Chad Oliver is an anthropologist, and almost all his science fiction--six novels, two short-story collections with a total of thirteen tales, and forty-one uncollected stories--have anthropological themes often involving the conflicts which develop when advanced and primitive cultures meet. Spaceships and computers can be found in Oliver's fiction, but stone clubs and campfires are just as prevalent as he makes use of his extensive knowledge of ancient man, the Plains Indians, and the tribes of East Africa. Of his merging of anthropology and science fiction, Oliver states: "In his study of groups and cultures, the average anthropologist moves back in time. If he writes science fiction he may also move forward, into an imagined future, using man's history as his base. Anthropology is a young science, as sciences go, but it is a very important one, for if we are to survive in a world of atomic energy...