leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (05/03/85)
THE GREAT SF STORIES: 1 (1939) edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg
DAW, $1.95, 1979.
A book review by Mark R. Leeper
There are several best-science-fiction-of-the-year anthologies these
days. I think they may have been inspired by the success of the annual
Judith Merril anthologies that were popular when I was first reading science
fiction. Every year the Merril anthology could be counted on to be the best
stories. Later, Merril started picking too many "New Wave" stories and I
started to lose interest. However, picking up where she left off, Donald
Wollheim and Terry Carr started co-operating on year's best anthologies for
Ace Books. Later, they split up and each individually edited a year's best
anthology, competing with the other. A number of other editors tried to get
into the same act including Forrest J. Ackerman. These days, I am not sure
there even is a year's best anthology edited--at least it has been a while.
Back in 1979 Isaac Asimov and/or Martin Greenberg apparently realized
that there were no year's best anthologies for the years prior to Merril's
first year's best. (Actually, that is not, strictly speaking, correct. I
believe that Dikty may have edited some minor year's best anthologies in the
early Fifties, but they were hardbacks and did not have a wide circulation.)
They started co-editing year's best anthologies for the years they really
enjoyed reading science fiction. Asimov (without Greenberg) edited a
catch-all anthology, BEFORE THE GOLDEN AGE, to cover the science fiction
written before 1939. Then every few months they edited a year's best
anthology for 1939, 1940, etc., up through 1950 or so. They may not be
finished yet. I will discuss here the 1939 anthology.
My first comment is that most of the introductions are by Greenberg,
with little parenthetic comments by Asimov. It leads me to believe that
Asimov does not have much of a hand in these anthologies in spite of having
"Isaac Asimov Presents" plastered all over the cover.
This is a good anthology. The stories are more idea stories and less
writing exercises than many more current. Most of the stories express a
scientific idea. Some develop it slowly; some give it to you with a big
punch ending--what Dale Skran calls a "tomato surprise" story. Actually, I
think a lot of surprise ending stories. Tomato surprise is a good way to
slam-dunk an idea to the reader. If an idea is presented anywhere else in a
story, the reader can sit back and let the author handle the idea in the
rest of the story. A surprise ending tells the reader, "The idea is in your
court; you have to bat it around."
The stories in this anthology give a real sense of chronology to the
period in which they were written. They are in chronological order and
before each we are told the magazine and the month when the story appeared.
"I, Robot" by Eando Binder: This story will be familiar to people who
have seen the OUTER LIMITS adaptation or who have read very similar stories
by Asimov himself. Not a really well-written story, but a striking
departure at the time.
"The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton" by Robert Bloch: Not the best
of Bloch, but it would have made an okay TWILIGHT ZONE episode.
"Cloak of Aesir" by John W. Campbell: This is a fondly remembered
story by the great author/editor. I never read it until recently. This is
a gut-wrenchingly bad story. The writing comes off more as a lesson of what
should not be done in writing a science fiction story. This one was real
tedium to read. I guess somebody editing felt they owed a debt to Campbell.
Avoid it.
"The Day Is Done" by Lester Del Rey: This one makes up for "Cloak of
Aesir." I have read all the short stories and novelettes nominated for the
last two Hugos. This story of a Neanderthal living among Cro-Magnons is
better than any piece of short fiction nominated for a Hugo for a good long
time. I'd call it historical (or prehistorical) fiction rather than science
fiction, but it is a very fine piece of story-telling.
"The Ultimate Catalyst" by John Taine: Taine--really Eric Temple
Bell-can be a good writer, but this is more of a weak horror story memorable
only for a number of rather grotesque images.
"The Gnarly Man" by L. Sprague de Camp: This suffers by comparison to
"The Day Is Done." It is a more light-hearted look at a Neanderthal, but
this one is immortal and making a living as a side-show freak. He
reminisces about history only slightly more seriously than Mel Brooks's
2000-year-old man.
"Black Destroyer" by A. E. Van Vogt: This is good science fiction of
the ilk of the film ALIEN. Coeurl is one of the better hostile alien
creatures I can remember. He has a battle for survival with some passing
earthmen. This story is part of VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE, just about the
most monster-menaced voyage since THE ODYSSEY.
"Greater Than Gods" by C. L. Moore: Whether you are pro-feminist or
anti-feminist or something in between, this story will stick in your craw.
A scientist has developed a means of choosing the sex of a child before it
is born. At the same time, he is trying to decide whom he should marry and
is able to see a different nightmare future which would come out of each
possible marriage. Not so hot.
"Trends" by Isaac Asimov: Recent history makes Asimov's third
published story more prophetic than it deserves to be. It is the story of a
man trying to invent the spaceship in spite of the American public being
galvanized against him by an evangelistic preacher.
"The Misguided Halo" by Henry Kuttner: This is pure fantasy concerning
a man who was accidentally given a halo by an incompetent angel. The story
concerns the man's attempts to rid himself of the distinction. The story
doesn't really go anywhere; it creates a problem but doesn't solve it.
"Heavy Planet" by Milton Rothman: This has a number of well-written
scenes, but it does not really go anywhere as a story. It just seems that
the author ended it when he was tired of writing, much like the previous
story. The title concerns an alien who finds a derelict human spaceship and
wants its secrets for his people.
"Lifeline" by Robert Heinlein: This is a good story, but it is merely
a re-telling of an old idea. The question it asks is, if we really could
know the date of our death, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? Of
course, whenever the story is told, it turns out to cause untold misery to
the person who finds out. It seems particularly inappropriate in science
fiction, since much more in science fiction than in fantasy the reader is
likely to ask, if a person has been given a death date 20 years off, what
happens if you put him in fatal circumstances now? Try dropping a piano on
him. What happens? Still, it is not a bad treatment of the story.
"Ether Breather" by Theodore Sturgeon: This story is an odd
combination of being near- and far-sighted. In 1939, it was predicting for
200 years in the future competing television networks and the society is
just getting around to color TV and taping. His TV networks are much like
those of early television some twelve years later. On top of that he puts a
whimsical story of signal tampering. Sturgeon might have thought that that
was the main thrust of his story, but the background was far more
interesting.
"Pilgrimage" by Nelson Bond: This is a well-written if unlikely story
of a far future savage America following a literal "war of the sexes." It
is the first of three stories Bond wrote about Meg the Priestess. This is
the story of how Meg became a priestess and discovered the guarded secret of
the priestesses.
"Rust" by Joseph E. Kellean: Earlier we had a story about television
and here is a story about robots. These were both concepts that much of the
public learned about for the first time at the 1939 World's Fair. I think
it was no coincidence that these stories show up published not long after
the summer of 1939. "Rust" is the earliest story on the "Berserker" concept
that I can remember seeing. It is about war robots who couldn't be turned
off and ended up killing all men. As the title suggests, they too have
their problems. This is a well-written story and a little sad.
"Four-Sided Triangle" by William F. Temple: This is a famous story and
was even the subject of a film. Two scientists who have developed a matter
duplicator are both in love with the same woman, but she loves only one.
You can work the rest of the story out for yourself. This is a reasonably
good story, if predictable.
"Star Bright" by Jack Williamson: The plot of this story is by now
something of a cliche. A man is given a miraculous power and it turns out
to be more of a curse than a blessing. It's the kind of thing that showed
up all the time on THE TWILIGHT ZONE. There is even a reference in the
story to a similar story in the film THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES. It is
bland fantasy.
"Misfit" by Robert Heinlein: This is reasonable space ranger stuff,
notable mostly for its optimism about the great adventure that is space.
This story makes the point that someone who doesn't fit in at home can still
be a valuable man in space. In this case, an Earth misfit in trouble with
the law turns out to be a human computer. Right.
Well, they aren't all winners, but this book shows that a lot of pulp
science fiction was still worth reading. Look up "The Day Is Done" by Del
Rey some time.
Mark R. Leeper
...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeperbrust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (05/06/85)
> > THE GREAT SF STORIES: 1 (1939) edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg > DAW, $1.95, 1979. > A book review by Mark R. Leeper > > > "Lifeline" by Robert Heinlein: This is a good story, but it is merely > a re-telling of an old idea. The question it asks is, if we really could > know the date of our death, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? Of > course, whenever the story is told, it turns out to cause untold misery to > the person who finds out. It seems particularly inappropriate in science > fiction, since much more in science fiction than in fantasy the reader is > likely to ask, if a person has been given a death date 20 years off, what > happens if you put him in fatal circumstances now? Try dropping a piano on > him. What happens? Still, it is not a bad treatment of the story. > It should be mentioned that this was Heinlein's first short story. Like many of Heinlein's stories, at the time it was written, it was NOT a "re-telling of an old idea" but rather the first time the idea was brought into Science-Fiction. Jerry can supply the date it was written. -- SKZB
brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (05/08/85)
> >> "Lifeline" by Robert Heinlein > > >Jerry can supply the date it was written. > > It first appeared in magazine form in 1939 -- that is how it made it > into this anthology. > > Mark Leeper > ...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper Sorry. I had intended that to be humorous. I meant that Jerry could supply that EXACT date it was written. And no, I know he can't. I was just in that sort of mood. -- SKZB
leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (05/14/85)
>> "Lifeline" by Robert Heinlein > >It should be mentioned that this was Heinlein's first short >story. I didn't think that was all that relevant, but it certainly is true. >Like many of Heinlein's stories, at the time it was >written, it was NOT a "re-telling of an old idea" but rather >the first time the idea was brought into Science-Fiction. The two are not mutually exclusive. It was both. There have been tales since the ancient Greeks of people who have been told that they would be killed in such and such a battle. In fact, the idea of knowing the time of one's death need not even be fantasy. In this case, instead of a Delphic oracle telling a man of his own death, a scientist uses a scientific means. That is an engaging concept in itself, but its dramatic impact, the effect it has on people, has shown up before in fiction. (Not that it is relevant to this argument, but it also shows up in -- admittedly later -- fantasy films GOLDEN EARRINGS and KRULL and non-fantasy films IKIRU and LAST HOLIDAY those these latter two are stretching the point a little.) In any case, I stand by what I said, it is a decent story but essentially an old idea. >Jerry can supply the date it was written. It first appeared in magazine form in 1939 -- that is how it made it into this anthology. Mark Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper