ISFDB link

Other reviews:
Jim Harris, Classics of Science Fiction
George Kelley, George Kelley.org
Various, Goodreads

_____________________

Editors, Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg

Fiction:
The Red Queen’s Race • novelette by Isaac Asimov ∗∗∗+
Flaw • short story by John D. MacDonald ∗
Private Eye • novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett] ∗∗∗∗∗
Manna • novelette by Peter Phillips ∗∗∗∗
The Prisoner in the Skull • novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett] ∗∗∗+
Alien Earth • novelette by Edmond Hamilton ∗∗∗∗
History Lesson • short story by Arthur C. Clarke ∗∗∗+
Eternity Lost • novelette by Clifford D. Simak ∗∗
The Only Thing We Learn • short story by C. M. Kornbluth ∗∗
Private – Keep Out! • short story by Philip MacDonald ∗∗
The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast • short story by Theodore Sturgeon ∗
Kaleidoscope • short story by Ray Bradbury ∗∗∗∗
Defense Mechanism • short story by Katherine MacLean ∗
Cold War • novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner] ∗∗∗
The Witches of Karres • novelette by James H. Schmitz ∗∗∗

Non-fiction:
Introduction • by Martin H. Greenberg
Story introductions • by Martin H. Greenberg and Isaac Asimov

_____________________

This volume came to my attention on the Great SF Stories 1939-1963 newsgroup when one of its members (Jim Harris, whose name you’ll you have seen in previous comments here) posted a link to a review of the previous volume, #10, and also 1948’s other ‘Year’s Best’, The Best Science Fiction 1949, edited by Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty (the year on these ‘Year’s Best’ titles is nearly always the year after the stories appeared).¹
When I looked at the contents list of both books my heart sank: I recognised only a few titles and, after looking at my notes, realised I probably had read only three stories from each of the volumes.²
I knew that there were holes in my reading, but this reminded me that these were much bigger than the cheese that represented the stories I’d read.³ So, In an effort to address these omissions (and get more cheese), I resolved to start reading some of the ‘Year’s Best’ volumes, beginning with the next in this series.
Before I go any further, here is my standard introduction to this series of books (I’ve previously read #4 & #5):
This collection was the eleventh volume of a retrospective ‘Best of the Year’ series started in 1979 by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. The series, published by DAW books, would continue for a total of twenty-four volumes and would cover the period from 1939 to 1963. NESFA Press would add a twenty-fifth volume in 2001, Robert Silverberg Presents the Great SF Stories: 1964.
I’ll try to be relatively brief here but, if I’ve reviewed the stories at length elsewhere, I’ll add the links below.⁴

The first story in this volume is from co-editor Isaac Asimov, The Red Queen’s Race, and it starts with an incident at a nuclear power plant where, overnight, the fuel has been depleted by means of an unknown process. There is no explosion or release of gamma rays. A Professor Tywood is found in the reactor, dead from apoplexy, and the strange equipment beside him is a fused mass.
The narrative continues from the point of view of an FBI agent who, after interviewing professors and staff at Tywood’s university, finds out his research was into “micro-temporal translation”—sending material back in time. The agent then reads some of Tywood’s old magazine articles, and finds a passage about the fall of the Roman Empire which suggests that, if they had better scientific knowledge, the collapse could have been avoided, and that today’s world would be a better one. The agent also finds evidence that leads him to suspect that Tywood has sent a translated science book back in time to change the past (this would explain the use of all the reactor’s energy). He tells his boss, and the pair calculate that they have two and a half weeks until any changes “ripple” forward through time. In the meantime they track down the translator of the science book, Professor Boulder.
The final interrogation reveals (spoiler) that Professor Boulder was aware of Tywood’s plan to change the present but he is scathing about the chances of success even if such a book was sent back. There is then an extended conversation/lecture about a variety of subjects—the history of scientific progress, how man progresses, etc.—until Boulder (spoiler) reveals that he only included information that he knew the ancients already had, and that this is the world that resulted from those changes.
Despite the fact that Asimov’s story contains virtually no action or characterisation, and the narrative is dominated by talking heads (it reads like a fictionalised version of one of his later science columns) he nevertheless manages to produce an engrossing tale. If you don’t mind lecture-type stories, and have an interest in the history of scientific progression (with a nod towards atomic state security and the guilt of A-bomb scientists), you should enjoy this one.
Flaw by John D. MacDonald concerns a woman and her astronaut boyfriend, who is shortly to leave on a space flight to Mars. Before he goes they agree to marry on his return, and exchange rings. Then he leaves in the Destiny.
A month or so before the ship is due back, a massive meteor lands at the base. The woman goes to the excavation, and sees them recover a ruby the size of a house. She notes (spoiler) that it is similar to the one on the ring that she gave her boyfriend, and later deduces that her boyfriend’s giant spaceship arrived early because the Universe is shrinking.
This is a gimmicky and unbelievable ending to a dull story. Further, there is no explanation as to why the Destiny didn’t shrink as well (other than, “For a little time the Destiny II avoided that influence”). Pah.
Private Eye by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore starts with a forensic psychologist and a “trace” engineer using a time viewer device to watch Sam Clay stab to death a man called Vanderman. The two are investigating Clay to find out if the killing was premeditated (this type of offence is essentially the only kind which is punished in this strange, dark future), so most of the first part of the story is in the form of a murder mystery which shows how Clay manages to conceal his premeditation from the investigating pair’s all-seeing temporal eye. Their research focuses on the  eighteen month period before the killing, the beginning of which has Vanderman steal Clay’s girlfriend, and Clay deciding to kill him.
Mixed through this storyline are glimmers of information which illuminate Clay’s dark psyche, such as incidents from his childhood where he was locked in a cupboard by his parents. Inside, a religious picture of another all-seeing eye watched over him, with “THOU GOD SEEST ME” printed underneath the image.
The murder mystery thread is concluded around the three-quarters mark when Clay (spoiler) is found innocent of premeditation. The rest of the story is a psychodrama which examines who Clay is, and sees him reflect on his actions. The last few lines provide (spoiler) a shockingly violent resolution in which Clay transcends the trauma of his childhood (although not in a good way), and the Eye appears as a final image.
This is a remarkable and complex story—much more than a murder mystery, as it is sometimes described—and one which recalls (the future world, the psychologically damaged anti-hero, etc.), Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man or The Stars My Destination.
If the Kuttner and Moore story above could have easily appeared in the mid-1950’s Galaxy, then Manna by Peter Phillips would have been equally at home in F&SF—although it initially feels like a Galaxy story too, with a setup that tells of the development and marketing of a new “Miracle Meal”. However, the narrative almost immediately takes a right turn into a conversation between one of the company’s representatives, who wants to set up a discrete factory in a sleepy English village, and the local vicar, who is resistant to change. Then the story changes direction again as it introduces Brother James and Brother Gregory, two ghosts!
The next section describes these two and their relationship in some detail (there is back and forth chatter that fills us in about their characters and background), and also explains their ghostly existence in SFnal terms (their poltergeist activity is telekinesis, etc.). They take an interest in the new factory (which is modelled after the old abbey), and materialise to try the food. Then they decide to cause some mischief . . . .
In the final part of the story the factory’s food production goes missing, and the company sends a man over to investigate. Meanwhile, cans of Miracle Meal start turning up in the kitchen of a monastery in 1136!
This is an impressive piece, not only for its unlikely, original and complex plot (which Phillips pulls off with some verve) but also for its witty and entertaining narrative. Moreover, the writer manages to top it all off with a transcendent ending where (spoiler) the two Brothers manage to “translate” themselves from trapped Earth-bound beings into thoughts, and thereafter freely travel the universe.
This was a delightful discovery.
The second of the three Kuttner & Moore stories in this volume is The Prisoner in the Skull, which sees them use a variation of one of their previously used plot-gimmicks, where technology from the future arrives in the present (The Twonky, Mimsy Were the Borogoves, etc.). This time it isn’t technology but a “blank man”— John Fowler is in his apartment trying to fix a light switch before his girlfriend Veronica calls, when the blank man rings his doorbell and passes out in his arms when Fowler answers. He gives the man a brandy and, to keep him out of the way while he entertains, tells him to fix the light switch. After Veronica leaves, having refused Fowler’s marriage proposal, he finds that the blank man has replaced the light switch with a panel controlled by hand gestures.
These opening pages limn the two arcs of the story. First, Fowler gets Norman (as he later christens him) to invent a number of items, which exhausts the man to the point that he has to rest for two or three days between each invention. Periodically, Norman makes abortive attempts to communicate—he seems partially catatonic—but Fowler, who knows a good thing when he sees one, does not help.
Meanwhile Fowler unsuccessfully pursues Veronica, and she later marries someone else. This arouses Fowler’s ire, and he gets Norman to develop devices that will let him spy on Veronica/and or help him to split the couple apart. During this, Norman makes ever more strenuous attempts to communicate.
The final section sees Fowler instruct Norman to develop a device that will give Fowler the same abilities that Norman has. The ending is (spoiler) an ironic biter-bit ending that has the device—which turns out to be a time-loop device—transport Fowler back to his own front door. He has become the blank man.
I note that that this story, like Private Eye but to a lesser extent, is partly the character study of an anti-hero.
Alien Earth by Edmond Hamilton starts with Farris (a teak forester) and his guide Piang off-trail in the Laotian jungle when they come across a man in a clearing. Piang identifies the man as “hunati,” and urges Farris to leave, but the latter examines the man and finds that everything about him—his pulse, the speed at which he moves or blinks, etc.—is massively slowed down. When Farris sees another man in a similar condition at the edge of the clearing he agrees to leave so as not to upset the local tribe.
The pair continue their journey and later arrive at a research station to hear the brother and sister that live there arguing. Farris introduces himself to Andre, the brother, who reads Farris’s introductory letter from the Saigon Bureau about opening new teak cuttings, and tells him that some of the local forests are unsuitable for logging. When Farris later mentions the hunati Andre drops his glass, but later tells Farris about the drug the natives use and what it does.
Over the following days, Farris finds out that Andre is involved with the hunati, and goes to the clearing to take the drug. Andre does this against his sister’s wishes and, at one point, she and Farris take him back from the clearing while he is under the drug’s influence and keep him at the station. Weeks later, the effects wear off: Andre is not happy.
The rest of the story involves Farris and Lys trying to convince Andre to stop taking the drug, with Farris at one point threatening to release a plant blight that Andre is researching at the station, and which will kill the plant the drug comes from. Andre (spoiler) eventually drugs Farris and Lys, and they experience the slowed-down world. The story comes to a transcendent climax in the clearing.
As well as being a very good story, this is a thematically prescient piece about drugs, altered consciousness, and ecology.
History Lesson by Arthur C. Clarke is the second of three stories (the others are the Asimov and the Bradbury) that I can remember reading. This one begins with a primitive tribe on a far future Earth trying to escape southwards to escape a new ice age and its associated glaciers. Eventually, the tribe fails and they all die, but not before they put the last few treasures, which includes a radio beacon, under a cairn.
The second part of the story takes place thousands of years later, when Venusians arrive and find the cairn and the buried possessions. They take these home and make arrangements to watch the reel of film they have found. While they watch the movie their assumption, and the reader’s, is (spoiler) that they are watching humans but—in one of SF’s classic last lines—the end credits are “A Walt Disney Production.”
It is difficult to score this one as I remembered what the punch line is, so I’ve averaged how I felt at age twelve, and now.
Eternity Lost by Clifford D. Simak is set in a world hundreds of years in the future where only a privileged few get life extension treatment. The story opens with two political operatives telling Senator Homer Leonard that his next application hasn’t been approved. The rest of the story details his attempts to find fair means or foul to get his next treatment. During this he notes that various people have gone missing and that their bodies have not been recovered, leading him to wonder if the extrasolar research people have finally found the living space required for the treatment to given to all humanity. Meanwhile, he feels the effects of his age.
At the end of the story (spoiler) the senator fails in his efforts to get an extension so he publicly denounces that the treatment is only given to politicians and other worthies. He later finds a unopened letter (he is old and forgetful and sleepy) which contains news that provides an ironic end to the story.
This has a good start, but the societal setup does not convince (I can’t see the masses letting a politician live 500 year lifespans while they die, and the society portrayed seems little different from today). There is also some sophomoric philosophising about aging and death: “we may not be able to assess in their true value the things that should be dearest to us; for a thing that has no ending, a thing that goes on forever, must have decreasing value.” Simak was 45 when this first appeared—I wonder if he felt the same way in his eighties.
I note that, like the Asimov, this is a better quality work than his stories from the late-1930’s/early-1940’s. I know it is an obvious point, but not all great writers are great at the start of their careers.
The Only Thing We Learn by C. M. Kornbluth focuses on a martinet wing commander who engages an enemy attacking the solar system and starts losing. A civilian researcher who is present states that history repeats itself, giving a little homily about how the strong always go out to the frontiers . . . and then they return.
This is bookended by a far future professor’s lecture about the battle. In the second part he is interrupted by a messenger from General Slef asking for members of the officer cadet force. It appears that Earth is threatened again, and history is repeating itself once more.
This more cerebral content does not disguise that this is essentially a standard space battle story with cardboard characters.
Private – Keep Out! by Philip MacDonald takes some time to get going with its story of a man investigating another who has “unbecome”. It has a predictable ending, but it is notable for the volume of drinking done by the characters. I suspect this one was written shortly before Happy Hour.
The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast by Theodore Sturgeon has an unpleasant and lethal alien which is inadvertently transported to Earth by a matter transmitter. There are no particular plot complications, and the story is told a cutesy tone that is (a) irritating and (b) dissonant.⁵
This did not appeal to me, and I am at a loss to fathom this story’s popularity.
Kaleidoscope by Ray Bradbury is the final story that I remember reading, and it starts with an atypical (for Bradbury) action hook of a spaceship exploding and scattering the crew into space “like a dozen wriggling silverfish”. The men move in different directions, some towards the sun, others out to Pluto. The main character, Hollis, ends up drifting towards Earth, and re-entry. While they drift, the men talk to each other (or babble, or scream), and Hollis reflects on his life and imminent death.
I liked this grim piece (it’s a pity Bradbury didn’t keep this edge in his later work) but (minor quibble) I think it would be better without the last line.
Defense Mechanism by Katherine MacLean concerns a family who live out in the sticks because of a new baby which is learning to control its telepathic abilities. After some domestic back and forth the baby lets the father know that a rabbit is in trouble. The father goes out into the garden and finds a hunter has trapped it. After the hunter slits the animal’s throat, the father realises he is psychotic, and knocks him unconscious with a length of wood. The story finishes with a few paragraphs about insanity.
The point of this was lost on me, and it doesn’t help that parts of the story are not entirely clear (the beginning for example).
Cold War by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore is the fifth and last story in the ‘Hogben’ series of stories about a group of hillbilly mutants. Told in the vernacular (they call atoms “little critters”, etc.), this story starts with the narrator, Saunk, souring cream for Ma by sending it forward in time and then bringing it back. While he does this his uncle distracts him, which results in Saunk having his thumb stuck in the future. By the time Saunk extricates himself his uncle has done a runner (he is only allowed leave the family home if supervised, due to a previous mishap).
Once free, Saunk follows his uncle to town, where he sees him meet a man called Pugh, and his son, Junior. Both are nasty pieces of work, and the son has the ability to hex people, in his case by giving them splitting headaches.
While the father and son sell their headache cures, Pugh gets into an argument with the uncle: Pugh wants his family line to continue but, as he as his son are plug ugly, he needs the uncle’s help. The uncle refuses and enters a cataleptic stupor. Junior hexes the uncle while he is unconscious, and the latter’s immune system starts turning his body many different colours. A local doctor attends, and then calls for an ambulance. Saunk knows this will mean trouble if his uncle goes to hospital, on account of his double hearts etc., and he asks Pugh to stop the hex. Pugh agrees on condition that Saunk agrees to help. Saunk communicates with Grandpa, who tells him to agree, and to come home.
The story ends (spoiler) with Grandpa altering the Pugh’s genes and sending them far back in time. The Pugh’s descendants mutate, and eventually devolve into . . . cold viruses.
This is a pleasant read for the most part (the plot is nonsense but the fun is in the telling) and it has some nice touches. The ending stretches the suspension of disbelief a bit too far though, even for a humorous piece.
The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz has a spaceship captain called Pausert returning to his ship from a bar when he intervenes in an argument between a fat man and a teenage girl, who we later find is his slave. They fight, and then the police arrive. Pausert ends up in court and faces jail time . . . unless he buys the girl, Maleen. He does this but, when he tries to take her back to her home planet Karres, she burst into tears, stating that her two younger sisters are slaves on the planer too.
Pausert subsequently tracks down and buys the two girls, Goth and Leewit, and it becomes apparent that all three have psi powers. This is particularly evident after they take off to return to Karres, when Goth shows him a pile of gemstones stolen from her previous owner. When two cruisers pursue the ship to arrest them, Pausert takes evasive action and tries to outrun the ships. During this he suddenly sees that the ship is in a completely different location. He later finds the three girls in their cabin with a small bundle of glowing wires—they have apparently made a “Sheewash drive,” an FTL device.
The rest of the story recounts further adventures and scrapes until the ship eventually arrives back at the girl’s planet, Karres. This is a verdant, pleasant world and Pausert stays with the girl’s family for some time before leaving to go home and see his girlfriend.
On his return (spoiler) a welcoming committee arrives, and charges him with several crimes. Pausert pulls a gun, kicks them off, and flees, with several ships pursuing him. On the point of capture he feels a Sheewash drive operate, and realises one of the girls is aboard. This turns out to be Goth, who tells him that he will marry her in four years. Meanwhile, they can’t go to Karres, as the people there have used a massive Sheewash drive to move the planet.
This story is a pleasant if somewhat plodding juvenile, albeit one with sparky kids in it; what I found perplexing is how this story made it into the SF Hall of Fame anthologies—it just isn’t that good, or that original.

The non-fiction consists of Martin Greenberg’s usual Introduction, where he gives a summary of world events (the Soviets detonate a nuclear weapon, NATO formed, etc.) before covering what was happening in the SF world:

In the real world it was another outstanding year as a large number of excellent (along with a few not so excellent) science fiction and fantasy novels and collections were published (again, many of these had been serialized years earlier in the magazines), including the titanic 1984 by George Orwell, Lords of Creation by Eando Binder, A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum, Exiles of Time by Nelson Bond, Skylark of Valeron by E. E. (Doc) Smith, What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown, The Fox Woman by A. Merritt, The Incredible Planet by John W. Campbell, Jr., Sixth Column by Robert A. Heinlein, The Sunken World by Stanton A. Coblentz, and The Star Kings by Edmond Hamilton. Two important anthologies were The Best Science Fiction Stories, 1949, the first annual “Best of” anthology, edited by E. F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty, and The Girl with the Hungry Eyes and Other Stories, one of the first “original anthologies,” edited by our own Donald A. Wollheim.
Important novels that appeared in magazines in 1949 included Seetee Shock by Jack Williamson, Flight into Yesterday [The Paradox Men] by Charles L. Harness, and Needle by Hal Clement.
Super Science Fiction reappeared on the newsstands, this time edited by Eijer Jacobsson. Other sf magazines that began publication in 1949 were Other Worlds Science Stories, edited by Raymond A. Palmer, and A. Merritt’s Fantasy Magazine. However, all these paled beside the launching in October of The Magazine of Fantasy, published by Mercury Press and edited by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas—with its name changed to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, it would soon become a major rival to Astounding and certainly one of the most important sf magazines of all time.
More wondrous things were happening in the real world as five writers made their maiden voyages into reality: in February, John Christopher (Christopher Youd) with “Christmas Tree”; in July, Kris Neville with “The Hand From the Stars”; in the Fall issue of Planet Stories, Roger Dee with “The Wheel is Death”; in October, Katherine MacLean with “Defense Mechanism”; and in the Winter issue of Planet Stories, Jerome Bixby, with “Tubemonkey.”
Gnome Press, under the leadership of David Kyle and Martin Greenberg (the other Marty Greenberg) began publication during 1949. The Captain Video TV series took to the airways. The real people gathered together for the seventh time as the World Science Fiction Convention (Cinvention) was held in Cincinnati. Notable sf films of the year were Mighty Joe Young and The Perfect Woman, the latter based on a play by Wallace Geoffrey and Basil Mitchell.
Death took Arthur Leo Zagat at the age of 54.
But distant wings were beating as Malcolm Edwards was born.  p. 10-11

There are also Story introductions by both Martin H. Greenberg and Isaac Asimov, which are occasionally irritating, occasionally informative. As an example of the former, here is part of Asimov’s introduction for Phillips story, where he not only manages to shoe-horn in a reference to his own ‘Foundation’ series but misdescribes Manna as a story about religion:

It seems to me that science fiction writers tend to avoid religion. Surely, religion has permeated many societies at all times; all Western societies from ancient Sumeria on have had strong religious components. And yet—
Societies depicted in science fiction and fantasy often ignore religion. While the great Manichean battle of good and evil—God and Satan—seems to permeate Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” there is no religious ritual anywhere mentioned. In my own “Foundation” series, the only religious element found is a purely secular fake—and that was put in only at the insistence of John Campbell, to my own enormous unease.
Still, there are exceptions. Religion does appear sometimes, usually informs that appear [to me] to be somewhat Catholic in atmosphere, or else Fundamentalist. “Manna” by Peter Phillips is an example.—I.A.

Just because a story has an abbey, or monks, in it doesn’t make it about religion. Also, see above for their misdescription of Private Eye—one wonders if they bothered rereading the stories before selecting them.
One of the useful introductions is for the MacDonald story:

The late Philip MacDonald was the grandson of the famous Scottish poet George MacDonald and a highly regarded Hollywood screenwriter and detective novelist. Perhaps his most famous film work was his script for Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1940), but he also wrote a number of Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan films. His detective character Anthony Gethryn, introduced in 1924, appeared in some ten novels.—M. H. G.  p. 207

There an interesting comment at the end of Greenberg’s introduction to Schmitz’s story:

John Campbell’s postwar Astounding was a center for “psi” stories of all types, one of several seeming obsessions of this great editor. Astounding began to enter a period of slow decline as the 1940s ended, brought on in no small measure by the magazine boom which saw the creation of powerful competition in the form of Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It is also possible that by this time Campbell had done as much for science fiction as he could.
Astounding accounts for less than half of the stories in this book.—M.H.G.  p. 276

It is a pity that Asimov and Greenberg didn’t pick more stories from Astounding (presumably the rights for Heinlein’s Gulf, etc. were too expensive, or were not available) as it might have made for a better collection—the Astounding stories collected here are markedly better than the others, and include the following:

The Red Queen’s Race by Isaac Asimov ∗∗∗+
Private Eye by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore ∗∗∗∗∗
Manna by Peter Phillips ∗∗∗∗
The Prisoner in the Skull by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore ∗∗∗+
Eternity Lost by Clifford D. Simak ∗∗
Defense Mechanism by Katherine MacLean ∗
The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz ∗∗∗

The stories published elsewhere are:

Flaw by John D. MacDonald ∗ (Startling Stories)
Alien Earth by Edmond Hamilton ∗∗∗∗ (Thrilling Wonder Stories)
History Lesson by Arthur C. Clarke ∗∗∗+ (Startling Stories)
The Only Thing We Learn by C. M. Kornbluth ∗∗ (Startling Stories)
Private – Keep Out! by Philip MacDonald ∗∗ (F&SF)
The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast by Theodore Sturgeon ∗ (F&SF)
Kaleidoscope by Ray Bradbury ∗∗∗+ (Thrilling Wonder Stories)
Cold War Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner] ∗∗∗ (Thrilling Wonder Stories)

It’s a small sample size, but I gave the stories in the Astounding group an average star rating of 3.1, the non-Astounding group average star rating is 2.5.

In conclusion, a worthwhile volume—the first half of this book is of a particularly good standard.⁶  ●

_____________________

1. Jim Harris’s review of the previous volume is here. The Great SF Stories newsgroup is here.

2. I’d read the Bradbury, Merril and van Vogt in the Asimov/Greenberg volume, and the Asimov and two Bradbury’s from the Bleiler/Dikty. Maybe more—I didn’t start keeping track of what I’d read until around 1980 (in my early twenties).

3. This realisation about the holes (or more accurately, endless voids) in my reading were becoming apparent as I read my way through Jo Walton’s An Informal History of the Hugos (a retrospective look at the runners and riders for each year of the award from its inauguration in 1953 up until 2000). My reading coverage wasn’t too bad in the fifties and sixties (although there were holes), and I was well across the subject matter in the mid- to late-seventies (still holes), but as the eighties marched on it became apparent that I must have almost completely stopped reading the magazines. As this period coincided with me entering the world of work this is perhaps no surprise, but I wish I’d had the wit to keep up with the various ‘Year’s Bests’. I doubt I’ll ever catch up now but I’ll make the effort.

4. Longer reviews here:

The Red Queen’s Race by Isaac Asimov
Private Eye by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore
Private – Keep Out! by Philip MacDonald
The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast by Theodore Sturgeon

5. In his introduction to Sturgeon’s story, Greenberg states that:

Currently another type of alien appears frequently—the cuddly, cutesy aliens of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and especially E.T. Personally, I like my aliens without many redeeming qualities, but I have an open mind and I know a great cutesy alien story when I read one. So here is [. . .] one of the best of its sub-type.  p. 223

6. If you want a better idea of how this book measures up against what I might pick for a 1949 ‘Year’s Best’, and what other anthologists chose, look at the table below.
The first to fourth column give the story titles, authors, lengths and place of publication (see below the table for abbreviation legend).
The ‘G’ column lists Asimov and Greenberg’s choices with an ‘x’.
The ‘B’ column lists Bleiler and Dikty’s choices with an ‘x’.
The ‘H’ column shows the story’s 1949 Retro Hugo award placing (not yet awarded).
The ‘C’ column shows how many of the anthologies and/or polls used in the Classics of Science Fiction list included the story in their collections (note that this list is SF only and skews against fantasy), minus the anthology or award citations which have their own column (Greenberg/Asimov and Beliler/Dikty in this case).
The ‘O’ column shows the number of inclusions in other major anthologies or recommendation lists I’ve seen which are not on the Classics of SF list. These are selected by me (usually to include Fantasy Retrospectives that CoSF don’t include) but I may not yet have looked into this for some/all of the stories.
The ‘S’ shows my choices for a ‘Best of the Year’ with an ‘x’. A dash means read but passed over (I only select stories better than ∗∗∗+ and above). Blank means unread.
The ‘T’ column shows the total points that each story gets (they get a point for being in each column and for each of the CoSF and other anthology inclusions).
The titles, names. lengths, publications, and overall score columns are sortable.
A good way to sample 1949’s best short fiction may be to start at the top of the table and work down until you get to the last of the 2-point stories. Bear in mind this is all wildly unscientific, but it will give you something to aim at. Enjoy.

na=novella, nv=novelet, ss=short story

ALM, American Legion Magazine; ARK, The Arkham Sampler; ARU, Argosy (UK); AST, Astounding; BLU, Blue Book; BOY, Boy’s Life; FAN, Fantastic Adventures; FSF, Fantasy and Science Fiction; GHE, The Girl With the Hungry Eyes (anth.); PLA, Planet Stories, RET Retort; SEP, Saturday Evening Post; STA, Startling Stories; SUP, Super Science Stories; TAS, the Arkham Sampler; TWS, Thrilling Wonder Stories; UCL, University of Chicago Law Review.

(1) The Naming of Names was reprinted as Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed. There is a different story titled The Naming of Names in The Martian Chronicles.
(2) The Long Years was reprinted as Dwellers in Silence. This is a 1948 story, not 1949, hence no overall rating.
(3) Action on Azura was reprinted as Contact, Incorporated. ●