3 in 1

 

Leo Margulies (editor) 3 in 1 (1963)
The idea was to collect novella length stories from the digests which weren't long enough to reprint as novels in their own right, and yet which weren't sufficiently breezy as to justify inclusion in a short story anthology. I'm not sure what the highest available page count would have been for a paperback produced in the early sixties, but I'm guessing not much more than a couple of hundred, hence this volume. I'm also guessing the potential page count may have risen somewhat soon after this was published, which is why we haven't seen a load of these things all washed up in second hand book stores.

Anyway, this one seemed like an essential purchase given the presence of both Simak and Leinster. Theodore Sturgeon's There is No Defense sags a bit towards the end, although is worth reading just for the first half which pretty much beats James S.A. Corey to everything which made The Expanse interesting - at least on the box - but did it all back in 1948. Simak's Galactic Chest is characteristically wonderful, and is actually hard to read without one's inner film director giving the lead role to James Stewart. Finally, there's Murray Leinster's West Wind which isn't one of his best, but is nevertheless worth reading at least once because it's Leinster and as such goes everywhere but the places you might expect it to go. Truthfully, the only points deducted are for how much it reminds me of one of Algis Budrys' slightly twitchy cold war fables, and there are probably worse things to be reminded of.