THE PERFECT PLANET AND OTHER STORIES come from the mind of Marvin Kananen. Some stories date back for decades, most were written during Mr. Kananen's last assignment in Africa where the land and people gave him time to sit and write and read. In a land without television, occasional electricity, irregular water, Mr. Kananen and his wife lived among the Maasai people for twelve years in a one room hut between the Rift Valley and Mt. Kilimanjaro. Every night, 6:30 every day of the year (he lived 3 degrees south of the equator) when the sun went down, they stayed indoors. The night in Africa belongs to the animals and everyone stays within their houses. In Africa, when you hear something in the dark, you never go and investigate. There in nighttime Africa, Kananen finally found the time to write. And write he did. In those last twelve years he completed 152 journals (30,500 pages), over 200 stories, and a half-dozen longer works. These twenty-four stories cover his Science Fiction tales, a subject he loves dearly and deeply. Other collections of his short stores can be found in WILD PITCHES, 33 and a 1/3 BASEBALL STORIES and BAD THEOLOGY, short stories on strange religious themes.