This one really did blow me away. Just a couple of weeks ago I read the Analog 6 anthology from 1968, a rather staid collection of stories in the classic sf mode. Most (though not quite all) of this 1973 collection are tremendous, many of them somewhat subversive – particularly on gender issues, this at a time when the author was still believed to be a man (and is referred to in the masculine in Harry Harrison’s introduction. The one that particularly lingers with me is “The Man Who Walked Home”, which I had forgotten was by Tiptree – the one about the time traveller who appears on the spot of his own demise once a year. There’s also a rather atypical time travel romance, “Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket”, and the Hugo-winning “Painwise” which I didn’t remember having read before. A really excellent anthology – I think I prefer it to the later Star Songs of an Old Primate which I also enjoyed a couple of years back.
From the Heart of Europe
Books, politics, languages and life
I have a nice story about this from a friend who works in the UK public sector, and waas asked to write an open reference for someone who had been completely useless.
They wrote, “Mr X completed every task to his complete satisfaction.”
One potential employer called to ask if this was what they had meant to write, and my friend replied, well, one could not possibly change anything written in an open reference!