F/SF

My own comment when I first read "The Space Willies" in 1964 was "ridiculously funny." I now have all three versions, and my comment still stands.
The original is "Plus-X", the cover story of Astounding, April 1956 (and the cover is great). At 21,000 words, it was expanded to 41,000 words in 1958 as "The Space Willies," for this Ace Double. The added words basically detail how our fearless hero, a deep space scout, got into his predicament, and the original story fills out the final chapters. Finally, in 1959, Russell enlarged it again, to 48,000 words as the solo novel "Next of Kin." The extra words only affect the first 5 chapters, and don't materially affect the book. Perhaps the publisher needed something closer to 50,000 words.
The other half of this Ace Double, "Six Worlds Yonder," contains six mostly unrelated stories about deep space scouts. One vaguely related story is "The Waitabits," a less-funny bit of insanity, which has the same-named assignment officer. The best of the six is "Top Secret," which is as insane as "The Space Willies." Almost worth the cost of the whole book (if you can still get one for 35 cents!) ( )