THE WORLD’S A STAGE, the fourth of the Starship Hopeful stories, was written in October of 1982, and published in Playboy in July, 1984. By this point, I knew I had a series, and I pretty much knew how it worked. The misfit crew of the Starship Hopeful would visit a new planet in every story , where the ‘civilization’ they’d find would be a distillation of one aspect of human life. Gambling in the first story, war in the second, religion the third, and now – tara tara! – the thee-ay-tah!
Enjoy.

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