I really liked Robert F. Young’s “Jungle Doctor”, but the classic stories in this anthology are “The Game of Rat and Dragon” by Cordwainer Smith and “A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Cordwainer Smith’s story showed a very unique future. Walter M. Miller’s post-nuclear holocaust story captures the role of religion in the hardscrabble life where knowledge and technology are shunned. Frank Riley explores robotics in the legal system. Robert Bloch’s clever story has a sting at the end. All in all, T. E. Dikty’s selection of stories is an accurate reflection of science fiction stories in the mid-Fifties. GRADE: A-
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The Science-Fiction Year, by T. E. Dikty
“Jungle Doctor”, by Robert F. Young (STARTLING STORIES, Fall 1955)
“Judgment Day”, by L. Sprague de Camp (ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, August 1955)
“The Game of Rat and Dragon”, by Cordwainer Smith (GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION, October 1955)
“The Man Who Always Knew”, by Algis Budrys (ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, April 1956)
“Dream Street”, by Frank M. Robinson (IMAGINATIVE TALES, March 1955)
“You Created Us”, by Tom Godwin (FANTASTIC UNIVERSE, October 1955)
“Swenson, Dispatcher”, by R. DeWitt Miller (GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION, April 1956)
“Thing”, by Ivan Janvier (FANTASTIC UNIVERSE, March 1955)
“I Do Not Love Thee, Doctor Fell”, by Robert Bloch (THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, March 1955)
“Clerical Error”, by Mark Clifton (ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, February 1956)
“A Canticle for Leibowitz”, by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, April 1955)
“The Cyber and Justice Holmes”, by Frank Riley (IF, March 1955)
“The Shores of Night”, by Thomas N. Scortia (aka, “Sea Change,” ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, June 1956)
The Science-Fiction Book Index, by Earl Kemp
Somelovely stories …
I remember A Canticle for Leibowitz – that morbid fascination with WW3 that was a theme for much of the Cold War SF.
We were lucky that it didn’t turn out that way – and hopefully Trump will not push the red button …
Any way I’man optimist at heart
Wolf, A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ grew into a novel (two more stories were added) that won the HUGO AWARD for BEST NOVEL in 1961.
It’s interesting these old Bleiler/Dikty books collect Mark Clifton and Frank Riley stories, and they won the Hugo for their novel They’d Rather Be Right but we never see or hear about them today.
Jim, I have a copy of THEY’D RATHER BE RIGHT but haven’t gotten around to reading it. Mark Clifton showed a lot of promise but came to a tragic end. I don’t know much about Frank Riley.
THEY’D RATHER BE RIGHT is often cited as the worst book to ever win a Hugo. I can’t speak to that. I read the book long ago and found it mildly entertaining but no great shakes. A list of nominees for the Hugo that year was never published so it is difficult to say what the competition was but, as Jo Walton has pointed out, other books published that year were Pangborn’s A MIRROR FOR OBSERVERS, Clement’s MISSION OF GRAVITY, Anderson’s BRAIN WAVE, Matheson’s I AM LEGEND, Asimov’s CAVES OF STEEL, Smith’s CHILDREN OF THE LENS, Tolkien’s THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, and Pohl and Kornbluth’s SEARCH THE SKY, among may other deserving titles.
Nonetheless, most of Clifton’s roughly two dozen science fiction stories are very readable. Beside his book with Clifton, Riley only published about seven SF stories, all from 1954 to 1958.
Jerry, I’ve read a number of Mark Clifton short stories. I have one of Clifton’s novels on my READ REAL SOON stack. Back in the 1950s, the conventions were small and the number of people voting for the HUGOs was not representative of fandom. That’s how books like THEY’D RATHER BE RIGHT won awards.
I never read the novel version of LEIBOWITZ, though I did pick it up several years ago. I have the original version in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame novella collection.
Jeff, the novel version of A Canticle for Leibowitz is a fix-up of three novelettes with some transition material added. It won a HUGO AWARD for Best Novel in 1961. Worth reading.
This has some pretty interesting stories. I liked the Clifton story when I read it in ASTOUNDING, and CANTICLE I read in paperback novel format. I also liked the Smith. I don’t think I’ve read that Budrys, how is it?
Rick, “The Man Who Always Knew” by Algis Budrys is a mediation on Time. I’m a big fan of Budrys stories from the Fifties!
There’s another Budrys story in the book, by the way — “Thing”, by “Ivan Janvier”, which was a Budrys pseudonym.
Rich, thanks for the heads up on “Ivan Janvier”!
I read CANTICLE a long time ago and remember loving the first half and being bored by the second!
Dikty would make a good Nero Wolfe.
Bob, I found that CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ tailed off at the end. The first half of the book was great!
“and the number of people voting for the HUGOs was not representative of fandom.”
What’s the evidence for this claim?
Gary, the attendance at the 13th World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland, Ohio September 2-5, 1955 was 380. SF fandom at that time was much larger than that!