{"id":10007,"date":"2019-03-24T13:05:06","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T13:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=10007"},"modified":"2020-06-07T13:06:30","modified_gmt":"2020-06-07T13:06:30","slug":"the-great-sf-stories-volume-4-1942","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=10007","title":{"rendered":"The Great SF Stories Volume 4, 1942, edited by Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ISFDB link<\/a><\/p>\n

Other reviews:1<\/sup>
\nAlgis Budrys, F&SF<\/em>, March 1981
\nTheodore Sturgeon, The Twilight Zone<\/em>, June 1981
\nGeorge Kelley, GeorgeKelley.org<\/a>
\nVarious, Goodreads<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editors, Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nThe Star Mouse<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Fredric Brown \u2217\u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Wings of Night<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Lester del Rey \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nCooperate\u2014Or Else!<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by A. E. van Vogt \u2217<\/strong>
\nFoundation <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novelette by Isaac Asimov \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Push of a Finger<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novella by Alfred Bester \u2217<\/strong>
\nAsylum <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novella by A. E. van Vogt \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nProof <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Hal Clement \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nNerves <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novella by Lester del Rey \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nBarrier <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novella by Anthony Boucher \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Twonky<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett] \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nQRM\u2014Interplanetary<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by George O. Smith \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Weapon Shop<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by A. E. van Vogt \u2217\u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nMimic <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Donald A. Wollheim \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>
\nNon-fiction:
\nIntroduction <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by Martin H. Greenberg
\nStory introductions<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Martin H. Greenberg and Isaac Asimov<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

I\u2019d read most of this volume for last year\u2019s Retro Hugo Awards so I thought, as with my last review, I might as well finish it off and write a relatively brief review here. Some of the stories have already been discussed at longer length in earlier posts.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

The fiction opens with The Star Mouse<\/em><\/strong> by Fredric Brown, which will be a pleasant discovery for those that like Reginald Bretnor\u2019s \u2018Papa Schimmelhorn\u2019 stories. In this one Professor Oberburger, an Austrian scientist mit der funny accent (well, funny if you are not a German speaker), sends Mitkey the mouse on a rocket test flight. Mitkey lands on Prxl, an asteroid where there is an alien race observing humankind. The aliens increase Mitkey\u2019s intelligence to more easily examine his memories and then, after deciding that humanity is a threat, send him back to Earth with a plan to increase the intelligence of all mice to hinder mankind\u2019s development. A humorous gem.
\nThe Wings of Night<\/em><\/strong> by Lester del Rey is an interesting piece for its time in that it is, ultimately, a story about tolerance of other races (although it was probably written before Pearl Harbour).
\nThe story starts on a two-man spacecraft where one of the characters (\u201cSlim\u201d Lane) is an idealist and the other (\u201cFats\u201d Welch) is greedy and racist (both stereotypically). The pair\u2019s spaceship develops mechanical problems (caused by a hasty Martian repair) and they need to set down on the Moon. There they meet Lhin, the last surviving member of an ancient alien race whose people created the crater hundreds of millions of years ago. Lhin is a plant-like being, and cannot raise any new members of his nearly extinct race from seed for a lack of the element copper. The characters subsequently behave as you would expect them to, but the story ends on a suitably uplifting note.
\nThis is written in a cruder pulp voice than some of the other del Rey stories I\u2019ve read from this period (which read like more mainstream pieces) but I liked it well enough.
\nCooperate\u2014Or Else!<\/em><\/strong> by A. E. van Vogt is the second of the \u2018Rull\u2019 series and appears to be a rerun of the first. That earlier story had two humans fighting off inimical wildlife on an alien planet; this one has a human and an alien called an ewal trying to survive on yet another. As if that isn\u2019t enough of a challenge the inimical Rull arrive later on.
\nI found it a bit of a struggle to get through this kitchen sink potboiler as my attention kept wandering, probably due to the fact it is little more than a collection of action sequences. It also reads like a clumsily written first draft and I don\u2019t see why it is in the collection\u2014it is not one of van Vogt\u2019s best.
\nFoundation <\/em><\/strong>by Isaac Asimov is the opening story in the series of the same name, and begins with Hari Seldon at the last meeting of a group which has set up the Foundation, an organisation designed to use the science of psychohistory to guide humanity through the fall of the First Galactic Empire to the rise of the Second centuries later.
\nThe story then moves forward to Terminus City fifty years later, where the city\u2019s mayor, Salvor Hardin, is involved in a dispute with Pirenne, the Chairman of the Foundation board. Their disagreement is about how to deal with Anacreon, a solar system that has broken away from the Empire, and now threatens to occupy and annexe Terminus.
\nThe rest of the story presents a good picture of the political infighting likely to occur in a declining Empire, but the story has real no ending.3<\/sup> Instead, a hologram of Hari Seldon appears, Wizard of Oz-like, on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Foundation and explains a few things.
\nThe next story in the series, Bridle and Saddle<\/em>, is a better story and would have been a superior choice for this volume.
\nThe Push of a Finger<\/em><\/strong> by Alfred Bester starts with a newspaperman in a future society that has strict stability laws being briefed by government officials. During one of these briefings the narrator manages to snoop around and he finds out that the building houses a huge prognostication machine that can see into the future. He also discovers that the Chief of Stability and his scientists have discovered that the Universe ends a thousand years from now, after a secret experiment is initiated on a spaceship. The rest of the story has the Chief of Stability, narrator and others viewing events as they work back in time from the end of the Universe: they hope to find a key event they can alter to stop that sequence of events.
\nAlthough this story occasionally demonstrates several of the traits that would mark Bester\u2019s work\u2014such as the beginning where, unusually for the time, he directly addresses the reader\u2014it takes ages to get going, and you are a quarter of the way through the story before you find out what it is going on. It is also badly written and is hugely padded. An inventive but contrived ending does not save it.
\nAsylum <\/em><\/strong>by A. E. van Vogt Asylum by A. E. van Vogt opens on a spaceship with a male Dreegh reviving a female. They are approaching Earth, which is apparently watched by a Galactic Observer, and they are hoping to slip past undetected to get the human blood and life force they need to survive. After landing the pair attack a passing couple and feed on them.
\nThe point of view then switches to a reporter called Leigh, who is covering the murder of the couple for his paper. He examines the bodies of the couple at the morgue, and notes the marks on the neck and their burnt lips (where their life force was extracted).
\nThe rest of this is essentially a space-vampire potboiler where the Dreegh try to find and eliminate the Observer so their race can invade the solar system. After the half-way point this begins to make less and less sense but the ending reveals Leigh (spoiler) is a personality overlay for a Galactic Observer superman with an IQ of 1200 and Dreegh killing superpowers.
\nThis transcendent boot-strap ending doesn\u2019t make it a great story but it will, for readers like me, perhaps make it a fairly good one.
\nProof <\/em><\/strong>by Hal Clement is a hard SF story about aliens who dwell in our sun. On a trip to the core from the floating cities in the photosphere, Captain Kron finds that one of the passengers is a scientist who is gathering data to prove that there is no such thing as a \u201csolid.\u201d Kron then tells him a story about his space-faring days in the solar system when a sister ship crashed into something that shouldn\u2019t have been there.
\nLater we find out that the unknown object is Earth, and the story switches to the point of view of a prospector in the outback who witnesses Kron\u2019s sister ship crash and then explode with catastrophic results.
\nUnlike most stories with exotic aliens, Clement underpins his debut with a lot of science.
\nNerves <\/em><\/strong>by Lester del Rey is a well-known and perhaps prescient, if outdated, account of a nuclear power-plant accident that is eerily similar to those that occurred at Three Mile Island, etc.
\nThe story starts with an accident at two of the reactors, and it later becomes apparent that a new process was being tested which could lead to an even more catastrophic disaster. The one man who knows what this process involved is trapped under the wreckage. Throughout all this del Rey creates a remarkably convincing and tense narrative, drip feeding bits of his made up nuclear physics in between the medical procedures that are taking place, all against a background of escalating danger.
\nThis tale is pre-atomic bomb, of course, as can perhaps be gathered from early scenes that involve Doc Ferrel, the main character of the story, treating his workers with \u201csalve\u201d for their radiation burns before they go back to work. There is also, more generally, a fairly cavalier attitude to the possible catastrophic results of atomic power\u2014something explained as a quid pro quo for the benefits. Some of the characters\u2019 behaviour is very much of its time, too: the two doctors, Ferrel and Blake, have a snifter of brandy after several hours of work to pep themselves up, and later resort to shooting up morphine to keep awake!
\nThe story is longer than it should be and has a padded and rather potboiler-ish middle section. Nevertheless, you can see why it was so popular at the time.
\nBarrier <\/em><\/strong>by Anthony Boucher is an overcomplicated story that involves a future world with a Barrier which is supposed to prevent time travellers from other ages disrupting their static society. Nevertheless, the protagonist of the story, Brent, manages to end up there. Part of the rest of the story concerns a small group repairing his time travel machine and returning to the past, where they hope to regroup and return to the future to prevent the activation of a second Barrier\u2014Bent has apparently destroyed the first one. This is all rather confusing to be honest, and becomes even more so when they return to the future to stop the Second Barrier, only to be caught in an attack of future time-travellers.
\nPerhaps it is best not to worry too much about all the time travel shenanigans but enjoy the considerable fun that Boucher has with the linguistic drift exhibited by travellers from different time periods.
\nThe Twonky<\/em><\/strong> by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore also starts with a time traveller, this one with partial amnesia, who unintentionally arrives in a radio-phonograph factory. His job in the future is building \u2018Twonkies\u2019 so he uses the material at hand to build one, and then has a nap. His amnesia clears shortly after he wakes up, and he disappears on his time machine, leaving behind a modified phonogram\/twonky behind.
\nThe phonogram is bought by a university lecturer and his wife and, after the latter leaves to visit her sister, things start to get weird. The phonograph\/twonky starts acting like a robot, lighting the man\u2019s cigarettes, doing the dishes, etc. However, (spoiler) matters take an ominous turn when it stops him reading certain books and listening to certain music, and generally prevents him from doing things it does not approve of. It does not end well.
\nDespite it winning the 1943 Retro Hugo Award, I found this, at best, an okay gimmick story, and thought it a lightweight run through of some of the ideas used in the much superior Mimsy Were the Borogroves<\/em> (Astounding<\/em>, February 1943, and in volume 5 of this series).
\nQRM\u2014Interplanetary<\/em><\/strong> by George O. Smith is the first of the \u2018Venus Equilateral\u2019 series of stories about a relay station in space which is responsible for the solar system\u2019s communication traffic. It starts with Don Channing, the station\u2019s acting boss, being relieved by a political appointee who intends to make the operation more commercial.
\nThe rest of the story focuses on the new boss\u2019s increasingly disastrous decisions (men are laid off and replaced with automatics that can\u2019t do the job, and the messaging system breaks down). Channing rides to the rescue but later finds a bigger problem with the air recycling system\u2014purifying grasses in the centre of the station have been thrown out by the new boss (\u201cweeds\u201d), and the increasing carbon dioxide level may threaten their survival. The moral of the story is obviously that engineers and scientists should be left to get on with their jobs without management interference.
\nThe story makes a good effort at trying to show a realistic future but it feels very dated indeed\u2014modern unmanned communications satellites do what Venus Equilateral does, and there is a lot of heavy drinking and cheesy relationship stuff between Channing and Arden, his secretary.
\nThe Weapon Shop<\/em><\/strong> by A. E. van Vogt is the second in his \u2018Weapon Shops of Isher\u2019 series, and it begins with the arrival of a Weapon Shop in a quiet neighbourhood where Fara, the protagonist and loyal subject of the Empress of Isher, and his wife are walking one evening. By the end of the story Fara goes from being a loyal citizen (he attempts to force entry to the treasonous Weapon Shop and arrest the owners), through the bankruptcy of his business, to finally returning to the Weapon Shops to use their parallel justice system.
\nDuring this he learns about how corrupt the Empire is and experiences the near-magical technology of the Weapon Shops (he encounters an abnormal doorknob on a Weapon Shop door which withdraws through his hand to prevent him entering; later, he stands in front of a huge Weapon Shop computer that appears to be tracking the status of the billions of people in the Empire).
\nI liked this a lot, in particular its almost dreamlike progression. It is probably van Vogt\u2019s best story, and should have won the 1943 Retro Hugo.
\nOh, a quick PS for other reviewers: just because it has one line that says \u201cThe right to buy weapons is the right to be free\u201d doesn\u2019t, I would suggest, necessarily make it \u201can NRA SF novel\u201d, \u201canti-gun control\u201d, or \u201clibertarian\u201d.4<\/sup>
\nMimic <\/em><\/strong>by Donald A. Wollheim starts with reference to a strange man from the narrator\u2019s childhood. Years pass and we learn that the narrator has grown up to become the curator in a museum where he spends his days mounting insects, etc. There follows a short section about mimicry in nature before the story swings back to the strange man and an incident at his lodgings. The narrator ends up going into his room with a policeman and the building\u2019s janitor, where they find out (spoiler) that he is not human but a strange insect like being. The policeman then disturbs a nest in the room and hundreds of small beetle like insects escape. There is a twist ending where a predator that looks like part of the roof goes after the flying beetle like creatures the man has given birth to.
\nThis isn\u2019t entirely convincing but it\u2019s not bad, and has an interesting weird science vibe.<\/p>\n

There is the usual historical Introduction <\/em><\/strong>by Martin H. Greenberg, which ends with a useful summary of what was happening in the field that year:<\/p>\n

In the real world it was another good year, even though most of the top writers (and many fans) would soon be soldiers or working in war-related industries and\/or research.
\nNo new science fiction magazines were born, but all of the existing American ones made it through the year with the exception of Stirring Science Stories<\/em>, which expired in March.
\nIn the real world, more important people made their maiden voyages into reality: Hal Clement with \u201cProof\u201d and Robert Abernathy with \u201cHeritage\u201d in June; in October, George O. Smith with \u201cQRM-Interplanetary,\u201d and in December, E(dna) Mayne Hull with \u201cThe Flight That Failed.\u201d
\nMore wondrous things happened in the real world: Robert A. Heinlein (as Anson MacDonald) published \u201cBeyond This Horizon\u201d and \u201cWaldo,\u201d Jack Williamson (as Will Stewart) published \u201cCollision Orbit,\u201d the first of his excellent Seetee stories and Isaac Asimov began his classic Foundation series.
\nDeath took Alexander Belyaev, one of the pioneer Russian science fiction writers.
\nBut distant wings were beating as C. J. Cherryh, Samuel R. Delany, Langdon Jones, David Ketterer, Franz Rottensteiner, Douglas Trumbull, William Joe Watkins and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro were born.\u00a0 p. 8-9<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are also the usual Story introductions<\/em><\/strong> by Martin H. Greenberg and Isaac Asimov.<\/p>\n

I thought this was a weaker volume than the last one I read (volume 5, for 1943).\u00a0Judging by the introduction the editors would have liked to include Waldo<\/em>, and perhaps Jack Williamson\u2019s Collision Orbit<\/em>. (They previously stated they couldn\u2019t get the rights for five Heinlein stories they wanted for volumes 2 and 3.)
\nI note in passing the publication dates of the stories (from Spring to December 1942) determine the order they appear in this volume, which gives it a peculiar progression: I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d open with a humorous piece\u2014they can be hit or miss\u2014and a more fitting end would have been van Vogt\u2019s The Weapon Shop<\/em> and not the relatively slight and minor Mimic<\/em>.
\nFor my own Best of 1942 volume, I think I\u2019d carry out some radical surgery on this list. I\u2019d definitely keep the Brown (The Star Mouse<\/em>) and one van Vogt (The Weapon Shop<\/em>), and definitely get rid of the Bester, the other two van Vogt stories, the Kuttner\/Moore (The Twonky<\/em>), the Smith (QRM\u2014Interplanetary<\/em>), and the Asimov (Foundation<\/em>, which I\u2019d replace with the sequel Bridle and Saddle<\/em>). I\u2019d probably keep del Rey\u2019s Nerves<\/em> but maybe lose his other story (The Wings of Night<\/em>), and keep the Boucher (Barrier<\/em>). I\u2019m not sure about the Clement (Proof<\/em>), but probably not. You don\u2019t, I think, have to include writer\u2019s first stories in these volumes, or the first stories in significant series.
\nWhat would I add? Well, look at my choices in the table below\u2014note that this is not a final list as there is a lot from 1942 I still have not read.5<\/sup>\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Algis Budry\u2019s review (F&SF<\/em>, March 1981, p. 51) of this volume follows a long review of George O. Smith\u2019s The Complete Venus Equilateral<\/em>. He says of Asimov and Greenberg\u2019s volume, \u201cThe Boucher and the Bester aren\u2019t very good, although everyone cites the Boucher as a seminal work and the Bester shows great promise. The rest are at worst exciting and propulsive, at best beautifully worked out examples of what the Golden Age could do.\u201d
\nHe says at the end of his review that, \u201cMarty Greenberg tells me for sure that Isaac does indeed do a hell of a lot more than just lend his name, which means he\u2019s losing money on every minute he spends at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sturgeon\u2019s very short review (The Twilight Zone<\/em>, June 1981, p. 10) says the book has an \u201cinteresting introduction\u201d, that all of the stories are \u201cvery well selected\u201d, and that the series \u201cwill be a landmark when it is done.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Here are the links to the full reviews of stories I\u2019ve covered before, for both the Greenberg\/Asimov anthology, and for my own \u2018Best of\u2019 picks:<\/p>\n

The Star Mouse<\/em> \u2022 novelette by Fredric Brown (Planet Stories<\/em>, Spring 1942)
\nThe Wings of Night<\/em> \u2022 short story by Lester del Rey (Astounding<\/em>, March 1942)
\nCooperate\u2014Or Else!<\/em> \u2022 novelette by A. E. van Vogt (Astounding<\/em>, April 1942)
\nFoundation <\/em>\u2022 novelette by Isaac Asimov (Astounding<\/em>, May 1942)
\nThe Push of a Finger<\/em> \u2022 novella by Alfred Bester (Astounding<\/em>, May 1942)
\nAsylum <\/em>\u2022 novella by A. E. van Vogt (Astounding<\/em>, May 1942)
\nProof <\/em>\u2022 short story by Hal Clement (Astounding<\/em>, June 1942)
\nNerves <\/em>\u2022 novella by Lester del Rey (Astounding, September 1942<\/a><\/em>)
\nBarrier <\/em>\u2022 novella by Anthony Boucher (Astounding, September 1942<\/a><\/em>)
\nThe Twonky<\/em> \u2022 novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett] (Astounding, September 1942<\/a><\/em>)
\nQRM\u2014Interplanetary<\/em> \u2022 novelette by George O. Smith (Astounding<\/em>, October 1942)
\nThe Weapon Shop<\/em> \u2022 novelette by A. E. van Vogt (Astounding, December 1942<\/a><\/em>)
\nMimic <\/em>\u2022 short story by Donald A. Wollheim (Astonishing Stories<\/em>, December 1942)
\n<\/strong>
\nWaldo<\/em> \u2022 novella by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding<\/em>, August 1942)
\nThe Compleat Werewolf<\/em> \u2022 novella by Anthony Boucher (Unknown Worlds, April 1942<\/a>)
\nGoldfish Bowl<\/em> \u2022 novelette by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding<\/em>, March 1942)
\nThe Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag<\/em> \u2022 novella by Robert A. Heinlein (Unknown Worlds, October 1942<\/a>)
\nThe New One<\/em> \u2022 short story by Fredric Brown (Unknown Worlds, October 1942<\/a>)
\nThe Goddess\u2019 Legacy<\/em> \u2022 short story by Malcolm Jameson (Unknown Worlds, October 1942<\/a>)
\nMagician\u2019s Dinner <\/em>\u2022 novelette by Jane Rice (Unknown Worlds, October 1942<\/a>)
\nThe Elixir<\/em>\u00a0\u2022 novelette by Jane Rice\u00a0(Unknown Worlds, December 1942<\/a><\/em>)\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

3. Asimov\u2019s introduction to Foundation<\/em> mentions the ending:<\/p>\n

Naturally, I had no idea when I wrote the story what the future would hold for it. It began on August 1, 1941, when I presented John Campbell with the idea for a story involving the fall of the Galactic Empire written as a historical novel.
\nCampbell loved the idea so much that he wouldn\u2019t dream of letting me write a single story about it. He insisted on an open-ended series after the fashion of Heinlein\u2019s \u201cFuture History\u201d series.
\nCampbell dazzled me into agreeing (I was always being dazzled by him) and on August 11, I began the story. It took me three weeks to write (I only wrote in my spare time for I was working toward my doctorate at Columbia at the time) and, uncertain whether Campbell might not change his mind about letting me do more stories in the series, I deliberately didn\u2019t reveal the ending but let it hang. This made it certain that Campbell would either reject the story or demand a sequel.
\nHe demanded a sequel.\u00a0 p. 77<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

4. Ian Moore says this about a sequel, The Weapon Makers<\/em> (which it \u201cappears\u201d he hasn\u2019t read), in his blog post<\/a> about the 2019 Retro Hugos:<\/p>\n

The Weapon Makers<\/em> meanwhile was serialised in 1943 and later revised. It appears to peddle some kind of libertarian political philosophy and explicitly supports the right of individuals to bear arms, making it an interesting example of NRA SF.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, that\u2019s what the novel\u2019s about. This viewpoint presumably comes from a quick skim of Jayme Lynn Blaschke\u2019s online review<\/a> of The Empire of Isher<\/em>, which starts with this:<\/p>\n

The National Rifle Association should give out a copy of The Empire of Isher<\/em> with every new membership. Seriously. They\u2019re fools if they don\u2019t. I have never come across anything that more closely resembles an NRA-envisioned utopia than van Vogt\u2019s The Weapon Makers<\/em> and The Weapon Shops of Isher<\/em>, collected here in an omnibus volume. Before you roll your eyes and scoff at the absurdity of a future crafted by Charleton Heston and his inner circle, consider the backdrop of van Vogt\u2019s Isher universe. Even the Weapon Shops\u2019 credo could be adopted by the gun lobby today without much fuss: The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Wikipedia entry on The Weapon Shops of Isher<\/em> is better informed and more balanced:<\/p>\n

Van Vogt\u2019s guns have virtually magical properties, and can only be used in self-defense (or for suicide).
\nThe political philosophy of the Weapon Shops is minimalist. They will not interfere with the corrupt imperial monarchy of the Isher government, on the grounds that men always have a government of the type they deserve: no government, however bad, exists without at least the tacit consent of the governed. The mission of the Weapon Shops therefore is merely to offer single individuals the right to protect themselves with a firearm, or, in cases of fraud, access to a \u201cRobin Hood\u201d alternative court system that judges and awards compensation from large, imperial merchant combines to cheated individuals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wikipedia could also have mentioned the Weapon Shops\u2019 explicit instructions to Fara, after their court judgement in his favour at the end of The Weapon Shop<\/em>, to undertake no political action or activity against the Empire. Or that all this gun stuff is a tiny, tiny part of the entire series, which is essentially an evil empire versus the resistance story, with an immortal and aliens thrown in.
\nWikipedia\u2019s article on Libertarianism in the United States is here<\/a> (the form of libertarianism I presume is being referenced in the above comments). Good luck with matching that up against the Weapon Shops\u2019 philosophy and actions.<\/p>\n

5. If you want a better idea of how this book measures up against what I might pick, and what other anthologists and the Retro Hugo voters chose, look at the table below.
\nThe third column (G) lists Asimov and Greenberg\u2019s choices with an \u2018x\u2019.
\nThe fourth column (H) shows the story\u2019s 1943 Retro Hugo award placing.
\nThe fifth column (C) shows how many of the anthologies and\/or polls used in the Classics of Science Fiction<\/a> list included the story in their collections (note that this list is SF only and skews against fantasy)\u2014minus the Asimov\/Greenberg anthology and Retro Hugo Awards citations which have their own column.
\nThe sixth column (O) shows inclusions in other major anthologies which are not on the COSF list (e. g., The Compleat Werewolf<\/em> by Anthony Boucher appears in Unknown Worlds<\/em>, ed. John W. Campbell, 1948, and The Fantasy Hall of Fame<\/em>, ed. Robert Silverberg, 1998). These are worked out by me and I have not yet looked into this for all the stories.
\nThe seventh column (S) shows my likely choices for a \u2018Best of the Year\u2019 with an \u2018x\u2019.
\nThe last column (T) shows the total points that each story gets (they get a point for being in Asimov\/Greenberg\u2019s anthology, a point for the COSF anthologies\/polls they are in, a point for any other major anthology they are in, a point for being a Retro Hugo finalist, and a point if they are one of my choices).
\nThe table is initially sorted so the stories with the highest total are at the top. A good way to efficiently read the year\u2019s short fiction may be to start at the top and work down until you get to the end of the 2-point stories.\u00a0 Enjoy.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

\n
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ISFDB link Other reviews:1 Algis Budrys, F&SF, March 1981 Theodore Sturgeon, The Twilight Zone, June 1981 George Kelley, GeorgeKelley.org Various, Goodreads _____________________ Editors, Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg Fiction: The Star Mouse \u2022 novelette by Fredric Brown \u2217\u2217\u2217\u2217 The Wings of Night \u2022 short story by Lester del Rey \u2217\u2217\u2217 Cooperate\u2014Or Else! \u2022 novelette […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-great-sf-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-2Bp","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10007"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11445,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10007\/revisions\/11445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}