This volume from 1964 includes two of my favorite SF stories: Jack Vance’s “Green Magic” and Richard McKenna’s “Hunter, Come Home.” I’m also fond of Ron Goulart’s Max Kearny stories of a supernatural events investigator. “McNamara’s Fish” is my favorite story of that series.
Other outstanding stories are Alfred Bester’s “They Don’t Make Life Like They Used To” and one of the better Zenna Henderson stories of The People (with powers), “Deluge.” All in all, another solid anthology. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction by Avram Davidson — i
The Golden Brick (1963) by P. M. Hubbard — 6
Peggy and Peter Go to the Moon (1963) by Don White — 18
Now Wakes the Sea (1963) by J. G. Ballard — 21
Green Magic (1963) by Jack Vance — 34
Captain Honario Harpplayer, R.N. (1963) by Harry Harrison — 49
Treaty in Tartessos (1963) by Karen Anderson — 61
Hunter, Come Home (1963) by Richard McKenna — 67
McNamara’s Fish [Max Kearny] (1963) by Ron Goulart — 112
Niña Sol (1963) by Felix Marti-Ibanez — 131
They Don’t Make Life Like They Used To (1963) by Alfred Bester — 150
What Strange Stars and Skies (1963) by Avram Davidson — 188
Eight O’Clock in the Morning (1963) by Ray Faraday Nelson — 212
Deluge [The People] (1963) by Zenna Henderson –219
Great stories from Richard McKenna (who also wrote the bestselling novel The Sand Pebbles), Avram Davidson, Alfred Bester, Zenna Henderson and Jack Vance. I The rest I don’t remember. The Ray Nelson story was made into the crappy movie They Live.
Steve, haven’t seen THEY LIVE but it sounds like I didn’t miss much. For some reason, Avram Davidson’s introductions to the stories in this anthology are short.
“Eight O’Clock in the Morning” is a brilliant story that should not be judged, for goodness’s sake, by THEY LIVE, which is an intentionally goofy reworking of the narrative. Might as well damn Dick’s “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” for TOTAL RECALL, or Zelazny’s DAMNATION ALLEY for its atrocious film (per)version.
Another solid anthology, George. Bester, Davidson, Vance, Harrison, Ballard, and others…I feel like I’ve gone to heaven.
Jerry, the quality of the stories in THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION series hit a high in the 1960s. The lineup of Name Writers shows the strength of the stories. Sadly, I look at the Table of Contents of recent YEAR’S BEST anthologies and I only recognize a couple of names. I’m slipping behind…
I know that feeling, and not solely in fantastica…
Nice list of authors, though I doubt I’ve read too many of the stories.
Jeff, many of the stories in THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, THIRTEENTH SERIES have been anthologized many times so you many have encountered them in other anthologies. Jack Vance’s “Green Magic,” Ballard’s “Now Wakes the Sea,” McKenna’s “Hunter, Come Home,” and Bester’s “They Don’t Make Life Like They Used To” have all been popular with other editors of SF anthologies. Ron Goulart’s Max Kearny’s tale, “McNamara’s Fish,” also was collected in an ACE Double, http://georgekelley.org/forgotten-books-322/
I didn’t start reading F&SF until 1964, but I caught up with several of these stories in later collection and anthologies. Ray Nelson’s is one of the all-time greats, even truer now than it was back then.
Fred, Ray Nelson is an underrated writer who deserves more attention.
If memory serves, Ann Rice (pre-INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE) was one of Nelson’s students in a writing class.
Jerry, I miss Ann Rice. I consider her INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE to be a potential classic of the genre (we’ll know in a decade or so). Rice got a little flakey at the end (don’t we all) but she was successful writer with her own unique style.
Jerry, the recently-late Anne Rice was a student of Sturgeon’s, rather famously. Dunno if Nelson has taught any classes. Being an heir gets one out of some requirements in re: food and rent.
George, she was never not flaky, and I think you’re kinder to her work than it warrants. Marie Corelli of our time, perhaps. Maybe a smidge more self-aware than V. C. Andrews.
This definitely looks like a collection I’d pick up if I ever came across it in a used book store. I’ve always felt the short story was the perfect form for fiction and sci-fi and horror in particular. When I first started reading science fiction anthologies in the early seventies I quickly noticed the best stories all had copyrights from the early sixties and realized the genre was fast running out of steam by the time I came of age. There are a lot of names I recognize and some, like Ray Nelson, that I’ll have to check out. I’ve always had a soft spot for Zena Henderson’s The People stories and still have the paperback collections of them I bought as a teenager. Several of her stories were adapted into an ABC Movie of the Week that was produced by Francis Ford Coppola and starred Kim Darby and William Shatner. It’s a modest but lovely film and is on You Tube.
Byron, I could kick myself for not buying the hardcover editions (although I have a few) of THE BEST FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION series when they were available. Being a kid, I preferred the paperback editions (easier to carry around) and by-passed hardcovers until I got older…and wiser.
Certainly the Doubleday hardcovers, widely available in the Dday book club editions as well, were easier to read.
Todd, you’re right about the availability of Doubleday hardcovers and book club editions of THE BEST OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION series. I just neglected to take advantage of the availability when the books were plentiful and dirty cheap!
Well…that might be because a number of the best stories being picked over for early ’70s anthologies tended to be published in the early ’60s. There was no lack of good material being published in the ’70s…not least in F&SF itself.
See also, WHO KILLED SF? https://efanzines.com/EK/eI29/ –among other things, about the relative exhaustion of sf at the end of the ’50s, earliest ’60s…or so it seemed at the time, to many involved…
I saw the tv film THE PEOPLE when it and I were new…liked it then. Probably still would, if Shatner isn’t too hammy.
Ok, George, why isn’t this volume an A?
Todd, I considered some of the stories like “The Golden Brick” by Hubbard and “Peggy and Peter Go to the Moon” by White to be “weak.” But, there are a lot of excellent stories in this anthology.