This collection of James Blish’s stories published in 1959 is very disappointing. I enjoyed Blish’s Cities in Flight series. Blish is probably known best for the collection of Star Trek TOS adaptations that he did. He took the Original Series plots and turned them into 11 volumes of very good short stories. He also wrote Spock Must Die! which was the first Star Trek Novels, and one of the best.

Blish’s short story Surface Tension is one of my favorite all time short stories.

The stories in Galactic Cluster for the most part don’t make the grade. Time after time I would read one of these stories and think that I must have missed something, read the last few pages again and decide that Blish just screwed up the story. There are quit a few of these what-the? moments in the collection. Some of the stories are just technical exploration of an idea with a few forgettable characters thrown in. Once in a while the story line was compelling, but usually the story fizzles.

This is a shame because Blish’s Cities in Flight books and the Seedling Stars collection are much much better. Even the Trek adaptations are better.

I’m still on the B shelf and probably will be well into January. I am reading a few books that I picked up in garage sales, next. These golden age of SF books are great, but I need a change.