Review: Classic Sci Fi from the 50's
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 16, 2012
The other reviewers have covered most of what I would say about the series. As they noted, the "ambience" is constant smoking and cocktails every evening along with a fairly hard-nosed attitude about solving problems. These stories were written only a decade or so after the use of nuclear weapons at the end of WWII. Because of this, nuclear weapons and even more destructive follow-ons show up often.Piper is a relatively "hard" sci-fi writer for his time. He is not hung up just on technology, but includes legal drama, detailed and appealing alien description, and good character depiction. He also explores an area that is very relevant to modern life: the battle between profit motive and morality in business.Although I have been reading sci-fi for many years, I had never read any of Piper's stories. I am sorry that I missed them until now.