This collection was put together in the early sixties to celebrate the output of noted SF writer Kornbluth.

Some are instantly engaging and thought provoking, while others are almost incomprehensible, baffling, and occasionally tedious.

Overall it’s a strange uncomfortable mishmash of short stories that doesn’t really work together. ( )

review of
C. M. Kornbluth's A Mile Beyond the Moon
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 26, 2012

In December, 2011, I realized that Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth were precursors to the greatness of Philip K. Dick. In February, 2012, I was certainly not the 1st to notice that Pohl & Kornbluth's Wolfbane was the precursor to the movie The Matrix. Now? W/ this collection of short stories by Kornbluth I'm once again blown away by the prescience. Kornbluth's "Shark Ship", eg, is like proto-Ballard - esp his disaster novels. "The Adventurer" surprised me by being a precursor of sorts to Ira Levin's 1976 The Boys from Brazil. In other words, I'm very glad to've finally found Kornbluth!

The title of the bk, unlike the titles of many short story collections, is not the name of one of the enclosed stories. The stories range from copyright dates of 1941 (when Kornbluth wd've been around 18) to 1958 (the yr Kornbluth died at age 34). Unfortunately for me, this 1962 reprint of the 1958 original leaves out 4 stories. Fortunately for me, I just acquired a copy of His Share of Glory: The Complete Short Science Fiction of C.M. Kornbluth wch, according to Wikipedia, "includes almost all of Kornbluth's solo fiction, but does not include all of the collaborative pseudonymous works which were published among his earliest work between 1940 and 1942, some of which were published in Before the Universe."

Kornbluth died of a heart attack at 34. But he produced a body of work so extraordinary & so extraordinarily large that it's practically as if he lived a more typically full life. He certainly accomplished more than most people seem to w/ their 77 yrs (or whatever). Now I have to start finding his non-SF bks written under other names. Maybe someday someone will write a story about Kornbluth as a time traveler who travels into the past to write under the name of Edgar Allan Poe - his story "The Events Leading Down to the Tragedy" seems worthy of Poe.

Some of the stories even strike me as 'corny' ("Kazam Collects", "The Words of Guru" - both written when he was a teenager) but even at his corniest, Kornbluth is fantastic. The moon may be the closest extra-terrestrial object visible to Earthlings but A Mile Beyond the Moon is light-yrs away from most Earthlings' wildest dreams. ( )

Forse più conosciuto da noi per le sue numerose e stimolanti collaborazioni con Frederik Pohl nel campo del romanzo, Cyril Kornbluth è stato comunque un grande scrittore anche a firma singola, specialmente nel settore della narrativa breve. Questa rara raccolta ce lo mostra al meglio della sua produzione, con undici storie apparse originariamente fra il 1941 e il 1958, cioè nel suo periodo di più felice attività creativa. Con alcuni introvabili classici (come La nave-squalo e La valigetta nera) e diversi gustosissimi inediti, Kornbluth ha così modo di rivelare il pieno talento della sua inventiva a volte scanzonata e a volte amara, ma sempre ricca di sorprendenti colpi di scena e di un'attenzione sempre acuta e partecipe ai lati meno comuni della vita umana.