Critical response to the book was mixed. The most extensive examination of the book came from
P. Schuyler Miller, who wrote "Here you will find entertainment, ideas skillfully played with, precise care for detail and consistency, but actually not too much plot-suspense. So logical is the development of most of the stories, that the experienced reader knows what must be coming next." Of the setting, he observed that it allowed "ample room for swashbuckling, skullduggery and horseplay, in which de Camp deals deftly from time to time," but noted that "[o]ut of this setting, on the other hand, has come just one really memorable book--'Rogue Queen.'"
Mark Reinsberg wrote that "De Camp's style is adroit and witty as he develops science-fiction take-offs on themes like sea piracy, head hunters, the wild west, and jousting knight-hood," and noted that "[t]he tales are spiced with glamorous other worldly women." He also rated it "[p]robably the most entertaining collection of 'tomorrow tales' by an individual author" published in 1953, whose "yarns kept the reader laughing over space pioneering in the 22d century and a marvelous pair of interstellar swindlers named Koshay and Borel."
The English Journal stated that "[f]or fantasy, irony, and imagination these stories are remarkable." The
Los Angeles Times noted that in postulating the rise of Brazil as a world power, de Camp "develops an interesting and not too improbable theme." On the other hand,
Boucher and
McComas felt "the stories of the Viagens Interplanetarias have usually struck us as pretty routine work unworthy of L. Sprague de Camp, but devotees of the series will welcome the collected volume."
Groff Conklin assessed it as a "cream-puff-light book of space opera ... [f]ine stuff for bedtime, but I do feel that the stories were written with the left hind paw of an immensely brilliant fellow who just wasn't trying hard. Perhaps we should call it 'relentlessly light reading!'" ==References==