Wandering Stars (anthology)

{{short description|1974 anthology of Jewish fiction}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}

{{Infobox book

| name = Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction

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| image = File:WanderingStars.jpg

| caption = First edition

| author =

| illustrator =

| cover_artist = Mark Rubin

| country = United States

| language = English

| series =

| subject =

| genre = Science fiction

| publisher = Harper & Row

| pub_date = January 1974

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| pages = 239

| isbn = 0-06-010944-0

| oclc =

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| preceded_by =

| followed_by = More Wandering Stars

}}

Wandering Stars is an anthology of Jewish fantasy and science fiction, edited by American writer Jack Dann, originally published by Harper & Row in 1974. It represented, according to the book cover, "the first time in science fiction that the Jew - and the richness of his themes and particular points of view -- will appear without a mask." In his introduction, "Why Me?", Isaac Asimov discussed how many Jewish science fiction writers prior to that time had used gentile pen names in order to get published: "Many of the Jewish pulp writers, however, used pen names as a matter of sound business. A story entitled "War Gods of the Oyster-Men of Deneb" did not carry conviction if it was written by someone named Chaim Itzkowitz." He then goes on to discuss the pen names of various Jewish writers included in this book. Wandering Stars is therefore of historical significance as the first science fiction anthology where Jewish writers openly identified themselves as such.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}

It was followed by a second anthology, More Wandering Stars, also edited by Jack Dann, published by Doubleday in 1981.