Decades ago, publishers would bring out “The Best of” collections of Science Fiction and Fantasy writers on a regular basis. That tradition still lives at BAEN BOOKS. BAEN BOOKS is publishing The Best of Ben Bova in three volumes. Now, with the help of canny Hank Davis, we have Volume One of The Best of Gordon R. Dickson. Dickson was one of my favorite writers when I started reading Science Fiction back in the 1960s. This collection presents Dickson’s work from the 1950s and 1960s. Volume 2, scheduled for 2018, will collect stories from the 1970s and 1980s. If you’re a fan of traditional SF storytelling, you’ll enjoy these stories. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Love Song” (previously unpublished)
“Miss Prinks” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June, 1954)
“Our First Death” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August, 1955)
“St. Dragon and the George” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September, 1957)
“Friend for Life” (Venture Science Fiction, March, 1957)
“Danger—Human” (Astounding Science Fiction, December, 1957)
“Fleegl of Fleegl” (Venture Science Fiction, May, 1958)
“The Question” (Astounding Science Fiction, May, 1958)
“The Girl Who Played Wolf” (Fantastic, August, 1958)
“The Dreamsman” (Star Science Fiction #6, 1959)
“One on Trial” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May, 1960)
“An Honorable Death” (Galaxy Magazine, February, 1961)
“Whatever Gods There Be” (Amazing Stories, July, 1961)
“Idiot Solvant” (Analog Science Fiction-Science Fact, January, 1962)
“Dolphin’s Way” (Analog Science Fact-Science Fiction, June, 1964)
OTHER ANTHOLOGIES EDITED BY HANK DAVIS:
The Best of the Bolos: Their Finest Hour (2010)
A Cosmic Christmas (2012)
A Cosmic Christmas 2 (2013)
In Space No One Can Hear You Scream (2013)
The Baen Big Book of Monsters (2014)
As Time Goes By (2015)
Future Wars … and Other Punchlines (2015)
Worst Contact (2016)
Things from Outer Space (2016)
If This Goes Wrong… (2016)
Someone else I have been neglecting this decade! Takes me way back – thanks George.
Sergio, I’m looking forward to THE BEST OF GORDON R. DICKSON, VOLUME TWO!
Good one. I’ve read a couple of Dickson’s collections and have another one on the shelf, but I like when they do a chronological one like this.
Jeff, Hank Davis is doing a great job as editor at BAEN Books. My only quibble about this collection is the lack of introductions to the stories. Hank Davis did a great job with introductions in his previous anthologies so I don’t know why there aren’t any introductions here.
He was quite prolific and also did many collaborations – I especially liked his Dorsai stories. Here’s my data on him:
as usual 1 = novels, 3 = short story collections, 9 = books/titles I don’t have and am not sure of
0DICKSON GORDON R (+2001) (SEE P ANDERSON, K LAUMER, H HARRISON)
%THE RIGHT TO ARM BEARS (COLLECTION OF DILBIA STORIES)
%HOUR OF THE GREMLINS = HOUR OF THE HORDE+WOLFLING+GREMLINS GO HOME
1ALIEN ART = CHARLIES PLANET
1THE ALIEN WAY = MIT DEN AUGEN DER FREMDEN
1ARCTURUS LANDING = ALIENS FROM ARCTURUS
1THE CHANTRY GUILD (SEQUEL TO THE FINAL ENCYCLOPEDIA)
1DELUSION WORLD = PLANET DER PHANTOME
1DORSAI ! = THE GENETIC GENERAL = GEWALT ZWISCHEN DEN STERNEN
1THE DRAGON AND THE GEORGE (DRAGON 1) = DIE NACHT DER DRACHEN
1THE DRAGON AT WAR (DRAGON 3)
1THE DRAGON KNIGHT (DRAGON 2)
1THE EARTH LORDS
1THE FAR CALL = DER FERNE RUF
1THE FINAL ENCYCLOPEDIA
1THE FOREVER MAN
1GREMLINS GO HOME * BEN BOVA
1GUIDED TOUR
1HOME FROM THE SHORE
1THE HOUR OF THE HORDE
1INVADERS
1JAMIE THE RED * ROLAND GREEN
1THE LAST MASTER (EXPANDED FROM THE R-MASTER)
1LOST DORSAI
1MASTERS OF EVERON = HERREN VON EVERON
1MISSION TO UNIVERSE = MISSION IM UNIVERSUM
1NAKED TO THE STARS
1NECROMANCER(DORSAI SERIES) = NO ROOM FOR MAN = NICHTS FUER MENSCHEN
1NONE BUT MAN
1ON THE RUN = MANKIND ON THE RUN = HETZJAGD IM ALL
1THE OUTPOSTER = PIONIERE DES KOSMOS
1THE PRITCHER MASS = DAS MILLIONENBEWUSSTSEIN
1PRO
1THE R-MASTER = UTOPIA 2050
1SECRET UNDER ANTARCTICA (JUVENILE)
1SECRET UNDER THE CARIBBEAN (JUVENILE)
1SECRET UNDER THE SEA (JUVENILE)
1SECRETS OF THE DEEP = SECRETS UNDER …
1SLEEPWALKER’S WORLD = GESCHOEPFE DER NACHT
1SOLDIER ,ASK NOT = UNTER DEM BANNER VON DORSAI(DORSAI SERIES)
1THE SPACE SWIMMERS (SEQUEL TO : HOME FROM THE SHORE)
1SPACE WINNERS (JUVENILE)
1SPACEPAW = DER AGENT (JUVENILE)
1SPACIAL DELIVERY = REGIERUNGSPOST FUER DILBIA
1TACTICS OF MISTAKE (DORSAI SERIES) = DAS PLANETEN-DUELL
1TIME STORM = STURM DER ZEIT
1TIME TO TELEPORT
1WOLF AND IRON (NEW IN 90)
1WOLFLING = IM GALAKTISCHEN REICH
1YOUNG BLEYS (SEQUEL TO THE FINAL ENCYCLOPEDIA)
1OTHER (SEQUEL TO YOUNG BLEYS)
1THE HARRIORS 1: OF WAR AND HONOR
1THE MAGNIFICENT WILF
1WAY OF THE PILGRIM
1THE DRAGON IN LYONESSE
1THE DRAGON AND THE GNARLY KING
3ANCIENT, MY ENEMY = URALT MEIN FEIND
3BEYOND THE DARL AL-HARB (NOVEL ???)
3DICKSON’S BEST
3THE DORSAI COMPANION
3ENDS
3FORWARD (STORIES)
3IN THE BONE (OLD STORIES)
3IN IRON YEARS
3THE LAST DREAM (STORIES)
3LOVE NOT HUMAN
3THE MAN FROM EARTH (STORIES)
3THE MAN THE WORLDS REJECTED (OLD STORIES)
3MINDSPAN (OLD STORIES)
3MUTANTS : A SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURE
3THE SPIRIT OF DORSAI
3THE STAR ROAD
3STEEL BROTHER
3THE STRANGER
3SURVIVAL !
5COMBAT SF
9BEGINNINGS (STORIES)
9THE BOOK OF GORDON DICKSON = DANGER HUMAN (STORIES)
9CALL HIM LORD
9THE DRAGON AND THE DJINN
9THE FINAL ENCYCLOPEDIA (VOL 2)
Wolf, thanks for the list! I have most of these books. I’ve read a fair number of them mostly as a kid.
One of those writers I read a lot in my teens, along with Keith Laumer and James Schmitz. Haven’t read any Dickson since his Dorsai books 45 years ago.
Steve, that’s when I was reading Gordon R. Dickson: in my teens! These stories brought me back to those wonderful days!
” 45 years ago.” That’s how old you are???
I’m about 10 years older (born during WW2, as a kind of souvenir for my mother – because my father as a German soldier didn’t expect to return from the war …) and I also remember reading the Dorsai stories, some in collections/magazines I got at the “America House” …
Happy memories – and I still have to thank those SF authors that they forced me to learn English, because translations were not available or really bad, often abridged until incomprehenible …
Wolf, I’m 67. I starting reading Science Fiction when I was about 12 years old. That’s the perfect age for a Sense of Wonder!
I started reading Dickson in Astounding Science Fiction and was particularly fond of the Dorsai books. I’ve read most of the stories in this collection, but may buy it anyway, both for the ones I missed and the ones I liked and want to re-read. Nice choice, George.
Rick, my only regret is that Hank Davis didn’t provide some interesting introductions to these stories. All in all, THE BEST OF GORDON R. DICKSON, Vol. 1 is a solid collection.
George, I, I may regret the absence of an introduction to the collection and individual story blurbs even more than you do. I had planned to do them, but unfortunately I had a badly-timed reminder that all flesh is grass, and something went haywire for a few months with me (brains, too, are grass) and for several months, during a period I cannot now recall anything about, I became a zombie. Fortunately, I came out of it, except for the way my memory doesn’t work as well as it used to, and a bunch of ailments located elsewhere in the grass, er, body, but my brain was AWOL at the time I was needed to be writed introductory material. If I had been compose mentis enough to be aware of what was going on with the book, I would have added at least one more story, since the book as is turned out shorter than I wanted. I’m hoping that there won’t be a relapse, but I didn’t see the previous breakdown coming, and besides that, I am 74 years and change old, older than the age either of my parents lived to be, and might drop dead without warning, as they did. Aside from that cheery thought, I do have an upcoming anthology, Space Pioneers, wrapped up and coming in December, with the help of my cp-editor, Christopher Ruocchio, who has handled the dealings with agents, estates, etc., and who, incidentally, has an sf adventure novel, Empire of Silence coming out from DAW this month (July). After that one, I have plans for two more, and I’ll try to make up for the lack of introductory material in Vol. I of TBoGRD with plenty of same in Volume II. By the way, I appreciate the listing of my anthologies, but I don’t think it had my earlier Dickson collection, The Human Edge. Of course, that one has been OOP for many moons, not to mention years, but it did have introductory material. It started when Jim Baen said to me (approx. from memory, and did I say that my memory is lately unreliable?), “I’d like to do a Dickson collection of stories where humans get the best of aliens. Do you know enough stories that description would fit?” When I said, “Yes,” Jim said, “Great, start making a list. We’ll call it The Human Edge.” And that was how I started doing author collections and multi-author anthologies. One of may reasons I have to be grateful to Jim (another person I am now old than) and to Toni Weisskopf, who took over the reins when Jim died much too soon. And I’ll shut up now before I really get maudlin.
Hank, it’s so good to hear from you! Sorry to hear about your health problems! I had no idea you were 74 years old. Somehow, I thought you were still in your 60s! I’m fond of your anthologies. I’ve ordered SPACE PIONEERS and I’ll be looking forward to the two anthologies after that! Take Vitamin B-12 every day!
Given how much Dickson is blithely considered an ANALOG writer, it is amusing to consider how much of his early work was in Boucher’s F&SF, and the Hoka stories, with Poul Anderson, being highlights of OTHER WORLDS and Bea Mahaffey’s UNIVERSE at first…his first story (with Anderson) being in FANTASTIC STORY QUARTERLY, and a fair amount of early stories in ASTOUNDING but also in PLANET STORIES and soon elsewhere…
Dickson’s YA novel SECRET UNDER THE SEA was one of my childhood favorites, and one of the few YA sf novels by a major sf writer for adults to do the job right, as far as I was concerned, considering how unimpressive I found the Heinlein, Bova, “Del Rey” (actually Paul Fairman) and Pournelle YAs I tried around the same time…while most of those guys wrote engaging adult sf (though Pournelle’s was often goofy and Fairman was at best slickly competent).
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?24 for the Dickson page of ISFDB…
Todd, I loved SECRET UNDER THE SEA, too! And Dickson wrote a fair amount of fantasy novels toward the end of his career.