A GALAXY OF STRANGERS
By
Eight yarns by a reliable sf professional who comes up with good ideas and develops them with more perspiration than inspiration. In the former category are a story of good old schoolteaching overcoming mass-marketed TV instruction and a farm-boy-rescues-alien-girl tale. Among the more spirited offerings: the invasion of the Pittsburgh Pirates, at the nadir of a losing season, by five extraterrestrial juvenile delinquents of telekinetic abilities; a new religion which starts as an attempt to subvert a national lottery system and becomes something more than bargained for; a journey to a mirror-image Kroywen where the hotel porter tips you and you collect on every purchase instead of paying for it. Pleasant, chipper, unassuming.