FORGOTTEN BOOKS #284: THE VERY BEST OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION, VOLUME 2 Edited by Gordon Van Gelder

The-Very-Best-of-Fantasy-Science-Fiction-Volume-2
I started reading The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction back in the 1950s. It was classy and attracted some of the best writers of that era. Periodically, volumes of The Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction appeared collecting some of the better stories that appeared in that publication. I bought them, too. Now, Gordon Van Gelder, the current editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, has published two volumes of great stories from the 60+ year run of his periodical. This second volume just came out this summer and if you scan the Table of Contents, you’ll see some classics. Van Gelder made his choices in a chronological fashion. I think this collection is a bargain at $12.58 on AMAZON. The first volume, just as good, is still available, too. These two volumes give you great value for the money!
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
“The Third Level” by Jack Finney (1952)
“The Cosmic Charge Account” by C. M. Kornbluth (1956)
“The Country of the Kind” by Damon Knight (1956)
“The Anything Box” by Zenna Henderson (1956)
“The Prize of Peril” by Robert Sheckley (1958)
“ ‘—All You Zombies—’ ” by Robert A. Heinlein (1959)
“A Kind of Artistry” by Brian W. Aldiss (1962)
“Green Magic” by Jack Vance (1963)
“NarrowValley” by R. A. Lafferty (1966)
“Sundance” by Robert Silverberg (1969)
“Attack of the Giant Baby” by Kit Reed (1976)
“The Hundredth Dove” by Jane Yolen (1977)
“Jeffty Is Five” by Harlan Ellison (1977)
“Salvador” by Lucius Shepard (1984)
“The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything” by George Alec Effinger (1984)
“Rat” by James Patrick Kelly (1986)
“The Friendship Light” by Gene Wolfe (1989)
“The Bone Woman” by Charles de Lint (1993)
“The Lincoln Train” by Maureen F. McHugh (1995)
“Maneki Neko” by Bruce Sterling (1998)
“Winemaster” Robert Reed (1999)
“SuicideCoast” by M. John Harrison (1999)
“Have Not Have” by Geoff Ryman (2001)
“The People of Sand and Slag” by Paolo Bacigalupi (2004)
“Echo” by Elizabeth Hand (2005)
“The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates” by Stephen King (2008)
“The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (2011)

13 thoughts on “FORGOTTEN BOOKS #284: THE VERY BEST OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION, VOLUME 2 Edited by Gordon Van Gelder

  1. Richard R.

    Nice one. I’ve read all of the stories until the 1984, then just a very few, including the Ken Lui. I’ll have to see what was in Volume One. Good choice!

    Reply
  2. Todd Mason

    In the insane event that only one story here could be preserved, I’ll suggest that it’d be “The Country of the Kind”–a pretty good choice in the SFWA poll for the best short story Damon Knight wrote, and a story that flattened me when I read it as a kid in the SF HALL OF FAME volume, and continues to do so since. The rest of the volume is pretty damned good, too, though I’ll reserve endorsement of the King till I read it. (I did Kirby McCauley this week.)

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *