SPACE MAIL, VOL. II

ARTHUR C. CLARKE charts the assault by superior Martians against Earthly defenders of the solar system.

ANTHONY BOUCHER follows the exploration by aliens of a surprisingly familiar planet.

L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP travels back in time to bend the course of history into a chilling, new direction.

ALGIS BUDRYS introduces an ultrasophisticated artificial man who rewrites all the rules of war and peace.

JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR., takes off beyond the final conflagration to a dazzling new stage of cosmic evolution.

BARRY N. MALZBERG penetrates the remote reaches of the mind to solve a bizarre interplanetary mystery.

PLUS MORE SPACE MAIL THAN EVER…BY OUR GREATEST SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS

The success of Space Mail prompted Asimov and Greenberg to do a sequel, although for some reason they switched co-editors and picked up Charles G. Waugh instead of Joseph Olander.

This is a distinctly inferior volume, the very best stories written in the form of diaries, letters or whatnot having already been anthologized (although they still managed to leave out “Blind Alley”—go figure). One particular disappointment for me was Mark Twain’s “Extract’s from Adam’s Diary,” which I found so incoherent as to be utterly unenjoyable. Fortunately, the volume is redeemed near the end by the inclusion of a classic L. Sprague de Camp story, “Aristotle and the Gun,” so it isn’t quite a total loss. I does, however, come much closer than one would like.