MEN, MARTIANS AND MACHINES
By
A riotous pulp-space-opera parody which, since its appearance as a story series in the 1940s, has had many imitations but few equals. These are the voyages of the experimental starship Marathon and its cheerfully undisciplined crew: robot pilot Jay Score--plus a mixed complement of anarchistic humans and ten-armed, goggle-eyed, chess-playing Martians. And, zipping about the cosmos discovering new planets, these star-trekkers invariably come to blows with strange new lifeforms. In the first story, Jay Score saves the ship after a disastrous meteor strike. In ""Mechanistra"" the Marathon encounters a planet inhabited by mechanical lifeforms organized like a giant computerized termite mound, who are naturally hostile to all organic life. ""Symbiotica"" features a world dominated by dryad-creatures and their sentient trees. The ropy black aliens of ""Mesmerica"" have hypnotic powers. And Russell's style is a relaxed and successful mid-Atlantic hybrid: wisecracking, irreverent, humorous and wry. Grand entertainment all the way--and, despite its previous appearances (little-known hardcover, better-known paperback), a worthy first volume in the Classics of Modern Science Fiction Series. (See Farmer, Gunn, Oliver, above.)