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A review by pumpkincore
Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century by
4.0
Masterpieces is, as the title suggests, a collection of science fiction short stories from the 20th century. The book breaks the stories down into eras: the Golden Age, New Wave, and the Media Generation.
Card's anthology does a very good job at sampling from both across eras and across sub-genres of science fiction in order to provide the introductory reader with a wide variety. There's both hard, extremely technological science fiction short stories alongside dystopian and social commentaries. I highly recommend this book both for new and old science fiction fans seeking to branch out their knowledge of the genre or just a good read. Although the science fiction genre is still relatively new, it is dense with content and variety, and Masterpieces provides readers with a good starting place for exploring that variety.
Obviously, the use of the word "best" is subjective, as there were several stories in the compilation I didn't think were very good representations of writing within the genre. Although science fiction primarily interested itself with facts and used plot and characters solely to explain the technology, it has since evolved and there are plenty of well-rounded, well-written stories in the genre other than those Card has selected, in my opinion. Personally, my favorite stories from Masterpieces fell in the Golden Age and New Wave eras. I have a particular fondness for social commentary, and especially Ursula Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," and I'll praise every collection that remembers to include it in its pages. Some other personal favorites from this collection are, "A Saucer of Loneliness" by Theodore Sturgeon, "Robot Dreams" by Isaac Asimov, "The Tunnel Under the World" by Frederik Pohl, and "Dogfight" by William Gibson and Michael Swanwick.
Card's anthology does a very good job at sampling from both across eras and across sub-genres of science fiction in order to provide the introductory reader with a wide variety. There's both hard, extremely technological science fiction short stories alongside dystopian and social commentaries. I highly recommend this book both for new and old science fiction fans seeking to branch out their knowledge of the genre or just a good read. Although the science fiction genre is still relatively new, it is dense with content and variety, and Masterpieces provides readers with a good starting place for exploring that variety.
Obviously, the use of the word "best" is subjective, as there were several stories in the compilation I didn't think were very good representations of writing within the genre. Although science fiction primarily interested itself with facts and used plot and characters solely to explain the technology, it has since evolved and there are plenty of well-rounded, well-written stories in the genre other than those Card has selected, in my opinion. Personally, my favorite stories from Masterpieces fell in the Golden Age and New Wave eras. I have a particular fondness for social commentary, and especially Ursula Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," and I'll praise every collection that remembers to include it in its pages. Some other personal favorites from this collection are, "A Saucer of Loneliness" by Theodore Sturgeon, "Robot Dreams" by Isaac Asimov, "The Tunnel Under the World" by Frederik Pohl, and "Dogfight" by William Gibson and Michael Swanwick.