James H Schmitz

MEET TRIGGER ARGEE. . . . SHE'S ABOUT TO ENTER THE MYSTERY OF HER LIFE -- IN LEGACYAncient living machines that after millennia of stillness suddenly begin to move under their own power, for reasons that remain a mystery to men. Holati Tate discovered them -- then disappeared. Trigger Argee was his closest associate -- she means to find him. She's brilliant, beautiful, and skilled in every known martial art. She's worth plenty -- dead or alive -- to more than one faction in this obscure battle. And she's beginning to have a chilling notion that the long-vanished Masters of the Old Galaxy were wise when they exiled the plasmoids to the most distant and isolated world they knew. . . . SHE'S ABOUT TO ENTER THE MYSTERY OF HER LIFE -- IN LEGACYHalf a block from the shopping center, a row of spacers on planet-leave came rollicking cheerily toward her. . . . Trigger shifted toward the edge of the sidewalk to let them pass. As the line swayed up on her left, there was a shadowy settling of an aircar at the curb to her right.With loud outcries of glad recognition and whoops of laughter, the line swung in about her, close. Bodies crowded against her, a hand was clapped over her mouth. Other hands held her arms. Her feet came off the ground and she had a momentary awareness of being rushed expertly forward.There was a lurching twist as the aircar shot upward.

John W. Campbell wrote this for a blurb for this tale when it appeared in Analog: He contracted for a charter trip -- but the man who hired his spacer wasn't quite a man, it turned out -- and he wanted more than service James H. Schmitz was a heck of a writer, and this story -- "The Winds of Time" -- is fascinating stuff. Star ships, aliens from the future, time travel, romance, cannibalism, pet humans, and mute-but-brilliant aliens. . . . and, of course, it's got a hero who solves every problem by being smarter and trickier and better-prepared than we'd ever imagine being. But what would you expect? This story first appeared in John W. Campbell's Analog. Analog heroes did it with their brains. Us? We have to work.

John W. Campbell wrote this for a blurb for this tale when it appeared in Analog: He contracted for a charter trip -- but the man who hired his spacer wasn't quite a man, it turned out -- and he wanted more than service James H. Schmitz was a heck of a writer, and this story -- "The Winds of Time" -- is fascinating stuff. Star ships, aliens from the future, time travel, romance, cannibalism, pet humans and mute-but-brilliant aliens. . . . and, of course, it's got a hero who solves every problem by being smarter and trickier and better-prepared than we'd ever imagine being. But what would you expect? This story first appeared in John W. Campbell's Analog. Analog heroes did it with their brains. Us? We have to work.

Schmitz wrote mostly short stories, which sold chiefly to Galaxy Science Fiction and Astounding Science-Fiction, which later became Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Gale Biography in Context called him "a craftsmanlike writer who was a steady contributor to science fiction magazines for over 20 years."