Book Review: Path into the Unknown (edited?) and Introduction by Judith Merril

Paerback, 189 pages, Ace 1968Hardcover Published , 1966 by GenericI bought my paperback of this at my hometown bookstore, Cavent Emptor, more than a decade ago, and it has hovered close to my TBR for most of that time. Part of my interest was the introduction by Judith Merril, an author I have great respect for. Although the paperback doesn’t credit her with selecting the stories, it appears she did. I wonder if she excused herself from that title because they were limited by what was available in translation. Just a guess. Most of this work comes from the Khrushchev era, and it is easy to imagine why SF in the Stalin era might have been a little less inventive. Russian literature certainly has a reputation as some of the best in the world so it should be no surprise that there is a lot of good stuff. The problem is that during the Cold War, there was not a lot of appetite for translating it. I am not sure if it was the Cold War energy that the Russians were the “bad guys,” but I…