Instead of a crazed Brooksian farce about life on the bottom rung, Life Stinks turns out to be a surprisingly low-key Chaplinesque fable.

The questions of whether Esperanto has any place in the science fiction field and whether there is any justification for the modification of the English language for the convenience of the imaginative fiction reader, seem both to be issues on which there can be little in the way of a compromise.

What, ha's this thing appeard againe to night?

Rooted in earth each cloven hoof descends, / And round and round her flexile neck she bends […] .