I was 14 years old when I first read Groff Conklin’s 12 Great Classics of Science Fiction back in 1963. In fact, I read a number of Groff Conklin anthologies during the 1960s and enjoyed them all. Conklin had a knack of assembling a group of stories with a little bit of something for every reader.
I loved “The Ballad of Lost C’Mell,” one of Cordwainer Smith’s most affecting stories. I didn’t know a lot about Love at that point in my Life, but I did know this story really moved me back when I was 14! I had read some A. Bertram Chandler novels in various ACE Doubles so I was prepared for Chandler’s sleight-of-hand in his puzzle tale, “The Cage.” Classic story!
Robert Sheckley’s “Human Man’s Burden” features a Mail Order Bride and snarky robots. Robert F. Young also uses a robot teacher to make a wise point about education.
If you’re looking for entertaining Science Fiction stories with a wide range of subjects, Conklin’s 12 Great Classics of Science Fiction will delight you! GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- “Introduction” (Groff Conklin) — 5
- “Due Process” (Algis Budrys) — 9
- “Earthmen Bearing Gifts” (Fredric Brown) — 27
- “Things” (Zenna Henderson) — 30
- “The Top” (George Sumner Albee) — 38
- “My Object All Sublime” (Poul Anderson) — 48
- “Human Man’s Burden” (Robert Sheckley) — 57
- “On the Fourth Planet” (J. F. Bone) — 72
- “The Ballad of Lost C’Mell” (Cordwainer Smith) –89
- “Thirty Days Had September” (Robert F. Young) — 110
- “The Cage” (A. Bertram Chandler) — 126
- “Star-Crossed Lover” (William W. Stuart) — 138
- “Immortality … for Some” (J. T. McIntosh) — 157
I’m sure I had this. The Cordwainer Smith is a great story by one of my favorite SF authors. I also liked the Sheckley, Henderson , Chandler and Budrys. Conklin did a lot of good anthologies in my youth and I bought them all.
Steve, I bought every Groff Conklin SF anthology I found back in the 1960s. Once in a while, if I find a Conklin anthology in a thrift store and if its condition is good, I’ll buy it.
When I joined the SFBC in the mid-50s my introductory offer was Conklin’s “Omnibus of Science Ficion”, John W. Campbell’s “The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology”, and “The Treasury of Great Science Fiction”, a two volume set edited by Anthony Boucher that contained four novels and no telling how many stories. One of the novels was Alfred Bester’s “The Stars My Destination”, which completely blew my 13 year old mind.
Michael, I remember those Science Fiction Book Club offers! I was a member of the SFBC for three or four years and dropped out when I went away to College. But, I’ve been a buyer of SFBC volumes over the decades. They offered good value for some excellent SF books!
I took that very same joining bonus! Still have those great anthologies.
When you all speak of buying these books as teenagers, I can’t remember buying a single book. The library was the place I went to for books and I never thought about buying them until I met up with Phil and he was a big book buyer. Any spare money I had as a teen (and it wasn’t much) went on my back or my record player. I wonder if that holds true with most girls of that era from my income group.
Patti, I mowed lawns in the Summer and shoveled snow in the Winter. So I had some ready cash when I saw I book I wanted. On the way to school, I passed a local drugstore that had a spinner rack (remember them?) full of paperbacks. A new batch of books would arrive each month. Plus, back then, paperbacks were 35 or 40 cents a copy!
Most of the books I wanted weren’t available at the library, their SF/fantasy selection was very small because the librarians looked down on those genres.
Another thought. Perhaps the sort of books I read was available at a library more than science fiction and fantasy. Maybe you had to buy it if you wanted to read it?
Patti, I used our local Public Library for books, too. But, the Library did NOT buy paperbacks in those days. Especially SF paperbacks. So, I had to buy them.
Also back then all the Gold Medal crime novels and their like. You wouldn’t find John D. MacDonald or David Goodis at the library.
Steve, you’re right. No John D. MacDonald, no Goodis, no Jim Thompson, and no Carter Brown.
I was in a similar situation – but our city library had almost no SF – only when the America House exchanged its bookload for a new one was there a chance. And that way I also got books like Walk on the Wild Side etc, all in German translations of course.
And then came the “Goldmann Blue SF” series (just a text on the cover, no pictures) which I read at my relative’s book store in the afternoon. So there was at least one book a day for me …
The little bit of pocket money I spent on second hand comics, also some SF.
So regarding these authors and their stories I was a late comer but my advantage was that there were some SF fans who turned into authors and also translators. I might have named already Jesko von Puttkamer (from a noble family) whom I met at a fan meeting – who later went to work for NASA!
At the end of the 50s when I turned 16 of course I also did summer jobs but bought real stuff with that money:
My first bicycle and a tape recorder so I could record the rock songs played on AFN (American Forces Network).
All this changed (for the better) when I started university in 1962 – the environment was totally different!
I
Wolf, I had a nice comic book collection, too. But my mother got rid of it while I was away at Summer Camp!
Just what I said, before reading your remark!
As far as acquiring books was concerned my story would be about the same as George’s, and I, too, used the library. I don’t remember what SFBC selections cost, but they weren’t expensive. I think there were two selections each month, plus some alternates, and you let the book club know which ones you DIDN’T want. Of course my parents were paying for these. My personal book buying took a big leap when I got a driver’s license at 16 and could drive to news stands and other places that sold paperbacks. At the same time I had subscriptions to some of the SF magazines. My mother and sister were also big readers, so I was definitely in a book friendly household.
Michael, my family was into reading, too. My parents would take the whole family (2 adults, 5 kids) to the Library each week. Two of my sisters later became Library Pages at our local Library. I ended up getting a Master’s Degree in Library Science (along with an MBA, MA, and a PhD.). I have more degrees than a thermometer.
Like Patti, I mostly used the library then. I do remember buying books in school via Scholastic or whatever, books that were either made into movies (BEN-HUR: A Tale of the Christ by General Lew Wallace, or OLD YELLER by Fred Gipson) or movie novelizations (WEST SIDE STORY by Irving Shulman, author of THE AMBOY DUKES). In addition, as mentioned before, my mother subscribed to Readers Digest Condensed Books, abridged versions of three or four books each month. I would pluck one from her shelves that interested me – THE YEAR THE YANKEES LOST THE PENNANT by Douglass Wallop (later turned into DAMN YANKEES) , THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (another favorite movie then) by Ernest K. Gann, THE DAY LINCOLN WAS SHOT by Jim Bishop, and ANDERSONVILLE (I later read the unabridged edition) by Mackinlay Kantor. I really don’t remember reading any science fiction until discovering Ray Bradbury in the early ’60s.
Jeff, I bought some Scholastic Books from the Reading Teacher at Junior High school, but those books tended to be a bit bland for my tastes. At the time, I was reading Mike Shayne, Frank Kane, and Carter Brown paperbacks which gave me more “bang” for the buck!
I had job, but I couldn’t even tell you where the nearest bookstore was in north Philly in the sixties. I think I would have had to take two buses and a subway downtown to find a bookstore. But I did have a pretty good library three blocks away. I didn’t read any genre fiction until I discovered Agatha Christie in my twenties. I don’t think I really knew it existed since my parents weren’t readers.
Patti, the nearest bookstores–both new and used–were several miles away from where I lived in the 1960s. But once I got a bike, I learned to pedal to the bookstores and found some great paperbacks. Otherwise, I picked up paperbacks from the spinner racks in local stores.
Not a lot of favorites in this anthology, even the Anderson is a weaker effort. I suspect the best story would be the Brown.
Conklin liked to dig out stories that others had overlooked, that had gone otherwise unreprinted. That could tell a bit more blatantly in some of his later anthologies.
Todd, it will come as no surprise to you that I have some of those later Conklin SF anthologies with more obscure stories.
Rick, the Brown story is another one of his short stort shories.
Happily, public and even public-school libraries had a more enlightened, at least somewhat, attitude by the mid-’70s when I began using them in earnest. They weren’t festooned with horror anthologies when I began looking for them, but there was no lack of them in the young readers’ stacks or even in the adult, which I would also troll as a fifth-grader.
Scholastic (and to some extent in imitation, briefly in the ’70s, Xerox, relying heavily on the Grosset & Dunlap Tempo catalog) were very mixed bags when it came to fantastica (and everything else), but some editors (including Betty M. Owen, whose work I’ve blogged about) and some writers had very good work mixed in there. Scholastic and, possibly, Dell (whose young readers’ lines were strong in the ’70s) also sponsored book fairs at schools (Scholastic does still), and I picked up a copy of Hal Cantor’s almost ineluctable GHOSTS AND THINGS (Richard Price cover) from Berkley, even though it was aimed at adult readers, when I was 8 or 9yo.
The SF Book Club, the Doubleday-owned US version, would Not send automatic monthly selections to Alaska or Hawaii among other places, making it an even better deal in 1979 after we moved to Honolulu, then Kailua, than it had been the year before in New Hampshire (likewise The Book of the Month club offshoot the Quality Paperback Club). SFBC’s lowest-cost regular items in ’78-’80 were $1.98 before shipping was added (much as with the other D-day book clubs), though, sadly, D-day was producing them more cheaply at the end of the ’70s than they had been at the beginning of the decade (true of many of their trade books, as well), particularly in the bindings). My book/fiction and other magazine (and mostly comics instead of fiction magazines in 1973-75) funds mostly came from the alternate to an allowance in the ’70s; in Hawaii, as I went to a private high school, my lunches were no longer subsidized, and I would frequently skim from the several-dollars-a-day lunch money to buy books, magazines and records (went to summer school every year, never did get a formal job until uni time). Unlike with Patti, clothing was not a concern, to a fault, I suppose, which remains true.
Todd, I was briefly a member of the Quality Paperback Book Club. It didn’t take me long to discover I could find the same books in used bookstores for much better prices. The omnibus editions that the Science Fiction Book Club published were bargains! But now, online book sellers have jacked up the prices for them.
George,
I discovered the neighborhood drug store paperback rack at the age of eleven and still have the first book I bought there, Arthur C. Clarke’s “Islands in the Sky.” From then on that rack, as well as those at the grocery stores, became my regular haunts. When a book store opened at the edge of town I would bike the five miles there and back at least once a month. I used the library only for the odd title or two. I wasn’t a consumer I was a book lover which also meant book collector and even at a young age I felt a responsibility to support authors whose work I enjoyed. I have most of those mass market paperbacks to this day (all of which, especially the SF anthologies) I reread multiple times. I’ve actually been on the lookout for a vintage paperback rack to display some of my collection.
Byron, back in the Sixties, most grocery stories, drug stories, variety stories, etc. had racks of books. Today, that’s a thing of the post. And, in the few stores who still sell paperback books as part of their product line, it’s mostly bestsellers, romance novels, and celebrity non-fiction. No mysteries, no SF, no fantasy. It’s a sad situation.
George, this does sound like a very good anthology and fortunately it can be found at reasonable prices.
I enjoyed the comments about buying books when young vs the library and how libraries were different back then. I could not afford to buy books when I was younger, although I don’t know if I acquired any paperback books or not. I used the library a lot. I remember the first hardback book I bought with my own money. I had quit college for a year and a half between freshman and sophomore year, and I worked in a hospital (EKG technician, believe it or not). The first hardback I bought was a Rex Stout book, probably The Father Hunt, based on the time frame. It wasn’t until my thirties that I actually began acquiring books… other than the Rex Stout collection I had.
Tracy, Art Scott and Steve Stilwell have read the entire Nero Wolfe series over 50 times! Are you a constant re-reader like they are?
George, I have read all of the series at least four times, and some of them 5 or 6 times, but I will never get close to 50 times. I would like to read the whole series again in the next 3-4 years. They are fast reads, but I am not that fast a reader.
Tracy, I am an infrequent re-reader. But I’ve met numerous Nero Wolfe fans who have re-read the entire series a mind-boggling number of times! I just find there’s too many new books arriving at my door which making re-reading recede.