With Friends Like These...

Rating:
Summary: 12 excellent short stories
Review: Few of the stories herein are set in the (currently) known Humanx Commonwealth, and Pip and Flinx do not appear. Don't let that distract you; this is good stuff.

"Dream Done Green" (1974) Far in the future, humanity has spread across the galaxy, dragging other species in its wake. To use another author's term, many (possibly all) of the other surviving animal species once native to Earth have been 'uplifted' to become sapient. The stallion Pericles is not content with the lot of the 'mals', however. He approaches rich, bored young Casperdan on the day before she comes of age, to persuade her to help him make his dream a reality - a life's work. See if you can figure out the details of his dream before the author reveals them.

"The Emoman" (1972) The 'emoman' in question deals in mysterious drugs - the buyer asks for a particular emotion and gets it. Although his full name isn't given in the story, Sawbill the emoman is Sawbill September, brother of Skua September.

"The Empire of T'ang Lang" (1973) A day in the life (and from the perspective) of the warrior T'ang Lang - have fun identifying the various species and objects he encounters. (T'ang Lang himself is a cat, incidentally.)

"He" (1976) A *really* big sea monster (Foster considers Jaws a minnow by comparison). :)

"A Miracle of Small Fishes" (1974) Reminds me of Hemingway's _The Old Man and the Sea_. Josefa prays for her grandfather to make one last good catch of sardines before the cough takes him - but in this day and age, the sardine schools are manipulated by controlled releases of nutrients, and are intercepted far north of Josefa's hometown...

"Polonaise" (1975) An alternate history, in which Poland was not partitioned in 1772, but rose to become a great world power, lending assistance to the American Revolutionary War.

"Some Notes Concerning a Green Box" (1971) Foster's first professional sale, originally just a Lovecraftian fan letter to August Derleth.

"Space Opera" (1973) Captain Cleve has been ordered to take a major newscaster along on the first mission to contact an alien race - and fears that the mission may be jeopardized for the sake of ratings.

"Why Johnny Can't Speed" (1971) What if Congress opted to pay for a nationwide mass transit system by eliminating highway patrols, and the Supreme Court ruled that attempts to regulate interstate highway systems were in violation of the 1st Amendment? Machine guns and rocket launchers built into cars, that's what. Frank Irwin, learning of the death of his only son in a lane change dispute, prepares to exact payback.

"With Friends Like These" (1971) The Yops, who prey on all other species for food, have driven the remaining strength of the united galaxy to violate the Edict forbidding contact with the most feared race in known space, left trapped on their own planet for centuries: the humans of Earth.

IRRELEVANT NOTE: The paperback edition's Michael Whelan cover painting, taken from the title story (introducing the alien visitors to chocolate chip cookies and ice cream), includes a self-portrait of the artist.

"Wolfstroker" (1977) "Sam Parker...was an agent. Not undercover, but theatrical, which was harder on body and soul." After a disastrous incident with a talent who worked with trained dogs, Sam is due for luck - and finds it, in the form of Willie Whitehorse, who can play his audience's emotions as he plays his guitar.

"Ye Who Would Sing" (1976) Caitland, having just killed a man for his employers, crashes in an isolated forest - the only place anywhere on Chee, or anywhere else, that more than four of its priceless chimer trees still sing. But Katie, the solitary woman studying the trees who rescues him from the wreck, must be crazy - she hasn't staked a claim or sold a single seedling.