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megadeathvsbooks's review against another edition
5.0
This is a really nice collection of science fiction, showcasing less canonized stories and authors from a variety of cultures and backgrounds. Especially for the price, it's a fantastic anthology.
gossamer_lens's review against another edition
5.0
The VanderMeer's do a wonderful job at not just putting together some intriguing and great short stories. They also do a wonderful job at telling a story of Science Fiction and it's ability to affect and permeate many different cultures and lives. Unlike most collections they do not put just white men's stories front and center. Rather, they acknowledge the great and known authors while also offering up various stories from authors previously left unacknowledged or under-acknowledged in prior compilations.
benlundns's review against another edition
1.0
This book has been a long time getting through, I was essentially using it as a book to read while I waited for other books to become available and...it wasn't great. There are some true gems in here, but there are a lot of stories that did not resonate with me, it seems a lot of the stories are more, impressionistic, symbolistic? I don't know what word to use, but they seemed aimed at creating a mood or a frame of mind, rather then telling a coherent story. For myself a lot of the stories came across as difficult to read, difficult to be immersed in, or just difficult to enjoy. A lot of the stories come from much early authors as well, so it might be an indication of how the genre of science fiction has changed over the years. But a am more a fan of the current crop of authors influencing the genre currently.
jada's review against another edition
5.0
this really was a hell of a read. most of the stories here were pretty good, though some were incomprehensible (looking at you pataphysics). it introduced me to some authors whose works I had previously only heard of, like Ursula k le Guin, and Borges.
my top 10 stories were (in no order):
the triumph of mechanics-karl Hans Strobel
story of your life-ted Chiang
a modest genius-vadim shefner
let us save the universe- Stanislaw lem
a gift from the culture-iain m banks
vaster than empires and more slow-ursula k le guin
the microscopic giants-paul Ernst
sector general-james white
sandkings-GRRM
2BR02B-kurt Vonnegut
and a dishonourable mention goes to babydoll by Johanna sinisalo, wtf was that
my top 10 stories were (in no order):
the triumph of mechanics-karl Hans Strobel
story of your life-ted Chiang
a modest genius-vadim shefner
let us save the universe- Stanislaw lem
a gift from the culture-iain m banks
vaster than empires and more slow-ursula k le guin
the microscopic giants-paul Ernst
sector general-james white
sandkings-GRRM
2BR02B-kurt Vonnegut
and a dishonourable mention goes to babydoll by Johanna sinisalo, wtf was that
pfiorentino10's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
sophiaxlm's review against another edition
4.0
“在外太空中的某处，阴森的死亡守株待兔。人类深入星际空间之前从未见识过这种死亡与恐怖。显然，恒星的光芒能够将龙挡在门外。”“我们当初为什么决定要来。认为我们可以把人或者至少是很像人的生物播撒到整个银河系，这是非常傲慢的想法。”“看看我们，带着可以被原谅的骄傲，我们宣告：跟一个种族和一颗星球一样，我们已经被彻底解放了！”各种无畏的、无边际的、无拘无束的畅想之后像人类在幻想中丢进太空的什么可以无限延伸、试图了解一切未知的某种材料，而同时在这材料表面折射的都是人类自身的各种样态。
blue_moon_hurricane's review against another edition
4.0
If there had been a Sci-Fi lit course in college instead of just Brit, Am, and World, this would have been the textbook and I would have been inspired and flummoxed in similar proportions.
lillist's review against another edition
I'm really looking forward to slowly reading my way through this massive anthology of science fiction in the 20th century. I'm going to take my time with this one.
0. Introduction
Wordy and oddly judgemental at times, I skimmed a lot here. I was also not a fan of this reading like a scientific paper, by which I mean that the authors seem be really enamored of obscure, smart sounding words and convoluted sentences. I'm not convinced this was necessary to get the point accross and it does impact readability.
1. The Star by H. G. Wells - 4 stars
This might be the mother of the "Impact" trope, where an object enters the solar system and wreaks havoc by colliding with something. But while in modern sci-fi action movies, this something is usually the Earth, Wells actually does something different by letting the object collide with Neptune, which does then cause indeed quite some problems for Earth. The narration is pretty detached, told by an omnisciet observer, and there is some dry wit to it all. I liked this one!
2. Sultana's Dream by Rokheya Shekhawat Hossain- 3 stars
This is labelled as feminist utopia, but it is the sort of utopia that is based on the notion that a society with women in power will be much more peaceful and advanced. I disagree with that notion, I just don't think this is realistic and that power works that way. But this is from a long time ago and the writer is from what is now Bangladesh, so I understand how this story contains very revolutionary, novel concepts. Also, the writing was beautiful.
3. The Triumph of Mechanics by Karl Hans Strobl - 4 stars
This is like the infamous Tribbles from Star Trek but with mechanical rabbits that are released unto a city to force people's hand in favour of their inventor. I wonder if the former has been inspired by the latter? In any case, this was lots of ridiculous fun!
4. The New Overworld by Paul Scheerbart - 3.5 stars
The introduction blurb actually describes this really short story very well, so I am going to quote here "“The New Overworld” (1911), never before translated into English, exemplifies Scheerbart’s style and approach: light, taking liberties with science, but also unique and playful in its speculation." It was odd, but kind of fun.
5. Elements of Pataphysics by Alfred Jarry - 1 star
This read like random exerpts out of a longer story and I had quite seriously not any clue whatsoever what this was about or what was going on. Very absurdist, not for me.
6. Mechanopolis by Miguel de Unamuno - 3 stars
A classic dystopia based on the idea that machines take over and leave a very clean and orderly, but essentially lifeless world behind. Putting this in the context of its time I understand the fear of such a future but it was a bit simplistic for me.
7. The Doom of Principal City by Yefim Zozulya- 4 stars
A satirical take on a revolution gone wrong (or something like that, it's been a few weeks). This was not terribly sci-fi, other than you could consider this a dystopia in a near-future (relative to the time of writing) society. You could classify this as political satire just as well. Still, this one I remember to have liked.
8. The Comet by W. E. B. Du Bois - 5 stars
The first story by a black author in this anthology and I thought it was brilliant. Du Bois takes a look at racism by using a desaster to brings together a black bank clerk and a wealthy white woman who appear to be the sole survivors in New York. This was was very sharply observed and written and a page turner to boot.
9. The Fate of the Poseidonia by Clare Winger Harris -4 stars
The second story by a woman in this anthology and jeez, it must have been a frustrating time to be a woman Sci-Fi writer. The editor of "Amazing Stories", Hugo Gernsback, wrote about her: "That the third place winner should prove to be a woman was one of the surprises of the contest, for, as a rule, women do not make good scientifiction writers, because their education and general tendencies on scientific matters are usually limited." Ugh. But in any case, this story was fun with some very amusing stabs at dumb guy jealousy just because someone could not deal with not getting the girl.
10. The Star Stealers by Edmond Hamilton - 3.5 stars
This one plays fast and loose with the laws of physics (there is Earth-like gravity and a breathable atmosphere on something like a dark star hurtling through space) but it's entertaining. At least he included a female pilot in the crew for being competent (yay!), but then makes fun of her sex only being interested in beauty parlors (boo!). Also, apparently Lovecraft has been inspired for his Cthulhu by the descriptions of the aliens?
11. The Conquest of Gola by Leslie F. Stone - 4 stars
This apparently is one of the first stories to be told from the perspective of aliens, a retelling of how humans from Earth tried to invade Gola (Venus). It paints a picture of a society just a sexist as the ones on Earth, just with women being the gender in power. Of course one could wonder at alien creatures having the same concepts of a female and male gender as humans do and being able to recognize them in the invading species - but this has been written by a human after all and is a reflection on power and gender politics. It's a nice touch that in this story it is the very fact that one gender is being opressed that creates the biggest danger for the Golan society and makes the attempted invasion by humans almost successful.
12. A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum - 4 stars
Apparently this story is a true classic and favourite of many and I can see the appeal as it is very creative and well written. In it, protagonist ends up having to survive on Mars alone for a while and encounters some of the local flora/fauna, for which Weinbaum had some great ideas. The protagonist also meets an alien and actually accepts that they have very different thought structures and still never considers it (?) inferior (quite the opposite, actually), but tries to establish communication. This part felt quite progressive to me. Unfortunately, there is also some very of-the-time casual racism strewn in that is just ugh.
13. The Last Poet and the Robots by A. Merritt - 5 stars
Very creative, with an international group of brilliant scientists led by a Russian as protagonists and a great story about how said scientists help out the rest of the humans with saving the world just so they can finally get back to living in their self-made refuges of beauty and art and music and piece and quiet. I mean, right? Bonus: beautiful writing
I also quite agree with Narodny, the Russian scientist on his assessment of humanity: "Like Loeb, a thousand years before, he considered mankind a race of crazy half-monkeys, intent upon suicide. Now and then, out of the sea of lunatic mediocrity, a wave uplifted that held for a moment a light from the sun of truth—but soon it sank back and the light was gone. Quenched in the sea of stupidity. He knew that he was one of those waves."
14. The Microscopic Giants by Paul Ernst - 3.5 stars
This is a really solid riff on the theme of "people living under the earth", an ever popular trope. The science is wonky at best (but that is true for all sci-fi of that time), but the story itself is well told and entertaining.
15. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges - 3.5 stars
So, this went really a bit over my head, I think I am not smart enough for Borges' writing. The plot is about some high level trolling by a bunch smart people, who basically invent a whole planet and write an encyclopaedia about it as if it was absolutely real. About the geology, the people, their language, their philosophy etc. The concepts in there then somehow manage to change reality ... it is quite ambitious to pack all of this into a short story, but Borges manages. Still I feel like I missed plenty of references because I am not well-read enough.
16. Desertion by Clifford D. Simak - 5 stars
Wow, I loved this! The story is based on the concepts that humans change their biology in order to be able to live on the different planets of the solar system. The team on Jupiter has a problem though, because everyone who is changed to be able withstand the very, very harsh environment of Jupiter and goes out there does not come back. And so the mission leader decides to go himself ... I loved how the story played out and also Simak's writing. He shows empathy and appreciation for beauty that really resonated with me. I definitely need to check out more of his writing!
17. September 2005: The Martian by Ray Bradbury - 4.5 stars
On the surface this was about a Martian showing up in a human settlement on Mars. Martians are able to shapeshift and appear to humans apparently in the shape of a person the human is thinking about a lot. A strong emotional connection of the human "binds" the Martian to a certain shape and so tragedy is not far away when many people want to see a certain someone at the same time.
This story embodies literary sci fi for me: you get your sci fi fix but underneath there are reflections on fundamentally human issues like loss, pain, attachments to other humans - all of this in Bradbury's simple, clean in lyrical prose. Beautiful!
18. Baby HP by Juan José Arreola - 4 stars
This very short piece of fiction comes in the form of a marketing text praising all of the advantages of a device that can store up the energy that babies and children produce while fidgeting to be used by the parents. Great satire on consumerism and plenty of fun!
19. Surface Tension by James Blish - 3 stars
This is a very creative take on pantropy (the concept of human genetic modification for the purpose of survival outside of the planet Earth), but was too long for me and also a bit lazy with the issues concerning linguistics (they were fixed too easily).
20. Beyond Lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick - 4 stars
This was great, dark fun and plenty creative.
21. The Snowball Effect by Katherin Maclean - 4.5 stars
A sociological experiment gone wrong, this story follows the rise of a supposedly harmless group to power very consequently. Really good!
22. Prott by Margaret St. Clair - 4 stars
"Darkly absurd, at times horrific, and engaged in playing out the implications of its own twisted logic no matter where it leads." from the introduction describes the story perfectly.
23. The Liberation of Earth by William Tenn - 5 stars
Oh, this was an absolutely brilliant take on the theme of colonialists who consider themselves "saviours".
24. Let me Live in a House by Chad Oliver - 4.5 stars
Based on anthropological theory this was a very poignant and melancholy reflection on what it might do to people to have to live isolated from their culture. Very well paced as well.
25. The Star by Arthur C. Clarke - 4 stars
From the introduction: "it is very much about the human need to create narrative out of what we observe around us so that we can make sense of the unknown", which summarizes this pretty well.
26. Grandpa by James H. Schmitz - 4 stars
This is about humans exploring an alien ecosystem and illustrates very well that you should not make assumptions on how ecosysstems work based on your own world. Also, letting ignorant non-scientists make important decisions never turns out well, does it?
27. The Game of Rat and Dragon Cordwainer Smith - 3.5 stars
Very creative, but odd. Smith must have been one of those people with an imagination that goes beyond what we know and he created a story that was sometimes not easy to grasp. But there was some fun sense of humour there and I think he was probably a cat person.
28. The Last Question by Isaac Asimov - 5 stars
Apparently Asimov considered this his best and favourite short story and I am inclined to agree. This one was great, and indeed deals with the greatest question out there. Might be my favourite of this Anthology yet.
29. Stranger Station by Damon Knight - 4 stars
This one is about what it might take to establish contact to an alien species in terms of the impact on the human brain to try and communicate with a truly different mind. Well done and quite scary actually.
30. Sector General by James White - 3.5 stars
This is the first of a series of novellas about a space hospital and the adventures of the protagonist there. White tries to be "realistic" in that this station is built to accommodate all sorts of needs in terms of gravity and atmosphere, but even in reading this seems too complicated to be realized. Also, sort of unfinished, there is no real conclusion.
31. The Visitors by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - 4 stars
Well, the Strugatsky Brothers are mainstays of Science Fiction for a reason. This was really good, a sort of different take on the alien abduction theme.
32. Pelt by Carol Emshwiller - 5 stars
I loved everything about this. It's like just a tiny slice of life on an alien planet where a man hunts for fur (to sell) with his dog and they go for one of the sentient local species. The writing is amazing!
33. The Monster by Gérard Klein- 4 stars
Odd, yet magnetic tale of first contact that is a very intimate look into the head of a housewife whose husband is devoured by said monster.
34. The Man Who Lost the Sea by Theodore Sturgeon -4 stars
Sturgeon is another of the big names in Sci Fi, especially in the literary type and I see why. The writing makes you work a bit, but it has a pull to it and a lyrical, almost melodic quality to it. Apparently this story was a favourite of Arthur C. Clarke's.
The Waves by Silvina Ocampo - 4.5 stars
I really like the diversity of this collection! Ocampo was a Latin American pioneer of the magical realism that has become a trademark of many authors from there. This is apparently the only story by her that is actual Science Fiction and it's a really good one about the price we are willing to pay for love.
0. Introduction
Wordy and oddly judgemental at times, I skimmed a lot here. I was also not a fan of this reading like a scientific paper, by which I mean that the authors seem be really enamored of obscure, smart sounding words and convoluted sentences. I'm not convinced this was necessary to get the point accross and it does impact readability.
1. The Star by H. G. Wells - 4 stars
This might be the mother of the "Impact" trope, where an object enters the solar system and wreaks havoc by colliding with something. But while in modern sci-fi action movies, this something is usually the Earth, Wells actually does something different by letting the object collide with Neptune, which does then cause indeed quite some problems for Earth. The narration is pretty detached, told by an omnisciet observer, and there is some dry wit to it all. I liked this one!
2. Sultana's Dream by Rokheya Shekhawat Hossain- 3 stars
This is labelled as feminist utopia, but it is the sort of utopia that is based on the notion that a society with women in power will be much more peaceful and advanced. I disagree with that notion, I just don't think this is realistic and that power works that way. But this is from a long time ago and the writer is from what is now Bangladesh, so I understand how this story contains very revolutionary, novel concepts. Also, the writing was beautiful.
3. The Triumph of Mechanics by Karl Hans Strobl - 4 stars
This is like the infamous Tribbles from Star Trek but with mechanical rabbits that are released unto a city to force people's hand in favour of their inventor. I wonder if the former has been inspired by the latter? In any case, this was lots of ridiculous fun!
4. The New Overworld by Paul Scheerbart - 3.5 stars
The introduction blurb actually describes this really short story very well, so I am going to quote here "“The New Overworld” (1911), never before translated into English, exemplifies Scheerbart’s style and approach: light, taking liberties with science, but also unique and playful in its speculation." It was odd, but kind of fun.
5. Elements of Pataphysics by Alfred Jarry - 1 star
This read like random exerpts out of a longer story and I had quite seriously not any clue whatsoever what this was about or what was going on. Very absurdist, not for me.
6. Mechanopolis by Miguel de Unamuno - 3 stars
A classic dystopia based on the idea that machines take over and leave a very clean and orderly, but essentially lifeless world behind. Putting this in the context of its time I understand the fear of such a future but it was a bit simplistic for me.
7. The Doom of Principal City by Yefim Zozulya- 4 stars
A satirical take on a revolution gone wrong (or something like that, it's been a few weeks). This was not terribly sci-fi, other than you could consider this a dystopia in a near-future (relative to the time of writing) society. You could classify this as political satire just as well. Still, this one I remember to have liked.
8. The Comet by W. E. B. Du Bois - 5 stars
The first story by a black author in this anthology and I thought it was brilliant. Du Bois takes a look at racism by using a desaster to brings together a black bank clerk and a wealthy white woman who appear to be the sole survivors in New York. This was was very sharply observed and written and a page turner to boot.
9. The Fate of the Poseidonia by Clare Winger Harris -4 stars
The second story by a woman in this anthology and jeez, it must have been a frustrating time to be a woman Sci-Fi writer. The editor of "Amazing Stories", Hugo Gernsback, wrote about her: "That the third place winner should prove to be a woman was one of the surprises of the contest, for, as a rule, women do not make good scientifiction writers, because their education and general tendencies on scientific matters are usually limited." Ugh. But in any case, this story was fun with some very amusing stabs at dumb guy jealousy just because someone could not deal with not getting the girl.
10. The Star Stealers by Edmond Hamilton - 3.5 stars
This one plays fast and loose with the laws of physics (there is Earth-like gravity and a breathable atmosphere on something like a dark star hurtling through space) but it's entertaining. At least he included a female pilot in the crew for being competent (yay!), but then makes fun of her sex only being interested in beauty parlors (boo!). Also, apparently Lovecraft has been inspired for his Cthulhu by the descriptions of the aliens?
11. The Conquest of Gola by Leslie F. Stone - 4 stars
This apparently is one of the first stories to be told from the perspective of aliens, a retelling of how humans from Earth tried to invade Gola (Venus). It paints a picture of a society just a sexist as the ones on Earth, just with women being the gender in power. Of course one could wonder at alien creatures having the same concepts of a female and male gender as humans do and being able to recognize them in the invading species - but this has been written by a human after all and is a reflection on power and gender politics. It's a nice touch that in this story it is the very fact that one gender is being opressed that creates the biggest danger for the Golan society and makes the attempted invasion by humans almost successful.
12. A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum - 4 stars
Apparently this story is a true classic and favourite of many and I can see the appeal as it is very creative and well written. In it, protagonist ends up having to survive on Mars alone for a while and encounters some of the local flora/fauna, for which Weinbaum had some great ideas. The protagonist also meets an alien and actually accepts that they have very different thought structures and still never considers it (?) inferior (quite the opposite, actually), but tries to establish communication. This part felt quite progressive to me. Unfortunately, there is also some very of-the-time casual racism strewn in that is just ugh.
13. The Last Poet and the Robots by A. Merritt - 5 stars
Very creative, with an international group of brilliant scientists led by a Russian as protagonists and a great story about how said scientists help out the rest of the humans with saving the world just so they can finally get back to living in their self-made refuges of beauty and art and music and piece and quiet. I mean, right? Bonus: beautiful writing
I also quite agree with Narodny, the Russian scientist on his assessment of humanity: "Like Loeb, a thousand years before, he considered mankind a race of crazy half-monkeys, intent upon suicide. Now and then, out of the sea of lunatic mediocrity, a wave uplifted that held for a moment a light from the sun of truth—but soon it sank back and the light was gone. Quenched in the sea of stupidity. He knew that he was one of those waves."
14. The Microscopic Giants by Paul Ernst - 3.5 stars
This is a really solid riff on the theme of "people living under the earth", an ever popular trope. The science is wonky at best (but that is true for all sci-fi of that time), but the story itself is well told and entertaining.
15. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges - 3.5 stars
So, this went really a bit over my head, I think I am not smart enough for Borges' writing. The plot is about some high level trolling by a bunch smart people, who basically invent a whole planet and write an encyclopaedia about it as if it was absolutely real. About the geology, the people, their language, their philosophy etc. The concepts in there then somehow manage to change reality ... it is quite ambitious to pack all of this into a short story, but Borges manages. Still I feel like I missed plenty of references because I am not well-read enough.
16. Desertion by Clifford D. Simak - 5 stars
Wow, I loved this! The story is based on the concepts that humans change their biology in order to be able to live on the different planets of the solar system. The team on Jupiter has a problem though, because everyone who is changed to be able withstand the very, very harsh environment of Jupiter and goes out there does not come back. And so the mission leader decides to go himself ... I loved how the story played out and also Simak's writing. He shows empathy and appreciation for beauty that really resonated with me. I definitely need to check out more of his writing!
17. September 2005: The Martian by Ray Bradbury - 4.5 stars
On the surface this was about a Martian showing up in a human settlement on Mars. Martians are able to shapeshift and appear to humans apparently in the shape of a person the human is thinking about a lot. A strong emotional connection of the human "binds" the Martian to a certain shape and so tragedy is not far away when many people want to see a certain someone at the same time.
This story embodies literary sci fi for me: you get your sci fi fix but underneath there are reflections on fundamentally human issues like loss, pain, attachments to other humans - all of this in Bradbury's simple, clean in lyrical prose. Beautiful!
18. Baby HP by Juan José Arreola - 4 stars
This very short piece of fiction comes in the form of a marketing text praising all of the advantages of a device that can store up the energy that babies and children produce while fidgeting to be used by the parents. Great satire on consumerism and plenty of fun!
19. Surface Tension by James Blish - 3 stars
This is a very creative take on pantropy (the concept of human genetic modification for the purpose of survival outside of the planet Earth), but was too long for me and also a bit lazy with the issues concerning linguistics (they were fixed too easily).
20. Beyond Lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick - 4 stars
This was great, dark fun and plenty creative.
21. The Snowball Effect by Katherin Maclean - 4.5 stars
A sociological experiment gone wrong, this story follows the rise of a supposedly harmless group to power very consequently. Really good!
22. Prott by Margaret St. Clair - 4 stars
"Darkly absurd, at times horrific, and engaged in playing out the implications of its own twisted logic no matter where it leads." from the introduction describes the story perfectly.
23. The Liberation of Earth by William Tenn - 5 stars
Oh, this was an absolutely brilliant take on the theme of colonialists who consider themselves "saviours".
24. Let me Live in a House by Chad Oliver - 4.5 stars
Based on anthropological theory this was a very poignant and melancholy reflection on what it might do to people to have to live isolated from their culture. Very well paced as well.
25. The Star by Arthur C. Clarke - 4 stars
From the introduction: "it is very much about the human need to create narrative out of what we observe around us so that we can make sense of the unknown", which summarizes this pretty well.
26. Grandpa by James H. Schmitz - 4 stars
This is about humans exploring an alien ecosystem and illustrates very well that you should not make assumptions on how ecosysstems work based on your own world. Also, letting ignorant non-scientists make important decisions never turns out well, does it?
27. The Game of Rat and Dragon Cordwainer Smith - 3.5 stars
Very creative, but odd. Smith must have been one of those people with an imagination that goes beyond what we know and he created a story that was sometimes not easy to grasp. But there was some fun sense of humour there and I think he was probably a cat person.
28. The Last Question by Isaac Asimov - 5 stars
Apparently Asimov considered this his best and favourite short story and I am inclined to agree. This one was great, and indeed deals with the greatest question out there. Might be my favourite of this Anthology yet.
29. Stranger Station by Damon Knight - 4 stars
This one is about what it might take to establish contact to an alien species in terms of the impact on the human brain to try and communicate with a truly different mind. Well done and quite scary actually.
30. Sector General by James White - 3.5 stars
This is the first of a series of novellas about a space hospital and the adventures of the protagonist there. White tries to be "realistic" in that this station is built to accommodate all sorts of needs in terms of gravity and atmosphere, but even in reading this seems too complicated to be realized. Also, sort of unfinished, there is no real conclusion.
31. The Visitors by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - 4 stars
Well, the Strugatsky Brothers are mainstays of Science Fiction for a reason. This was really good, a sort of different take on the alien abduction theme.
32. Pelt by Carol Emshwiller - 5 stars
I loved everything about this. It's like just a tiny slice of life on an alien planet where a man hunts for fur (to sell) with his dog and they go for one of the sentient local species. The writing is amazing!
33. The Monster by Gérard Klein- 4 stars
Odd, yet magnetic tale of first contact that is a very intimate look into the head of a housewife whose husband is devoured by said monster.
34. The Man Who Lost the Sea by Theodore Sturgeon -4 stars
Sturgeon is another of the big names in Sci Fi, especially in the literary type and I see why. The writing makes you work a bit, but it has a pull to it and a lyrical, almost melodic quality to it. Apparently this story was a favourite of Arthur C. Clarke's.
The Waves by Silvina Ocampo - 4.5 stars
I really like the diversity of this collection! Ocampo was a Latin American pioneer of the magical realism that has become a trademark of many authors from there. This is apparently the only story by her that is actual Science Fiction and it's a really good one about the price we are willing to pay for love.
the_dave_harmon's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
slow-paced
5.0
an excellent and very thorough survey of the history of science fiction. recommend for anyone interested in a thorough understanding of he history of science fiction. -beware the new wave of the 60s, it sucked! :)