Alice Munro's "The Stone in the Field" (novelette, non-genre)

This is a sequel to author's "Connection". In "Connection", we meet the girl's several single aunts on the maternal side; here we meet her several single aunts on father's site. While the maternal aunts are outgoing, paternal ones live too much in their own world. In fact, the central theme in this story seems to the extreme to which some people go to protect themselves in a constantly changing, & hence threatening, world.

Collected in.

1. Alice Munro's "The Moons of Jupiter".

Fact sheet.

First published: Saturday Night, sometime in 1979.
Rating: A. 
Related: Stories of Alice Munro.

Alice Munro's "Connection" (novelette, non-genre)

This is mostly colorful character portraits - her mother & mother's several single cousin sisters, seen from the eyes of a girl.

One theme keeps recurring through the story - how we go about protecting our sense of pride. Some very common situations, but we all seem to engage in this behavior.

Collected in.

1. Alice Munro's "The Moons of Jupiter".

Fact sheet.

First published: Chatelaine, sometime in 1979.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Alice Munro.

Barry B Longyear's "Enemy Mine" (novella): They're only different, not evil!

This often well regarded & widely anthologized story didn't work as well for me. It does have its moments, however.

Story is of two fighter pilots from a space war between humans & Dracs - one of each crash on a harsh uninhabited world, & are thus stranded. Initial hate soon gives way to friendship that will outlast even the death of one of them, even after their rescue at the end of war & the continuing mutual antagonism of two societies even in peacetime...

Notes.

* This story "seems likely to have a source from a late 1960s screenplay, this time the 1968 John Boorman film Hell in the Pacific, which starred Lee Marvin and Toshirô Mifune as two WW2 pilots, one American and one Japanese, crashed on a Pacific island, who have to co-operate to survive."

Fact sheet.

First published: Asimov's, September 1979.
[via Bill Garthright @ClassicScienceFiction]
Rating: B. 
Winner of Hugo award 1980 in novella category.
Winner of Nebula award 1979 in novella category.
Movie of the same titled, directed by Wolfgang Petersen, is based on this story.

Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 2 (1940)" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

This is the second of a series of 25 anthologies by these editors. This book collects stories first published during the year 1940.

I haven't read many stories yet; will update as I move through the book. Where I'm aware of online copies of stories, I provide download links. My rating is in brackets. Where I've a separate post on a the story, link on story title goes there. Link on a noun yields more of related stories.

Table of contents (16 stories, best first, unread last).

1. [ss] Ross Rocklynne's "Quietus" (A); download; Astounding, September 1940; first contact: "who we are creates a bias in how we view the world".
2. [novelette] Harry Bates' "Farewell to the Master" (A); download; Astounding, October 1940; first contact: What we see depends on what we are...
3. [novelette] L Sprague de Camp's "The Exalted" (A); Astounding, November 1940; humor: An "uplifted to superhuman intelligence" professor loves playing pranks.
4. [novelette] A E van Vogt's "Vault of the Beast" (B); Astounding, August 1940: Colonists from a parallel universe are defeated by the hero.
5. [novelette] Theodore Sturgeon's "It!" (B); download comic book adaptation; Unknown, August 1940: I've only read the comic book version yet.
   
   A zombie is mysteriously born out of a dead man's skeleton that has been lying in the jungle for years - by mixing skeleton with locally available matter like mud & dead vegetation. Unthinking acts of zombie will cause a death & a lot of consternation, till its own death by falling in water that washes away the junk - leaving back the again inert skeleton.
   
   I cannot really figure out what made the editors include it in this book. It doesn't belong in any list of great sf stories.
6. [ss] Willard Hawkins' "The Dwindling Sphere"; Astounding, March 1940: Not read.
7. [ss] Fritz Leiber's "The Automatic Pistol"; Weird Tales, May 1940: Not read.
8. [ss] Jack Williamson' "Hindsight"; Astounding, May 1940: Not read.
9. [ss] Robert Arthur's "Postpaid to Paradise"; Argosy, 15 July 1940: Not read.
10. [novelette] Ross Rocklynne's "Into the Darkness"; Astonishing Stories, June 1940: Not read.
11. [ss] Lester del Rey's "Dark Mission"; Astounding, July 1940: Not read.
12. [ss] Oscar J Friend's "The Impossible Highway"; Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1940: Not read.
13. [ss] Isaac Asimov's "Strange Playfellow" aka "Robbie"; Super Science Stories, September 1940: I'd read it a long time back. Don't recall many details, but it's probably of a little girl with a play robot. Parents think her affection with robot is unhealthy & its returned back to factory. Girl is unconsolable. On a return to factory for something, the girl is saved by the same robot. Parents finally accept robot.
14. [ss] L Sprague de Camp's "The Warrior Race"; Astounding, October 1940: Not read.
15. [novelette] Theodore Sturgeon's "Butyl and the Breather"; Astounding, October 1940: Not read.
16. [novelette] P Schuyler Miller's "Old Man Mulligan"; Astounding, December 1940: Not read.

Fact sheet.

First published: August 1979 (DAW).
Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.
Some of the bibliographical information here comes from ISFDB.

Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 1 (1939)" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

This is the first of a series of 25 anthologies by these editors. This book collects stories first published during the year 1939.

Two observations:

1. It includes the first published stories of Heinlein, Von Vogt, & Theodore Sturgeon. Plus one of the early stories of Asimov - a story I'd not seen before.
2. I don't recall another anthology where I didn't find a single dud. Stories vary in quality - superb to merely ok, but no real duds here.

I'll probably post separately on particularly good stories. For the moment, the terse notes below will have to do.

Table of contents (20 stories, best first).

Where I'm aware of online copies of stories, I provide download links. My rating is in brackets. Where I've a separate post on a the story, link on story title goes there. Link on a noun yields more of related stories.

1. [novelette] Robert A Heinlein's "Misfit" (A); Astounding, November 1939: An asteroid is moved to build a giant space station.
2. [ss] Joseph E Kelleam's "Rust" (A); Astounding, October 1939: Killing robots meant to destroy the enemy have done a minor change to their mission - "kill everything that lives", including those who built them.
3. [ss] Henry Kuttner's "The Misguided Halo" (A); Unknown, August 1939; humor, fantasy: An inexperienced angel has mistakenly bestowed sainthood to the wrong man!
4. [ss] H L Gold's "Trouble With Water" (A); Unknown, March 1939; fantasy: Never pick fight with a water gnome!
   
   Author is the founding editor of Galaxy. But this story is from the first issue of Unknown.
5. [ss] Eando Binder's "I, Robot" (A); download comic book adaptation; Amazing Stories, January 1939: Story that inspired Asimov's robot stories.
6. [ss] Robert A Heinlein's "Life-Line" (A); download; Astounding, August 1939: A man has built a machine to see into the future, & insurance companies aren't happy.
   
   First published story of Heinlein.
7. [novelette] L Sprague de Camp's "The Blue Giraffe" (A); Astounding, August 1939; humor, science fiction: Adventures of a British investigator in an animal reserve in South Africa where too many freak births have been happening among the animals.
8. [novelette] A E van Vogt's "Black Destroyer" (A); download; Astounding, July 1939: Men exploring a world that once knew civilization but is now sterile of life have terror waiting for them.
   
   First published story of Van Vogt, & the story that is sometimes credited to have began the "Golden Age" of science fiction.
9. [novelette] C L Moore's "Greater Than Gods" (A); Astounding, July 1939: A man is approached by his descendants from far off alternate futures. Each is canvassing to make him choose an action that will enable their future to exist!
10. [ss] John Taine's "The Ultimate Catalyst" (A); Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1939: A man has found a way to turn living animals into plants rooted to the ground!
11. [novelette] L Sprague de Camp's "The Gnarly Man" (A); Unknown, June 1939: When a 50,000 years old neanderthal, made immortal by a mysterious lightning strike, turned up in New York city!
12. [ss] Lester del Rey's "The Day is Done" (A); Astounding, May 1939: Last neanderthal breaths his last. Sentimental & sad mood.
13. [ss] Theodore Sturgeon's "Ether Breather" (A); Astounding, September 1939; humor: A new TV transmission technology has made communications with invisible intelligent beings possible! But they have a weird sense of humor.
    
    This is Sturgeon's first published story.
14. [novelette] Jack Williamson's "Star Bright" (A); Argosy, November 1939: A meteor impact has given a strange capability to a man - his can wish arbitrary material things to appear or disappear! Makes a reference to H G Wells' "The Man Who Could Work Miracles".
15. [novella] John W Campbell, Jr's "Cloak of Aesir" (B) (as by Don A Stuart); Astounding, March 1939: Earth was colonized by aliens thousands of years ago - an event that turned men into surfs. Now a group of men are beginning a revolution to throw the aliens out.
16. [novelette] William F Temple's "The Four-Sided Triangle" (B); Amazing Stories, November 1939: Three friends - two men & a woman. Both men are in love with her, but she's loves only one. They marry. Finally, a solution is found to the rejected one's woes - by duplicating the woman! Only, the duplicate has exact same desires as the original - including the man she loves!
17. [novelette] Nelson Bond's "Pilgrimage" (B); Amazing Stories, October 1939: In a matriarchal society where men are second class citizens, a young woman's coming of age ritual makes her undertake pilgrimage to a sacred temple some days journey away. but the journey leads to adventure & enlightenment.
18. [ss] Milton A Rothman's "Heavy Planet" (B) (as by Lee Gregory); download; Astounding, August, 1939: Natives of a very high gravity world have got a relic from the skies.
19. [ss] Isaac Asimov's "Trends" (B); Astounding, July 1939: Religious cranks won't let the first manned flight to moon happen - terming it sacrilege against gods! Hero will fight the forces of the dark & win (after much trouble).
    
    Asimov's first appearance in Astounding, & his third published story.
20. [ss] Robert Bloch's "The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton" (B); Amazing Stories, March 1939: Loneliness can make a man age visibly! Story is of the first manned flight to Mars - a project that failed.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1979 (DAW).
Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.