tim@unc.UUCP (Tim Maroney) (09/23/83)
I agree with the favorable review of the Science Fiction Hall of
Fame, but factual information on the series was lacking. I'll attempt
to rectify this.
The SF Hall of Fame is a three-volume set, consisting of the
initial volume of short stories, volumes 2a and 2b of novellettes and
novellas, and volume 3 of the initial Nebula winners. It is published
under the auspices of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA),
the SF equivalent of the Writers' Guild. The information herein is
from prefatory material in the books.
The intent of volume 1 was to present extremely noteworthy science
fiction short stories which were published before the SFWA began to
award Nebulas in the 1960's. Thus, you can consider it a sort of
"retroactive Nebula". Volume 1 was the only one originally planned,
but it was received so well that they decided to issue another
anthology, this one for stories which were too long for volume 1.
Volume 2, published in two physical volumes (2a and 2b), contains
those novellettes and novellas published before the Nebula award which
were deemed sufficiently meritous by the SFWA.
Volume 3 is quite recent. It contains all the stories of any
length (except novels) which won the Nebula award in the first four or
five years of its receipt. The quality is nowhere near that of the
first two volumes, but it is still quite good. (A lot of the
runners-up should have won it, in my estimation, but that's to be
expected.) Presumably, further volumes are forthcoming, collecting
more Nebula-winning stories.
There is also the annual Nebula collection. These collections
contain both Nebula winners and noteworthy runners-up. Obviously, if
you have all these, you don't need volume 3 of the Hall of Fame, or
any of the later volumes when they come out.
In summary, the first two volumes of the SF Hall of Fame are what
I would consider indispensable to anyone with an SF library. The
third volume, and all the Nebula collections, are highly recommended,
but I wouldn't call them indispensable.
___________
Tim Maroney
duke!unc!tim (USENET)
tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA)
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill