Trader to the Stars is a good book to discuss in a writers' workshop. Beginning writers especially would benefit from studying the techniques used to create mystery and suspense in the book's three tales. Each story features some kind of mystery, each following to a degree the American tradition of mystery writing exemplified by the works of Dashiell Hammett and Rex Stout. In them, the main characters must survive in hostile environments, while coping with social ills (mostly brought with them), even as they try to make sense out of a mystery that features exotic characters (as in The Maltese Falcon, 1930) and complicated twists of plot in which friends and enemies are hard to tell apart. Because each story features similar background material, the differing techniques of each are easy to spot and identify.

Workshop members should note how the situation of the first story is...