Wednesday, April 23, 2008

[2B] Ben Bova (Ed)'s "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two B": Annotated table of contents

This is actually the second part of the Volume 2 - split into A & B because it's too big, according to editor's note in 2A. I don't have it; adding now only for completeness' sake. But will get to it.

My rating is in brackets (ABC: A = worth your time; C = don't bother).

Table of contents (11 stories, best first, unread at end).

  1. [novella] Isaac Asimov's "The Martian Way" (A); Galaxy, November 1952: Martian colonists, to get an upper hand in a diplomatic row with earth, have worked out technology to move an iceberg from a ring of Saturn to Mars (to meet their water needs)!
  2. [novella] Clifford D Simak's "The Big Front Yard" (A); Astounding, October 1958; science fiction: When aliens introduced humans into the cosmic community of rational beings.
  3. [novelette] James H Schmitz's "The Witches of Karres" aka "Karres" (A); Astounding, December 1949; space opera: I've only read its longer novelized version; am assuming this original shorter version is similar. It's usual space opera, but features a community of supermen/women ("witches" of title) have unusual mental abilities.
  4. [novelette] Jack Vance's "The Moon Moth" (A); Galaxy, August 1961; science fiction, humor: Hunting a criminal in a society where everyone wears a mask!
  5. [novelette] Wilmar H Shiras's "In Hiding" (A); Astounding, November 1948; science fiction: A child prodigy is forced to perform at the level of his peers.
  6. [novella] Frederik Pohl's "The Midas Plague" (B); Galaxy, April 1954; science fiction, humor: What if law required you to consume at least a certain amount?
  7. [novelette] E M Forster's "The Machine Stops" (B); download; 1909: A future dystopia where intelligent machines are gods to humans.
  8. [novelette] James Blish's "Earthman, Come Home"; Astounding, November 1953: Not read.
  9. [novella] Algis Budrys' "Rogue Moon"; F&SF, December 1960: Not read.
  10. [novella] Theodore R Cogswell's "The Specter General"; Astounding, June 1952: Not read.
  11. [novelette] T L Sherred's "E for Effort"; Astounding, May 1947: Not read.
First published: 1973
Book is subtitled "The Greatest Science Fiction Novellas of All Time Chosen by the Members of The Science Fiction Writers of America".
Note: Terminology seems to have changed since publication of this book. It seems to call everything above 15,000 words "novella".
Related: SFWA's entire Science Fiction Hall of Fame series.

2 comments:

Hollis Ramsey said...

best anthology i've ever read. when i read The Big Front Yard, i really discovered speculative fiction, and i've never turned back. this is a great site; i really appreciate it -- thanks! for more stories online, you can visit my site, Prescience, at http://presciencesf.blogspot.com.

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