Saturday, March 15, 2014

Everett F Bleiler & T E Dikty (eds)' "The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1949" (anthology): Annotatated table of contents & review

Cover of short story anthology The Best Science Fiction Stories 1949, edited by Everett F Bleiler and T E DiktyAccording to Wikipedia, "It was the first published anthology to present the best science fiction stories for a given year. The stories had originally appeared in 1948 in the magazines".

Several well known classics here. I seem to have read several of these years back; currently reading just the half dozen unread ones.

Table of contents.

  1. [ss] Ray Bradbury's "Mars is Heaven!" (A); download radio adaptation; Planet Stories, Fall 1948.
  2. [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Ex Machina" (as by Lewis Padgett); Astounding, April 1948: One of the funny Galleghar stories. I read it long back; don't recollect much now.
  3. [ss] Murray Leinster's "The Strange Case of John Kingman" (A); Astounding, May 1948: First contact, but no space ships, no space travel, not even any obvious aliens...
  4. [ss] Erik Fennel's "Doughnut Jockey"; Blue Book, May 1948: Don't recollect anything now.
  5. [ss] Martin Gardner's "Thang" (C); download: Big fish eats smaller one; & is food to even bigger one...
  6. [ss] John R Pierce's "Period Piece" (as by J J Coupling) (A); Astounding, November 1948: A modern man in 31st century makes a curious discovery.
  7. [ss] Fredric Brown's "Knock" (A); download text/radio adaptation; Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1948: A smart man reclaims earth from invincible aliens.
  8. [novelette] Poul Anderson's "Genius" (B); download radio adaptation; Astounding, December 1948: When lab "animals" were observing their experimenters...
  9. [novelette] Ray Bradbury's "And the Moon be Still as Bright" (A); download radio adaptation; Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1948: Some Mars colonists are feeling guilty...
  10. [ss] Isaac Asimov's "No Connection"; download; Astounding, June 1948: Planning a second taking of Americas, from across the pond...
  11. [novelette] Wilmar H Shiras' "In Hiding" (A); Astounding, November 1948: A young boy who's "different" is forced to conform...
  12. [novelette] Henry Kuttner's "Happy Ending" (A); Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1948; humor: When a man got what he "desired"!

Fact sheet.

First published: 1949.
Related: Works of Everett F Bleiler; anothologies & collections; fiction from 1940s.