In his introduction to “Second Night of Summer” in the marvelous anthology The Good Old Stuff (which I reviewed for SF Site way back in 1999), Gardner Dozois nicely summed up the appeal of Schmitz’s fiction:Īlthough he lacked van Vogt’s paranoid tension and ornately Byzantine plots, the late James H. He also wrote a handful of novels, including the Hugo nominee The Witches of Karres (1966), and also The Universe Against Her (1964), The Demon Breed (1968), The Eternal Frontiers (1973) and Legacy (1979).

Schmitz is famous chiefly as a short story writer, for tales such as “Second Night of Summer” ( Galaxy, December 1950) and “The Searcher” ( Analog, February 1966), and many others.

The Baen reprint program largely began with these volumes in 2000, and I still believe they may be their crowning achievement. Bertam Chandler, Lois McMaster Bujold, Cordwainer Smith, Christopher Anvil, Randall Garrett, Keith Laumer, Howard L. Baen has published omnibus collections featuring Andre Norton, P.C. Schmitz, published by Baen Books.īaen Books, and especially its long-time editor Eric Flint, have done some really extraordinary work collecting classic SF and fantasy in handsome and highly affordable mass market editions, and they’ve been doing it for decades.

And at long last, we come to one of my favorite short story writers, and one of my favorite omnibus sets: the seven volumes collecting the science fiction and science fantasy of James H. We continue to survey the best omnibus volumes for collectors out there.

The Lion Game by James H. Schmitz