PLANETS OF WONDER: A Treasury of Space Opera

In the realm of space opera, a race of blond, blue-eyed Valkyries inhabit a planet within our solar system, earthman Northwest Smith shares a whiskey with his Venusian friend Yarol before setting off to find the remains of a god named Black Pharol, and romances between hapless spacemen and non-human ladies are no joke. Carr treats us to four vintage stories by masters of the genre--C. L. Moore, Henry Kuttner, Leigh Brackett, and Edmond Hamilton. All four, Carr promises us, have been long out of print, and if the stories themselves are best read in the spirit of nostalgia, his editorial appreciations--and, in particular, his introduction to the Edmond Hamilton character who figured prominently in a case studied by psychologist Robert Lindner--are collector's items in another sense. For aficionados.