Down in the Black Gang

By Philip Jose Farmer

A collection of science fiction stories.
1. Down in the Black Gang: ETs use human emotion to power the universe but one of their fixers gets fed up with manipulating humans and flees.
2. The Shadow of Space: An experimental space ship finds itself in unspace due to sabotage and can't figure out how to get back home or if home even exists anymore.
3. A Bowl Bigger than Earth: Morfiks finds himself sliding into a new world in a new body. But the new body is sexless and hairless and the new world is filled with people who look and sound exactly like him. Individuality is forbidden and any infractions result in everyone being punished.
4. Riverworld: Tom Mix, old timey cowboy movie star, finds himself reincarnated on Riverworld along with the rest of humanity. Riverworld is a massive, possibly artificial world featuring a single central river valley surrounded by impassible mountains. Tom falls in with a woman who knew Moses and with a man who doesn't want to admit that he is Jesus Christ and just as human as everyone else.
5. A Few Miles:  A novice monk is ordered by the head of his order to take passage on a space ship to another planet, Wildenwooly. But he has to figure how to get out of the city where the monastery is located and out to the city limits where the spaceport is all on his own with any help or money. He has many adventures, including helping a man with a broken oven, fighting off a gang of union thugs, falling in with a couple of dangerous teens, getting attacked by an alien animal and having his clothing stolen.
I think this was the author's attempt at a humorous story.
6. Prometheus: The monk from the story, A Few Miles, goes to the planet of the alien animal that attacked him in that story. At first dismissed as merely talented mimics, rather like parrots, it soon becomes apparent that these beings, called horowitzes (named for the man who discovered their planet), are capable of learning what the monk teaches them. Soon, they are speaking and understanding the monk's language, learning to make fire and cook their food. Learning agriculture and making tools of flint and weapons for hunting and defense. But questions arise about what happens after death and the monk must decide if he will give them religion or let them develop their own philosophy.
7. The Blasphemers: The sphinx people have developed quickly and have even made a faster-than-light drive for their space ships. They explore the galaxy, looking for planets to colonize. They ruthlessly suppress the beings of any planet who they deem to be vulnerable. But then they discover our planet and the big sphinx statue in Egypt and it blows their minds.
8. How Deep the Groove: A scientist invents a mind-reading machine and discovers a disturbing truth about humankind that drives him insane.

This was an OK read. I'm not really a fan of short stories and I wasn't particularly impressed or entertained by this collection.