COSMIC LAUGHTER: Science Fiction for the Fun of It

by Joe--Ed. Haldeman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 28, 1974

The prevailing quality and tone (the protagonists go in for the usual girl ogling, etc.,) would perhaps be more comfortably suited to the pulps where these stories originally appeared between 1950 and 1971. But kids who've developed a special taste for this sort of absurdist sci fi humor will find what they're looking for here: ranging from the obvious epidemic of superman complexes in Spinrad's ""It's a Bird, It's a Plane"" and Terry Cart's incompetent corps of robots who ""continue to labor unacquittingly in the muddy fields of time"" to the more complicated time travels of ""The Men Who Murdered Mohammed"" (which proves that time is like spaghetti; ""each of us must travel up and down his own strand alone"") and Haldeman's own ""I of Newton,"" whose punchline -- ""You and Ernest Hemingway"" -- will probably be over the heads of most juvenile readers. These nine stories represent just one strand of science fiction humor (and not the most sophisticated examples of that), but they're worth encountering -- if just ""for the fun of it.

Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Holt, Rinehart & Winston

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1974

Categories: FICTION