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Title: The Best of Lester Del Rey
Series: ----------
Authors: Lester Del Rey
Rating: 0.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF Short Story Collection
Pages: 350 DNF / 259
Words: 130K DNF / 96K

Synopsis:

TOC

"The Magnificent" [introduction] (Frederik Pohl)

"Helen O'Loy" (from Astounding Science-Fiction, Dec. 1938)

"The Day Is Done" (from Astounding Science-Fiction, May 1939)

"The Coppersmith" (from Unknown, Sep. 1939)

"Hereafter, Inc." (from Unknown Worlds, Dec. 1941)

"The Wings of Night" (from Astounding Science-Fiction, Mar. 1942)

"Into Thy Hands" (from Astounding Science Fiction, Aug. 1945)

"And It Comes Out Here" (from Galaxy Science Fiction, Feb. 1951)

"The Monster" (from Argosy, Jun. 1951)

"The Years Draw Nigh" (from Astounding Science Fiction, Oct. 1951)

"Instinct" (from Astounding Science Fiction, Jan. 1952)

"Superstition" (from Astounding Science Fiction, Aug. 1954)

"For I Am a Jealous People!" (from Star Short Novels, Oct. 1954)

"The Keepers of the House" (from Fantastic Universe, Jan. 1956)

"Little Jimmy" (from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Apr. 1957)

"The Seat of Judgment" (from Venture Science Fiction Magazine, Jul. 1957)

"Vengeance Is Mine" (from Galaxy Magazine, Dec, 1964)

"Author's Afterword"

My Thoughts:

Several of these stories made quite clear what Del Rey thought about Christianity as a whole but I was able to read past them. Then I got to “For I Am a Jealous People” and it got downright blasphemous. I was teetering on dnf'ing and trying to make up my mind when another sentence hit me. A character is talking about the Bible and God and says something like “I just wish I knew where Jesus fit into all of this”. That did it. The Bible is crystal clear that Jesus is the second person of the Godhead, is not a created being AND is the only way for humanity to get to heaven. It was obvious that Del Rey knew exactly what he was doing as his deliberate misuse of Scripture by a character showed his was very familiar with it.

So dnf'd at 74% and 1/2star for blasphemy.

✬☆☆☆☆ ( )

4/5/22

Lester del Rey's the kind of writer I might've read in my early teens (but didn't) & then decided that he represented the kind of SF that all SF seemed to me to be at the time: sortof interesting but not that well written or experimental. I wd've then moved on - remembering him w/ some affection but not in any hurry to read more.

Now that I'm 44 yrs past my early teens, del Rey still strikes me that way but I've read so many other things by now that I can respect del Rey just for being what he was: a somewhat generic, but still inspired, SF writer.

The history of SF, in the US at least, seems to be often grouped in periods determined by the tastes of the influential magazine & anthology editors of the time. In this case, del Rey falls fairly firmly in the John W. Campbell / Astounding Science Fiction era. These stories range from 1938 to 1964.

There're alotof robots. I like del Rey's robot stories. But even more important to me personally, there's alotof picking away at the religious fanaticism of the ilk that I grew up w/. "For I am a Jealous People!" was one of my favorites here. Extraterrestrials attack Earth w/ the apparent intention of wiping out humanity. Why? It's discovered that they, in fact, worship the same GOD that the Reverend Amos Strong, the protagonist, but that GOD is on their side & has instructed & empowered them to wipe out humanity, the great sinner. Ha ha! What a moral dilemma for the reverend!

These stories contain much of the content that helped shape the ethics & concerns of young boys (primarily but not entirely) growing up in the 40s, 50s, & 60s - humanity wiping itself out w/ atomic warfare (or whatever), eg. & I was right there w/ them. ( )

SF

http://nhw.livejournal.com/42619.html

Well, this was worth the €5 I paid for it, and maybe a bit more. A lot of the stories were variations on the themes of robots replace humanity and then have to recreate their makers in the far future, but the one or two that tried to grapple with religious themes - "For I Am a Jealous People" and "The Seat of Judgment" - struck me as well ahead of the curve (for the 1950s anyway). ( )