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! :)
austinbeeman's review
4.0
The Big Book of Science Fiction. edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer
Rated 81% Positive. Story Score: 3.83 out of 5
107 Stories : 26 Great / 52 Good / 18 Average / 8 Poor / 2 DNF
Full Review: https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/bigbooksf
By any definition, The Big Book of Science Fiction was a massive undertaking for Ann and Jeff Vandermeer. Attempting to cover the entire history of science fiction: from 1897 to 2007 is to find yourself awash in a supernova of stories. No one’s choices were going to please everyone and this book certainly can be polarizing. In a Facebook group that I belong to, we read this book over many months and responses ranged from consistent “That’s my favorite story from that author” to “That isn’t Science Fiction” to “Too much horror” to “This is quite the slog.”
In lieu of highlighting the Stories that made my All Time Great List - and there were 26 of them (!) - I’ll got brief thoughts that emerged during my reading of this book.
This reads like a textbook. Most of the stories seem to be selected to inspire discussion in a classroom or to illustrate some point about either the genre or its history.
The introductions from the Vandermeers are worth the price of the book. Even when I didn’t like a story, that introduction was insightful and detailed.
“Curation is Creation.” The Vandermeers are writing the history of Science Fiction from the perspective of the present. The stories selected embody the values and emphasis of the 21st century reader.
Many of the genre’s legendary authors and stories have been replaced with stories by women, minorities, and foreign language authors. A reader who thinks they are getting an anthology full of the classics of the genre will be disappointed.
This is book of SF as “Literature” not as storytelling. Stories with messages and stories with innovation prose techniques are prioritized over fun adventures. There is definitely a chip on this book’s shoulder. It wants Science Fiction to be ‘taken seriously.”
I recommend that you buy it and read it, but know what it is.
And PLEASE don’t make this your first foray into short Science Fiction.
The Big Book of Science Fiction. edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer is rated 81%
107 Stories : 26 Great / 52 Good / 18 Average / 8 Poor / 2 DNF
How do I arrive at a rating?
The Star • (1897) • short story by H. G. Wells
Great. An almost dreamlike tale of apocalyptic disaster started with a collision in the sky.
Sultana's Dream • (1905) • short story by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
Good. A woman dreams a tour of a feminist utopia where women rule everything and men are kept secluded.
The Triumph of Mechanics • short story by Karl Hans Strobl (trans. of Der Triumph der Mechanik 1907)
Good. A mechanic toy maker is fired from his firm and gets revenge with rapidly multiplying robotic rabbits.
The New Overworld • short story by Paul Scheerbart (trans. of Die neue Oberwelt. Eine Venus-Novellette 1911)
Average. Turtle people and many-handed people coexist on the face of Venus.
Elements of Pataphysics • short story by Alfred Jarry (trans. of Éléments de pataphysique 1911)
DNF. A bunch of pseudoscience and thought experiments that never comes together into any story.
Mechanopolis • short story by Miguel de Unamuno (trans. of Mecanópolis 1913)
Good. At an oasis, a man stumbles into a world run only by machines.
The Doom of Principal City • short story by Ефим Зозуля? (trans. of Гибель Главного города? 1918) [as by Yefim Zozulya]
Average. Kindly (?) conquerors build a city overtop of the city that they just conquered.
The Comet • (1920) • short story by W. E. B. Du Bois
Good. A comet apocalypse finds a poor black man and a rich white woman the only people left in the world.
The Fate of the Poseidonia • (1927) • short story by Clare Winger Harris
Average. Are the Martians stealing Earth’s water? And also the protagonist’s girlfriend?
The Star Stealers • (1965) • novelette by Edmond Hamilton (variant of The Star-Stealers 1929)
Great. Frolicking Space Opera! A captain in the space navy is sent on a mission to prevent a planet in Dark Space from stealing the Sun.
The Conquest of Gola • (1931) • short story by Leslie F. Stone
Good. Feminist Venus is invaded by Men from Earth. Suffering ensues.
A Martian Odyssey • (1934) • novelette by Stanley G. Weinbaum
Great. A masterpiece featuring a spaceman who crashed on Mars, met an interesting alien named Tweel, and trekked across the surface of the planet.
The Last Poet and the Robots • (1934) • short story by A. Merritt
Poor. An underground brilliant poet helps deal with a robot menace on the surface of earth.
The Microscopic Giants • (1936) • short story by Paul Ernst
Good. An exploration for copper is disrupted when very small, but powerful beings are discovered. They can move through concrete.
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius • (1998) • short story by Jorge Luis Borges (trans. of Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius? 1940)
Good. The discovery of a fictional city and its legend of a fiction planet works as commentary about ‘modern day’ Argentina.
Desertion • (1944) • short story by Clifford D. Simak
Great. Men are being transformed and sent into Jupiter’s inhospitable maul. Non have returned. One of the most memorable end scenes in all of science fiction.
September 2005: The Martian • (1951) • short story by Ray Bradbury (variant of The Martian 1949)
Good. A elderly couple meet a Martian who wants to live with them as their son.
Baby HP • short story by Juan José Arreola (trans. of Baby H. P. 1952)
Good. “You too can harness your baby’s energy to run your household!”
Surface Tension • [Pantropy] • (1952) • novelette by James Blish
Great. An epic adventure of small aquatic humans - seeded by a galactic civilization - and their exploration above the surface of their watery world.
Beyond Lies the Wub • (1952) • short story by Philip K. Dick
Good. Should you eat the pig-like Wub after it has shown sentience?
The Snowball Effect • (1952) • short story by Katherine MacLean
Good. A science experience gone wrong as a sewing society is given the tools for rapid expansion.
Prott • (1953) • short story by Margaret St. Clair
Average. Telepathic attempt at communication with a very strange alien species in deep space.
The Liberation of Earth • (1953) • short story by William Tenn
Great. Absolute brutal satire of Cold War justifications for foreign intervention, retold as an alien invasion story.
Let Me Live in a House • (1954) • novelette by Chad Oliver
Good. Creepy tale of two couples living in a controlled environment where nothing every changed. One day there is a knock on the door.
The Star • (1955) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke
Good. A science-minding priest loses his faith with the discovery of a supernova that killed a beautiful civilization.
Grandpa • (1955) • novelette by James H. Schmitz
Good. A young man - a troublemaker on a new world - must rise to the occasion when a semi-sentient large raft starts behaving in new and dangerous ways.
The Game of Rat and Dragon • [The Instrumentality of Mankind] • (1955) • short story by Cordwainer Smith
Great. A shockingly original look at the manner and costs of war amongst the stars through the lives of damaged people and their strange partnerships.
The Last Question • (1956) • short story by Isaac Asimov
Great. Classic story of a giant computer which tries to discover how entropy might be reversed.
Stranger Station • (1956) • novelette by Damon Knight
Great. On a space station, a man and an alien suffer because of the other’s presence. Slowly, the man starts to understand why.
Sector General • (1957) • novelette by James White
Good. A sprawling adventure story about doctors on a space station who treat all sorts of aliens.
The Visitors • novelette by Аркадий Стругацкий? and Борис Стругацкий? (trans. of Извне? 1958) [as by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky]
Average. Matter-of-fact story of first contact with aliens.
Pelt • (1958) • short story by Carol Emshwiller
Good. Hunting on an alien planet, told from the perspective of a sentient hunting animal.
The Monster • (1965) • short story by Gérard Klein? (trans. of Le monstre 1958)
Good. A compelling story of a woman who hears about the police dealing with an arrived alien, and instinctively knows it has absorbed/eaten her husband.
The Man Who Lost the Sea • (1959) • short story by Theodore Sturgeon
Great. A literary masterpiece of a dying astronaut and his entire life.
The Waves • short story by Silvina Ocampo (trans. of Las ondas 1959)
Poor. Science will classify people in the future based on their ‘waves.”
Plenitude • (1959) • short story by Will Mohler
Good. A family that lives in the wild is intensely affected by a trip to ‘the city’ where people have are changed in horrific ways. Intense and sharp vignette.
The Voices of Time • (1960) • novelette by J. G. Ballard
Great. A serious literary story that balances death, symbols, sleeping, radiation, and life legacy in a way that is very adult and complex.
The Astronaut • short story by Валентина Журавлёва? (trans. of Астронавт? 1960) [as by Valentina Zhuravlyova]
Good. A story of heroic sacrifice with astronauts that have to take hobbies and the importance that hobbies can embed in your life.
The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink • short story by Adolfo Bioy Casares (trans. of El calamar opta por su tinta 1962)
Average. A comic Argentine sci-fi story about a small town dealing with an alien that has come to protect us from crazy people with The Bomb.
2 B R 0 2 B • (1962) • short story by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Good. A comic dystopia of a future where each new life must cause the end of another … and one man’s wife is going to have triplets.
A Modest Genius • (1973) • short story by Вадим Шефнер? (trans. of Скромный гений? 1963) [as by Vadim Shefner]
Good. Light romantic science fiction about a fantastic inventor and the women in his life. Very cute.
Day of Wrath • novelette by Север Гансовский? (trans. of День гнева? 1965) [as by Sever Gansovsky]
Great. A journalist and a forester travel out into the wilderness to study the Otarks. The Otarks are super-intelligent creature that escaped from a lab years ago. Brutal and powerful.
The Hands • (1965) • short story by John Baxter
Great. Creepy bit of alien body horror. Earthmen, captured and tortured by an alien, arrive back home with very deformed bodies; multiple arms, heads, torso, etc….
Darkness • (1972) • short story by André Carneiro (trans. of A Escuridão 1963)
Good. In a world strangely plunged into darkness, one man survives with help from the blind.
"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman • (1965) • short story by Harlan Ellison
Good. The Harlequin disrupts the perfectly scheduled work as a protest and is hunted by the Ticktockman.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers • (1966) • short story by R. A. Lafferty
Average. Asteroid miners with unusual names meet a race of people who may never die.
Day Million • (1966) • short story by Frederik Pohl
Good. A snarky, tongue-in-cheek tale of dating and society a million days in our future.
Student Body • (1953) • novelette by F. L. Wallace
Average. A bit of fluff about space settlers who must deal with an evolving rodent issue.
Aye, and Gomorrah • (1970) • short story by Samuel R. Delany (variant of Aye, and Gomorrah ... 1967)
Great. Masterful new age sexual allegory about neutered spacers and the perverse(?) human who pay to have sex with them.
The Hall of Machines • (1968) • short story by Langdon Jones
Great. A haunting description of complex machines in the Hall of Machines.
Soft Clocks • (1989) • short story by 荒巻義雄? (trans. of 柔らかい時計? 1968) [as by Yoshio Aramaki]
Average. Psychiatrist summoned to Mars to evaluate potential husbands for Dali’s granddaughter. Surreal and strange, but not engaging.
No Cracks or Sagging • [Moderan] • (1970) • short story by David R. Bunch (variant of No Cracks or Saggings)
Average. Amateurish story of a traveler from far away that meets a foreman whose robots are stretching and flattening everything.
New Kings Are Not for Laughing • [Moderan] • (1971) • short story by David R. Bunch
Good. A traveler - converted to a cyborg - meets a severely injured man with whom he fought in the war.
The Flesh Man from Far Wide • [Moderan] • short story by David R. Bunch (variant of The Flesh-Man from Far Wide 1959)
Good. The man in a Stronghold meets a traveler who has traveled far to discover a happiness machine.
Let Us Save the Universe (An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy) • [Ze wspomnień Ijona Tichego / From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy] • (1981) • short story by Stanisław Lem? (trans. of Ratujmy kosmos 1964)
Great. Hilarious and masterful. Ijon Tichy reports on the effects of exploitation and tourism on the solar system. Some highlights are the strange animals that prey on unwary tourists.
Vaster Than Empires and More Slow • [Hainish] • (1971) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
Good. A crew that is seething at each other starts to explore a planet with a strange expansive type of consciousness.
Good News from the Vatican • (1971) • short story by Robert Silverberg
Good. The Catholic Church is about to elect a robot Pope.
When It Changed • [Whileaway] • (1972) • short story by Joanna Russ
Good. On a world made up of only women, men have finally arrived and they pose a creeping threat.
And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side • (1972) • short story by James Tiptree, Jr.
Great. A reporter meets a ragged worker at a spaceport who tells about how fascination with aliens has lead to his ruin …. and will lead to the ruin of humanity. Brilliantly written with incredible things to say about humanity, culture, sexual addiction, and much more.
Where Two Paths Cross • short story by Дмитрий Биленкин? (trans. of Пересечение пути? 1973) [as by Dmitri Bilenkin]
Good. Fun SF adventure with humans arriving on a planet and running afoul of the dimly-sentient plant-based aliens. A nice alien creature and a pleasant story.
Standing Woman • (1981) • short story by 筒井康隆? (trans. of 佇むひと? 1974) [as by Yasutaka Tsutsui]
Good. A sad strange story of a world where people are planted like trees as punishment for disobedience to the state.
The IWM 1000 • short story by Alicia Yánez Cossío (trans. of La IWM mil 1975)
Poor. Short short where humans become reliant on small machines and lose their ability to read and write.
The House of Compassionate Sharers • [Glaktik Komm] • (1977) • novelette by Michael Bishop
Good. A rebuilt man who has a phobia of the human body get treatment at an interesting facility that doubles as an offbeat brothel.
Sporting with the Chid • (1979) • short story by Barrington J. Bayley
Good. To save an injured friend, two hunters break the rules and interact with the Chid who have disgusting, but effective, medical skills.
Sandkings • [Thousand Worlds] • (1979) • novelette by George R. R. Martin
Great. A psychopath buys small creatures that war in his terrarium and worship him as a god. Of course, they escape and this ends badly. A classic of SF action horror.
Wives • (1979) • short story by Lisa Tuttle
Great. To survive occupation by men, an alien race has turned themselves into ‘wives.’ One of the ‘wives’ starts to think there may be another way. One of the best feminist and colonialist analogies I've ever seen in science fiction.
The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky • (1981) • novelette by Josephine Saxton
Poor. Very unpleasant people try to get one up on each other through parties with rich people.
Reiko's Universe Box • (2007) • short story by 梶尾真治? (trans. of 玲子の箱宇宙?) [as by Kajio Shinji]
Good. Poetic story of a Japanese woman who becomes fascinated at the universe she sees in a box.
Swarm • [Shaper/Mechanist] • (1982) • novelette by Bruce Sterling
Good. A special agent from a branch of humanity that is bred for intelligence arrives on a symbiotic space station with a mission that will secure victory in an ongoing war. The Swarm is very well described and there is more than enough here for a novel.
Mondocane • short story by Jacques Barbéri? (trans. of Mondocane 1983)
Poor. Surrealists SF where war has resulted in extreme changes for all people.
Blood Music • (1983) • novelette by Greg Bear
Great. A brilliant scientist goes to a friend for help after injecting himself with the intelligent results of illegal experiments.
Bloodchild • (1984) • novelette by Octavia E. Butler
Great. A visceral and amazing story of the bond between humans and an insect-like race. A young boy who is to be host for the aliens offspring is forced to help with an emergency c-section on a pregnant man who is being eaten from within by the aliens larva. Powerful, complex, horrifying, and strangely realistic. With overtones of slavery and colonial oppression.
Variation on a Man • [Deadpan Allie] • (1984) • short story by Pat Cadigan
Good. A woman enters the mind of a man who has had his memories stolen. He once was a famous composer, but now appears to be an entirely different person.
Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead • short story by Sharon N. Farber [as by S. N. Dyer]
Good. In a sterile environment of an orbital station, people with rare blood diseases are treated. They hate “Fidos:” people who aren’t sick but tag along to be with their loved ones.
New Rose Hotel • (1984) • short story by William Gibson
Good. A beatnik influenced, cyberpunk crime story about a beautiful woman and the attempt to kidnap a corporate genetic engineer.
Pots • (1985) • novelette by C. J. Cherryh
Average. A representative of the Lord Magistrate comes down to a planet to check on an archeological site, but finds that it contradicts the desires of the Lord Magistrate. Good start, but falls apart.
and more https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/bigbooksf
Rated 81% Positive. Story Score: 3.83 out of 5
107 Stories : 26 Great / 52 Good / 18 Average / 8 Poor / 2 DNF
Full Review: https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/bigbooksf
By any definition, The Big Book of Science Fiction was a massive undertaking for Ann and Jeff Vandermeer. Attempting to cover the entire history of science fiction: from 1897 to 2007 is to find yourself awash in a supernova of stories. No one’s choices were going to please everyone and this book certainly can be polarizing. In a Facebook group that I belong to, we read this book over many months and responses ranged from consistent “That’s my favorite story from that author” to “That isn’t Science Fiction” to “Too much horror” to “This is quite the slog.”
In lieu of highlighting the Stories that made my All Time Great List - and there were 26 of them (!) - I’ll got brief thoughts that emerged during my reading of this book.
This reads like a textbook. Most of the stories seem to be selected to inspire discussion in a classroom or to illustrate some point about either the genre or its history.
The introductions from the Vandermeers are worth the price of the book. Even when I didn’t like a story, that introduction was insightful and detailed.
“Curation is Creation.” The Vandermeers are writing the history of Science Fiction from the perspective of the present. The stories selected embody the values and emphasis of the 21st century reader.
Many of the genre’s legendary authors and stories have been replaced with stories by women, minorities, and foreign language authors. A reader who thinks they are getting an anthology full of the classics of the genre will be disappointed.
This is book of SF as “Literature” not as storytelling. Stories with messages and stories with innovation prose techniques are prioritized over fun adventures. There is definitely a chip on this book’s shoulder. It wants Science Fiction to be ‘taken seriously.”
I recommend that you buy it and read it, but know what it is.
And PLEASE don’t make this your first foray into short Science Fiction.
The Big Book of Science Fiction. edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer is rated 81%
107 Stories : 26 Great / 52 Good / 18 Average / 8 Poor / 2 DNF
How do I arrive at a rating?
The Star • (1897) • short story by H. G. Wells
Great. An almost dreamlike tale of apocalyptic disaster started with a collision in the sky.
Sultana's Dream • (1905) • short story by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
Good. A woman dreams a tour of a feminist utopia where women rule everything and men are kept secluded.
The Triumph of Mechanics • short story by Karl Hans Strobl (trans. of Der Triumph der Mechanik 1907)
Good. A mechanic toy maker is fired from his firm and gets revenge with rapidly multiplying robotic rabbits.
The New Overworld • short story by Paul Scheerbart (trans. of Die neue Oberwelt. Eine Venus-Novellette 1911)
Average. Turtle people and many-handed people coexist on the face of Venus.
Elements of Pataphysics • short story by Alfred Jarry (trans. of Éléments de pataphysique 1911)
DNF. A bunch of pseudoscience and thought experiments that never comes together into any story.
Mechanopolis • short story by Miguel de Unamuno (trans. of Mecanópolis 1913)
Good. At an oasis, a man stumbles into a world run only by machines.
The Doom of Principal City • short story by Ефим Зозуля? (trans. of Гибель Главного города? 1918) [as by Yefim Zozulya]
Average. Kindly (?) conquerors build a city overtop of the city that they just conquered.
The Comet • (1920) • short story by W. E. B. Du Bois
Good. A comet apocalypse finds a poor black man and a rich white woman the only people left in the world.
The Fate of the Poseidonia • (1927) • short story by Clare Winger Harris
Average. Are the Martians stealing Earth’s water? And also the protagonist’s girlfriend?
The Star Stealers • (1965) • novelette by Edmond Hamilton (variant of The Star-Stealers 1929)
Great. Frolicking Space Opera! A captain in the space navy is sent on a mission to prevent a planet in Dark Space from stealing the Sun.
The Conquest of Gola • (1931) • short story by Leslie F. Stone
Good. Feminist Venus is invaded by Men from Earth. Suffering ensues.
A Martian Odyssey • (1934) • novelette by Stanley G. Weinbaum
Great. A masterpiece featuring a spaceman who crashed on Mars, met an interesting alien named Tweel, and trekked across the surface of the planet.
The Last Poet and the Robots • (1934) • short story by A. Merritt
Poor. An underground brilliant poet helps deal with a robot menace on the surface of earth.
The Microscopic Giants • (1936) • short story by Paul Ernst
Good. An exploration for copper is disrupted when very small, but powerful beings are discovered. They can move through concrete.
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius • (1998) • short story by Jorge Luis Borges (trans. of Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius? 1940)
Good. The discovery of a fictional city and its legend of a fiction planet works as commentary about ‘modern day’ Argentina.
Desertion • (1944) • short story by Clifford D. Simak
Great. Men are being transformed and sent into Jupiter’s inhospitable maul. Non have returned. One of the most memorable end scenes in all of science fiction.
September 2005: The Martian • (1951) • short story by Ray Bradbury (variant of The Martian 1949)
Good. A elderly couple meet a Martian who wants to live with them as their son.
Baby HP • short story by Juan José Arreola (trans. of Baby H. P. 1952)
Good. “You too can harness your baby’s energy to run your household!”
Surface Tension • [Pantropy] • (1952) • novelette by James Blish
Great. An epic adventure of small aquatic humans - seeded by a galactic civilization - and their exploration above the surface of their watery world.
Beyond Lies the Wub • (1952) • short story by Philip K. Dick
Good. Should you eat the pig-like Wub after it has shown sentience?
The Snowball Effect • (1952) • short story by Katherine MacLean
Good. A science experience gone wrong as a sewing society is given the tools for rapid expansion.
Prott • (1953) • short story by Margaret St. Clair
Average. Telepathic attempt at communication with a very strange alien species in deep space.
The Liberation of Earth • (1953) • short story by William Tenn
Great. Absolute brutal satire of Cold War justifications for foreign intervention, retold as an alien invasion story.
Let Me Live in a House • (1954) • novelette by Chad Oliver
Good. Creepy tale of two couples living in a controlled environment where nothing every changed. One day there is a knock on the door.
The Star • (1955) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke
Good. A science-minding priest loses his faith with the discovery of a supernova that killed a beautiful civilization.
Grandpa • (1955) • novelette by James H. Schmitz
Good. A young man - a troublemaker on a new world - must rise to the occasion when a semi-sentient large raft starts behaving in new and dangerous ways.
The Game of Rat and Dragon • [The Instrumentality of Mankind] • (1955) • short story by Cordwainer Smith
Great. A shockingly original look at the manner and costs of war amongst the stars through the lives of damaged people and their strange partnerships.
The Last Question • (1956) • short story by Isaac Asimov
Great. Classic story of a giant computer which tries to discover how entropy might be reversed.
Stranger Station • (1956) • novelette by Damon Knight
Great. On a space station, a man and an alien suffer because of the other’s presence. Slowly, the man starts to understand why.
Sector General • (1957) • novelette by James White
Good. A sprawling adventure story about doctors on a space station who treat all sorts of aliens.
The Visitors • novelette by Аркадий Стругацкий? and Борис Стругацкий? (trans. of Извне? 1958) [as by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky]
Average. Matter-of-fact story of first contact with aliens.
Pelt • (1958) • short story by Carol Emshwiller
Good. Hunting on an alien planet, told from the perspective of a sentient hunting animal.
The Monster • (1965) • short story by Gérard Klein? (trans. of Le monstre 1958)
Good. A compelling story of a woman who hears about the police dealing with an arrived alien, and instinctively knows it has absorbed/eaten her husband.
The Man Who Lost the Sea • (1959) • short story by Theodore Sturgeon
Great. A literary masterpiece of a dying astronaut and his entire life.
The Waves • short story by Silvina Ocampo (trans. of Las ondas 1959)
Poor. Science will classify people in the future based on their ‘waves.”
Plenitude • (1959) • short story by Will Mohler
Good. A family that lives in the wild is intensely affected by a trip to ‘the city’ where people have are changed in horrific ways. Intense and sharp vignette.
The Voices of Time • (1960) • novelette by J. G. Ballard
Great. A serious literary story that balances death, symbols, sleeping, radiation, and life legacy in a way that is very adult and complex.
The Astronaut • short story by Валентина Журавлёва? (trans. of Астронавт? 1960) [as by Valentina Zhuravlyova]
Good. A story of heroic sacrifice with astronauts that have to take hobbies and the importance that hobbies can embed in your life.
The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink • short story by Adolfo Bioy Casares (trans. of El calamar opta por su tinta 1962)
Average. A comic Argentine sci-fi story about a small town dealing with an alien that has come to protect us from crazy people with The Bomb.
2 B R 0 2 B • (1962) • short story by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Good. A comic dystopia of a future where each new life must cause the end of another … and one man’s wife is going to have triplets.
A Modest Genius • (1973) • short story by Вадим Шефнер? (trans. of Скромный гений? 1963) [as by Vadim Shefner]
Good. Light romantic science fiction about a fantastic inventor and the women in his life. Very cute.
Day of Wrath • novelette by Север Гансовский? (trans. of День гнева? 1965) [as by Sever Gansovsky]
Great. A journalist and a forester travel out into the wilderness to study the Otarks. The Otarks are super-intelligent creature that escaped from a lab years ago. Brutal and powerful.
The Hands • (1965) • short story by John Baxter
Great. Creepy bit of alien body horror. Earthmen, captured and tortured by an alien, arrive back home with very deformed bodies; multiple arms, heads, torso, etc….
Darkness • (1972) • short story by André Carneiro (trans. of A Escuridão 1963)
Good. In a world strangely plunged into darkness, one man survives with help from the blind.
"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman • (1965) • short story by Harlan Ellison
Good. The Harlequin disrupts the perfectly scheduled work as a protest and is hunted by the Ticktockman.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers • (1966) • short story by R. A. Lafferty
Average. Asteroid miners with unusual names meet a race of people who may never die.
Day Million • (1966) • short story by Frederik Pohl
Good. A snarky, tongue-in-cheek tale of dating and society a million days in our future.
Student Body • (1953) • novelette by F. L. Wallace
Average. A bit of fluff about space settlers who must deal with an evolving rodent issue.
Aye, and Gomorrah • (1970) • short story by Samuel R. Delany (variant of Aye, and Gomorrah ... 1967)
Great. Masterful new age sexual allegory about neutered spacers and the perverse(?) human who pay to have sex with them.
The Hall of Machines • (1968) • short story by Langdon Jones
Great. A haunting description of complex machines in the Hall of Machines.
Soft Clocks • (1989) • short story by 荒巻義雄? (trans. of 柔らかい時計? 1968) [as by Yoshio Aramaki]
Average. Psychiatrist summoned to Mars to evaluate potential husbands for Dali’s granddaughter. Surreal and strange, but not engaging.
No Cracks or Sagging • [Moderan] • (1970) • short story by David R. Bunch (variant of No Cracks or Saggings)
Average. Amateurish story of a traveler from far away that meets a foreman whose robots are stretching and flattening everything.
New Kings Are Not for Laughing • [Moderan] • (1971) • short story by David R. Bunch
Good. A traveler - converted to a cyborg - meets a severely injured man with whom he fought in the war.
The Flesh Man from Far Wide • [Moderan] • short story by David R. Bunch (variant of The Flesh-Man from Far Wide 1959)
Good. The man in a Stronghold meets a traveler who has traveled far to discover a happiness machine.
Let Us Save the Universe (An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy) • [Ze wspomnień Ijona Tichego / From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy] • (1981) • short story by Stanisław Lem? (trans. of Ratujmy kosmos 1964)
Great. Hilarious and masterful. Ijon Tichy reports on the effects of exploitation and tourism on the solar system. Some highlights are the strange animals that prey on unwary tourists.
Vaster Than Empires and More Slow • [Hainish] • (1971) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
Good. A crew that is seething at each other starts to explore a planet with a strange expansive type of consciousness.
Good News from the Vatican • (1971) • short story by Robert Silverberg
Good. The Catholic Church is about to elect a robot Pope.
When It Changed • [Whileaway] • (1972) • short story by Joanna Russ
Good. On a world made up of only women, men have finally arrived and they pose a creeping threat.
And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side • (1972) • short story by James Tiptree, Jr.
Great. A reporter meets a ragged worker at a spaceport who tells about how fascination with aliens has lead to his ruin …. and will lead to the ruin of humanity. Brilliantly written with incredible things to say about humanity, culture, sexual addiction, and much more.
Where Two Paths Cross • short story by Дмитрий Биленкин? (trans. of Пересечение пути? 1973) [as by Dmitri Bilenkin]
Good. Fun SF adventure with humans arriving on a planet and running afoul of the dimly-sentient plant-based aliens. A nice alien creature and a pleasant story.
Standing Woman • (1981) • short story by 筒井康隆? (trans. of 佇むひと? 1974) [as by Yasutaka Tsutsui]
Good. A sad strange story of a world where people are planted like trees as punishment for disobedience to the state.
The IWM 1000 • short story by Alicia Yánez Cossío (trans. of La IWM mil 1975)
Poor. Short short where humans become reliant on small machines and lose their ability to read and write.
The House of Compassionate Sharers • [Glaktik Komm] • (1977) • novelette by Michael Bishop
Good. A rebuilt man who has a phobia of the human body get treatment at an interesting facility that doubles as an offbeat brothel.
Sporting with the Chid • (1979) • short story by Barrington J. Bayley
Good. To save an injured friend, two hunters break the rules and interact with the Chid who have disgusting, but effective, medical skills.
Sandkings • [Thousand Worlds] • (1979) • novelette by George R. R. Martin
Great. A psychopath buys small creatures that war in his terrarium and worship him as a god. Of course, they escape and this ends badly. A classic of SF action horror.
Wives • (1979) • short story by Lisa Tuttle
Great. To survive occupation by men, an alien race has turned themselves into ‘wives.’ One of the ‘wives’ starts to think there may be another way. One of the best feminist and colonialist analogies I've ever seen in science fiction.
The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky • (1981) • novelette by Josephine Saxton
Poor. Very unpleasant people try to get one up on each other through parties with rich people.
Reiko's Universe Box • (2007) • short story by 梶尾真治? (trans. of 玲子の箱宇宙?) [as by Kajio Shinji]
Good. Poetic story of a Japanese woman who becomes fascinated at the universe she sees in a box.
Swarm • [Shaper/Mechanist] • (1982) • novelette by Bruce Sterling
Good. A special agent from a branch of humanity that is bred for intelligence arrives on a symbiotic space station with a mission that will secure victory in an ongoing war. The Swarm is very well described and there is more than enough here for a novel.
Mondocane • short story by Jacques Barbéri? (trans. of Mondocane 1983)
Poor. Surrealists SF where war has resulted in extreme changes for all people.
Blood Music • (1983) • novelette by Greg Bear
Great. A brilliant scientist goes to a friend for help after injecting himself with the intelligent results of illegal experiments.
Bloodchild • (1984) • novelette by Octavia E. Butler
Great. A visceral and amazing story of the bond between humans and an insect-like race. A young boy who is to be host for the aliens offspring is forced to help with an emergency c-section on a pregnant man who is being eaten from within by the aliens larva. Powerful, complex, horrifying, and strangely realistic. With overtones of slavery and colonial oppression.
Variation on a Man • [Deadpan Allie] • (1984) • short story by Pat Cadigan
Good. A woman enters the mind of a man who has had his memories stolen. He once was a famous composer, but now appears to be an entirely different person.
Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead • short story by Sharon N. Farber [as by S. N. Dyer]
Good. In a sterile environment of an orbital station, people with rare blood diseases are treated. They hate “Fidos:” people who aren’t sick but tag along to be with their loved ones.
New Rose Hotel • (1984) • short story by William Gibson
Good. A beatnik influenced, cyberpunk crime story about a beautiful woman and the attempt to kidnap a corporate genetic engineer.
Pots • (1985) • novelette by C. J. Cherryh
Average. A representative of the Lord Magistrate comes down to a planet to check on an archeological site, but finds that it contradicts the desires of the Lord Magistrate. Good start, but falls apart.
and more https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/bigbooksf
yggie's review against another edition
4.0
Finally finished this beast! Well over a 100 short stories and novellas, in small print on big pages. I'm both relieved and sad.
This book showed me, once again, that I LOVE the science fiction people wrote in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Older and newer stuff, less so. Too experimental, too preachy, too bleak
That said, this book is an amazing collection, and well worth reading if you like the genre.
This book showed me, once again, that I LOVE the science fiction people wrote in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Older and newer stuff, less so. Too experimental, too preachy, too bleak
That said, this book is an amazing collection, and well worth reading if you like the genre.
madi's review against another edition
5.0
Great collection! Wide range of works from classic authors (H.G. Wells, Vonnegut) and newer authors. Each story is prefaced by a biography of the author so you can learn more about them and the time period in which the story was published. And this book really is big! It is like a textbook of science fiction stories. So good. Well curated.
nai_reads'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.
jada's review
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