paperback

3.5 🌟
I would've rated it 4 🌟 but for the homophobic slur stuck smack-dab in the middle of the story. A discipline-weary flyer for the military volunteers for a scouting expedition deep into enemy space during a war. Being overambitious, and loving the fast little scout ship he'd been assigned, he reconnoitered way more planets than he'd been expected to, and as a result, blew out most of his exhaust tubes and had to make a forced landing on a hostile planet. Surviving by his wits for days, he's eventually taken prisoner and must find a way to escape, using only his brains, his Willies, and his Eustaces? A hilarious use of the language and appreciated character development. ( )

aka "The Space Willies"...humorously entertaining ( )

I like Russell's novels. He is one of the Classic SF writers I recently discovered in my quest to review SF of the 50s-60s. That said, what started as a fun adventure went a little lame. It was pretty good until the last quarter then it was just silly. Currently my least favorite book by this author. ( )

My own comment when I first read this 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 the Ace Double with "Six Worlds Yonder." The added words basically detail how our fearless hero 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.
A vaguely related story is "The Waitabits," a less-funny bit of insanity about another deep space scout, with the same assignment officer. It's in the same Ace Double in "Six Worlds Yonder," and all five of the other stories are unrelated stories about deep space scouts. ( )