WEDNESDAY’S SHORT STORIES #230: A CENTURY OF SCIENCE FICTION Edited by Damon Knight

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Last week I reviewed Damon Knight’s One Hundred Years of Science Fiction (you can read my review here). I quibbled about the lack of introductory material about the stories and their authors. Well, A Century of Science Fiction rectifies that issue. Knight provides detail about the stories and the writers this time around.

Publishers in the 1960s seem to be in the market for anthologies that presented an historical approach to Science Fiction. Of the two Damon Knight edited, I prefer A Century of Science Fiction.

Using a topical approach–Robots, Time Travel, etc.–Knight chose some classics like H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (an excerpt) and more contemporary works like Keith Laumer’s Worlds of the Imperium (also an excerpt). Of the time travel stories, I really enjoyed Mack Reynolds’ snarky “Business As Usual.”

Where One Hundred Years of Science Fiction lacked some Big Names, A Century of Science Fiction includes Edmond Hamilton, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke.

Before Frank Herbert became a Big Name SF Writer with his DUNE series, he was a pretty good science fiction short story writer. “Cease Fire” is Herbert’s take on War and how to stop it.

A Century of Science Fiction is a first-rate SF anthology. Highly recommended! GRADE: A

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21 thoughts on “WEDNESDAY’S SHORT STORIES #230: A CENTURY OF SCIENCE FICTION Edited by Damon Knight”

    1. george Post author

      Fred, I’m with you on excerpts (and abridgments). I dislike those practices, too. But, all in all, A CENTURY OF SCIENCE FICTION is a superior anthology especially with Damon Knight’s introductions and notes.

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  3. Todd Mason

    My computer is acting up badly. But I thought I’d note that this one was published by a company with a sane/competent publisher’s editor, and you remember how the other one was packaged. (I’ll check if this gets through before commenting further.)

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  4. Todd Mason

    Now on the better computer…this was the first Damon Knight anthology, from 1962, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a more overweening Simon & Schuster editor overrode some of Knight’s choices in the ’65 anthology, after asking for something Just Like this first one. (His editing, not counting fanzines, began in the ’50s with WORLDS BEYOND and IF). I have the Dell paperback around here somewhere. It was indeed a good book…

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    1. george Post author

      Todd, you might be right about editorial interference making A HUNDRED YEARS OF SCIENCE FICTION inferior to A CENTURY OF SCIENCE FICTION.

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  6. Byron

    This looks like a solid compilation from my favorite era of science fiction publishing. Historical overviews certainly have their place but I’m not a fan of the Aliens, Robots, Time Travel, etc. grouping which seems like a marketing device aimed at the then current, more mainstream but curious reader who dabbled in the genre. The novel excerpts alone are a dead givaway.

    This was the kind of well-weathered collection I used to come across in libraries when I wandered the stacks in junior high. Lots of recognizable names. From what I could find from a little cursory research, the Fitz-James O’Brien variation of his most famous story appears to have been a version presented through the pen of a “real” occult investigator that led to some confusion among readers down the road. The hunk or coral on the cover is tacky but if I can find a $3.99 copy I’ll certainly pick it up.

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  8. Todd Mason

    I will defend the use of novel excerpts in the three cases…anyone could locate a library or inexpensive copy of the Wells or Verne (in good or not so good translation, in the latter’s case) without too much trouble, then as now, and Knight was probably hoping to make a point with them that was salient enough…reprinting the whole work would take more space than required, most likely. Weinbaum wrote some charming work, but I”ve not heard of nor read too much to recommend the entirety of a novel by him, in his too-short career.

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    1. george Post author

      Todd, I treat novel excerpts as “teasers” to get the reader interested in the whole novel. Sometimes it works…sometimes not.

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      1. Todd Mason

        Knight could be a didactic, even professorial, editor at times…”This excerpt is here to prove my point…if you’re intrigued enough…go find the novel!”

        Robert Silverberg’s VOYAGERS IN TIME ran a chapter of THE TIME MACHINE and Muriel Fuller’s ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S HAUNTED HOUSEFUL a long excerpt from THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER (probably part of the reason it was the only “Hitchcock” anthology she edited), two anthos I read when when I was about 9yo, and I had already read the Twain, and started reading the Wells about the same time I picked up VOYAGERS…I dunno, I suspect the editors really tend to be Making Points unless they feel the excerpted work is unfairly obscure.

  9. Todd Mason

    As an example of the Too Unfairly Obscure, an excerpt from Tomasso Landolfi’s CANCERQUEEN was included in Harrison and Aldiss’s ‘BEST SF ’71 volume, reprinted from the ’71 collection of translations CANCERQUEEN AND OTHER STORIES; it and source story “Cancroregina” are novellas, the Italian original first published in 1950.

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