I’ve been a fan of Mike Ashley’s anthologies for the British Library (you can read my reviews here, here, here, and here). Yesterday’s Tomorrows: The Story of Science Fiction in 100 Books (2020) has a misleading title. It’s the story of SF in the UK from the late Nineteenth Century to the mid-Twentieth Century. I confess that dozens of these titles–especially the early books–were all new to me. Of course, once Ashley gets to the 1940s, more and more titles are familiar. I’m hoping Ashley produces another volume that continues the history of British SF from the mid-1960s to date. How many of these titles do you recognize? How many of these books have you read? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS — 10

INTRODUCTION: The Start of It All — 11

I. WELLS, WELLS, WELLS AGAIN — 21

1. The Time Machine H. G. Wells (1895) — 23
2. The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells (1898) — 26
3. When the Sleeper Wakes H. G. Wells (1899) — 28
4. The Country of the Blind and Other Stories H. G. Wells (1911) — 31

II. WARS TO END ALL WARS — 33

5. The Outlaws of the Air George Griffith (1895) — 36

6. The Invasion of 1910 William Le Queue (1906) — 38

7. When William Came Saki (1913) — 40

8. The Struggle for Empire Robert W. Cole (1900) — 42

III. DOOM AND DISASTER — 45

9. Crack of Doom Robert Cromie (1895) — 46

10. The Violet Flame Fred T. Jan (1899) — 48

11. The Purple Cloud M. P. Shiel (1901) — 50

12. The Machine Stops E. M. Forster (1909) — 53

IV. FUTURE’S NEAR AND FAR — 55

13. The Napoleon of Notting Hill G.K. Chesterton (1904) — 57

14. With the Night Mail Rudyard Kipling (1909) — 59

15. The Night Land William Hope Hodgson (1912) — 62

16. The Elixir of Life or 2905 A.D. Herbert Gubbins (1914) — 65

V. THE OLD AND THE NEW — 69

17. The Hampdenshire Wonder J. D. Beresford (1911) — 71

18. The Lost World Arthur Conan Doyle (1912) — 74

VI. ESCAPE OR REALITY? — 77

19. A Drop in Infinity Gerold Grogon (1915) — 79

20. The Terror Arthur Machen (1916) — 82

21. The New Moon Oliver Onions (1918) — 84

22. Meccania, The Super State Owen Gregory (1918) — 86

23. When the World Shook H. Rider Haggard (1919) — 89

24. A Voyage to Arcturus David Lindsay (1920) — 92

VII. BRAVE NEW WORLDS — 97

25. The People of the Ruins Edward Shanks (1920) — 99

26. The Secret Power Maria Carelli (1921) — 101

27. Theodore Savage Cicely Hamilton (1922) — 104

28. Number 87 Harrington Text (1922) — 106

29. Nordenholt’s Million J. J. Connington (1923) — 108

30. Ultimatum Victor MacClure (1924) — 110

31. Menace from the Moon Bohun Lynch (1925) — 112

32. Man’s World Charlotte Haldone (1926) — 115

33. To-morrow Alfred Ollivant (1927) — 117

34. Concrete Aalfrida Tillyard (1930) — 120

VIII. SUPER, SUB OR NON-HUMAN? — 125

35. The Blue Germ Martin Swayne (1918) — 128

36. Back to Methuselah George Bernard Shaw (1921) — 130

37. The Cheetah Girl Christopher Blayre (1923) — 134

38. The Clockwork Man E. V. Odle (1923) — 136

39. The Collapse of Homo Sapiens P. Anderson Graham (1923) — 139

40. The Last of My Race J. Lional Taylor (1924) — 142

41. The Amphibians S. Fowler Wright (1925) — 143

42. The Emperor of the If Guy Dent (1926) — 147

43. The Man with Six Senses Muriel Jaeger (1927) — 150

44. Kontrol Edmund Small (1928) — 153

45. The Ant Heap Edward Knoblock (1929) — 155

46. Brain Lionel Britton (1930) — 157

47. The Seventh Bowl Miles (Stephen Southwold) (1930) — 160

48. Brave New World Aldous Huxley (1932) — 163

IX. PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS — 169

49. The World, the Flesh and the Devil J. D. Bernal (1929) — 171

50. If It had Happened Otherwise J. C. Squire (1931) — 173

X. INTO THE COSMIC — 177

51. To-morrow’s Yesterday John Gloag (1932) — 181

52. Gay Hunter J. Leslie Mitchell (1934) — 182

53. Adrift in the Stratosphere A. M. Low (serial 1934; book 1937) — 184

54. Planet Plane John Beynon (1936) — 187

55. Crisis!–1992 Benson Herbert (1936) — 191

56. Star Maker Olaf Stapledon (1937) — 193

57. Out of the Silent Planet C. s. Lewis (1938) — 195

58. Sinister Barrier Eric Frank Russell (1939) — 197

XI. PREPARING FOR WAR — 201

59. Lost Horizon James Hilton (1933) — 203

60. The Peacemaker C. S. Forester (1934) — 206

61. The Strange Invaders Alan Llewellyn (1934) — 208

62. Land Under England James O’Neill (1935) — 210

63. Women Alive Susan Ertz (1935) — 212

64. Swastika Night Murray Constantine (1937) –215

65. The Hopkins Manuscript R. C. Sherriff (1939) — 217

XII. OUR DARKEST HOURS — 221

66. The Twenty-Fifth Hour Herbert Best (1940) — 224

67. Loss of Eden Douglas Brown & Christopher Sarpell (1940) — 225

68. Secret Weapon Bernard Newman (1942) — 228

69. The Golden Amazon John Russell Fearn (1944) — 230

70. Four-Sided Triangle William F. Temple (1949) — 232

XIII. POST-ATOMIC DOOM — 235

71. Death of a World J. Jefferson Farjean (1948) — 238

72. Nineteen Eight-Four George Orwell (1949) — 239

73. Time Marches Sideways Ralph L. Finn (1950) — 242

74. The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham (1951) — 244

75. The Last Revolution Lord Dunsany (1951) — 246

76. The Sound of His Horn Sarban (1952) — 248

77. The Magicians J. B. Priestley (1954) — 250

XIV. SCIENCE FICTION BOOM — 253

78. The Quatermass Experiment Nigel Knele (TV, 1953; book 1959) — 256

79. Journey Into Space Charles Chilton (radio, 1953; book 1954) — 258

80. Childhood’s End Arthur C. Clarke (1953) — 260

81. The Echoing Worlds Jonathan Burke (1954) — 264

82. One in Three Hundred J. T. McIntosh (1954) — 266

83. Alien Dust E. C. Tubb (1955) — 268

84. City Under the Sea Kenneth Bulmer (1957) — 271

85. Non-Stop Brian W. Aldiss (1958) — 273

86. Deadly Image (aka, The Uncertain Midnight ) Edmund Cooper (1958) — 276

87. Hospital Station James White (1962) — 278

88. Calculated Risk Charles Eric Maine (1960) — 280

89. A for Andromeda Fred Hoyle & John Elliot (TV, 1961; book 1962) — 282

XV. OLD WORLDS FOR NEW — 287

90. Facial Justice — L. P. Hartley (1960) — 289

91. The Drowned World J. G. Ballard (1962) — 291

92. The World in Winter John Christopher (1962) — 294

93. Memoirs of a Spacewoman Naomi Mitchison (1962) — 296

94. Telepath Arthur Sellings (1962) — 298

95. To Conquer Chaos John Brunner (1964) — 300

96. The Dark Mind Colin Kapp (1964) — 303

97. Doctor Who David Whitaker (1964) — 305

98. FROOMB! John Lymington (1964) — 308

99. The Sundered Worlds Michael Moorcock (1965) — 310

100. The Garbage World Charles Platt (1966) — 313

Select Bibliography — 317

Acknowledgements — 319

Index — 321

Back in the 1990s, VH1 and MTV issued compilation CDs with various themes. VH-1 8-TRACK FLASHBACK: THE ONE-HIT WONDERS presents a variety of “hits” by performers and groups who had their moment in the sun…and then faded away. Do you remember these songs? Any favorites? GRADE: B

TRACK LIST:

1	Wild Cherry–	Play That Funky Music
2	Shocking Blue–	Venus
3	Terry Jacks–	Seasons In The Sun
4	Starland Vocal Band–	Afternoon Delight
5	Climax (6)–	Precious And Few
6	Ocean (3)–	Put Your Hand In The Hand
7	George McCrae–	Rock Your Baby
8	Mungo Jerry–	In The Summertime
9	Looking Glass–	Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)
10	Vicki Sue Robinson–	Turn The Beat Around
11	Amii Stewart–	Knock On Wood
12	Gary Glitter–	Rock & Roll Part 2
13	Anita Ward–	Ring My Bell
14	Alicia Bridges–	I Love The Nightlife (Disco ‘Round)
15	Thelma Houston–	Don’t Leave Me This Way
16	David Essex–	Rock On

Here is another volume in the SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION series by the Science Fiction Book Club. PRESS ENTER was first published in 1984 and this edition with David G. Hartwell’s excellent Introduction was published in 1997. John Varley’s PRESS ENTER is a NEBULA WINNER from 1984 and a HUGO WINNER from 1985.

Press Enter is a story ahead of its time. Written in the early 1980s when cyber technology was crude, this story anticipates the sinister aspects of computers and Artificial Intelligence. When Korean War veteran, Victor Apfel, discovers his neighbor, Charles Kluge, has died and bequeathed a significant inheritance to him, he’s suspicious. But the Los Angeles Police Department is satisfied that Kluge died by suicide. Yet an investigation by Caltech computer expert Lisa Foo reveals that Kluge was hacking  into dangerous, secretive government agencies who may have been involved in his death. Following Kluge’s trail exposes Apfel and Foo to potentially the same fate that Kluge encountered.

With the current crisis with hackers shutting down the oil pipeline (which is sending gas prices skyward!), it’s astonishing Varley anticipated this kind of computer menace nearly 40 years ago!

When I first read PRESS ENTER in 1984, I was blown away by John Varley’s story. But I was also outraged–like many fans were–with the story’s conclusion. Nonetheless, PRESS ENTER is one of those dazzling SF stories that successfully predicts the Future. GRADE: A

I’ve been a fan of revenge books and movies since I read Brian Garfield’s novel Death Wish in 1972 and saw the Charles Bronson movie of the same name from 1974. Bronson decides to seek revenge on criminals after his family is attacked.

Carey Mulligan plays Cassie Thomas, a 30-year-old medical school dropout who works in a coffee shop and lives with her parents.  Cassie dropped out of med school after her best friend, Nina, was gang raped by fellow students. The crime was reported, but nothing was done.

Cassie now goes to bars and pretends she’s drunk. Men take Cassie home and try to have sex with her, but Cassie confronts them and ruins their plans.

Emerald Fennell, who wrote and directed Promising Young Woman, puts Cassie in danger. She makes risky decisions. But, when Cassie learns the truth about her boyfriend, and comes into possession of a key bit of evidence about the rape, she goes into full revenge mode. Promising Young Woman is a powerful movie that stay with you days after you’ve watched it. GRADE: B+

Michael Lewis follows a group of healthcare professionals who discovered the Pandemic before any of the Government agencies did. My favorite character is Charity Dean, a gifted California health official, who recognizes the threat of the Covid-19 virus way before the Centers for Disease Control had it on their radar. And Dr. Dean takes action, which the CDC avoids.

I also admire Richard Hatchett and Carter Mecher, who were part of the pandemic planning team under the George W. Bush administration and continued to work on pandemic preparedness under the Obama administration. John Bolton, Trump’s national security advisor, fired Tom Bossert (the Homeland Security Advisor) and demoted or fired everyone on the biological threat team (p. 163). After that, the Trump Administration had no contingency plans for pandemics.

Michael Lewis shows how a country with advanced medicine and vast health resources completely failed to protect its citizens from the coronavirus. New estimates claim close to a million Americans died from Covid-19. Joe DeRisi, a brilliant biologist, estimated that the U.S. should have lost 180,000 if all the pandemic preparations had been put into practice. Obviously, they weren’t.

The Premonition is in some ways a sequel to Lewis’s last book, The Fifth Risk (you can read my review here). In The Fifth Risk Lewis showed how Trump loaded the Federal agencies with political hacks and incompetent staff. Lewis predicted that when things would go wrong, the Federal Government would be inept at meeting the challenges. Lewis was right.

The Premonition is the best non-fiction book I’ve read in 2021. It’s funny, it’s sad, and it’s real. I highly recommend it. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction: The missing Americans — xii

PART 1

Prologue: The looking glass — 3

ONE: Dragon — 10

TWO: The making of a public-health officer — 23

THREE: The pandemic thinker — 50

FOUR: Stopping the unstoppable — 78

FIVE: Clairvoyance — 112

PART 2

SIX: The red phone — 135

SEVEN: The redneck epidemiologist — 160

EIGHT: In Mann Gulch — 186

NINE: The L6 — 209

PART 3

TEN: The bug in the system — 241

ELEVEN: Plastic flowers — 270

EPILOGUE: The sin of omission — 297

Acknowledgments –303

I really enjoyed Catfishing on CatNet (2019) which won an Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Mystery (you can read my review here). Chaos on CatNet has just been published and I enjoyed this sequel just as much as the original novel.

Naomi Kritzer puts teenager Steph and her programmer mother in danger in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Steph meets a new friend at school, Nell, whose mother is an ardent follower of a religious cult. The cult’s social media encourages destructive and violent acts. Steph and Nell, with the help of their Artificial Intelligence ally, CheshireCat, try to discover the source and strategy behind the rioting.

Once again, the teenagers are way ahead of the adults in investigating the strange conspiracies swirling around the cult and the social media app. If you’re in mood for following a group of intrepid teenagers threatened by mysterious forces as they penetrate the secrets that have national implications, Chaos on CatNet amps up the suspense and thrills! GRADE: A

This new collection of Science Fiction stories by Robert Silverberg includes some classics like “In Another Country” and “Ship-Sister, Star-Sister” as well as some very early stories from the 1950s and early 1960s like “The Sixth Palace” and “Why.”

“In Another Country” is a companion story to C. L. Moore’s very moving “Vintage Season” where a group of Time Travelers visit the Past at certain key moments. “Ship-Sister, Star-Sister” concerns a pair of sisters who are linked through telepathy. But when their thoughts are interrupted by static, they make an incredible discovery.

“The Sixth Palace” is a puzzle story. A robot guards a deserted palace full of rare and valuable objects. The robot will only let someone have access to the riches if they answer its questions correctly. Many have failed (and were destroyed by the robot) but two adventurers are willing to try anyway.

“We Are For the Dark” is the longest story in this collection. It concerns a religious cult that seeks to form a galactic empire, but at the extreme margins, something is going very wrong. A trouble-shooter is sent to find out what is happening and discovers something astonishing.

In addition to these great stories, Silverberg also provides interesting Introductions to each story putting them in context and revealing how the stories actually came to be written. If you’re looking for some wonderful reading, I highly recommend Voyagers. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction by Robert Silverberg — i

In Another Country — 1

Travelers — 81

Chip Runner — 101

Looking For The Fountain — 119

Ship-Sister, Star-Sister — 144

The Changeling — 173

We Are For The Dark — 196

The Trouble With Sempoanga — 271

The Sixth Palace — 283

Why? — 297

The Pleasure Of Their Company — 312

Thebes Of The Hundred Gates — 331

Back in the 1990s, TV shows started issuing soundtracks just like movies did. One of those TV shows was Mad About You.

Mad About You was an American sitcom television series starring Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt as a married couple in New York City. The series proved successful with a total of 164 half-hour episodes for seven seasons.

Mad About You  aired on NBC from September 23, 1992, to May 24, 1999, winning numerous awards including four Golden Globe Awards and twelve Primetime Emmy Awards. The show’s theme song, “Final Frontier”, was composed by Paul Reiser and Don Was.  “Final Frontier” was originally performed by Andrew Gold, but a version performed by Anita Baker made its debut in Season 5, Were you a fan of Mad About You? Do you remember this music? GRADE: B

TRACK LIST:

1	Andrew Gold–	Final Frontier (TV Theme)	1:09
2	Faith Hill–	Who I Am	4:19
3		“No Pressure”	0:36
4	The Young Rascals–	I’ve Been Lonely Too Long	2:05
5	Etta James–	At Last!	2:58
6		“That’s Marriage?”	0:40
7	Sarah McLachlan–	Ice Cream	2:43
8	Eric Martin (2)–	I Love The Way You Love Me	3:38
9	Lyle Lovett–	Nobody Knows Me	3:04
10	Elvis Costello–	Sneaky Feelings	2:09
11		“A Talk In The Park”	0:30
12	Julia Fordham–	Love & Forgiveness	4:17
13		“A Magic Moment”	0:30
14	Marc Cohn–	The Things We’ve Handed Down	4:40
15	BeBe Winans–	Lullabye For You	4:03
16	Hootie & The Blowfish–	She Crawls Away	4:06
17	Nil Lara–	My First Child	5:40
18	John Lennon–	Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)	4:04
19	The Tony Rich Project–	Baby Girl	2:24
20		“Unconditional Love”	0:22
21	Anita Baker–	Mad About You – The Final Frontier	3:44

Subterranean Press published this Alastair Reynolds novella in 2008 and I just got around to reading it. Ariunaa Boecheng (aka, Yellow Dog) is an secret agent for a Mongol dominated galactic empire. But, at the edge of the Empire, mysterious phantom ships keep appearing. Ariunaa is sent to investigate, but is discovered and tortured by the local warlord, Qilian. Qilian, once he determines who Ariunaa really is, puts her in charge of the search for more phantom ship artifacts.

When a live survivor from one of the phantom ships is recovered, Qilian joins Ariunaa and the pilot on a mission to find the source of these alien incursions.

Like most Alastair Reynolds stories, space opera aspects dominate the action. If you’re in the mood for some galactic adventures, The Six Directions of Space will deliver some epic thrills. GRADE: A