Strange talents, useful quirks: Dickson's Mutants

Gordon Dickson. Mutants (1970) A collection chosen by Dickson himself. It includes the classic “Warrior”, reprinted by Dickson in at least one other collection, and  anthologised several times elsewhere. Dorsai Commandant Ian Graeme comes to New York to seek justice for 32 men under his command who were led into unacceptable danger by their officer. The story draws a distinction between the merely military man and the man of war, or warrior.
     Another classic, “Danger – Human!”, explains both why humans have managed at least three times to build Galaxy-dominating empires, yet have failed to make them last.  Some aliens kidnap Timothy Parker,  a man from Vermont, alter his physiology and psychology to prevent death and madness, and keep him in a triply-secured cage to find out what makes humans tick. He gets out, steals a spaceship, and heads for home, where its technology will no doubt be used for a fourth excursion into interstellar space and the building of a rapacious empire.
     Dickson writes thematic stories, fables or parables really. But he has a knack for meshing character and plot so well that the didactic purposes rarely interfere with the believability of his tales. He sets his stories in several different futures, carefully imagined and plausible. He writes well, exemplifying Strunk and White’s advice to avoid adjectives and the passive voice. I’ve never been disappointed in one of his stories. Recommended. *** to ****