|
5.0 out of 5 stars
Star Bright Shines Through the Years..., May 24 2004
What can I say that the above reviewers haven't already touched upon? I, too, found this in my Junior High School library, and the garish purple, orange and yellow hardbound book appealed to me. This was my introduction to science fiction, and for the first time, I realized that sci fi WASN'T just about SCIENCE.. but about imagination and fiction~How delightful to discover the short story by Jerome Bixby that inspired BOTH the original Twilight Zone episode with Billy Mummy as the little terror, and the Movie episode in which he has a cameo..."It's a GOOD day..." What a shock to discover in High School when assigned the "The Place of the Gods" (By the Waters of Babaloyn) that I had already read it as a child but COMPLETELY missed the symbolism of WHERE it takes place...the god "ASHING" being the key! Or the discovery that "Cabin Boy" is the same story written from two points of view... that each species is finding the other disgusting and filled with possibilities... to teach other specials to count through perfume! Amazing concepts! What a delight to discover A Bucket Full of Air is actually A PAIL Full of Air and was televised recently in some Amazing Stories collection! (My faulty memory slipped the details, but remebmers the plots!) Or Gilead's desperate plea to help his sister..."She's a (what was the word,) ...a Sensative!" Or to find that "All Summer in A Day" by Ray Bradbury about the endless rain on Venus was actually part of The Illustrated Man" and visualized in the classic movie of the same name! Good science fiction never dies..it simply transcends its medium to entertain and facinated more and more! Now, as a parent at age 48, the story "Star Bright" by Mark Clifton about the little girl and the Moebius Strip calls to me over the years, and finding an orignal copy through the interlibrary loan, I am now reading it for my two children.. my own "Star Bright" and her younger brother. I'm only four pages in, and already she's guessed that Star called to Robert and that she may become "Jean Grey" from the Xmen.... (Never underestimate a child's immagination and ability to link concepts!) I also would like to urge the publisher Doubleday to reprint this classic volume... but we are preaching to the choir here... we have already discovered this treasure.. we need to TELL OTHERS.. we need to TELL THE PUBLISHER! (Interlibrary loan is a wonderful thing, for those who cannot find or afford a $150 copy of this child's book. ) But don't wish that you had stollen it from the library all those years ago... think of the generations who have discovered and read that volume since you did...you would have deprived them of the wonder! (...)
|
