This Berkley Books paperback from 1957 reprints 10 of the 32 stories appearing in the original 1950 Crown Books hardcover.
Several of the stories in The Big Book of Science Fiction fall into the “classic” category. The first story in the book is Clifford Simak’s “Desertion,” a key story in his City series. “Nobody Saw the Ship” is one of my favorite Murray Leinster stories about an alien invasion.
Probably the most famous story in this book is Fredric Brown’s “Arena” which became a fan favorite Star Trek episode where a human and an alien are forced to fight for survival. War is also at the heart of C. M. Kornbluth’s “The Only Thing We Learn.” The story that most surprised me was Fletcher Pratt’s “The Roger Bacon Formula” which resembles a LSD trip. The Big Book of Science Fiction is another Groff Conklin winner! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Desertion [City] (1944) by Clifford D. Simak — 7
Mewhu’s Jet (1946) by Theodore Sturgeon– 18
Nobody Saw the Ship (1950) by Murray Leinster — 52
The Wings of Night (1942) by Lester del Rey — 69
Arena (1944) by Fredric Brown — 86
The Roger Bacon Formula (1929) by Fletcher Pratt — 111
Forever and the Earth (1950) by Ray Bradbury — 126
The Miniature (1949) by John D. MacDonald — 141
Sanity (1944) by Fritz Leiber — 152
The Only Thing We Learn (1949) by C. M. Kornbluth — 167
“City” of course was one concept that I found great and the same goes for the other stories here.
Just looking at the list of authors makes me happy – and most of these stories were written in the 40s, fantastic times!
I count myself lucky that in the late 50s when I was a teenager still going to school many of these stories were translated by German and Austrian SF fans and published first in pulp format and then as paperbacks, great!
nd that moved me to learn English (my third foreign language after French and Latin) to be able to read these stories in their original versions – which helped build my career tremendously …
Wolf, SF expanded in the 1940s due to ASTOUNDING and John W. Campbell’s influence. The field exploded in the 1950s, but the impact of TV and paperbacks doomed SF magazines.
Paperbacks a lot more than tv. But sf magazines were hurt by distribution bottlenecks (that hurt and continue to hurt all magazines that go to the vanishing newsstands), Davis Publications particularly was hurt by over-dependence on Publisher’s Clearing House and, even worse, the utter and expensive failure of SYLVIA PORTER’S PERSONAL FINANCE MAGAZINE, and then Dell Magazines was lucky to land at Penny Press when the much-deeper-pockets of Dell were sliced away in corporate chopping block actions. Relatively few attempts to sell he magazines o the younger generations from the ’70s onward didn’t help.
Todd, my parents subscribed to over a dozen magazines in the 1960s: LIFE, LOOK, TIME, NEWSWEEK, SATURDAY EVENING POST, READER’S DIGEST, BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS, etc. Today, I subscribe to THE ECONOMIST, MYSTERY SCENE, LOCUS, and AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE. That’s it for magazines.
I mostly try to buy mine off the newsstands, as the PO does a number on many, when the shipping house hasn’t already. But that has gotten problematic at even the mostly reliable B&Ns and such.
Todd, I fear the costs of printing and distribution will doom magazines in the decade ahead. Even our local newspapers seem to moving to digital.
John Campbell deserves a Lot of credit. But so do Sam Merwin and the various Futurian editors who were cutting their teeth in the 40s (Frederik Pohl, Donald Wollheim, Robert Lowndes), and Dorothy McIlwraith and Mary Gnaedinger, even if the last hand Only so much space for new fiction in her magazines. Even Ray Palmer did a few interesting things. and Jerome Bixby helped make PLANET STORIES a serious contender by the end of the ’40s. Campbell was the single most influential editor, at least till H. L. Gold started to profit from JWC’s quirks driving his writers away, but damn he had blind spots and other more damaging quirks, too. And Gold chased his writers away, too. Anthony Boucher was probably the more long-term approach model, and his magazine did manage to stay on an even keel to a mch greater extent. Merwin likewise., with Sam Mines following his lead. And James Reasoner, for one, has nothing but good to say, that I’ve seen, about Mines at the other end of his career, edithing MIKE SHAYNE.
Todd, Frederik Pohl worked magic for GALAXY, IF, and WORLDS OF TOMORROW in the 1960s. Plus, he was also a pretty good SF writer!
Pohl also edited ASTONISHING and SUPER-SCIENCE (not his titles) for Popular Publications in the early ’40s. Pretty good for the time, partidularly (as he lamented) his callowness, and the low rates his magazines had (but better than those of Lowndes’s magazines, or the no-budge Albing magazines Wollheim and “Leslie Perri”/Doris Baumgardt from the Furturians started out with…Wollheim was happy to move on to Avon, where he got to replicate, more or less, the Wright WEIRD TALES with THE AVON FANTASY READER, since he resented the changes that McIlwraith brought to the magazine (almost all improvements, by me). And all of them were good writers, if the stories from all but Pohl were sparse…
Todd, will always be known for luring Robert Silverberg back to writing SF by “guaranteeing” Silverberg that he could write whatever he wanted for GALAXY, IF, and WORLDS OF TOMORROW.
Don’t remember seeing this one before.. Not very big for being called The Big Book of SF.,.
Steve, Berkley Books only reprinted a fraction of the stories of the original hardcover version. I might have that edition around here somewhere. The original Crown hardcover was BIG!
A great selection! Berkley appears to have concentrated on the “bigger” name authors of the time. The other twenty-two stories (many of them far less known to today’s audience) in the aptly named 1950 hardover anthology are also well worth reading.
Jerry, I probably read the 1950 hardcover back in the early 1960s. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a bunch of Groff Conklin paperback anthologies that I’m bound and determined to finally read and review!
What Steve said. Unless by Big they mean Great.
Patti, the Crown hardcover edition of THE BIG BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION had 545 pages. The Berkley paperback edition had 174 pages. Very abridged!
Yes, but more importantly, what is Diane’s Book Club reading today? And are they meeting on the porch?
Jeff, Diane is hedging her bet on holding the Book Club meeting on her deck. The temperature is right: 71. But the “wind conditions” could be breezy. So Diane has the table in the dining room ready as a backup if the wind disrupts the ladies. The Book Club members are supposed to bring one of their Summer Reading books to the meeting to discuss. I, of course, will handle the coffee, tea, wine, and beer servings. Diane bought over $50 of desserts from a local bakery: lemon pie, chocolate walnut brownies, pecan squares, peanut butter cookies, and key lime wedges. All this for six ladies!
I hope there will be some left over for their host!
Jeff, any event that Diane hosts ALWAYS has extra desserts, etc. I’m hoping for a pecan square (a mini pecan pie actually). Diane bought enough dessert for a dozen people!
Slow and steady…
Re prices:
I heard from tourists and friends in the USA that prices for desserts are going through the roof.
Here in Europe it’s similar with food generally:
Butter, cheese etc almost 50% more expensive, sugar was rationed for a while in Hungary.
So many people have switched to cheaper food.
I’m wondering where this will lead to.
Wolf, with Inflation raging, poverty and hunger will grow in the U.S. Right now, the water system in Jackson, Mississippi failed and the 200,000 residents are without safe water. What a mess!
Haven’t yet read the Pratt, he Del Rey, nor the MacDonald. The Sturgeon is widely seen as somewhat ripped off by E.T. The Kornbluth and the Simak are probably my favorite here, so far.
Todd, I’m working my way through my Groff Conklin anthologies and enjoying the great stories he chose.