The most famous story in The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fourth Series is Alfred Bester’s classic story of a murderous robot, “Fondly Fahrenheit.” I also liked C. M. Kornbluth’s “I Never Ask No Favors.” Robert Sheckley dabbles in fantasy in “The Accountant” where parents–who want their son to be a wizard–are confronted with the problem that he really wants to be an accountant.
Richard Matheson’s “The Test” can be found in a number of anthologies. Lord Dunsany’s “Misadventure” is one of his Jorken club tales with a chilling conclusion that predicts the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. “The Little Black Train” is one of Manly Wade Wellman’s best Silver John stories. This one concerns a curse on woman with a dark past. This volume features plenty of top-notch stories! GRADE: A-
Contents
- 9 • Introduction (Best from F&SF 4) • (1955) • essay by Anthony Boucher
- 13 • Fondly Fahrenheit • (1954) • novelette by Alfred Bester
- 37 • I Never Ast No Favors • (1954) • short story by C. M. Kornbluth
- 53 • Some Facts About Robots (1954 version) • (1954) • poem by Leonard Wolf
- 54 • Heirs Apparent • (1954) • novelette by Robert Abernathy
- 80 • $1.98 • (1954) • short story by Arthur Porges
- 85 • The Immortal Game • (1954) • short story by Poul Anderson
- 99 • All Summer in a Day • [All Summer in a Day] • (1954) • short story by Ray Bradbury
- 106 • The Accountant • (1954) • short story by Robert Sheckley
- 116 • Epitaph Near Moonport • (1954) • poem by Sherwood Springer
- 117 • Brave New Word • (1954) • short story by J. Francis McComas
- 132 • My Boy Friend’s Name Is Jello • (1954) • short story by Avram Davidson
- 137 • The Test • (1954) • short story by Richard Matheson
- 159 • Careless Love • (1954) • short story by Bud Foote [as by Albert C. Friborg]
- 181 • Report on the Sexual Behavior of the Extra-Sensory Perceptor • (1954) • poem by Anthony Boucher [as by Herman W. Mudgett]
- 182 • Bulletin • (1954) • short story by Shirley Jackson
- 185 • Epitaph in Avalon • (1954) • poem by Sherwood Springer
- 186 • Sanctuary • (1954) • novelette by Daniel F. Galouye
- 225 • Misadventure • [Jorkens] • (1953) • short story by Lord Dunsany
- 229 • More Facts About Robots • (1954) • poem by Leonard Wolf
- 230 • The Little Black Train • [John the Balladeer] • (1954) • short story by Manly Wade Wellman
- 248 • Cowboy Lament • (1954) • poem by Norman R. Jaffray
- 249 • The Foundation of Science Fiction Success • (1954) • poem by Isaac Asimov (variant of The Foundation of S. F. Success)
Really good collection. A lot of my favorite writers here-Bester, Matheson, Avram Davidson, Shirley Jackson, Manly wade Wellman, Robert Sheckley,, C.M. Kornbluth.
Although who the hell is Bud Foote? My favorite story here is Bester’s Fondley Fahrenheit.
Follow the ISFDB link George provides us, Steve, and the ENCLYCLOPEDIA OF SF notes that “Bud” Foote was:
(1930-2005) Scholar, political activist and music enthusiast; Professor Emeritus at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Literature, Communication and Culture from 1957-1999 and co-ordinator of one of the first university-level sf courses in America. He is the author of The Connecticut Yankee in the Twentieth Century: Travel to the Past in Science Fiction (1991), which argues that Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) established the archetype for science fiction’s use of the Time Travel motif. Under the pseudonym Albert Compton Friborg he published a short story, “Careless Love” (July 1954 F&SF; vt “Push-Button Passion” in 5 Tales from Tomorrow, anth 1957, ed T E Dikty). [CPa]
Todd, I love ISFDB!
Steve, I was blown away when I first read “Fondly Fahrenheit.” Classic!
F&SF was really hitting on all cylinders by the time they were mining the magazine for this volume…McComas would step down about this time as co-editor.
My favorites you don’t mention include Davidson’s first story in the fantastica magazines, the brilliant “My Boyfriend’s Name is Jello”, and Arthur Porges’s unusually acute joke vignette “$1.98″…I’m consistently surprised to like “Fondly Fahrenheit” less than several of Bester’s other best short stories, though it certainly is the popular favorite. Shirley Jackson had placed “Root of Evil” with FANTASTIC in its early high-budget issues the previous year, but “Bulletin” would be the first of three stories she would sell to F&SF, the next one being “One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts”, all apparently to the disgust of her literary heirs. Sherwood Springer is still with us, and I fondly remember his prose contributions in my early magazine reading in 1978 issues of FANTASTIC and ASIMOV’S (or IASFM as it was referred to in those years). And the Bradbury is almost certainly his most famous story to first appear in F&SF…it was one of the several sf stories to appear in my 7th grade Scott, Foresman literature textbook (with Clifford Simak’s “Desertion” and “Brightside Crossing” by Alan Nourse) but Of Course it was the only one to be discussed in class…
I’d say Bradbury’s “The Exiles” is a close second.
Todd, I agree with you on “The Exiles.”
Todd, you’re right about F&SF hitting on all cylinders at this time. Great writers and great stories!
People shouldn’t confuse Matheson’s “The Test” with Ted Thomas’s “Test”, the story about what happens when you fail a certain driving test, which was the single most inquired about short story when I was at the information desk at a Borders Book Shop in the DC suburbs in 1992-94 and in librarians’ puzzler email lists in the years since, which was reprinted Widely outside the field after appearing in an Avram Davidson-edited issue of F&SF in 1962…including Xerox’s READ magazine, a competitor to Scholastic Magazines in the ’60s before Xerox bought it and in the ’70s, where I first read the story as a kid. It apparently struck a nerve!
Todd, I have Richard Matheson’s “The Test” in a couple of other anthologies. Our Junior High School English teachers offered to order Scholastic Books for us. As a result of an order, Scholastic would include some of their Scholastic Magazines. I’m pretty sure they’re not doing that any more.
Scholastic and Xerox would offer their magazines as supplements to classrooms rather successfully up through the ’70s and ’80…and they were not cheap…and Xerox imitated Scholastic’s “book clubs” as well, though Xerox was mostly selling other publishers’ books, particularly Grosset & Dunlap “Tempo” paperbacks and some Dell and Harper titles…I certainly enjoyed Scholastic’s book club magazine DYNAMITE! as well as their classroom magazines SCOPE and LITERARY CAVALCADE, and READ from Xerox…eventually, READ and the early elementary grades’ THE WEEKLY READER were stablemates…at least some were still being published not too long ago…
Todd, my Elementary School teachers all used THE WEEKLY READER. In 8th Grade, my English teacher had us subscribe to the student edition of READER’S DIGEST. I’m not sure the student edition is still around.
Haven’t read the book but I have read most of the stories you mentioned, plus the Ray Bradbury and Shirley Jackson. Good collection!
Jeff, THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, FOURTH SERIES is the best book of this series that I’ve read so far. But, there are more excellent stories in the upcoming volumes.
Not much to contribute here–sadly.
Patti, you might want to read Alfred Bester’s “Fondly Fahrenheit.” It’s still powerful 70 years after it was published.