Revolution by Mack Reynolds

Pro-socialist Cold War spy story
Revolution, a novella by Mack Reynolds, was first published in the May 1960 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. How it got there, however, is a mystery, since this is not a science fiction story. Though it takes place five years in the future (i.e. 1965), it’s basically just a story of Cold War espionage, and only about as sci-fi as a James Bond film. Unlike his similar novellas Combat and Status Quo, Reynolds doesn’t even bother to sprinkle the narrative with gratuitous hovercars, just a couple of secret agent gadgets reminiscent of something Bond might get from M.

In this very-near-future vision of 1965, the USSR is winning the Cold War. Their totalitarian form of government, coupled with an abundance of cheap labor, has allowed them to outperform the U.S. in almost every sector of manufacturing. Paul Koslov is an operative for an American intelligence agency. Through years of successfully accomplished covert missions and political assassinations, Koslov has earned a reputation as a very effective and lethal agent. This time when he reports to his chief’s office for a new assignment, he is given the mother of all missions. Instead of merely thwarting a commie plot or taking out a high-profile target, he is tasked with nothing less than overthrowing the entire Soviet government. To do so, he must travel to Russia and direct the operations of the anti-Soviet underground movement within the USSR.

As in so many other Reynolds stories, the deeper the hero delves into the USSR, the more he (and the reader) discover that the Soviet system isn’t so bad after all. If separated from its totalitarian regime, Reynolds argues, Russia’s brand of socialism could actually solve many of America’s economic problems. Reynolds’s writings often put forth a socialist message, to which I am not entirely unsympathetic. I just wish he would pay more attention to the story he’s using to convey that message. The first half of Revolution is really a pretty good spy thriller, but it falls apart in the end, or in the lack thereof. Having made his political point, he sees no need to continue the story, so he cuts it off with an abrupt and lackluster ending, leaving the reader bemused and unsatisfied.

I’ve read a few great sci-fi stories by Reynolds, which convinced me to work my way through a collection of his novellas. Too often I find, however, that his writings are just half-baked political treatises dressed up in the barest of sci-fi trappings. Here in Revolution, he doesn’t even bother with the trappings. Still, if he had given this story a decent ending, all would be forgiven. As it stands, however, Revolution is disappointingly unremarkable.
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Combat by Mack Reynolds

ETs in the Kremlin
Science fiction authors have often used the genre to express their political and philosophical views, but few writers have made sci-fi as political as Mack Reynolds. During the Cold War, this prolific author penned dozens of novellas and short stories dealing with political and socio-economic issues, filling the pages of the pulp magazines with anticaptialist propaganda thinly veiled behind adventure and espionage plots set in the near future. One such novella, Combat, was originally published in the October 1960 issue of Analog Science Fact-Fiction magazine. Though this one is more engaging than many of Reynolds’s works, it ultimately suffers from the same fault that marks so many of his stories: too much politics and not enough sci-fi.

Hank Kuran is a U.S. government agent stationed in South America, where his job is to see that American industry competes favorably against that of China and the Soviet Union. His superiors call him away from his post, however, to assign him to a special secret mission to Moscow. Extraterrestrial visitors have landed on Earth, and instead of contacting the Americans, they have chosen to deal with the Soviets instead. Needless to say, the prospect of a Soviet-Alien alliance strikes fear in the heart of the American government. Kuran, who is fluent in Russian, is to pose as a tourist traveling on a package tour of Russia. When his tour group arrives in Moscow, he is to contact the aliens and act as the de facto ambassador for the U.S., opening the interplanetary lines of communication and stating the case for American supremacy over the Soviets.

For most of its length, Combat is a pretty fun spy novel. (The title is meant to be ironic. This is a Cold War after all, so the only warfare is spycraft.) To conceal his identity, Kuran pretends to espouse the views of a typical American businessman with a relentlessly pro-capitalist, American-supremacist attitude. His fellow travelers, who perceive him as an old-school conservative fuddy duddy, are quick to point out the successes and advantages of the Soviet system and rub them in his face. This approach to the story gives Reynolds the opportunity to promote his own socialist views. Throughout the narrative, he continually expresses admiration for the Communist economic system, while conceding that corruption in the Soviet hierarchy has led to totalitarianism and human rights violations. He seems to be advocating the middle ground of a socialist America that is free of capitalism yet retains its Constitutional freedoms.

I don’t have a problem with Reynolds’s political views; in fact I agree with him on some points. I just wish he would have put more effort into the science fiction framework upon which the story is built. I’ve read about a dozen of Reynolds’s works, and it surprises me that the science fiction magazines would even publish some of his stuff, since there’s actually so little sci-fi in it. The extraterrestrials in this story are little more than an afterthought. The ending is lazy and disappointing; almost an absence of an ending, quite frankly. Still, Kuran’s journey to Moscow was a fun ride while it lasted. Reynolds is a good writer when it comes to establishing characters, setting a scene, and building suspense, even if, as in this case, he doesn’t do anything with the suspense he’s built. Perhaps that’s why I keep coming back to his work. He offers just enough hope that one of his stories will deliver a truly visionary alternate future. Combat is not that story, but it is a moderately fun read for fans of Cold War sci-fi.
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The Common Man by Mack Reynolds

Hover cars are not enough
The Common Man is a science fiction novella written by Mack Reynolds. It was originally published in the January 1963 issue of Analog Science Fiction–Science Fact under the pseudonym of Guy McCord. Reynolds was a prolific sci-fi author who published dozens of novels and at least a hundred short stories under several pen names from the early 1950s until his death in 1983. I have read about a dozen of his shorter works and have found them to range widely in quality from works of bold genius to the merely mediocre. The Common Man, unfortunately, falls into the latter category.

The story opens with three scientists knocking at the door of an unassuming middle-class home in the Midwest. When the homeowner answers the door, the visitors inform him that detailed statistical analysis has determined that he, Don Crowley, is officially the perfectly average American. That in itself, however, is not the reason for their visit. They tell him that they require a specimen of his utter averageness to act as the subject of an experiment. They are testing a formula that endows the recipient with a certain superhuman power, and they need to gauge whether it will work on the typical American man. After some coaxing, Crowley agrees to be their guinea pig.

This story takes place at some point in the future. We know that because Reynolds mentions hover cars. Other than that, however, the setting is no different than the world in which we live. This is not the only story in which Reynolds inserts a flying car into an otherwise nonfuturistic tale. It seems as if he was required to do this in order to get his stories published in science fiction magazines, because, in fact, a lot of his stories are barely science fiction. Often, they are just expressions of his political or sociological opinions, but the presence of hover cars conveniently makes them sci-fi. In this story, the science of the experiment factors very little into the narrative. It is soon revealed that the scientists are not seeking to find out whether the formula will work on Crowley; they already know it will. What they really want to know is how he will behave once he is endowed with the superpower. What sort of ethical choices will he make? The study is psychological, not physical. Instead of a guinea pig, Crowley is more of a rat in a maze.

This comical premise is funny at first, but it devolves into kind of a dumb gangster story. Reynolds offers his commentary on human nature, but it comes across as both preachy and half-baked. His most biting and cynical satire is expressed in the personal qualities of Crowley as a representative of “the common man”: a high school drop-out education, gullibility, bigotry, sexism, poor morals—in general, a complete lack of sophistication and civility. Later in the story, Reynolds backs off from this scathing criticism by introducing a plot element that negates much of what came before. This revelation is intended to be a surprise twist, but if feels more like a cop out.

You just never know what you’re going to get when you dive into a Mack Reynolds story. I won’t tell you not to read his work, but I do recommend that you don’t read this one. So far the best writings of his that I’ve read are the novella Adaptation and the short stories “The Business, As Usual,” “Gun for Hire,” and “Compounded Interest.”
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Adaptation by Mack Reynolds

Civilizing the interstellar diaspora
Adaptation, a novella by science fiction author Mack Reynolds, was originally published in the August 1960 issue of Astounding Science Fact and Fiction magazine. The story takes place in a distant future in which mankind has branched out from Earth to colonize other planets throughout the galaxy. After a thousand years of such colonization, human civilizations exist on numerous worlds but in different stages of development. Now, for the first time, the Office of Galactic Colonization sends out an expeditionary team to make contact with some of these civilizations. The goal is to help these extraterrestrial societies reach a level of modernization at which they can become productive members of the Galactic Commonwealth.

To this end, the ship Pedagogue travels to the Rigel system to examine two planets located there, which are referred to as Genoa and Texcoco. The former has reached a stage of technological and economic development similar to that of medieval Europe, while the latter is roughly analogous to the civilizations of pre-Columbian Mexico. Over the course of the long trip to Rigel, the scientists of the exploratory team argue long and hard over the proper methods for modernizing the two planets. With no consensus reached, the two opposing factions of the expedition agree to divide their forces into two teams, each of which will attempt to stimulate the development of one of the two planets. In this way, the mission becomes a competition between the two parties to see who can bring their planet to a more advanced state of development. The Genoan team decides to spur development by instituting a system of free-market capitalism, while the team on Texcoco opts to impel industrialization by establishing a form of totalitarian communism.

It’s not difficult to see this as a metaphor for the Cold War, with Genoa standing in for the United States while Texcoco functions as a surrogate for Soviet Russia. The clash between capitalist and socialist ideologies is a frequent topic of discussion in Reynolds’s writings. Here he portrays both systems in a cynical matter, quick to point out the deficiencies and faults of each while bestowing little praise on the merits of either. Both sides in this game of empire building are guilty of ethical transgressions. They are, after all, here to exploit the resources and populations of these two worlds, much like, as Reynolds seems to propose, the imperialist governments of Earth exploit the resources and labor of their own colonies and workers. While neither side is portrayed sympathetically, Reynolds clearly makes the Texcocans/Russians the more evil of the two, which is not too surprising given he was probably using the regime of Stalin as a model.

It’s fascinating to watch as these two societies develop over time. Every ten years the two teams meet on the mother ship to compare progress reports in a series of meetings that become more belligerent and militant as time goes on. While the scientists from Earth manipulate their planetary societies like masters in a chess game, the inhabitants of the two worlds are reluctant to play their roles as pawns. The ending delivers a surprise that the reader is unlikely to see coming.

Having read several of Reynolds’s novellas and short stories, I have found his work to be hit-and-miss, but Adaptation is one of the good ones. Skillfully combining high-brow sociological theory with low-brow pulp fiction entertainment, it makes for a fun and thought-provoking read.
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Medal of Honor by Mack Reynolds

Dubious distinction
Medal of Honor, a novella by Mack Reynolds, was originally published in the November 1960 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories magazine. The story takes place at an undisclosed period in the future when mankind has colonized the solar system and maintains a military presence in interstellar space. Lieutenant Don Mathers is a pilot in the Space Service. He patrols a sector of the galaxy in a one-man scout ship, keeping a look out for the Kradens, an alien race at war with Earth. Mathers is just beginning to grow tired of his military career when he is presented with the possibility of being decorated with the Galactic Medal of Honor. Any recipient of this highest award is said to “do no wrong.” He has carte blanche to do as he pleases, laws do not apply to him, and he needs no money because he can have anything he wants for free. The scheme by which Mathers might come by this prestigious award, however, is not remotely ethical. He faces the moral dilemma of whether he wishes to be the next great hero of the human race, even if his heroism is all based on lies.

The premise is somewhat interesting, but Reynolds never really does anything particularly novel with it. The story just kind of coasts along, proceeding pretty much as you would expect it to go. Reynolds’s sense of humor is evident throughout, and it inspires a chuckle here and there, but there are no real surprises. Beyond the space travel element of the story, there really isn’t any speculative science fiction going on either. Neither is there any great philosophical depth to the story, just a brief point made on the relationship between industry and government. Every once in a while, Reynolds really surprises me with an excellent, fun, and thought-provoking tale (like “Gun for Hire,” “The Business, As Usual,” or “Compounded Interest,”) but, as is perhaps too often the case with his stories, Medal of Honor is basically a military or business story that just happens to take place in the future and gets dressed up in sci-fi trappings.

My reaction to Medal of Honor is one of underwhelmed ambivalence, similar to that inspired by Reynolds’s novellas Mercenary, Ultima Thule, and Status Quo. It is not a bad story, but there is nothing that sets it apart as particularly exciting, funny, or memorable. Reynolds demonstrates that he is clearly a skilled writer and competent storyteller, but one comes away from this work with the feeling that he didn’t quite give his best effort. Nevertheless, I know he’s capable of better, and I will continue to hunt for the gems in his body of work.
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Mercenary by Mack Reynolds

When corporations clash
Mercenary, a science fiction novella by Mack Reynolds, was originally published in the April 1962 issue of the magazine Analog Science Fiction and Fact. It was later published in book form as Mercenary from Tomorrow, a title which really doesn’t make much sense because the plot does not involve time travel, though the story does take place in the future. American society has been split up into a rigid caste system, which makes it almost impossible for anyone, no matter how intelligent or hard-working, to rise above the station determined by his or her birth. One possible way to advance, however, is through military achievement. In this future, tension still exists between the United States and the Soviet Union (now known as the Sov-World). However, most combat takes place not between nations but between corporations. These commercial “fracases” serve not only to settle disputes between rival commercial enterprises but also to entertain the masses, who remain glued to their TV sets, watching the fighting while doped up on pills.

Joe Mauser is a veteran mercenary who has seen combat in several such conflicts. When a fracas is announced between Vacuum Tube Transport and Continental Hovercraft, Mauser chooses the former corporation, even though the latter seems to have the advantage in wealth and military might. Mauser hopes that if he can bring victory to this underdog, he will be rewarded with promotion to a higher caste.

I first became interested in Mack Reynolds because of his similarity to another sci-fi writer of the same era, H. Beam Piper. Both writers share common interests in military, economic, and political issues, and often base their fiction around such topics. (Piper even wrote a novella called The Mercenaries.) While Piper is conservative in his political views, Reynolds was raised on socialism, so his writings have a more leftist slant. I sympathize more with Reynolds’s politics, but I usually prefer Piper’s writing. I have read a few Reynolds stories that I really like, such as “The Business, As Usual,” “Compounded Interest,” and “Gun for Hire,” but as I delve deeper into his body of work looking for more, I often come up disappointed, as is the case with Mercenary. Piper manages to explore socioeconomic issues without sacrificing a sense of humor or the sheer fun of visionary sci-fi speculation. Reynolds’s stories, on the other hand, usually end up being more about politics than about science. Mercenary, for example, is really just a war story that happens to be dressed up in futuristic trappings.

Throughout the book, Mauser keeps alluding to a secret weapon he has hidden under his sleeve that will ensure a victory for Vacuum Tube Transport. Reynolds even resorts to establishing unrealistic rules for the fracas just to set up this plot device. All the foreshadowing, however, leads to disappointment as the underwhelming trump card is revealed. Mercenary is the first in a series of stories starring Joe Mauser, but it doesn’t make for an inviting debut. Though Reynolds’s futuristic caste system sparks some interesting debate between capitalist and socialist ideals, all the corporate and military bureaucracy is just boring.
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The Third Time Travel Megapack, edited by John Gregory Betancourt

More fun with past and future
This is the third collection of time travel stories published by Wildside Press as part of their extensive Megapacks series. The Megapacks are inexpensive ebook collections, usually costing a buck, that largely consist of reprinted vintage pulp fiction, with a few more contemporary entries thrown in as well. This volume contains 18 stories of past or future exploration (though two of them are so brief you might as well just consider it 16). This may be their third time out of the gate for this subject matter, but John Gregory Betancourt and his editorial crew at Wildside haven’t run out of material yet. The Third Time Travel Megapack is every bit as good as its predecessors.

This Megapack is quite a bit shorter than the two that preceded it—less than half the length of the original Time Travel Megapack and about a third as long as the Second. It only contains one novella-length work, “The Children’s Room” by Raymond F. Jones, which is one of the book’s better entries. Though the brevity of this less mega pack may mean you’re getting less for your dollar, that’s not so bad, because it feels like there’s less junk in the attic. Although the excellent stories may be few and far between, there aren’t many stinkers either. Mostly it’s just good science fiction fare. The first and second Time Travel Megapacks each had their share of antiquated, hokey, and politically correct entries, but the third volume is almost devoid of such dross. The main offenders here are the humorous pieces, in which the punchlines have not held up well over time. The two “Ferdinand Feghoot” shorts by Grendel Briarton are dumb puns that inspire eye rolls, but each takes less than sixty seconds to read, so they don’t waste much of your time. Stories like Emil Petaja’s “Dinosaur Goes Hollywood,” on the other hand—loaded with annoying slang and dumb slapstick comedy—makes one long for more serious time-travel fare.

Three excellent tales make this Megapack more than worth its meager cover price. Philip K. Dick’s name appears prominently on the cover, and his entry “Meddler” certainly merits notice. Despite warnings about the dangers of screwing with time, a team of scientists uses a machine called the Time Dip to take pictures of the future. In doing so, they seem to have inadvertently caused the destruction of mankind, and must send an investigator into the future to see where they went wrong. Mack Reynolds, who was the best thing about the Second Time Travel Megapack, contributes another great story here with “Gun for Hire,” about a mafia hitman who is transported into the future so he can assassinate a potential Hitler-esque dictator in the making. Full of surprises, it delivers both ample laughs and suspense. The best story in the collection is “Never Go Back” by Charles V. de Vet. A scientist makes his initial trip through time, traveling back to his childhood in order to save the life of a boyhood friend. It starts out in perplexing Twilight Zone mode, but then goes off into very unexpected directions, becoming a shockingly scary, creepy, and bizarre tale of horror. For a story written over 60 years ago, it’s surprisingly graphic and frightening.

Grab bags of assorted fiction such as this are seldom perfect, and this collection is no exception, but if you like vintage sci-fi, this series of Megapacks will satisfy your craving for all things time travel. After reading The Third Time Travel Megapack, I am happily awaiting the Fourth.

The Kindle file has a lot of typographical errors; not enough to hinder understanding, but enough to annoy. One of the shortest stories was pasted twice, so it appears duplicated in its entirety. The copy I downloaded even had the wrong cover image. Wildside publishes good stuff, but they should pay more attention to quality control.

Stories in this collection

The Children’s Room by Raymond F. Jones 

Sidetrack in Time by William P. McGivern 

George All the Way by Richard Wilson

Absolutely No Paradox by Lester del Rey 

The Hohokam Dig by Theodore Pratt 

Guaranteed Tenure by H. B. Fyfe 

Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: 42 by Grendel Briarton 

Never Go Back by Charles V. de Vet 

The Ancestral Thread by Emil Petaja 

The Sons of Japheth by Richard Wilson 

Meddler by Philip K. Dick 

The Man Who Liked Lions by John Bernard Daley 

Flame for the Future by William P. McGivern 

Dinosaur Goes Hollywood by Emil Petaja 

Time Out for Tomorrow by Richard Wilson 

Remember the Alamo! by R. R. Fehrenbach 

Gun for Hire by Mack Reynolds 

Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: 63 by Grendel Briarton 

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Ultima Thule by Mack Reynolds

Does the end justify the means?
Like many earthlings, Ronny Bronston dreams of going into space. When he scores a job interview with the government of the United Planets, he sees a chance for his dream to become reality. At this unspecified point in the distant future, mankind has emigrated to thousands of new planets. So far no other intelligent life forms have been discovered in space, but over centuries mankind has developed a staggering array of cultures, governments, and religions. Every splinter group and fringe element has fled the mother planet to found their own world. The United Planets, headquartered on Earth, is the government that unites all humanoid life wherever it may reside. Articles One and Two of the UP Charter assert that neither the UP administration nor another member planet may interfere with the political, religious, or socioeconomic development of any member world. Bronston is hired into the mysterious Section G of the United Planets Bureau of Investigation, whose mission it is to enforce these most sacred precepts. A mysterious revolutionary, nicknamed Tommy Paine, has been hopping from world to world, inspiring political revolutions, economic chaos, and religious conflict. Bronston’s first assignment is to track down this galactic troublemaker and put a stop to his world-changing mischief.

Ultima Thule, a novella by Mack Reynolds, was originally published in the March 1961 issue of the pulp magazine Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Reynolds often wrote futuristic works in which he explored political themes. As Bronston chases after Paine, Reynolds has the opportunity to delve deeply into the political and social environments of three or four different UP member planets. Given their diversity, it’s difficult to determine what overarching point he’s trying to make, if any, until the final chapter. The ending of the book is really quite good. Unfortunately, all that comes before it is a bit of a bore. Reading about the structure and workings of the United Planets is about as much fun as perusing an institutional history of any other bureaucracy. H. Beam Piper, one of Reynolds’s contemporaries, also frequently satirizes governmental agencies, but he manages to slip in enough humorous touches and far-out sci-fi gadgets to keep things interesting. Reynolds puts so much effort into making his world seem real that it turns out being too real, and therefore not much fun. Despite the intergalactic travel, Bronston’s investigation is still mainly just a series of over-the-desk interviews. The trail of clues he follows in pursuit of his man is a convoluted line of reasoning that I neither could nor really wanted to follow.

Despite such complaints, the eye-opening final chapter really does compensate for a lot of the book’s shortcomings. Reynolds makes some truly interesting points, but one wishes he didn’t take such a circuitous route to get there. In regards to the quality of Reynolds’s work in general, I’m on the fence. I’ve read a few of his stories that I really liked (e.g. “The Business, as Usual” and “Compounded Interest”) and a couple of novellas that left me ambivalent (Status Quo, and this one). With such a hit-and-miss record, I’m inclined to stick with Piper, who more consistently and reliably satisfies and exceeds expectations.
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Status Quo by Mack Reynolds

Cold War counterfeit caper
Mack Reynolds (a.k.a. Dallas McCord Reynolds) was a popular American science fiction writer who was active from the 1950s until his death in 1983. His novella Status Quo was originally published in the August 1961 issue of the pulp magazine Analog Science Fact and Fiction. I had previously read a couple of Reynolds’s short stories—“The Business, As Usual” and “Compounded Interest,” included in Wildside Press’s Second Time Travel Megapack—and found them remarkably creative and delightfully unconventional. Wanting to explore more of this intriguing author’s work, I arbitrarily chose Status Quo from among the Reynolds titles available for free download. This particular work, however, turned out not to be such a wise choice.

The story is set in the near future, probably around the 1970s, yet there are already flying cars, hover-cabs, and “TriD” television. Lawrence Woolford works for a U.S. government agency referred to only as “the department” which handles matters of intelligence and national security. Larry is called into his boss’s office and presented with a $50 bill. The money is neither a gift nor a bonus, but evidence in an ongoing investigation. Someone has been passing counterfeit notes, so perfect that they are indistinguishable from real money but for the use of duplicate serial numbers. Though normally counterfeiting falls under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service, there is concern that the Russians may be producing these phony bills in an attempt to destabilize the American economy. The chief assigns Woolford to investigate the matter. He soon discovers that a noted Soviet spy has recently entered the U.S. Suspecting this Russian agent may be behind the counterfeiting plot, Woolford sets out to track him down.

The America that Reynolds creates in Status Quo is an exaggerated parody of Cold War paranoia. It also satirizes a society absolutely obsessed with status symbols. Woolford makes a decent living as a g-man, but he’s in debt from keeping up with the Joneses. He must drive the right car, wear the right clothes, fill his home with the proper furnishings, or else he will be branded as a “weird,” or nonconformist. Reynolds broadens this obsession with status to include what he calls “social labels.” He asserts that when it comes to making decisions about who to employ, who to do business with, or who to place in positions of authority, we place far more emphasis on social labels—the aforementioned status symbols, for example, or where someone went to school, their familial or socioeconomic background, or the degrees they hold—than on competency, intelligence, or integrity. Reynolds seems to be advocating that we replace this unfair and inefficient system with a meritocracy in which everyone succeeds according to his or her capabilities. The problem with Reynolds’s cultural criticism is that his definition of social labels is way to broad. Does anyone really consider an MD or a PhD to be nothing more than a status symbol? In Reynolds’s meritocratic utopia, occupational experience would be worthless. Everyone must be solely judged on their present competency, but how would such judgments be made, and by whom?

The mystery of the counterfeiting plot is well-thought out, and there are a few fun surprises along the way. The ending of the story is particularly good, but getting there is often a dull ride. Status Quo is about three times longer than it needs to be. Despite my dissatisfaction with this novella, however, I still plan to seek out more work by Reynolds. Even amid the tedious plot and misguided message of this failed experiment, his lovably weird imagination shines through.
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The Second Time Travel Megapack, edited by John Gregory Betancourt

More temporal fun from the sci-fi pulps
As the title indicates, this 2014 collection of science fiction stories is a follow-up to the original Time Travel Megapack, both part of the vast Megapack series of inexpensive pulp fiction omnibuses published by Wildside Press. John Betancourt and his editorial gang at Wildside have once again cobbled together a diverse assortment of tales and novellas. Overall, I don’t think The Second Time Travel Megapack is as good as the first, but it does include some treasures that certainly deserve to be read.

It’s almost impossible to give a grab bag collection like this five stars. You’re bound to find something you like, but you’re also bound to find the opposite. The original publication dates of these stories run from 1936 to 2013, though most are from the 1940s and ‘50s. Although there’s 23 selections here, only 17 authors are represented, so some appear twice or thrice. I certainly didn’t mind this when I was reading two great stories by Mack Reynolds, but I could have done without the double dose of Arthur Leo Zagat and John York Cabot. Their entries from the Golden Age may have thrilled in their day, but today smell like something resurrected from a musty attic. One unfortunate trend in this collection is that the longer pieces tend to be the least entertaining. When one of Grendel Briarton’s “Ferdinand Feghoot” puns falls flat, it’s only two pages long, so no big loss. The longest novella in the book, however, Carlos McCune’s “Caverns of Time”—a juvenile imagining of what might happen if the Three Musketeers got their hands on motorcycles and machine guns—really does wear on the nerves.

Now for the bright side: there are some excellent stories here. Reynolds’s comic tale “The Business, As Usual” follows a hilarious fifteen minute conversation between a twentieth-century time traveler and a thirtieth-century local. “In the Cards,” by Alan Cogan, explores just what life would be like if people really could see the future. Someone invents a time projector allowing humanity to look two years forward into their lives, but the effect on society is far from positive. In Tim Sullivan’s “Inside Time,” a time traveler wakes up in a “time station” where he’s trapped with a beautiful woman. It’s a good suspenseful thriller, though the time science is almost tacked on as an afterthought. “Saving Jane Austen,” by Robert Reginald is a fun and quirky novella about a team of historians who travel back in time to study the famous authoress. In Robert J. Sawyer’s delightfully weird entry “Seems Like Old Times,” a serial killer’s consciousness is sent back into the body of a tyrannosaurus rex.

In between all these great selections there’s a fair amount of mediocre fluff, but all is forgiven when you get through the final story, Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s 1991 novella “The Gallery of His Dreams.” This piece is so good it rises way above typical genre fiction and ascends to the heights of great literature. It is a moving fictional biography of Matthew Brady, the pioneering photographer famous for his shots of Civil War battlefields. Brady saw little appreciation and no financial success during his lifetime, and Rusch portrays him with touchingly tragic pathos. The way time travel enters into the narrative is best left unspoiled.

At a buck a piece, Wildside’s Megapacks are certainly never a waste of money, but are they a waste of time? Not in this case. There’s enough good stuff here to make it worth reading for would-be chronic argonauts, but don’t expect to be bowled over by every tale.

Stories in this collection

Seems Like Old Times by Robert J. Sawyer 

The Business, as Usual by Mack Reynolds 

Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: 18 by Grendel Briarton

Time Well Spent by George Zebrowski 

The Day Time Stopped Moving by Bradner Buckner 

Saving Jane Austen by Robert Reginald 

In the Cards by Alan Cogan 

A Witch in Time by Janet Fox 

Yesterday’s Paper by Boyd Ellanby 

A Matter of Time by Robert Reginald 

The Man Who Saw Through Time by Leonard Raphael 

Caverns of Time by Carlos McCune 

Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: 110 by Grendel Briarton 

Lost in Time by Arthur Leo Zagat 

The Land Where Time Stood Still by Arthur Leo Zagat 

Outside of Time by Carroll John Daly 

Bull Moose of Babylon by Don Wilcox 

Compounded Interest by Mack Reynolds 

The Man Who Changed History by John York Cabot 

Time on Your Hands by John York Cabot 

Inside Time by Tim Sullivan 

Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: 116 by Grendel Briarton 

The Gallery of His Dreams by Kristine Kathryn Rusch 

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