IN IRON YEARS

by Gordon R. Dickson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 22, 1980

At his best Dickson is as good as any sf writer going. That isn't very often, but it's worth waiting for-- so be prepared to wait through six fair-to-middling stories here: ""Zeepsday,"" a mildly amusing account of an interspecies libeltrial; the hollow, self-important title story, set in a grim future of singularly vapid scientific rationale; two witty, chilly little stories, one about a business executive trying to get rid of an elderly and superfluous secretary, the other about a hypnagogically preconditioned assassin; plus two mediocre efforts. These past, however, one comes upon the long short story ""Things Which Are Caesar's,"" which may be the finest thing Dickson has ever done. It's about a handful of chance-met acquaintances in a vast throng assembled to experience a predicted ""Sign from Heaven."" Once this piece of spiritual punctuation has come and gone, most of the witnesses continue their lives with apparently unchanged despair and hostility; two, however, are at last released from inner bondage. The confluence of these muddled searches is portrayed with deep but well-judged sympathy. . . with, alas, one glaring exception: Dickson never finds the right talking or thinking language for wandering-Jew protagonist Ranald, who ought to strike a note of unsentimental plangency. Still, the story astonishingly survives this very large failure--and it alone makes this collection an sf necessity.

Pub Date: Aug. 22, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION