don’t know where this one came from – might have been from the bookstore up in Norfolk I go to every so often, Anyway, the picture on the cover sold me – two cats flying a spaceship. Okay, so I’m a sucker for that.

The author is one Phyllis Gotlieb, who wrote this collection of shorts back in 1981 or so. And two things I immediately picked up on. The first is that she’s riding that 2001 mystical space scifi wave, where nothing is clear and some of the meanings and resolutions are baffling. There is even poetry in there – something I also cannot make sense of.

The second thing (I have no proof) is that she is Jewish. Nothing against Jewish people – I’m sure I’ve read and enjoyed other Jewish authors. But the whole Judaism thing was a main deal in at least two of the stories. About all I can recognize is some of the words (and vague meanings) I’ve picked up from Jesse, best friend and Jew. But really, the last story (the one from the title) dealt with Jews from the 1800s, in Warsaw, from an alien point of view, with even more alien aliens running about in it. And so I was as lost as you can be in a short story. About fifteen pages from the end, I just gave it up. I had another book (with cats on the cover) screaming for my attention.

I hardly even abort books, and perhaps there are others who would like this. But tastes change over forty-five years (crap, I’m old). So if you see it and maybe if you like cats or Judaism, maybe this one is for you.

>>>AND OF COURSE, MY OWN BOOKS HERE<<<