everywhere he goes, and the patterns demand righting, even if it leads him to do some pretty nasty things. Government certainly don't understand this. He doesn't even understand this. What does balance demand? And who's demanding it?

"Something Up There Likes Me"

I was literally in the middle of reading this story when I took a break, surfed the internet, and came upon a short speculative piece about how satellites could develop intelligence. The synchronicity astounded me, as that's what happens in the story. And the lead satellite, OBO, has quite the sense of humour.

While I'm talking about this one, I should say that his female characters are very well drawn, particularly compared to some other stories written in the same time period. They don't gurgle or burble, they aren't just out for sex or to mess the men up. They're about as well developed as the men in the stories, and if that's not always to an incredible degree, at least it's true for everyone.

"My Affair with Science Fiction"

An account of his science fiction writing career, and why he stopped. His discussion with John Campbell about Dianetics is a gem.

If you've read Bester's two great novels, and are looking for more, this is worthwhile. If you haven't, start with those. They're definitely his masterworks.

How does Ms. Johansen come up with these quirky characters and unusual story ideas? Gunner is something else. A daredevil who assumes risk as part of his job with the Clanad. He takes care of little Andrew, who went through a traumatic event that caused him to segment his personality, an action that could prove very dangerous for a powerful telepath like this boy. Part of his plan is to hire a nanny to help watch out for Andrew as they spend time at Andrew's mother's cottage with a man who could help in Andrew's therapy. Steven is a grown man who has an extremely low IQ and needs help being functional in society. Gunner believes that Andrew will gravitate towards Steven, and this will help him heal from his own mental trauma.Quenby is a very conventional woman who has dedicated herself to caring for children as a highly trained nanny. She takes the job to care for Andrew, having no idea what kind of crazy scenario she will involve herself with. She falls in love with Andrew, and ends up falling in love with the risk-taker Gunner. Gunner believes in the concept of fated mates, and knows that Quenby is his. He hits the ground running in his pursuit of Quenby, proving to be a tough man to resist for the lonely Quenby, who was betrayed in love once, and has kept herself from getting involved since then. Gunner loves everything about Quenby, and is determined to show her that they belong together. He believes he's a freak because of his psychic gifts, and has a savior complex, because he wasn't there to protect his family when they were massacred by the soldiers that invaded and absorbed his small native country. Since then, he's put himself at risk again and again on behalf of his adopted family, the Clanad, a group of psychic people who've settled in Sedikhan. Quenby doesn't like Gunner's tendency to put himself in danger. She wants to protect him and keep him safe. She's cautious about their courtship, but definitely feels the strong attraction between them. Star Light, Star Bright has Ms. Johansen's characteristic sensuality and compelling romance. The story of Andrew and Steven's healing process is poignant, as well as Gunner's issues with the loss of his family and his inadequacies about his psychic gifts. I found Gunner adorable. I could see why Quenby couldn't resist him. This was a good story, but I liked A Tough Man To Tame a little more, since the pace was a little faster in that book. But, it was great to read about Quenby and Gunner's courtship, since they show up as a happily married couple in A Tough Man to Tame. It's been great to get copies of Iris Johansen's oldies. Looking forward to reading more of them.