Science Fiction of the 50s is part of a trilogy of anthologies; the other two volumes are Science Fiction of the 30s and Science Fiction of the 40s. You can read more about the AVON series here. Of the three volumes, I prefer Science Fiction of the 50s. Just glance at the stories in this volume. I started reading SF in the 1950s so many of these stories bring some fond memories with them. I recommend that you don’t read the informative introductions to the stories until you’ve finished reading the stories first. Sadly, those introductions contain spoilers but no warnings! If you’re as big a fan of 1950s Science Fiction as I am, you’ll really enjoy Science Fiction of the 50s.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Preface by Frederik Pohl
Spectator Sport by John D. MacDonald
Feedback by Katherine MacLean
DP by Jack Vance
The Liberation of Earth by William Tenn
A Work of Art by James Blish
The County of the Kind by Damon Knight
The Education of Tigress McCardle by C.M. Kornbluth
The Cage by A. Bertram Chandler
The Last of the Deliverers by Poul Anderson
A Bad Day for Sales by Fritz Leiber
Saucer of Loneliness by Theodore Sturgeon
Heirs Apparent by Robert Abernathy
Adrift on the Policy Level by Chan Davis
Short in the Chest by Margaret St Clair
5,271,009 by Alfred Bester
The Academy by Robert Sheckley
Nobody Bothers Gus by Algis Budrys
Happy Birthday Dear Jesus by Frederik Pohl
Bettyann by Kris Neville
Dark Interlude by Fredric Brown & Mack Reynolds
What Have I Done by Mark Clifton
Love O Careless Love by Barry N. Malzberg
The 1950s being the first decade when the contributors to sf magazines wrote, at least at the top of the art, as well as any prose being published. This was a lot less true in the previous decades.
Todd, you’re right. The Fifties had the most SF magazines and paperback sales became a big market for SF writers. Plenty of postives!
“A Saucer of Loneliness” a fine story, if barely sf…”5,271,009″ also verges more on fantasy, and is still a brilliant story…and “The Country of the Kind” might just be the best story in the book, and is just the kind of thing that sf as a self-conscious art might do best.
The Sturgeon story, to be clear, verges on being a contemporary-mimetic story, to which an sfnal dusting was added, rather than a near-fantasy, as the acute Bester story is, in its similarly psychodramatic way…
Todd, thanks for forwarding Barry Malzberg’s comments: “I am gratified to see SCIENCE FICTION OF THE 50’s (Greenberg & Olander, eds.) recommended by George Kelley, particularly since nearly two decades ago I contributed an Introduction and grim it was, well suited to the decade of its publication (and the decade from which the stories emerged).”
See also Barry and Bill Pronzini’s similar collection, named for the Algis Budrys story collected there, THE END OF SUMMER
Todd, I think the editors were trying to capture the “flavor” of the SF in the Fifties with these selections.
I remember reading SF-anthologies as a student (started in 1962) in the library of the “America House” – you couldn’t take those books out …
Don’t know however whether they were the same, but I think Greenberg was editor.
So many fantastic stories!
Wolf, that was The Other Martin Greenberg, whom Martin Harry Greenberg had to always cite at least his middle initial for differentiation purposes…the Other Martin Greenberg, while a good editor, was also a small-press publisher who wasn’t All That Good at paying his writers’ royalties on time or completely or sometimes at all. M. H. Greenberg was a political science professor, not too unlike George if in a related discipline, who began publishing sf anthologies for classroom use in the early 1970s, and branched out enormously from there. The earlier Martin Greenberg was active in the 1950s into the early ’60s.
Thanks, Todd – I totally forgot, should have known this!
In cases like this I realise that I’m getting old too …
Wolf, Greenberg (with several partners) published over a hundred SF anthologies. It wouldn’t surprise you to learn I own many of them.
Great stuff, all right. In addition to the ones Todd Mentioned, the John D. MacDonald story is a real standout.
It is a solid selection, to say the least. A fair amount of the best and near-best stories by these writers.
Bill, I wish JDM wrote more SF.
Of all those listed in the table of contents, only MacLean and Malzberg are still living. I miss the old days.
Jerry, most of these stories are over 60 years old. But many of them stand up despite the years. Good writing will do that.
George, you took the words right out of my mouth!
But of course we mainly remember those really wonderful and extraordinary stories. In each instalment of Galaxy, Analog (or Astounding) etc there als were some “fillers” which didn’t impress me too much even as a young man …
Wolf, I loved reading GALAXY, IF, ANALOG/ASTOUNDING, F&SF, etc. when I was a kid. Great stories, great writers, and that Sense of Wonder made those years great!
I remember one story – but neither its author nor its title about a contraption that makes it possible to “look into the past” – it starts with the narrator watching a crudely made historical film and slowly realising that these are real picture from the past …
And it ends in chaos after people realise that It’s possible to snoop on everything that was done in the past.
Don’t know whether this story was contained in this anthology – it made a lasting impression on me just like E F Russell’s
“All flowers love the sun”.
That sounds a bit like Damon Knight’s “I See You”…though it might be one of at least a few others, Wolf.
In recent years I’ve been catching up on a lot of the early stories I missed by not reading much SF as a kid and I agree, overall the ’50s was a big leap forward from the earlier stuff. I’ll look for this one. (I have read some of the stories elsewhere.)
Jeff, I have several SF collections of Fifties stories. This one is up near the top in quality.
I agree, this is the decade that I would most usually plump for too – marvellous 🙂
Sergio, the Fifties was a seminal decade in SF development. Anthologies like this one provide plenty of proof of that.
Re: “a contraption that makes it possible to “look into the past” – it starts with the narrator watching a crudely made historical film and slowly realising that these are real picture from the past …
And it ends in chaos after people realise that It’s possible to snoop on everything that was done in the past.”
Sounds like “The Dead Past” by Isaac Asimov, possibly with admixture from memory of “E for Effort” by T.L. Sherred.
Denny Lien
Thanks, Denny…”E for Effort” was one of the other stories I was groping about in memory for. Similarly brilliant.
Thanks, Denny and Todd!
Of course it was E is for Effort – hey, it’s even on wiki!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_for_Effort
Fantastic in a way that wiki has entries for old SF stories – isn’t it marvelous?
An outstanding anthology. My favorite is “5,271,009”, one of the greatest (and bitterest) SF stories of all time. “A Saucer of Loneliness” too is brilliant. And of course bringing to light the less well known “Spectator Sport” is also a Good Thing.
I loved Barry’s and Bill’s END OF SUMMER too, not least for the brilliant and too little known Budrys title story.
Rich, I have a copy of END OF SUMMER that I need to reread. Love the SF stories of the Fifties! Plenty of classics!