FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #655: THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICITON, NINTH SERIES Edited by Robert P. Mills

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The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Ninth Series is the first volume NOT edited by Anthony Boucher. But Robert P. Mills may have edited the best volume of the series simply because it includes the classic Flowers for Algernon. Flowers for Algernon was expanded into a novel by Daniel Keyes and later became the movie, Clarly. It’s the story a man who takes an experimental drug that increases his intelligence.

On top of Flowers for Algernon, this volume also includes Robert A. Heinlein’s time-twisting “All You Zombies…” You would think that would be enough to put this Ninth Series volume into the top tier of this series…but wait, there’s more!

Other top-notch stories: “Casey Agonistes,” by Richard McKenna, “What Rough Beast,” by Damon Knight, “The Pi Man,” by Alfred Bester. And then there’s one of Theodore Sturgeon’s best stories, “The Man Who Lost the Sea.”

The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Ninth Series is the best volume in this series so far and is full of excellent stories! Don’t miss this one! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

48 thoughts on “FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #655: THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICITON, NINTH SERIES Edited by Robert P. Mills”

  1. Steve Oerkfitz

    Lot of great stories here:
    The Pi Man by Alfred Bester
    Eastward Ho by William Tenn
    What Rough Beast by Damon Knight
    All You Zombies by Robert Heinlein
    Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
    Dagon by Avram Davidson
    Casey Agonistes by Richard McKenna
    These are the ones I remember
    Still wish they would have left out all the Ferdinand Fehfoot bits and the poems.
    The best in the series up till now.

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    1. george Post author

      Steve, I totally agree! The Ninth Series sets the bar very high with so many quality stories. I’m with you on the Ferdinand stuff and the lame poems. Just stick to the stories!!!

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  2. patti abbott

    I actually have read FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON but only the drug to increase intelligence is a fantastical element if I remember correctly. Boy, I wish there was one to administer to half this country.

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    1. Todd Mason

      Spoiler, if you’ve never come across a version of the story…

      Alas, the improvement on the intelligence is temporary, and it makes things eventually worse. It’s easy to joke that too many peers are on the downward slope.

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      1. george Post author

        Todd, “Flowers for Algernon” is a tragic story that resonated with a lot of readers. It morphed into a bestselling novel…and then a movie.

      4. Todd Mason

        Robertson didn’t have to campaign for the role…he had done the tv version (so Ace missed their chance to mention “The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon” on the cover), and this is how WIKI currently has the story:

        Development
        [Photo from the 1961 television presentation “The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon”, with Mona Freeman in the role of Alice.]

        The short story Flowers for Algernon had previously been the basis of “The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon”, a 1961 television adaptation in which Robertson had also starred for CBS’s U. S. Steel Hour. Robertson had starred in a number of TV shows which were turned into films with other actors playing his role, such as The Days of Wine and Roses. He bought the rights to the story, hoping to star in the film version as well.

        He originally hired William Goldman to write the screenplay on the strength of Goldman’s novel No Way to Treat a Lady, paying him $30,000 out of his own pocket. Robertson was unhappy with Goldman’s work and then hired Stirling Silliphant to do a draft.

        Robertson did the role for only $25,000.

      5. george Post author

        Todd, thanks for the info! Even though Robertson only made $25,000 his stock as an actor certainly went up after that role!

    2. george Post author

      Patti, we have plenty of evidence that intelligence can be warped. Just look at Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and other Ivy Leaguers who attended top schools…but do incredibly stupid things!

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      1. Todd Mason

        George W. Bush. When they aren’t “legacies”, they’re often “throats” (as in cutthroats). One of the most obtuse members of my homeroom in high school made his way up the weasel ladder to important appointed posts in LA politics. Democrat, fwiw. What it’s worth has been devalued considerably in the last fifty-sixty years, not that it was ever what one might call aspirational, with the rise of the neoliberals. And there’s never been any lack of heartless aspirants as well as spoiled heirs in the Ivys…see a certain William J. Clinton.

    1. george Post author

      Jeff, I remember when “Flowers for Algernon” came out as a novel. I recommended it to a girl in Junior High School that I had a crush on and she read it. She came in the next day and said she cried all night after she finished the book. Needless to say, I made no headway after that incident…

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  4. Michael Padgett

    Pretty sure I was subscribing to F & SF during the period covered by this volume because I remember at least all the famous stories included. Great idea about the intelligence increasing drug, Patti. But probably the ones who need it the most would refuse to take it because of something they read on Facebook.

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    1. george Post author

      Michael, many hospitals in our area are facing staff shortages as the deadline for the requirement for all hospital personal to be vaccinated looms.

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      1. Todd Mason

        And why medical professionals would balk at vaccination, even given Big Phrama deserves little slack, is a damned good question. Can’t be that many Christian Scientists in the fields.

      2. george Post author

        Todd, so many people seem to see the Covid-19 vaccines as part of some conspiracy. I had one person at the Pool tell me that Bill Gates was injecting people getting the vaccine with a computer chip! Nutty!

  5. Todd Mason

    Yes, as you’ve already seen in comments, George, the Bester and Tevis stories have a Lot of advocates, too. Tevis named his only story collection till any time now after “Far From Home”, after all…and one of the two editions of THE BEST FANTASY STORIES FROM F&SF had a jacket cover inspired by the Tevis…Mills, who was assistant editor for ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE and F&SF, and doing gangbusters work on VENTURE SCIENCE FICTION and BESTSELLER MYSTERY when he succeeded Boucher, was a pretty damned impressive editor. As were essentially all F&SF editors, but Mills one of those least credited.

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      5. george Post author

        Todd, I was a big fan of Pyramid Books in the 1960s. I bought a lot of books in their SF and Fantasy lines. Loved the cover artwork on many of their offerings!

    2. Todd Mason

      Also useful to know:
      The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: Ninth Series ed. Robert P. Mills (Doubleday LCC# 52-5510, 1960, $3.95, 264pp, hc)
      Also as Flowers for Algernon and Other Stories (Ace, 1966); British editions omit Feghoots [pun vignettes], Ace pb editions omit Feghoots and the poetry by Schenck, Buck, Belkin and Brode; retained are the Lewis, Aldiss and McClintic poems; Mills’s headnotes also removed.
      –I don’t mind Feghoots that aren’t too rude…

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    3. george Post author

      Todd, I agree with you on Mills. Until I started reading the entire BEST OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION series, I assumed Boucher would be the best editor. Now, I’m starting to change my mind as I read more of stories and volumes Mills edited.

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      1. Todd Mason

        Avram Davidson is getting the most nonsense critique from most web reviewers these years, and was indeed an idiosyncratic editor, but still my favorite…Edward Ferman being probably the Other most undercredited, despite winning multiple Hugos for best magazine and best editor during his longest (so far) tenure.

  7. Todd Mason

    That Sturgeon being his one inclusion in BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES for its year. Two stories from F&SF so far in BAMS, both from the ’50s…the other was “Dead Center” by Judith Merril.

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      1. Todd Mason

        Hard to see how they could do more!

        “The story that was expanded to the novel that probably ended George Kelley’s chances with his high-school crush!”

        Micro-targeting.

  9. wolf

    Fond memories again!
    I was still a teenager when I read Flowers for Algernon and some of the other stories like Zombies – in German translation of course.
    Those were so moving and made me think about reality.

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    1. george Post author

      Wolf, Science Fiction as a genre started to hit its stride by the end of the 1950s. SF became much bigger and more impactful in the 1960s.

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      1. wolf

        I also started really reading masses of SF around 1960 when the first SF paperbacks appeared – often translated by fans.
        Before that we had only pulps – a standard format of 64 pages.
        Ok one page had a bit more content than a typical book page but still …
        Sometimes they just left the end or shortened it so much that you didn’t get the real meaning of the novel.

      2. george Post author

        Wolf, the number of SF paperbacks published increased each year during the 1960s. By the 1970s, SF novels were appearing the the Best Sellers Lists.

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