Tor Double #31 was originally published in April 1991. The proto-Tor Double, which included two stories by Keith Laumer, was the only volume up to this point to include content from a single author. This volume, with two stories by Gordon R. Dickson, is the first official Tor Double to include content from only one author. However, of the remaining five Tor Doubles, four of them would prove to be single author collections.

Naked to the Stars was an originally serialized in F&SF in October and November 1961. Although the story begins as a fairly typical piece of military science fiction, Dickson takes it into a different direction, which makes the story stand out.

Cal Truant and Walker Lee Blye are childhood friends who entered the service together. Currently stationed on an alien planet where they are attempting to defeat the alien Lehaunan, who are like black furred, three-foot tall raccoons. During a truce, Cal sees a member of his unit give a drawing of a rabbit to a Lehaunan child. When the truce ends, Cal comes across the Lehaunan child during a raid, one of the last things he remembers before finding himself on a medevac, apparently wounded in the fighting.

Due to his refusal to submit to a psychiatric evaluation to determine what may have happened during the period he can’t remember, Cal is denied reservice qualification, effectively ending his military career. He is thrown a lifeline, however, by General Scoby, who heads the Contacts Service.  While Cal had been in a combat unit, the Contact Service is more of a diplomatic corps, often looked down upon by soldiers, but a branch of the service that would allow Cal to continue to serve without the psychiatry evaluation he refuses to take.

His decision requires him to go through basic training again, alongside new recruits, which doesn’t necessarily build the sense of comradery it normally would as most of the recruits view him a superior. At the same time, Cal brings more experience to basic training and is able to see more than just the recruits’ side of things, a skill which will prove useful to him in the Contacts Corps.

His first assignment in the Contacts Corps is on a planet inhabited by Paumons, a race which is seen as being the most similar to humans. He is also reunited with Walk. When given the task of escorting Paumons prisoners to a POW camp behind the lines, Dickson is able to show the changes the Contacts Service training has engendered in Cal as he makes arrangements to get the prisoners where they need to go in the most human way possible within the strictures of his orders.

Although Dickson makes it clear that Walk has become more militaristic and dedicated to the mission of eradicating the Paumons, he also serves as a baseline by which the reader is able to understand the changes Cal has undergone. Both grew up in the same town and Walk knew about Cal’s personal life, using that knowledge to help Cal when they served together. The change in outlook Cal has, which put him more in line with his father’s way of thought, although Cal would deny it,

Cal’s experience with the Combat Service, his training with the Contact Service, and, much as he would like to deny it, the influence of his father, give him a unique way of dealing with the issues with which he is faced when he realizes that the leaders of the Combat mission do not necessarily view the mission of the Contacts Service as either critical or desirable. His dealing with the Paumons, reveals a similar dichotomy, which Cal must attempt to finesse if he is to achieve his own goals.

When he realizes that he has been abandoned by General Scoby and the rest of the Contacts Service, rather than take the path of least resistance, Cal escalates the situation, playing upon the insecurities and prejudices of the Combat Service leaders. This, unfortunately leads to the weakest part of the story as Dickson employs a deus ex machina solution, which could have been avoided by scattering a few clues about what was happening behind the scenes throughout the novella.

Naked to the Stars offers a view of battle between humans and a galaxy full of different, if not particularly well defined aliens. In the second story in this volume, Dickson presents conflict between humans and aliens in a very different manner.

The Alien Way was originally published as a stand-alone novel by Bantam in February, 1965. It tells the story of an attempt by humans to make contact with an alien species by sending out an artifact that may allow a human to link their consciousness with aliens who come into contact with it.

The artifact is discovered by a Ruml named Kator Secondcousin Bruutogas, who is on an expedition with one other Ruml. Initially, Dickson’s description of Ruml culture seems confusing, but as the novel progresses, a clearer and clearer picture of the culture emerges. Both the confusion and the clarity are created because of the manner in which the culture is introduced. The artifact Kator means that a human subject, zoologist Jason Barchar, is seeing through Kator’s eyes and understanding through Kator’s thoughts.

The novel shifts back and forth between the events on Earth, where Jase is part of a Foundation, wlthough his power is seemingly limited by the Foundation’s board, and on Ruml, where Kator is trying to figure out how to advance from a young, powerless member of his Family to the more powerful Founder of a new Family.

Ruml society is based on different Families and the concept of Honor, which does not mean the same thing to Ruml as it does to humans. Kator views himself as a perfect individual upon whom the “Random Factor” has smiled, which means he must achieve greatness, which means founding his own Family. However, even as Dickson reveals the intricacies of Ruml culture, it is apparent that Kator is a sociopath, whose sense of self means he will do anything he can to pervert the culture in which he finds himself, all under the guise of celebrating that culture. This begins with his cold blooded murder of his exploratory partner so he can claim the artifact as his own and present his own version of events to people on Ruml.

On Earth, the Foundation is studying the Ruml through Jase’s observations, trying to understand this culture. Their efforts are hampered, in part, by Jase’s own decisions about what to share or not share with them, which also means that he holds more power than his position would otherwise allow him. The Foundation is also not unanimous, with some arguing that their connection to the alien species means they should turn the study over to the government, a decision which Jase disagrees with.

Eventually, the Ruml, under Kator’s command launches an exploratory mission to Earth as a preliminary step in an invasion that would allow Kator to establish his Family there. Unknown  Kator, every step of their mission is known to the humans through his link with Jase, although the humans are concerned that the close link between Jase and Kator may be causing Jase to exhibit some of Kator’s less savory personality traits.

An attempt by Dickson to humanize Jase’s character by creating a relationship for him with Mele Worman, the Foundation’s librarian, ultimately fails because rather than talking to her, he has a tendency to lecture her. Mele is portrayed as a strong and intelligent woman, who nevertheless allows herself to be in a relationship with Jase who, while not physically abusive, is clearly mentally and emotionally abusive to her.

Ultimately, Jase’s understanding of zoology and his reading the literature of the science, understanding that each species, whether human, bears, or Ruml, has its own biological imperatives, which provides a way for the humans to not only forestall the Ruml invasion, but negate Kator’s ability to launch a future invasion.

There are times when Dickson is repetitive in the novel, with multiple explanations of Peter Krott’s 1962 article “A Key to Ferocity in Bears,” which apparently provided the impetus for Dickson to write the novel using the newly proposed understanding of behavior. On the other hand, his meticulous creation of the Ruml culture, showing a species which was equal to humanity, but operated under a very different set of assumptions, is masterful, weakened only by using the term Honor for a concept among the Ruml which is so different than the concept of honor among humans, which, of course, set up for the ability of Jase’s handlers to misunderstand what he was trying to tell them.

Brian Waugh provided the cover.

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Steven H Silver is a twenty-one-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.