{"id":12818,"date":"2020-05-30T14:06:21","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T14:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=12818"},"modified":"2020-05-31T11:47:31","modified_gmt":"2020-05-31T11:47:31","slug":"the-best-from-fantasy-and-science-fiction-a-special-25th-anniversary-anthology-edited-by-edward-l-ferman-1974","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=12818","title":{"rendered":"The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Special 25th Anniversary Anthology, edited by Edward L. Ferman, 1974"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Summary:
\nThe 25th<\/sup> volume of this long running series collects the stories and associated material from the first six of the magazine\u2019s Special Author issues, and it includes work by Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, and James Blish. It is a bit of a mixed bag, but generally of good quality, and worth getting for Fritz Leiber\u2019s Nebula Award winning Ship of Shadows<\/em>, and Poul Anderson\u2019s Hugo and Nebula Award winning Queen of Air and Darkness<\/em>.
\n[ISFDB link<\/a>] [Archive.org copy<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Other reviews:
\nAnonymous, Vertex, December 1974<\/a><\/em>
\nJim Harris, Pantsers vs. Plotters, Classics of Science Fiction<\/a><\/em>
\nChris Morgan, Vector #72, 1976<\/a><\/em>, p. 32
\nVarious, Goodreads<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editor, Edward L. Ferman<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nWhen You Care, When You Love<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint novelette by Theodore Sturgeon \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nTo the Chicago Abyss<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Ray Bradbury \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Key<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint novelette by Isaac Asimov \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nShip of Shadows<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint novelette by Fritz Leiber \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nThe Queen of Air and Darkness<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint novella by Poul Anderson \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nMidsummer Century<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint novella by James Blish \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nIntroduction <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by Edward L. Ferman
\nTheodore Sturgeon<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Judith Merril
\nSturgeon Bibliography<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Sam Moskowitz
\nRay Bradbury<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by William F. Nolan
\nBradbury Bibliography<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by William F. Nolan
\nIsaac Asimov<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by L. Sprague de Camp
\nAsimov Bibliography<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Isaac Asimov
\nFritz Leiber<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Judith Merril
\nLeiber Bibliography<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Al Lewis
\nPoul Anderson<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Gordon R. Dickson
\nAnderson Bibliography
\nJames Blish<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Robert A. W. Lowndes
\nBlish Bibliography<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Mark Owings<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

This volume is another of my Facebook group reads,1<\/sup> a Fantasy and Science Fiction<\/em> magazine anthology that collects the material from the first six of its Special Author issues. The content of those generally consists of a story from the featured writer, sometimes more (there were three in a later, 1977, Harlan Ellison issue), an appreciation, a bibliography, and a cover painting featuring the writer alongside various scenes and characters from their work (see below). There have been sixteen Special Author issues so far.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

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

The first of the stories is from Theodore Sturgeon, When You Care, When You Love<\/em><\/strong> (F&SF<\/em>, September 1962), which begins with a woman watching a man in bed. Then he wakes, and writhes in agony. The woman summons a man called Keogh, her General Manager, who bundles her out of the room, and then calls a doctor called Rathburn. Eventually a specialist called Weber is summoned, and we find that the man, Guy Gibbon, has a condition called choriocarcinoma, and has six weeks to live. Choriocarcinoma involves cancerous sex cells metastasizing, spreading, to the lungs.3<\/sup>
\nNow this story development appears relatively straightforward, but it takes half the story to get to this point because of constant flashbacks and the at best oblique, at worst rambling style Sturgeon adopts:<\/p>\n

Science, it is fair to assume, can do what all the king\u2019s horses and all the king\u2019s men could not do, and totally restore a smashed egg. Given equipment enough, and time enough . . . but isn\u2019t this a way of saying, \u201cgiven money enough\u201d? For money can be not only means, but motive. So if enough money went into the project, perhaps the last unknown, the last vestige of, anonymity could be removed from a man\u2019s life story, even a young man from (as the snobs say) nowhere, no matter how briefly\u2014though intimately\u2014known.\u00a0 pp. 15-16<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What?
\nAs for the half dozen or so flashbacks that occur in the first part of the story some, like the woman\u2019s (infrequently called Sylva), and Guy\u2019s childhoods, are probably pertinent, but I\u2019m not so sure about Keogh\u2019s, and I\u2019d suggest that the passage about Cap\u2019n Gamaliel Wyke, who founds a business empire four generations previously\u2014that Sylva eventually inherits\u2014are completely superfluous.
\nThe remainder of the story yo-yos back and forth in time, and shows us how Guy and Sylva met and fell in love when he trespassed on her huge hidden estate. Then we get to the SFnal part of the story. Here, Sylva\u2019s plan (spoiler) is to create clones from the sex cells that are in his lungs, and which she incorrectly refers to as \u201cova.\u201d This is another of the story\u2019s problems\u2014while the cells in women\u2019s choriocarcinoma would be diploid, and potentially viable, the cancer cells in his lungs would be haploid\u2014this is never addressed.4<\/sup>
\nAnd this is not the only problem the story has: the idea of replicating Gibbon\u2019s childhood for the clones so he or they can grow up be identical to him doesn\u2019t convince, nor does the last minute development of a cryostasis chamber for Sylva to jump into. Then the story finishes with only one of the clones surviving to become a baby, and everything is left hanging in the air (the story was meant to be the first part of an unfinished novel).
\nAlthough it took ages to get going, I found I enjoyed this moderately by the end\u2014but there is no hiding the fact this is the beginning of a novel that was unlikely to work (and this is probably why it wasn\u2019t written).<\/p>\n

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

There were two stories in Ray Bradbury\u2019s special issue a few months later, and editor Ferman decided to go with the much weaker one (which I\u2019ve reviewed here previously5<\/sup>), To the Chicago Abyss<\/em><\/strong> (F&SF<\/em>, May 1963). This, presumably written a decade and a half after the first story (an associational Fahrenheit 451<\/em> piece) isn\u2019t bad but it illustrates the difference in quality between his early and later work.
\nThe story tells of an old man in a post-Annihilation Day society who approaches people and reminds them of things lost:<\/p>\n

\u201cRaleighs,\u201d said the old man. \u201cLucky Strikes.\u201d
\nThe young man stared at him.
\n\u201cKent. Kools. Marlboro,\u2019\u2019 said the old man, not looking at him. \u201cThose were the names. White, red, amber packs grass-green, sky-blue, pure gold with the red slick small ribbon that ran around the top that you pulled to zip away the crinkly cellophane, and the blue government tax-stamp\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cShut up,\u2019\u2019 said the young man.
\n\u201cBuy them in drug-stores, fountains, subways\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cShut up!\u201d\u00a0 p. 58<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After the old man is physically assaulted another man takes him home and hides him when the secret police call. He suggests to the old man that it would be better to address several people at a time in private rather than individual strangers in public.
\nI wasn\u2019t really convinced by the concept, and the writing isn\u2019t as good as in the first story.<\/p>\n

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

The Key<\/em><\/strong> by Isaac Asimov (F&SF<\/em>, October 1966) is one of his \u2018Wendell Urth\u2019 series, although that character doesn\u2019t appear onstage until the third act.
\nThe story starts with two men finding an alien device on the Moon. When the narrator, Jennings, later handles it, he gets a telepathic flash from his colleague that reveals him as an Ultra, someone who believes that the Earth\u2019s population of six billion should be reduced by radical means. Jennings fears the device falling into the Ultras\u2019 hands, and tension increases between them. Later, they fight, and Jennings is stabbed. The rest of the first act has him on the surface of the Moon trying to hide the device and leave a clue to its whereabouts.
\nThe second act has a two investigators from the Bureau discussing Jenning\u2019s death and the missing device. When they fail to decode a copy of the written card found in Jenning\u2019s hand, they contact Wendell Urth.
\nThe third act has them questioning the idiosyncratic (and agoraphobic) Urth in his lair, where the latter masterfully decodes the clue for them.
\nThe first part of this suffers from having a slightly clunky set-up but the rest of it, even given the endless talking heads and a contrived setup, is reasonably entertaining if minor fare, and I liked it.<\/p>\n

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

Ship of Shadows<\/em><\/strong> by Fritz Leiber (F&SF<\/em>, July 1969) has Spar the narrator wake up to find a cat talking to him. We gradually learn that Spar is half-blind, and that he appears to live in a zero gee environment:<\/p>\n

Out along Spar\u2019s arm moved the cat, a black blur to his squinting eyes. In teeth Spar could not see, it held a smaller gray blur. Spar touched the latter. It was even shorter furred, but cold.
\nAs if irked, the cat took off from his bare forearm with a strong push of hind legs. It landed expertly on the next shroud, a wavery line of gray that vanished in either direction before reaching a wall.
\nSpar undipped himself, curled his toes round his own pencil-thin shroud, and squinted at the cat.
\nThe cat stared back with eyes that were green blurs which almost coalesced in the black blur of its outsize head.
\nSpar asked, \u201cYour child? Dead?\u201d
\nThe cat loosed its gray burden, which floated beside its head.
\n\u201cChchchchild!\u201d All the former scorn and more were back in the sibilant voice. \u201cIt izzzz a rat I sssslew her, issssiot!\u201d
\nSpar\u2019s lips puckered in a smile. \u201cI like you, cat. I will call you Kim.\u201d
\n\u201cKim-shlun!\u201d the cat spat. \u201cI\u2019ll call you Lushshsh! Or Sssot!\u201d\u00a0 p. 130<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story then follows Spar as he reports for work at a torus shaped bar (also in zero-gee) and there, one by one, we are introduced to a series of characters: Keeper, the owner of the bar; three \u201cbrewos\u201d who are waiting when Spar lifts the shutters (\u201cSky strangle you!\u201d \u201cEarth bury you!\u201d \u201cSeas sear you!\u201d; \u201cLanguage, boys!\u201d Keeper reproved); Lucy, a prostitute; and finally Rixende, who is supposedly looking for a black bag for Crown the coroner. When Rixende demands a drink, and Keeper refuses because of Crown\u2019s standing orders, it looks like there will be trouble, but Rixende gets her way by using particularly blasphemous language (\u201cEarth Mother!\u201d) and pulling out a gold earring for payment, which leaves her bleeding. Then Crown arrives, and there is a moment of peril but, after he braces Keeper, Spar, and Kim the cat, the couple leave without any further trouble.
\nLater on, Doc arrives, and we get an inkling that he knows much more about the ship and its environment than Spar (it\u2019ll be apparent to seasoned SF readers at this point that the story takes place in a generation spaceship; non-SF readers will probably be very puzzled or no longer reading). Spar returns the black bag to Doc, which was stolen by Rixende the previous night but later filched by Spar. In exchange for this Spar receives a promise of false teeth, and spectacles to improve his sight.
\nThe remainder of the story, which takes place against the backdrop of rumours about \u201cvamps\u201d and witches active during Sleepday, has Keeper send Spar on a trip through the ship to complete various errands to Crown and the Bridge. As Spar and the cat later approach Crown\u2019s quarters, Kim warns Spar to stay back, and he dimly sees five people connected by tubes. Spar passes by, and goes on to deliver a message to the Bridge, where he talks to an Ensign about the strange nocturnal activity around the bar. Finally, Spar goes to his appointment with Doc.
\nThese events set up the remainder of the story, and further plot complications involve all of the characters mentioned so far. After further twists and turns (during which Spar\u2019s eyesight improves and so does his and the reader\u2019s comprehension of environment surrounding him) the story climaxes (spoiler) in a scene where Spar is captive, and watches as Crown and his posse drink the blood of Lucy (the five tubes earlier were connected to another victim). Once they are (literally) finished squeezing her dry, her body is put into a recycler. Then the Ensign and other ship\u2019s crew intervene to save Spar and Doc, and there is a final scene that reveals the ship is in orbit around a molten, war-torn Earth.
\nThis, for the most part, is a very good piece\u2014Leiber is a colourful, inventive, and stylish storyteller\u2014but the vampirism scene at the end is somewhat ridiculous (not to mention anomalous\u2014why would they be doing that?), and the data dump at the end about what and where the ship is far too rushed. A pity, but you can see why readers liked it, and I wouldn\u2019t rule it out of any \u2018Best of the Year\u2019 I might have edited either.<\/p>\n

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

The Queen of Air and Darkness<\/em><\/strong> by Poul Anderson seems at first as if the story is going to be a Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream-like fantasy:<\/p>\n

A shape came bounding over Cloudmoor. It had two arms and two legs, but the legs were long and claw-footed and feathers covered it to the end of a tail and broad wings. The face was half human, dominated by its eyes. Had Ayoch been able to stand wholly erect, he would have reached to the boy\u2019s shoulder.
\nThe girl rose. \u201cHe carries a burden,\u201d she said. Her vision was not meant for twilight like that of a northland creature born, but she had learned how to use every sign her senses gave her. Besides the fact that ordinarily a pook would fly, there was a heaviness to his haste.
\n\u201cAnd he comes from the south.\u201d Excitement jumped in the boy, sudden as a green flame that went across the constellation Lyrth. He sped down the mound. \u201cOhoi, Ayoch!\u201d he called, \u201cMe here, Mistherd!\u201d
\n\u201cAnd Shadow-of-a-Dream,\u201d the girl laughed, following. The pook halted. He breathed louder than the soughing in the growth around him. A smell of bruised yerba lifted where he stood. \u201cWell met in winterbirth,\u201d he whistled. \u201cYou can help me bring this to Carheddin.\u201d
\nHe held out what he bore. His eyes were yellow lanterns above. It moved and whimpered.
\n\u201cWhy, a child,\u201d Mistherd said.\u00a0 p. 188<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the next section the story changes into a planetary colonisation tale, which starts with a woman called Barbro Cullen visiting an investigator called Eric Sherrinford in a town called Christmas Landing. Her child has gone missing on a field trip to the north of their planet, Roland, and she fears he may have been abducted.
\nSherrinford agrees to take the case, and it isn\u2019t long before they head north to an outpost called Portolondon. In a video interview with the local constable, Sherrinford probes the officer about the incident, and also the local myths:<\/p>\n

[Sherrinford] cradled his pipe bowl in both hands and peered into the tiny hearth of it. \u201cPerhaps what interests me most,\u201d he said softly, \u201cis why\u2014across that gap of centuries, across a barrier of machine civilization and its utterly antagonistic world view\u2014no continuity of tradition whatsoever\u2014why have hard-headed, technologically organized, reasonably well-educated colonists here brought back from its grave a belief in the Old Folk?\u201d\u00a0 p. 201<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later, Sherrinford and Cullen head north and, one night at their campsite, he tells Cullen his theory that there is an advanced indigenous race on Roland which is hiding from the human race. Little do the couple know that they are being spied upon by Mistherd, a previous human abductee, who now swears allegiance to the Queen of Air and Darkness.
\nThe rest of the story follows the pair as they track down the child.
\nThis is an impressive piece, and what is particularly notable is the texture of this world. Not only do we see things from both the indigenous alien\u2019s and settler\u2019s point of view, but we also learn about the myths and legends that have been created by the limited contact between the two. This is perhaps most evident in two sequential scenes: the first takes place in the house of William Irons, a settler who lives in the far north, and who tells the couple about the rules and customs that apply there with respect to the \u201cQueen\u201d; the second is when Cullen and Sherrinford are later at their campsite talking about a folk song performed by Iron\u2019s son but interrupted by an emotional outburst from Cullen. She finishes the song for Sherrinford, and he hears of a story about a ranger, Arvin, and how he refuses to become part of the Outling folk. The Queen tells him he will regret his choice:<\/p>\n

I do not need a magic
\nto make you always mourn.
\n.<\/span>
\nI send you home with nothing
\nexcept your memory
\nof moonlight, Outling music,
\nnight breezes, dew, and me.
\nAnd that will run behind you,
\na shadow on the sun,
\nand that will lie beside you
\nwhen every day is done.
\n.<\/span>
\nIn work and play and friendship
\nyour grief will strike you dumb
\nfor thinking what you are\u2014and\u2014
\nwhat you might have become.\u00a0 p. 216<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is a stunning moment which not only elegantly and succinctly lends the story hundreds of years of history, but also dangles the prospect of human uplift or transcendence in front of the reader. And, as if all this doesn\u2019t already build a convincing world, there are also a couple of short passages that sketch the spread of humanity through space, something that gives the tapestry of the story even more colour and depth.
\nIf the piece has a flaw it is probably the ending (spoiler), which degenerates into a guns blazing rescue of the boy, a rather crude end to such a sophisticated story\u2014although, to be fair, that event is preceded by a haunting section where Cullen is kidnapped and telepathically induced to think that her dead husband is taking her to the Queen of Air and Darkness.
\nA deserving Hugo and Nebula Award winner.<\/p>\n

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

Midsummer Century<\/em><\/strong> by James Blish is a long novella,6<\/sup> and is the second story here that I\u2019ve already reviewed.7<\/sup> The story starts with an atypical passage, for SF, describing the class and politics of Martels, the young astronomer who is the protagonist of the story:<\/p>\n

Martels, unmarried and 30, was both a statistic and a beneficiary of what his British compatriots were bitterly calling the brain-drain, the luring of the best English minds to the United States by higher pay, lower taxes, and the apparent absence of any class system whatsoever. And he had found no reason to regret it, let alone feel guilty about it. Both his parents were dead, and as far as he was concerned, he owed the United Kingdom nothing any more.
\nOf course, the advantages of living in the States were not quite so unclouded as they had been presented to him, but he had never expected anything else. Take the apparent absence of a class system, for instance: All the world knew that the blacks, the Spanish-Americans, and the poor in general were discriminated against ferociously in the States and that political opposition of any kind to the Establishment was becoming increasingly dangerous. But what counted as far as he was concerned was that it was not the same sort of class system.
\nBorn of a working-class family in the indescribably ugly city of Doncaster, Martels had been cursed from the outset with a working-class Midlands dialect which excluded him from the \u201cright\u201d British circles as permanently and irrevocably as if he had been a smuggled Pakistani immigrant. No \u201cpublic\u201d school had been financially available to his parents to help him correct the horrible sound of his own voice, nor to give him the classical languages which in his youth had still been necessary for entry into Oxford or Cambridge.
\nInstead, he had ground, kicked, bitten and otherwise fought his way through one of the new redbrick polytechnics. Though he emerged at the end with the highest possible First in astrophysics, it was with an accent still so atrocious as to deny him admittance to any but the public side\u2014never the lounge or saloon\u2014of any bar in Britain.\u00a0 pp. 245-246<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After a little more of this, and a brief description of his job in America as a radio astronomer, he falls down the waveguide of a large telescope and finds himself 25,000 years in the future.
\nMartels does not immediately find out this information, of course, but initially wakes and sees what appears to be a museum. It then becomes apparent that he is in a receptacle that contains an intelligence called Qvant, and he watches as a primitive human comes into the museum to question Qvant about a problem his people are having. Martels speaks up during this transaction: the native flees and in a subsequent conversation Qvant tells Martels where and when he is before attempting to eject him and failing:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears that I cannot be rid of you yet,\u201d Qvant said. The tone of his amplified voice seemed to hover somewhere between icy fury and equally icy amusement. \u201cVery well, we shall hold converse, you and I. It will be a change from being an oracle to tribesmen. But sooner or later, Martels-from-the-past, sooner or later I shall catch you out\u2014and then you will come to know the greatest thing that I do not know: What the afterlife is like. Sooner or later, Martels . . . sooner or later . . .\u201d
\nJust in time, Martels realized that the repetitions were the hypnotic prelude to a new attack. Digging into whatever it had been that he had saved himself with before, that unknown substrate of the part of this joint mind that belonged to him alone, he said with equal iciness:
\n\u201cPerhaps. You have a lot to teach me, if you will, and I\u2019ll listen. And maybe I can teach you something, too. But I think I can also make you extremely uncomfortable, Qvant; you\u2019ve just shown me two different ways to go about that. So perhaps you had better mind your manners, and bear in mind that however the tribesmen see you, you\u2019re a long way from being a god to me.\u201d
\nFor answer, Qvant simply prevented Martels from saying another word. Slowly, the sun set, and the shapes in the hall squatted down into a darkness against which Martels was not even allowed to close his unowned eyes.\u00a0 pp. 253-254<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story subsequently charts the game of cat and mouse between the pair as Martels tries to learn more about this world. Every time he thinks he is getting nearer to forming a plan that will help him get back to his own time Qvant falls silent for months. Nevertheless, Martels eventually discovers a number of things: that Qvant is a brain in a box, and that the natives can communicate with their dead ancestors; he also learns that the \u2018Birds\u2019 are a threat to humanity and will wipe out what is left of the human race in the near future.
\nWhen Qvant appears to be sleeping another native appears, and Martels urges him to get his tribe to make alliances with the others against the Birds. The native, thinking he is being mocked, leaves. Qvant has meantime awoken and laughs: he had previously told Martels of the futility of this course of action.
\nIn the middle and final sections Martels manages to escape by taking possession of one of the natives\u2019 bodies and heads south through the Birds\u2019 territory to what was Antarctica, home of Terminus and the survivors of Rebirth 3.
\nAs you can gather from the above, this story has something of a Van Vogtian feel to it (the far future setting, the sudden changes of direction, the hand-waving explanations of sentience, etc.) and I wondered if Blish was making it up as he went along. What sets him apart from Van Vogt is that the narrative is easier to follow, and Blish\u2019s writing and vocabulary is superior. He also takes the time to do a number of quarter or half page digressions on various matters that he wants to discuss or describe (the social and political observation referred to above, the mechanism of telepathy and Rhine\u2019s experiments, etc., etc.).
\nAs it turned out I didn\u2019t enjoy this as much as I did when I originally read it, but found it an entertaining read for all that. But probably one not to take too seriously.<\/p>\n

There is quite a lot of associated non-fiction in the book, and it leads off with a one-page Introduction<\/em><\/strong> by Edward L. Ferman. In this we learn that the Special Issues were the idea of Joe Ferman, Ed\u2019s father and publisher of the magazine, in an attempt to increase sales. Ferman says this ploy succeeded \u201cwell enough\u201d and adds that there was \u201ccontinual demand\u201d for back issues. He credits the writers and their stories for the issues\u2019 popularity.
\nAs for the various appreciations that accompany the stories, they vary in depth: L. Sprague de Camp contributes a short personal portrait about Isaac Asimov<\/em><\/strong> but doesn\u2019t touch on his writing.
\nWilliam F. Nolan provides an eminently quotable piece on Ray Bradbury<\/em><\/strong>, and I\u2019ll limit myself to one anecdote from when Bradbury was still trying to break into the professional magazines:<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring this period I began haunting the doorsteps of the local professionals, many of whom belonged to the club,\u201d says Ray. \u201cI was desperate to learn the secrets of the pros, and would pop up with a new story nearly every week which I passed around for criticism and advice from Hank Kuttner to Leigh Brackett to Ed Hamilton to Bob Heinlein to Ross Rocklynne to Jack Williamson to Henry Hasse, all of whom were incredibly kind and patient with me and with these dreadful early efforts. In fact, the above-named authors grew lean and rangy from countless flights through the rear exits of walk-up apartments when Bradbury would suddenly appear at the front door with a new manuscript in his teeth.\u201d\u00a0 p. 74<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Judith Merril contributes pieces on Theodore Sturgeon<\/em><\/strong> and Fritz Leiber<\/em><\/strong>. In the first she talks about Sturgeon himself, his writing, and how she learned how to write under his guidance (and got her pseudonym).
\nIn Leiber\u2019s piece she has this to say about his early work:<\/p>\n

[Another brief try at free-lancing in 1942 was] just long enough to write the two novels that would place him firmly in the top rank of science-fantasy, and keep him there through his first long dry spell of five years. Conjure Wife<\/em> (later filmed as Burn, Witch, Burn!)<\/em> combined traditional witchcraft and a realistic contemporary setting derived largely from the year at Occidental; Gather, Darkness!<\/em> went further in two directions, at least, using the apparatus and literature of witchcraft in juxtaposition with technological extrapolation and political prophecy to create one of the first truly modern science fiction novels.
\nIf he had written nothing more, Leiber would still be a leading genre author. Few 30-year-old fond memories can stand intimate revisiting. These do. If I were coming across them for the first time today, I think I would respond with the same sense of discovery and astonishment I had in 1943.\u00a0 p. 174<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I read both recently and thought they are still outstanding.
\nTowards the end of this second essay, Merril has this observation about both men:<\/p>\n

Both men have been singularly uneven writers. Much of what they published was too hastily written, or too much limited by the narrowness of the specialty field they wrote for. But it is true of both of them that the best of what they wrote, at any time, remains as valid now as when it was written.\u00a0 p. 176<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gordon Dickson\u2019s essay on Poul Anderson<\/em><\/strong> provides a good mix of biographical and literary observation, and James Blish<\/em><\/strong> by Robert A. W. Lowndes, the last piece, is another quotable one:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll never forget the subject of our conversation around a table at the old Dragon Inn on West 4th Street, Manhattan, that evening. Here we were, a group of science fiction editors, writers, and fans, welcoming a fellow enthusiast on leave from the army, and what were we talking about? Science fiction? Fantasy? The shape of the postwar world with its science fiction aspects? No; what Jim wanted to talk about was FINNEGANS WAKE.
\nDon Wollheim\u2019s argument was that Joyce\u2019s final work was little more than an elaborate puzzle for the elite literateur. I hadn\u2019t read it, so I just listened. Jim\u2019s argument was that if you applied yourself to it, the story came to a great deal more than a melange of puns and esoteric references. And right there, although I did not realize it at the time, I had been given one of the keys to this multitalented, charming, and irascible personality I would get to know, respect, and love in later years: any work of literature, or any other art worth paying attention to, makes demands upon the reader, listener, or viewer.\u00a0 p. 317<\/p>\n

The second of the Advent books [More Issues at Hand<\/em>, a book of criticism] shows a slight mellowing of the waspish qualities; he says in his foreword: \u201cWhile I still believe that it is desirable to be merciless to a bad story, I am no longer quite so sure that the commission of one represents flaws in the author\u2019s character or horrid secrets in his ancestry.\u201d\u00a0 p. 322<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is an essay that is definitely worth reading.
\nThere is one final quote of note:<\/p>\n

At 50, with developed interest, and recognition, in numerous fields (he\u2019s still working on a book relating to music \u201c the hard way\u201d ), we may not see quite so much more science fiction from Jim as we have in the past. \u00a0p. 322<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately, Lowndes was correct, but not in the way he expected: Blish would die four years later of cancer, age 54.
\nAlthough the Bibliography<\/em><\/strong> articles were hugely useful at the time, these have all been superseded by the likes of isfdb.org. In any event, the ones published here, while updated, are truncated versions of the originals (they omit the short story and article information).<\/p>\n

This volume is a mixed bag of stories, although most are good or better\u2014and in some cases, much better (the Leiber and Anderson). Given that not all of these are stand-outs, I wonder if the idea for most of these issues came before the stories? \u00a0\u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. This is the third group read of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction of the Year<\/a> Facebook Group. The second, still ongoing (it\u2019s going to take a while), is The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, volume I<\/em>, edited by Robert Silverberg. The upcoming fourth group read is going to be the 2020 Hugo Award short stories.<\/p>\n

2. From Mike Ashley\u2019s F&SF<\/em> entry at the Science Fiction Encyclopedia:<\/p>\n

Davidson produced the first two \u201cauthor special\u201d issues, featuring Theodore Sturgeon (September 1962) and Ray Bradbury (May 1963). This has since become an occasional but important part of F&SF\u2019s history. Subsequent special issues featured Isaac Asimov (October 1966), Fritz Leiber (July 1969), Poul Anderson (April 1971), James Blish (April 1972), Frederik Pohl (September 1973), Robert Silverberg (April 1974), Damon Knight (November 1976), Harlan Ellison (July 1977), Stephen King (December 1990), Lucius Shepard (March 2001), Kate Wilhelm (September 2001), Barry N Malzberg (June 2003), Gene Wolfe (April 2007) and David Gerrold (September\/October 2016).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I should work my way through these issues.<\/p>\n

3. Choriocarcinoma at Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4. Gametes, diploid and haploid cells at Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. The Ray Bradbury Special Issue (May 1963) is reviewed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

6. ISFDB<\/a> says that the book form of the work is an \u201cexpansion of the version published in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction<\/em> in April 1972.\u201d Meanwhile, the introduction in the magazine says \u201cMIDSUMMER CENTURY will be published in hard covers by Doubleday, but not one word has been cut in the version you are about to read.\u201d p. 5 (and it appears they have reduced the type size to squeeze it all in).
\nAn OCR word count of the magazine vs. book version shows 29,500 vs. 29,300 words.<\/p>\n

7. The James Blish Special Issue (April 1972) is reviewed here<\/a>. \u25cf<\/p>\n

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Summary: The 25th volume of this long running series collects the stories and associated material from the first six of the magazine\u2019s Special Author issues, and it includes work by Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, and James Blish. It is a bit of a mixed bag, but generally of good […]<\/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":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthologies-reprint"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-3kK","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12818","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=12818"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12844,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12818\/revisions\/12844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}