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A review by paladinjane
The Big Book of Science Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer, Ann VanderMeer
5.0
Full disclosure: I received an ARC of this book on Goodreads giveaways in exchange for my honest opinion. Secondly, I haven't fully read the book yet. That may take me a long time to do, given the enormous size (1178 pages) of this book. Therefore, an update will be forthcoming once I finish the book.
This is an incredible anthology of science fiction. I think all of these works have been previously published, although a number of them are either newly translated into English or have been retranslated into English, so those stories will probably be new even to the most avid of science fiction readers.
It looks like the VanderMeers decided to create an anthology that is representative of all the major eras and traditions in science fiction, by including stories published over a span of more than 100 years. I'm sure some readers will flip through the book and say, "but why isn't [insert famous/important/incredible author name here] included?" but I would guess that list is fairly short. In this book, you'll find just about every major name in science fiction and some of the most famous stories in science fiction. Flipping through this book, I see a whole bunch of stories that I've wanted to read for a long time now.
The book has a nice introduction to the history of science fiction, and each story has a short biography of the author, demonstrating why that author and that story in particular are so influential. I like that, since it helps me understand how these works fit together and how they've influenced the genre.
Since I haven't seen anyone publish the table of contents anywhere and viewing that is always important to me when I consider buying an anthology, I'm listing it here for anyone who's interested. I'm always wary of buying anthologies because I might have the stories in other volumes, especially when the anthology is full of classics like this one. However, given the size of this and the relative obscurity of most of the translated works, I suggest that this is worth it if you like to collect short science fiction.
Contents:
H. G. Wells: The Star
Rokheya Shekhawat Hossain: Sultana's Dream
Karl Hans Strobl: The Triumph of Mechanics
Paul Scheerbart: The New Overworld
Alfred Jarry: Elements of Pataphysics
Miguel de Unamuno: Mechanopolis
Yefim Zozulya: The Doom of Principal City
W. E. B. Du Bois: The Comet
Clare Winger Harris: The Fate of the Poseidonia
Edmond Hamilton: The Star Stealers
Leslie F. Stone: The Conquest of Gola
Stanley G. Weinbaum: A Martian Odyssey
A. Merritt: The Last Poet and the Robots
Paul Ernst: The Microscopic Giants
Jorge Luis Borges: Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Clifford D. Simak: Desertion
Ray Bradbury: September 2005: The Martian
Juan Jose Arreola: Baby HP
James Blish: Surface Tension
Philip K. Dick: Beyond Lies the Wub
Katherine MacLean: The Snowball Effect
Margaret St. Clair: Prott
William Tenn: The Liberation of Earth
Chad Oliver: Let Me Live in a House
Arthur C. Clarke: The Star
James H. Schmitz: Grandpa
Cordwainer Smith: The Game of Rat and Dragon
Isaac Asimov: The Last Question
Damon Knight: Stranger Station
James White: Sector General
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky: The Visitors
Carol Emschwiller: Pelt
Gerard Klein: The Monster
Theodore Sturgeon: The Man Who Lost the Sea
Silvina Ocampo: The Waves
Will Worthington: Plenitude
J. G. Ballard: The Voices of Time
Valentina Zhuravlyova: The Astronaut
Adolfo Bioy Casares: The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: 2 B R O 2 B
Vadim Shefner: A Modest Genius
Sever Gansovsky: Day of Wrath
John Baxter: The Hands
Andre Carneiro: Darkness
Harlan Ellison: "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
R. A. Lafferty: Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Frederik Pohl: Day Million
F. L. Wallace: Student Body
Samuel R. Delany: Aye, and Gomorrah
Langdon Jones: The Hall of Machines
Yoshio Aramaki: Soft Clocks
David R. Bunch: Three from Moderan
Stanislaw Lem: Let Us Save the Universe
Ursula K. Le Guin: Vaster Than Empires and More Slow
Robert Silverberg: Good News from the Vatican
Joanna Russ: When It Changed
James Tiptree Jr.: And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side
Dmitri Bilenkin: Where Two Paths Cross
Yasutaka Tsutsui: Standing Woman
Alicia Yanez Cossio: The IWM 1000
Michael Bishop: The House of Compassionate Sharers
Barrington J. Bayley: Sporting with the Chid
George R. R. Martin: Sandkings
Lisa Tuttle: Wives
Josephine Saxton: The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky
Kajio Shinji: Reiko's Universe Box
Bruce Sterling: Swarm
Jacques Barberi: Mondocane
Greg Bear: Blood Music
Octavia E. Butler: Bloodchild
Pat Cadigan: Variation on a Man
S. N. Dyer: Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead
William Gibson: New Rose Hotel
C. J. Cherryh: Pots
John Crowley: Snow
Karen Joy Fowler: The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things
Angelica Gorodischer: The Unmistakable Smell of Wood Violets
Jon Bing: The Owl of Bear Island
Elisabeth Vonarburg: Readers of the Lost Art
Iain M. Banks: A Gift from the Culture
Jean-Claude Dunyach: Paranamanco
Tanith Lee: Crying in the Rain
Michael Moorcock: The Frozen Cardinal
Pat Murphy: Rachel in Love
Manjula Padmanabhan: Sharing Air
Connie Willis: Schwarzschild Radius
Gene Wolfe: All the Hues of Hell
Geoffrey A. Landis: Vacuum States
Han Song: Two Small Birds
Rachel Pollack: Burning Sky
Kim Stanley Robinson: Before I Wake
Misha Nogha: Death Is Static Death Is Movement
Michael Blumlein: The Brains of Rats
Leena Krohn: Gorgonoids
Kojo Laing: Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ
Gwyneth Jones: The Universe of Things
Robert Reed: The Remoras
William Tenn: The Ghost Standard
Geoffrey Maloney: Remnants of the Virago Crypto-System
Stepan Chapman: How Alex Became a Machine
Cixin Liu: The Poetry Cloud
Ted Chiang: Story of Your Life
Cory Doctorow: Craphound
Tatyana Tolstaya: The Slynx
Johanna Sinisalo: Baby Doll
This is an incredible anthology of science fiction. I think all of these works have been previously published, although a number of them are either newly translated into English or have been retranslated into English, so those stories will probably be new even to the most avid of science fiction readers.
It looks like the VanderMeers decided to create an anthology that is representative of all the major eras and traditions in science fiction, by including stories published over a span of more than 100 years. I'm sure some readers will flip through the book and say, "but why isn't [insert famous/important/incredible author name here] included?" but I would guess that list is fairly short. In this book, you'll find just about every major name in science fiction and some of the most famous stories in science fiction. Flipping through this book, I see a whole bunch of stories that I've wanted to read for a long time now.
The book has a nice introduction to the history of science fiction, and each story has a short biography of the author, demonstrating why that author and that story in particular are so influential. I like that, since it helps me understand how these works fit together and how they've influenced the genre.
Since I haven't seen anyone publish the table of contents anywhere and viewing that is always important to me when I consider buying an anthology, I'm listing it here for anyone who's interested. I'm always wary of buying anthologies because I might have the stories in other volumes, especially when the anthology is full of classics like this one. However, given the size of this and the relative obscurity of most of the translated works, I suggest that this is worth it if you like to collect short science fiction.
Contents:
H. G. Wells: The Star
Rokheya Shekhawat Hossain: Sultana's Dream
Karl Hans Strobl: The Triumph of Mechanics
Paul Scheerbart: The New Overworld
Alfred Jarry: Elements of Pataphysics
Miguel de Unamuno: Mechanopolis
Yefim Zozulya: The Doom of Principal City
W. E. B. Du Bois: The Comet
Clare Winger Harris: The Fate of the Poseidonia
Edmond Hamilton: The Star Stealers
Leslie F. Stone: The Conquest of Gola
Stanley G. Weinbaum: A Martian Odyssey
A. Merritt: The Last Poet and the Robots
Paul Ernst: The Microscopic Giants
Jorge Luis Borges: Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Clifford D. Simak: Desertion
Ray Bradbury: September 2005: The Martian
Juan Jose Arreola: Baby HP
James Blish: Surface Tension
Philip K. Dick: Beyond Lies the Wub
Katherine MacLean: The Snowball Effect
Margaret St. Clair: Prott
William Tenn: The Liberation of Earth
Chad Oliver: Let Me Live in a House
Arthur C. Clarke: The Star
James H. Schmitz: Grandpa
Cordwainer Smith: The Game of Rat and Dragon
Isaac Asimov: The Last Question
Damon Knight: Stranger Station
James White: Sector General
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky: The Visitors
Carol Emschwiller: Pelt
Gerard Klein: The Monster
Theodore Sturgeon: The Man Who Lost the Sea
Silvina Ocampo: The Waves
Will Worthington: Plenitude
J. G. Ballard: The Voices of Time
Valentina Zhuravlyova: The Astronaut
Adolfo Bioy Casares: The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: 2 B R O 2 B
Vadim Shefner: A Modest Genius
Sever Gansovsky: Day of Wrath
John Baxter: The Hands
Andre Carneiro: Darkness
Harlan Ellison: "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
R. A. Lafferty: Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Frederik Pohl: Day Million
F. L. Wallace: Student Body
Samuel R. Delany: Aye, and Gomorrah
Langdon Jones: The Hall of Machines
Yoshio Aramaki: Soft Clocks
David R. Bunch: Three from Moderan
Stanislaw Lem: Let Us Save the Universe
Ursula K. Le Guin: Vaster Than Empires and More Slow
Robert Silverberg: Good News from the Vatican
Joanna Russ: When It Changed
James Tiptree Jr.: And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side
Dmitri Bilenkin: Where Two Paths Cross
Yasutaka Tsutsui: Standing Woman
Alicia Yanez Cossio: The IWM 1000
Michael Bishop: The House of Compassionate Sharers
Barrington J. Bayley: Sporting with the Chid
George R. R. Martin: Sandkings
Lisa Tuttle: Wives
Josephine Saxton: The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky
Kajio Shinji: Reiko's Universe Box
Bruce Sterling: Swarm
Jacques Barberi: Mondocane
Greg Bear: Blood Music
Octavia E. Butler: Bloodchild
Pat Cadigan: Variation on a Man
S. N. Dyer: Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead
William Gibson: New Rose Hotel
C. J. Cherryh: Pots
John Crowley: Snow
Karen Joy Fowler: The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things
Angelica Gorodischer: The Unmistakable Smell of Wood Violets
Jon Bing: The Owl of Bear Island
Elisabeth Vonarburg: Readers of the Lost Art
Iain M. Banks: A Gift from the Culture
Jean-Claude Dunyach: Paranamanco
Tanith Lee: Crying in the Rain
Michael Moorcock: The Frozen Cardinal
Pat Murphy: Rachel in Love
Manjula Padmanabhan: Sharing Air
Connie Willis: Schwarzschild Radius
Gene Wolfe: All the Hues of Hell
Geoffrey A. Landis: Vacuum States
Han Song: Two Small Birds
Rachel Pollack: Burning Sky
Kim Stanley Robinson: Before I Wake
Misha Nogha: Death Is Static Death Is Movement
Michael Blumlein: The Brains of Rats
Leena Krohn: Gorgonoids
Kojo Laing: Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ
Gwyneth Jones: The Universe of Things
Robert Reed: The Remoras
William Tenn: The Ghost Standard
Geoffrey Maloney: Remnants of the Virago Crypto-System
Stepan Chapman: How Alex Became a Machine
Cixin Liu: The Poetry Cloud
Ted Chiang: Story of Your Life
Cory Doctorow: Craphound
Tatyana Tolstaya: The Slynx
Johanna Sinisalo: Baby Doll