{"id":13148,"date":"2020-08-25T14:55:54","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T14:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=13148"},"modified":"2020-08-25T14:55:54","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T14:55:54","slug":"best-sf-1971-edited-by-harry-harrison-brian-w-aldiss-1972","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=13148","title":{"rendered":"Best SF: 1971, edited by Harry Harrison & Brian W. Aldiss, 1972"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Summary:
\nA mixed bag that won\u2019t satisfy the traditional SF audience or a more progressive one. The former will probably not appreciate the stories from Bartheleme, Auerbach, Landolfi, etc., and the latter will dislike the Clarke, Blish, Burhoe, etc. If you\u2019ve read the Carr \u2018Best of the Year,\u2019 I wouldn\u2019t bother with this one.
\n[ISFDB page<\/a>][Archive.org copy<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Other reviews:1<\/sup>
\nCharlie Brown, Locus<\/em>, #129 December 15, 1972
\nDave Hartwell, Locus, #130 December 29, 1972
\nP. Schuyler Miller, Analog,<\/em> May 1973<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editors, Harry Harrison & Brian W. Aldiss<\/p>\n

Fiction:2<\/sup>
\nDoctor Zombie and His Little Furry Friends<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Robert Sheckley \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nConquest <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Barry N. Malzberg \u2217<\/strong>
\nGehenna <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Barry N. Malzberg \u2217<\/strong>
\nA Meeting with Medusa<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Arthur C. Clarke \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Genius<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Donald Barthelme \u2217<\/strong>
\nAngouleme <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Thomas M. Disch \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nIf \u201cHair\u201d Were Revived in 2016 <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Arnold M. Auerbach \u2217<\/strong>
\nStatistician\u2019s Day<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by James Blish \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Gahan Wilson \u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Hunter at His Ease<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Brian W. Aldiss \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Cohen Dog Exclusion Act<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Steven Schrader \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nGantlet <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Richard E. Peck \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Pagan Rabbi<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Cynthia Ozick \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\n\u00a0(Untitled)<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Tommaso Landolfi –
\nAn Uneven Evening<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Steve Herbst \u2217<\/strong>
\nOrnithanthropus <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by B. Alan Burhoe \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nNo Direction Home<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Norman Spinrad \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+<\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nIntroduction<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Harry Harrison
\nReport<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 poem by Kingsley Amis
\nFisherman<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 poem by Lawrence Sail
\nThe Ideal Police State<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 poem by Charles Baxter
\nAfterword: A Day in the Life-Style of. . .<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Brian W. Aldiss<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Following on from my review3<\/sup> of Terry Carr\u2019s The Best Science Fiction of the Year #1<\/em> is another 1971 \u2018Best SF of the Year\u2019 entry, this time from Harry Harrison (Aldiss, although credited, is only a European scout). Harrison, as we shall see, emulates Judith Merril by presenting a random grab-bag of stories that are presumably meant to show how the 1970\u2019s SF field was diversifying\u2014diverse in this case meaning literary styles and subject matter as well as work taken from outside the genre (as opposed to today\u2019s \u201cdiverse\u201d which usually means politically left-wing and\/or female and\/or LGBQT and\/or POC material).
\nThat said, the volume gets off to a good start with Doctor Zombie and His Little Furry Friends<\/em><\/strong> by Robert Sheckley (Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?<\/em>, 1971), which has an interesting opening passage:<\/p>\n

I think I am fairly safe here. I live at present in a small apartment northeast of the Zocalo, in one of the oldest parts of Mexico City. As a foreigner, my inevitable first impression is how like Spain this country seems, and how different it really is. In Madrid the streets are a maze which draws you continually deeper, toward hidden centers with tedious, well-guarded secrets. Concealment of the commonplace is surely a heritage of the Moors. Whereas Mexican streets are an inverted labyrinth which leads outward toward the mountains, toward openness, toward revelations which remain forever elusive. Nothing is concealed; but nothing in Mexico is comprehensible. This is the way of the Indians, past and present\u2014a defense based upon permeability; a transparent defense like that of the sea anemone.
\nI find this style profound and compatible. I conform to insight born in Tenochtitlan or Tlaxcala; I conceal nothing, and thus contrive to hide everything.\u00a0 p. 14<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although the story is ostensibly concerned with Doctor Zombie and the hybrid creatures he breeds in his small rented house, the focus is the local area and its characters:<\/p>\n

I claim to be a scholar on extended leave from my university. I tell them that I am writing a book about the Toltecs, a book in which I will collate evidence of a cultural linkage between that mysterious race and the Incas.
\n\u201cYes, gentlemen, I expect that my book will create quite a stir in Heidelberg and Bonn. There are vested interests which will be offended. Attempts will doubtless be made to represent me as a crank. My theory, you see, could shake the entire world of pre-Columbian studies . . .\u201d
\nI had prepared the above personality before coming to Mexico. I read Stephens, Prescott, Vaillant, Alfonso Caso. I even went to the trouble of copying out the first third of Dreyer\u2019s discredited thesis on cultural diffusion, in which he postulates a Mayan-Toltec cultural exchange. That gave me an opus of some eighty handwritten pages which I could claim as my own. The unfinished manuscript was my excuse for being in Mexico. Anyone could glance at the erudite pages scattered over my desk and see for himself what sort of man I was.
\nI thought that would suffice; but I hadn\u2019t allowed for the dynamism inherent in my role. Senor Ortega, my grocer, is also interested in pre-Columbian studies, and is disturbingly knowledgeable. Senor Andrade, the barber, was born in a pueblo within five miles of the ruins of Teotihuacan. And little Jorge Silverio, the shoeshine boy whose mother works in a tortilleria, dreams of attending a great university, and asks me very humbly if I might use my influence at Bonn . . .
\nI am the victim of my neighbors\u2019 expectations. I have become their professor, not mine. Because of them I must spend endless hours at the National Museum of Anthropology, and waste whole days at Teotihuacan, Tula, Xochicalco.
\nMy neighbors force me to work hard at my scholarly pursuit. And I have become quite literally what I purported to be: an expert, possessed of formidable knowledge, more than a little mad.\u00a0 p. 17-18<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is only in the back half of the story that we learn (spoiler) about Doctor Zombie\u2019s plan to release his hybrids in an attempt to control the human population, and to stop mankind exterminating other species.
\nThis is a pretty good mash-up of literary and mad-scientist stories, and an interesting (and more unusually, entertaining) example of seventies eco-fiction.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Harrison includes two stories by Barry N. Malzberg in this volume, the first of which is Conquest <\/em><\/strong>(New Dimensions #1<\/em>, 1971). This tells of a man called Redleaf sent to conduct negotiations with an alien visitor. When he arrives, Redleaf finds an alien who sounds like a high-pressure salesman:<\/p>\n

What we want you to do is to brief up, take a load off your minds, join our federation, turn in the heavy weaponry and live good. You can keep the rockets of course, that\u2019s fine. And you can have the whole solar system as a trade zone. There\u2019s nothing really worthwhile to us in it; we consider it a sort of ghetto area if you dig what I\u2019m saying. You wouldn\u2019t see us for eons and eons. But the weaponries gotta go. We can defuse them for you easy.\u201d\u00a0 p. 27<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As well as the negotiations there is some domestic flashback about Redleaf\u2019s wife. Eventually (spoiler), Redleaf shoots the alien. I couldn\u2019t see the point of this.
\nThe second story Gehenna <\/em><\/strong>(Galaxy<\/em>, March 1971) starts with Edward meeting Julie at a party, and later marrying her after she jilts her boyfriend. After a short section touching on the birth of their child and domestic life, she (spoiler) commits suicide.
\nThe second and third sections are alternate takes on the lives of the three characters: in the second the husband kills himself; in the third the jilted boyfriend suicides. A short fourth section is told from the viewpoint of Edward and Julie\u2019s child. Although this is interesting enough, the individual strands do not cohere or make any point.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Genius<\/em><\/strong> by Donald Barthelme (The New Yorker<\/em>, February 1971) is a satirical and slightly surreal story about the life and thoughts of a genius. I suspect the only reason it is here is because it is from a famous mainstream\/literary writer.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Angouleme <\/em><\/strong>by Thomas M. Disch (New Worlds Quarterly #1<\/em>, 1971) is from his \u2018334\u2019 series, which is set in a near-future New York. The story itself concerns a group of (unconvincingly) precocious seventh-graders and their plot, suggested by their leader, Little Mister Kissy Lips, to murder one of the vagrants that frequent Battery Park:<\/p>\n

He loved, and what seventh grader doesn\u2019t, the abstracter foxtrots and more metaphysical twists of a Dostoevsky, a Gide, a Mailer. He longed for the experience of some vivider pain than the mere daily hollowness knotted into his tight young belly, and no weekly stomp-and-holler of group therapy with other jejune eleven-year-olds was going to get him his stripes in the major leagues of suffering, crime and resurrection. Only a bona fide crime would do that, and of all the crimes available murder certainly carried the most prestige, as no less an authority than Loretta Couplard was ready to attest, Loretta Couplard being not only the director and co-owner of the Lowen School but the author, as well, of two nationally televised scripts, both about famous murders of the twentieth century. They\u2019d even done a unit in social studies on the topic: A History of Crime in Urban America.\u00a0 p. 91<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As you can perhaps gather from the passage above, the story is written in a voice that is more mainstream, descriptive, and better characterised than the run-of-the-mill SF of the time. If you are happy with this alone then you\u2019ll probably enjoy the story\u2014but the idea of precocious and bored child-killers never really flies, and the piece has a (spoiler) decidedly anti-climactic ending. A mixed bag.4<\/sup><\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

If \u201cHair\u201d Were Revived in 2016 <\/em><\/strong>by Arnold M. Auerbach (The New York Times<\/em>, 1971) is a one page review of a 45th<\/sup> anniversary revival of Hair<\/em>, the musical. You may crack a half-smile or two but it\u2019s minor stuff.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Statistician\u2019s Day<\/em><\/strong> by James Blish (Science Against Man<\/em>, 1970) is set in a near future world that has instituted population control after \u201cthe fearful world famine of 1980.\u201d The story opens with a man called Wiberg, supposedly a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, arriving at the house of Edmund Darling to interview him. However, we get an early hint that this is not the case (after some scene setting about the house and the surrounding English countryside) when there is a reference to Darling\u2019s obituary, which is \u201cnot due to be published for nearly a year.\u201d
\nWhen the two men meet the story\u2019s gimmick becomes apparent:<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you,\u201d the novelist said, \u201conly the advance man for the executioner, or are you the executioner himself?\u201d
\nWiberg managed an uncertain laugh. \u201cI\u2019m afraid I don\u2019t understand the question, sir.\u201d
\nIn point of fact, he understood it perfectly. What he did not understand was how Darling had come by enough information to have been able to frame it. For ten years, the chief secret of PopCon had been extremely well kept.\u00a0 p. 113-114<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Darling then explains to Wiberg that (spoiler) his research into the mortality statistics has led him to conclude that the government is secretly controlling the size of the world\u2019s population by planning the deaths of people in various groups and professions. At this point, any suspension of disbelief I had quickly vanished\u2014the idea that any government would have the competence to undertake such an extensive task and<\/em> keep it secret makes this the silliest story I\u2019ve read for some time. That said, it\u2019s improved by the biter bit ending, so if you can park your brain for a while you\u2019ll probably find this okay.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer<\/em><\/strong> by Gahan Wilson (The National Lampoon<\/em>, November 1971) isn\u2019t a story but a short introduction and flow-chart for the plots of formulaic SF movies. I didn\u2019t think this worth four pages in a SF magazine, never mind a \u2018Best of the Year\u2019 anthology.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Hunter at His Ease<\/em><\/strong> by Brian W. Aldiss (Science Against Man<\/em>, 1970) begins with its protagonist Yale surveying part of an island in the Indian Ocean that is to become a \u201cspeck-bomb\u201d airbase. Then he is clubbed into unconsciousness by one of the local creoles.
\nWhen Yale comes around later on he finds he is the village chief\u2019s hut. The latter, Mr Archipeligo, has taken Yale from his attackers, the Hakabele brothers, and has sent for help. While Yale waits to be picked up we learn about the local political situation (some of the locals are opposed the construction of the airbase) and the global one (there is mention of limited nuclear conflict in parts of the globe). We also learn that Yale has had his wrist terminal for the \u201cGlobal Information Network,\u201d presumably a proto-internet, stolen.
\nWhen a hovercraft eventually arrives to collect Yale, we are introduced to van Viner, one of the story\u2019s other main characters. The man is belligerent towards Archipelago, and threatens to attack the village with helicopters if he doesn\u2019t arrange the handover of the brothers responsible for Yale\u2019s abduction.
\nLater, back at base, Yale and van Viner argue about what they should do next:<\/p>\n

The pigeon curry came in. As they seated themselves, van Viner said, \u201cThey clobbered you, right? They must be taught they can\u2019t do that to a white man and get away with it.\u201d
\n\u201cYou can\u2019t expect them to want us here. We\u2019re not only wrecking their island, we\u2019re building an installation to be used against their kind on the mainland.\u201d
\n\u201cLet\u2019s go hunting the Hakabeles! Use nerve gas\u2014we\u2019ve got plenty of it. Give everyone a scare!\u201d
\n\u201cMister Archipeligo will persuade them to hand themselves over to us.\u201d
\n\u201cThey\u2019re all the lousy same! I\u2019d kill the lot! Archipeligo told them to attack you, crafty black sod!\u201d
\n\u201cAren\u2019t you forgetting he\u2019s half-Irish\u2014a product of the last white invasion here in the eighties?\u201d
\n\u201cWipe the lot off the face of the map! World Government\u2019s too scared. If my brother was alive\u2014did I ever tell you Herman killed the last blue whale in existence? Down in the Antarctic, that was. It\u2019s extinct now. The Aussies put a price on Herman\u2019s head, but you think that bothered my brother? He\u2019d have killed an Aussie soon as look at him!\u201d He burst into laughter and opened another beer, washing down forks-full of curry between his shouts of mirth. \u201cHe was a right one, my brother Herman\u2014wouldn\u2019t stand nonsense from any man!\u201d\u00a0 p. 136<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story comes to a climax when (spoiler) the brothers sneak into the base to see Yale. There is an argument about the construction project and how it will destroy the local tribe\u2019s way of life before Yale pulls a gun on the pair of them. However, when Yale is distracted by someone walking past the window, he shoots at them. Then Vine intervenes with nerve gas.
\nThe story\u2019s epilogue take place at the funeral of Archipeligo (who was the one walking past the window), and Yale learns that he killed him.
\nIn conclusion, this is a bit of a mixed bag: it\u2019s rather gloomy, and there is probably too much packed into the story\u2019s short length. Apart from its examination of the disruption of indigenous populations\u2019 lives by external forces (presumably based on the Diego Garcia clearances of the late 1960s and 1970s5<\/sup>), and the cold war\/hot war in the background, there is also a hologram conversation between Yale and his adapted daughter that briefly limns an adapted Martian environment. And there are various philosophical asides here and there as well. An interesting piece but, again, one that does not cohere particularly well into a larger whole.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Cohen Dog Exclusion Act<\/em><\/strong> by Steven Schrader (Eco-Fiction<\/em>, 1971) is, and I don\u2019t believe I\u2019m saying this, an \u2018If this goes on\u2019 story about the increasing amount of dog poo in the street:<\/p>\n

Conditions grew worse. Wherever you looked there was dog shit. In the morning young ladies who had moved to the renovated brownstones on my block walked their German shepherds on the sidewalk, in the curb, and the center of the street. Some of the dogs were unleashed, all of them sniffing away, peeing and shitting. The owners gossiped to one another, and some men, I\u2019m sure, bought dogs for the sole purpose of meeting girls. I thought of it myself, could imagine smooth conversations with them while our dogs took craps at our feet. But I\u2019m not a hypocrite. I can\u2019t hide my feelings. I don\u2019t understand how people can chat casually while their dogs shit all around them.\u00a0 p. 145<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I found this quite funny, but I suspect it depends on your attitude to scatological humour.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Gantlet <\/em><\/strong>by Richard E. Peck (Orbit 10<\/em>, 1972) is a future eco-disaster story that has the narrator taking his turn to drive an armoured and armed train from \u201cCity\u201d to \u201cWorkring.\u201d To do this they gave to go through \u201cOpensky,\u201d an outdoor area where a violent underclass live in polluted conditions.
\nThis is mostly a polluted Earth travelogue; there is not much plot.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Pagan Rabbi<\/em><\/strong> by Cynthia Ozick (The Pagan Rabbi<\/em>, 1966) is a dense Jewish fantasy that begins with one of two Jewish boys who grew up together learning of the suicide of the other. We learn that Isaac Kornfeld, the dead man, had a successful life and had become a rabbi.
\nThe narrator first goes to the site of the suicide, a tree beside a polluted bay, before going to speak to Sheindel, Kornfeld\u2019s widow (who the narrator once loved). She tells him of Kornfeld\u2019s secret habits, the family\u2019s trips to the countryside with the children, and the strange fairy tales he told:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he was never a Jew,\u201d she said.
\nI wondered whether Isaac\u2019s suicide had unbalanced her.
\n\u201cI\u2019ll tell you a story,\u201d she resumed. \u201cA story about stories. These were the bedtime stories Isaac told Naomi and Esther: about mice that danced and children who laughed. When Miriam came he invented a speaking cloud. With Ophra it was a turtle that married a blade of withered grass. By Leah\u2019s time the stones had tears for their leglessness. Rebecca cried because of a tree that turned into a girl and could never grow colors again in autumn.\u00a0 p. 174<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We also learn that Kornfeld had purchased a number books about plants, and that he kept a notebook, which the narrator is given:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am writing at dusk sitting on a stone in Trilham\u2019s Inlet Park, within sight of Trilham\u2019s Inlet, a bay to the north of the city, and within two yards of a slender tree, Quercus velutina<\/em>, the age of which, should one desire to measure it, can be ascertained by (God forbid) cutting the bole and counting the rings. The man writing is thirty-five years old and aging too rapidly, which may be ascertained by counting the rings under his poor myopic eyes.\u201d Below this, deliberate and readily more legible than the rest, appeared three curious words:
\n.<\/span>
\nGreat Pan lives.
\n.<\/span>
\nThat was all. In a day or so I returned the notebook to Sheindel. I told myself that she had seven orphans to worry over, and repressed my anger at having been cheated.
\nShe was waiting for me. \u201cI am so sorry, there was a letter in the notebook, it had fallen out. I found it on the carpet after you left.\u201d\u00a0 p. 178-179<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The long letter that Isaac left for his wife forms much of the rest of the story. In this the narrator learns about Kornfeld\u2019s theories that every living thing has a spirit, but only in humans is it contained and not free to roam. Then Kornfeld (spoiler) gives an account of how he manages to conjure a dryad from the tree he later hangs himself from.
\nIn a passage about the joy of the different kind of life and love he experiences with the dryad there is a sense of transcendence not unlike that you get in more conventional SF stories.
\nThe story lost me a little at the end, however, when Kornfeld discovers that, while he has been enjoying his tryst with the dryad, his soul has freed itself from his body, something he discovers when he finds his body walking along while reading a religious text. His body is oblivious to the natural world that surrounds it, as per the opening quotation at the beginning of the story:<\/p>\n

Rabbi Jacob said: \u201cHe who is walking along
\nand studying, but then breaks off to remark,
\n\u2018How lovely is that tree!\u2019 or \u2018How beautiful is that
\nfallow field!\u2019\u2014 Scripture regards such a one
\nas having hurt his own being.\u201d\u00a0 p. 165<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m not entirely sure what this last part (and the quotation) tells us, but I suspect it is related to Rabbinical law6<\/sup> (there are earlier references to \u201cfences\u201d) and proscriptions against forsaking one\u2019s spiritual life for the physical world.
\nI said in my opening comments that this is a dense piece, and the account I\u2019ve given so far only scratches the surface of what is here. Much of the story\u2019s length concerns Jewish society and religion, and the characters\u2019 relationships: it is both an ethnic and literary piece of writing. I suspect readers\u2019 reactions will depend on both their tolerance of mainstream work, and of finding fantasy in what appears to be a science fiction collection (not to mention a 1966 story in a 1971 volume!) Personally I found it an interesting piece (and certainly one that would reward re-reading), and I\u2019d include it in my own \u2018Best Fantasy of the Year\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

(Untitled)<\/em><\/strong> by Tommaso Landolfi (Cancerqueen<\/em>, 1971) is a short fragment that has two woman outside a building talking about their bodies as they queue for an unknown procedure. This reminded me of the type of pointless chaff that you used to get in the later large-size issues of New Worlds<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

\u00a0An Uneven Evening<\/em><\/strong> by Steve Herbst (Clarion<\/em>, 1971) has as its protagonist Peter, a man dissatisfied with both his wife and himself. After he makes this observation in the opening paragraphs of the story his friends pick him up to go to the pool hall. En route it becomes apparent that they aren\u2019t going there but are going \u201ctorming\u201d instead. Peter has no idea what they are talking about, but keeps quiet.
\nThe rest of the story involves a description of their night, during which we discover that torming involves diving down magnetic tubes (wearing a repelling harness) and trying to avoid hitting the sides.
\nHis ignorance isn\u2019t explained, but there is a mild ironic twist at the end concerning his wife\u2019s knowledge of this strange pastime. Presumably this is meant to distract from the lack of explanation.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Ornithanthropus <\/em><\/strong>by B. Alan Burhoe (If<\/em>, November-December 1971) gets off to a great start with a clan of winged humans abandoning their \u201csky-hunter,\u201d a huge gas-balloon beast that is their home. It is dying, and they watch from a distance as it eventually suicides by igniting the hydrogen in its bladders.
\nThe rest of the story is more routine, and we learn that this is taking place on a colony planet called Pishkun, which has a single antigravity city called Starport where unmodified humans live.
\nSome of the occupants of Starport (called \u201cfangs\u201d) turn up in their anti-grav packs while Schadow (the leader of the winged people) is trying to tame another sky-hunter to provide a home for his clan. After a three-way stand-off (spoiler), Schadow realises that the fangs can\u2019t see the thermal air currents like he can, so he leads them to the downdrafts at the cliffs, and their deaths. He gets the sky-hunter.
\nThis has a fairly thin plot, but it\u2019s a colourful piece of off-world adventure.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve previously reviewed the Clarke and Spinrad stories in the Carr volume post but have cut-and-pasted them in here for the convenience of those who haven\u2019t read them yet (and for those who still haven\u2019t managed to get to sleep).
\nA Meeting with Medusa<\/em><\/strong> by Arthur C. Clarke (Playboy, December 1971)7<\/sup> has a spectacular opening sequence that sees Howard Falcon, the captain of a huge future airship called the Queen Elizabeth<\/em>, walk through the interior of the craft (and past the superchimp, \u201csimp\u201d crew) and up to the craft\u2019s observation area. There he watches as a nearby camera platform approaches the ship to land. However, the operator loses control, and it crashes into the airship, damaging it badly. Falcon rushes down to the bridge:<\/p>\n

Halfway down, he paused for a second to inspect the damage. That damned platform had gone clear through the ship, rupturing two of the gas cells as it did so. They were still collapsing slowly, in great falling veils of plastic. He was not worried about the loss of lift\u2014the ballast could easily take care of that, as long as eight cells remained intact. Far more serious was the possibility of structural damage; already he could hear the great latticework around him groaning and protesting under its abnormal loads. It was not enough to have sufficient lift; unless it was properly distributed, the ship would break her back.
\nHe was just resuming his descent when a superchimp, shrieking with fright, came racing down the elevator shaft, moving with incredible speed hand over hand along the outside of the latticework. In its terror, the poor beast had torn off its company uniform, perhaps in an unconscious attempt to regain the freedom of its ancestors.
\nFalcon, still descending as swiftly as he could, watched its approach with some alarm; a distraught simp was a powerful and potentially dangerous animal, especially if fear overcame its conditioning. As it overtook him, it started to call out a string of words, but they were all jumbled together, and the only one he could recognize was a plaintive, frequently repeated \u201cBoss.\u201d Even now, Falcon realized, it looked toward humans for guidance; he felt sorry for the creature, involved in a man-made disaster beyond its comprehension and for which it bore no responsibility.
\nIt stopped opposite him, on the other side of the lattice; there was nothing to prevent it from coming through the open framework if it wished. Now its face was only inches from his and he was looking straight into the terrified eyes. Never before had he been so close to a simp and able to study its features in such detail; he felt that strange mingling of kinship and discomfort that all men experience when they gaze thus into the mirror of time.
\nHis presence seemed to have calmed the creature; Falcon pointed up the shaft, back toward the observation deck, and said very clearly and precisely: \u201cBoss\u2014boss\u2014go\u201d To his relief, the simp understood; it gave him a grimace that might have been a smile and at once started to race back the way it had come. Falcon had given it the best advice he could; if any safety remained aboard the Queen, it was in that direction. But his duty lay in the other.\u00a0 p. 136-137<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The airship crash lands and, after Falcon\u2019s blackout, the story recommences some time later with him pitching an airship exploration of Jupiter to a man called Webster, the head of long range planning. Then the story cuts to Falcon en route from Ganymede to Jupiter;\u00a0 when he arrives his spaceship, the Kon Tiki<\/em>, enters the atmosphere and the balloons deploy, leaving him floating in the Jovian atmosphere.
\nThe main part of the story is a mixture of exotic travelogue and sense of wonder:<\/p>\n

The five hours of daylight were almost over; the clouds below were full of shadows, which gave them a massive solidity they had not possessed when the Sun was higher. Color was swiftly draining from the sky, except in the west itself, where a band of deepening purple lay along the horizon. Above this band was the thin crescent of a closer moon, pale and bleached against the utter blackness beyond.
\nWith a speed perceptible to the eye, the Sun went straight down over the edge of Jupiter, 3000 kilometers away. The stars came out in their legions\u2014and there was the beautiful evening star of Earth, on the very frontier of twilight, reminding him how far he was from home. It followed the Sun down into the west; man\u2019s first night on Jupiter had begun.\u00a0 p. 149<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We witness the various events that unfold as Falcon travels through the Jovian atmosphere (spoiler): there are bands of racing bioluminescent light in the clouds below; a massive radio storm; ball lightning on the Kon Tiki<\/em>; he sleeps and has a recurrent nightmare about the simp on the airship (which died along with all the others)\u2014then he spots a massive life-form rising out of the clouds towards him.
\nWhen Falcon later sees that the medusae (he later comes upon a herd of the medusa-like creatures) have radio arrays, the first contact protocols are invoked:<\/p>\n

Dr. Brenner was back on the circuit, still worrying about the Prime Directive.
\n\u201cRemember\u2014it may only be inquisitive!\u201d he cried without much conviction. \u201cTry not to frighten it!\u201d
\nFalcon was getting rather tired of this advice and recalled a TV discussion he had once seen between a space lawyer and an astronaut. After the full implications of the Prime Directive had been carefully spelled out, the incredulous spacer had exclaimed: \u201cSo if there were no alternative, I must sit still and let myself be eaten?\u201d The lawyer had not even cracked a smile when he answered: \u201cThat\u2019s an excellent summing up.\u201d
\nIt had seemed funny at the time; it was not at all amusing now.
\nAnd then Falcon saw something that made him even more unhappy. The medusa was still hovering a kilometer above him\u2014but one of its tentacles was becoming incredibly elongated and was stretching down toward Kon-Tiki, thinning out at the same time. As a boy, he had once seen the funnel of a tornado descending from a storm cloud over the Kansas plains; the thing coming toward him now evoked vivid memories of that black, twisting snake in the sky.\u00a0 p. 171<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The medusa\u2019s attentions eventually cause Falcon to prematurely end his trip. He jettisons the balloons and ignites the rockets that will boost him out of Jupiter\u2019s atmosphere\u2014which delivers a line that will satisfy the inner twelve year old in all SF readers:<\/p>\n

Now he was master once more\u2014no longer drifting helplessly on the winds of Jupiter but riding his own column of atomic fire back to the stars.\u00a0 p. 173<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the final scene Falcon is revealed as a cyborg (something that is hinted at in several places in the story), which produces the story\u2019s unexpectedly elegiac ending:<\/p>\n

Howard Falcon, who had once been a man and could still pass for one over a voice circuit, felt a calm sense of achievement\u2014and, for the first time in years, something like peace of mind. Since his return from Jupiter, the nightmares had ceased. He had found his role at last.
\nHe knew now why he had dreamed about that superchimp aboard the doomed Queen Elizabeth. Neither man nor beast, it was between two worlds; and so was he.
\nHe alone could travel unprotected on the lunar surface; the life-support system inside the metal cylinder that had replaced his fragile body functioned equally well in space or under water. Gravity fields ten times that of Earth were an inconvenience, but nothing more. And no gravity was best of all.
\nThe human race was becoming more remote from him, the ties of kinship more tenuous. Perhaps these air-breathing, radiation-sensitive bundles of unstable carbon compounds had no right beyond the atmosphere; they should stick to their natural homes\u2014Earth, Moon, Mars.
\nSomeday, the real masters of space would be machines, not men\u2014and he was neither. Already conscious of his destiny, he took a somber pride in his unique loneliness\u2014the first immortal, midway between two orders of creation.
\nHe would, after all, be an ambassador; between the old and the new\u2014between the creatures of carbon and the creatures of metal who must one day supersede them. Both would have need of him in the troubled centuries that lay ahead.\u00a0 p. 174-175<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is an excellent piece of hard science fiction, and a truly magisterial performance from Clarke.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

No Direction Home <\/em><\/strong>by Norman Spinrad (New Worlds Quarterly #2<\/em>, 1971) is set in a future where drug use has become legal and widespread, and each of the story\u2019s scenes show different characters and related situations. The first opens with two garage chemists discussing their new drug, and how the multinationals will eventually copy it; the next has a general and a scientist discussing the side effects of a drug given to Moonbase military staff to combat claustrophobia\u2014violence and \u201cfaggotry\u201d\u2014and how a second drug will help supress the sexual desire caused by the first. The third section has two cardinals arguing about using a psychedelic host during communion, something that can give the recipient a direct experience of God (and thus threaten the Church\u2019s role as an intermediary). And so on.
\nThe final scene (spoiler) has a man suffering not from drugs, but from the ultimate bad trip, reality:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t understand, Kip,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is reality, the way it really is, and man it\u2019s horrible, just a great big ugly machine made up of lots of other machines, you\u2019re a machine, I\u2019m a machine, it\u2019s all mechanical clockwork. We\u2019re just lumps of dead matter run by machinery, kept alive by chemical and electric processes.\u201d
\nGolden sunlight soaked through Kip\u2019s skin and turned the core of his being into a miniature stellar phoenix. The wind, through random blades of grass, made love to the bare soles of his feet. What was all this machinery crap? What the hell was Jonesy gibbering about? Man, who would want to put himself in a bummer reality like that?
\n\u201cYou\u2019re just on a bummer, Jonesy,\u201d he said. \u201cTake it easy. You\u2019re not seeing the universe the way it really is, as if that meant anything. Reality is all in your head. You\u2019re just freaking out behind nothing.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s it, that\u2019s exactly it, I\u2019m freaking out behind nothing. Like zero. Like cipher. Like the void. Nothing is where we\u2019re really at.\u201d
\nHow could he explain it? That reality was really just a lot of empty vacuum that went on to infinity in space and time. The perfect nothingness had minor contaminations of dead matter here and there. A little of this matter had fallen together through a complex series of random accidents to contaminate the universal deadness with trace elements of life, protoplasmic slime, biochemical clockwork. Some of this clockwork was complicated enough to generate thought, consciousness. And that was all there ever was or would ever be anywhere in space and time. Clockwork mechanisms rapidly running down in the cold black void. Everything that wasn\u2019t dead matter already would end up that way sooner or later.\u00a0 p. 242-243<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite the bleak passage above, this is a witty and interesting piece that crams a lot into its short length.
\nI also note that, even though I last read this decades ago, I could remember the opening narrative hook:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I once did succeed in stuffing it all back in Pandora\u2019s box,\u201d Richardson said, taking another hit. \u201cYou remember Pandora Deutchman, don\u2019t you, Will? Everybody in the biochemistry department stuffed it all in Pandora\u2019s box at one time or another. I seem to vaguely remember one party when you did it yourself.\u201d\u00a0 p. 227<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

The Introduction<\/em><\/strong> by Harry Harrison, written as it was in the months after John W. Campbell\u2019s death at the end of 1971, begins with a eulogy:<\/p>\n

It is not an exaggeration to say that his death\u2014as did his life\u2014had worldwide impact. An obituary issue of the fanzine Locus<\/em> containing tributes from the many writers who knew him was published in New York. John W. Campbell: An Australian Tribute<\/em> was published in Australia, where two Melbourne groups also organized a John W. Campbell Symposium that was held in the Classics Theatre at Melbourne University. In England the Science Fiction Foundation has arranged the publication of a collection of the best stories of John Campbell, who was a respected author as well as editor.
\nIn the United States a memorial volume consisting of new stories and articles by the writers who worked with him through the years is being prepared. Science fiction will continue, but an era is over.\u00a0 p. 10<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rest of the piece covers various subjects, including the increasing number of original anthologies coming on the market, college SF courses, mention of the genre in mainstream publications and its increasing worldwide reach, the titling of the volume, and excuses\/reasons for the non-1971 items. Harrison finishes by noting the story choices are all his and that Aldiss\u2019s role is was as a British and European scout.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

There are three poems included in this volume: Report<\/em><\/strong> by Kingsley Amis has a not bad ending, Fisherman<\/em><\/strong> by Lawrence Sail has a good image at the end but not much more, and The Ideal Police State<\/em><\/strong> by Charles Baxter is (I guess) a political poem about the police or police brutality. Plus \u00e7a change<\/em> . . .<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Afterword: A Day in the Life-Style of. . .<\/em><\/strong> by Brian W. Aldiss closes the volume with an essay that, like the Harrison, covers a number of subjects. He starts with a bit of futurology (the rise of credit cards and the death of cash) before moving on to the increasing amount of SF available:<\/p>\n

Time was, in a simpler world, when a reader could easily read all the SF being published. Such a reader would probably consider that the only SF worthy of the name appeared in pulp magazines, and those were what he would read and collect. The typical fan, now middle-aged, was such a reader and probably maintains some such collection of pulp magazines still\u2014a hoard increasing in financial worth even as the paper decreases in physical viability. Complete collections of all the American SF magazines (ninety-one titles in all) fetch about $8,500 or $9,000 and go to big libraries.
\nNowadays a contemporary private SF library is much more likely to contain paperbacks, plus maybe one of the few surviving SF magazines\u2014Analog<\/em>, say, or F&SF<\/em>. Paperbacks now publish much of the field\u2019s original material. It is also true to add that, demand being what it is, they publish nearly as much junk as did the old magazines, for the presses must be kept rolling.\u00a0 p. 243<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No doubt Aldiss would make the same comment about the free online stories that are everywhere today. He goes on to make a comment about the newer (circa 1971) writers in the field that is equally as pertinent now:<\/p>\n

Many of the stories in the Clarion anthology are not concerned directly with science. It seems to me that they are often directly concerned with life-style, which, like drugs, Jesus, and pollution, has become one of the great or at least trendy topics of our day. \u00a0p. 244<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He then goes on to examine older (1927-30) lifestyle work by writers in Russia\u2019s Lost Literature of the Absurd<\/em>, edited by George Giban, before wandering back to the SF field and commenting on a number of current works, such as James Blish\u2019s The Day after Judgement\u2014<\/em>which he discusses at length. He dismisses several other books, including Keith Roberts\u2019 The Inner Wheel<\/em>, \u201cwhose otiose mixture of telepathy and English teashops offers as much intellectual fare as an old macaroon.\u201d
\nAldiss ends with a bit more futurology. His essay very much mirrors the anthology: rambling, esoteric, and partisan.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

In conclusion, this collection is not only wildly uneven but appears to be directed at no specific audience. I can\u2019t see those who like Clarke\u2019s story also liking the Batheleme, Auerbach, Landolfi, Wilson, etc. stories, and vice versa (that is if there are<\/em> any people who like the latter\u2014apart from the fact that these aren\u2019t to my taste, I have doubts about their quality). If you\u2019ve already read the Carr volume, I don\u2019t think this one is worth your time; if you haven\u2019t, then it may be.8<\/sup>\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. P. Schuyler Miller (Analog<\/em>, May 1973) reviews all five (!) of the Best of the Year collections in one combined review. Here are some extracts that are relevant to this volume:<\/p>\n

Only one story was selected by three of the six editors: Theodore Sturgeon\u2019s \u201cOccam\u2019s Scalpel.\u201d It\u2019s a good enough story, but need not even be science fiction except for the old-fashioned \u201csnapper\u201d ending (are there really aliens among us?). I\u2019m afraid this is a \u201cThank God Sturgeon\u2019s back!\u201d choice.
\nSeven other stories are in two of the five books, and three of these seven authors are tapped for other stories, as are four others represented by two or more different stories. The seven (again alphabetically) begin with Poul Anderson\u2019s \u201cA Little Knowledge,\u201d one of four from Analog (I prefer his \u201cQueen of Air and Darkness,\u201d which won both a Hugo and a Nebula and is in Terry Carr\u2019s book). B. Alan Burhoe\u2019s \u201cOmithanthropus\u201d is a fine story of winged men living symbiotically with balloon-like creatures. No quarrel\u2014nor have I one with Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s Playboy dazzler, \u201cA Meeting with Medusa,\u201d which placed second in the Hugo voting. His \u201cTransit of Earth\u201d is in a third book.
\nPhilip Jose Farmer has well earned his place with \u201cThe Sliced-Crosswise -Only-on-Tuesday World,\u201d which extends the parallel worlds concept to parallel lives as a solution to the population problem. I don\u2019t see why it is in only two books. [. . .] Larry Niven\u2019s \u201cThe Fourth Profession\u201d\u2014which profession did the alien\u2019s knowledge pills teach our hero?\u2014placed twice, but I much prefer his \u201cInconstant Moon,\u201d a lovely \u201chard SF\u201d story about the end of the world, which Pohl also liked. Niven has a fourth story, \u201cRammer,\u201d in del Rey\u2019s book.
\nFinally, Norman Spinrad\u2019s \u201cNo Direction Home\u201d is a chilling story of two chemists designing drugs that will custom-tailor life styles. Relevant SF? Certainly. New wave? I suppose so. More of the editors should have picked it.
\nI\u2019ve listed two of my own druthers in passing: stories that are in one of the five books, and should be in more. Here are some more:
\n[. . .]
\nUrsula Le Guin\u2019s \u201cVaster Than Empires and More Slow,\u201d about a world-girdling vegetable being. It was runner-up in the Hugo voting.
\n[. . .]
\nWhich do I recommend? All of them\u2014but I find that I starred more outstanding stories in Terry Carr\u2019s collection, with Harrison\/Aldiss next, then Wollheim, then Lester del Rey, and Pohl last. Since Donald Wollheim left Ace Books to form his own paperback company, his and Terry Carr\u2019s anthologies are a spinoff for the book they used to do together, and Pohl was their replacement. Harrison and Aldiss have been picking winners for five years, and this is del Rey\u2019s first \u201cbest\u201d collection.
\nIt bothers me that there are a dozen or so other excellent stories\u2014 stories I marked for comment\u2014that I haven\u2019t even mentioned. Make that \u201cdozens\u201d: these editors choose well.\u00a0 p. 169-171<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2. There is nothing from Analog<\/em>, Amazing<\/em>, Fantastic<\/em>, F&SF,<\/em> Worlds of Fantasy<\/em> or Worlds of Tomorrow<\/em> magazines in this collection.
\nIn the poll (small sample size) that we did after our group read, these were the results for the people\u2019s favourite stories (click on image for larger size):
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

3. My review of Terry Carr\u2019s Best Science Fiction of the Year #1<\/em> can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4. The rest of the 334 series (collected as the novel\/collection, 334<\/em>, in 1972) at ISFDB<\/a>. I recall the novella 334<\/em> was better than Angouleme<\/em>, and Bodies<\/em>, a very good piece of black comedy, better than both.
\nThe completely unrelated cover on the edition I bought:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

5. The Wikipedia page for Diego Garcia is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

6. Rabbinic Fences are discussed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

7. The illustrations for Clarke’s story in Playboy<\/em> magazine:<\/p>\n

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

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

The official Playboy archive is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

8. If you want a better idea of how this book measures up against what I might pick for a 1971 \u2018Year\u2019s Best\u2019, or learn what other anthologists chose for their books, look at the table below (this is the same one which will appear at the end of the review of the Wollheim, Pohl, del Rey, and Harrison & Aldiss volumes). It will be updated as and when I find stories I like, or citation sources I feel should be included (for more on the latter see below).<\/p>\n

The first to fourth column give the story titles, authors, L<\/strong>engths, and P<\/strong>lace of publication (see below the table for abbreviation legend).
\nThe \u2018T\u2019 column lists T<\/strong>erry Carr\u2019s choices with an \u2018x\u2019, and his recommendation list with an \u2018o\u2019.
\nThe \u2018D\u2019 column lists Lester D<\/strong>el Rey\u2019s choices with an \u2018x\u2019.
\nThe \u2018W\u2019 column lists Donald W<\/strong>ollheim\u2019s choices with an \u2018x\u2019.
\nThe \u2018P\u2019 column lists F<\/strong>rederik Pohl\u2019s choices with an \u2018x\u2019.
\nThe \u2018A\u2019 column lists HA<\/strong>rry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss\u2019s choices with an \u2018x\u2019.
\nThe \u2018S\u2019 column shows my (S<\/strong>F Magazine\u2019s) current choices an \u2018x\u2019 (historical choices are an \u2018o\u2019). A dash means read but passed over (I only select stories better than \u2217\u2217\u2217+ and above, and not all of them). Blank means unread.
\nThe \u2018C\u2019 column shows how many of the anthologies and\/or polls used in the Classics of Science Fiction list<\/a> included the story in their collections or lists (note that C<\/strong>oSF is SF only and skews against fantasy), minus the anthology or award citations which have their own column (Carr, Dozois, Wollheim, Hugo, Nebula, etc.).
\nThe \u2018O\u2019 column shows the number of inclusions in O<\/strong>ther major anthologies or recommendation lists not on the CoSF (Classics of SF) list. These are selected by me (usually to include fantasy retrospectives or awards that CoSF doesn\u2019t include) but I may not yet have done this for some\/all of the stories.*
\nThe \u2018H\u2019 column shows the story\u2019s 1977 H<\/strong>ugo award placing (F for finalist, W for winner).
\nThe \u2018N\u2019 column shows the story\u2019s 1977 N<\/strong>ebula award placing (F for finalist, W for winner).
\nThe \u2018U\u2019 column shows stories that were one of the 1977 LocU<\/strong>s Poll\u2019s top ten short stories, novelettes, or novellas.
\nThe \u2018T\u2019 column shows the TOT<\/strong>al points that each story gets (they get a point for being in each column and for each of the CoSF and other anthology citations).<\/p>\n

The titles, names, lengths, publications, and overall score columns are sortable.<\/p>\n

A good way to sample 1971\u2019s best short fiction may<\/em> 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 compilation is statistically invalid, but it will give you something to aim at. Enjoy.<\/p>\n

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories 1971<\/h3>\n
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n\n Title<\/th> Author<\/th> L<\/th> P<\/th> T<\/th> D<\/th> W<\/th> F<\/th> A<\/th> S<\/th> C<\/th> O<\/th> H<\/th> N<\/th> U<\/th> TOT<\/th> <\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
Occam's Scalpel<\/td>\n Theodore Sturgeon<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n WOI<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n -<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 4<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Queen of Air and Darkness<\/td>\n Poul Anderson<\/td>\n na<\/td>\n FSF<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 5<\/td>\n <\/td>\n W<\/td>\n W<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 10<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
In Entropy's Jaws<\/td>\n Robert Silverberg<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n IN4<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n -<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Sliced-Crosswise . . .<\/td>\n Philip Jos\u00e9 Farmer<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n ND1<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 4<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
A Meeting with Medusa<\/td>\n Arthur C. Clarke<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n PLA<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 4<\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n W<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 10<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Frayed String on the . . .<\/td>\n Lloyd Biggle, Jr.<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n FSF<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n -<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
How Can We Sink When We Can Fly?<\/td>\n Alexei Panshin<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n FOU<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n ?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
No Direction Home<\/td>\n Norman Spinrad<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n NW2<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 4<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Vaster Than Empires and More Slow<\/td>\n Ursula K. Le Guin<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n ND1<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 7<\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 11<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
All the Last Wars at Once<\/td>\n George Alec Effinger<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n UN1<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n -<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 4<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Fourth Profession<\/td>\n Larry Niven<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n QU4<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 3<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Good News from the Vatican<\/td>\n Robert Silverberg<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n UN1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n W<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 4<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
I'll Be Waiting for You . . .<\/td>\n James Tiptree, Jr.<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n PRO<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Power of the Sentence<\/td>\n David M. Locke<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n FSF<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Wicked Flee<\/td>\n Harry Harrison<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n ND1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
When You Hear the Tone<\/td>\n Thomas N. Scortia<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n GAL<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Hot Potato<\/td>\n Burt K. Filer<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n TMW<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Human Operators<\/td>\n Harlan Ellison & A. E. van Vogt<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n FSF<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 4<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Autumntime<\/td>\n A. Lentini<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n GAL<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
A Little Knowledge<\/td>\n Poul Anderson<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n ANA<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 3<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
To Make a New Neanderthal<\/td>\n W. Macfarlane<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n ANA<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Man Underneath<\/td>\n R. A. Lafferty<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n WOI<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Ornithanthropus<\/td>\n B. Alan Burhoe<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n WOI<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 3<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Rammer<\/td>\n Larry Niven<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n GAL<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Gleepsite<\/td>\n Joanna Russ<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n OR9<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Bear with the Knot on His Tail<\/td>\n Stephen Tall<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n FSF<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 3<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Sharks of Pentreath<\/td>\n Michael G. Coney<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n GAL<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Real-Time World<\/td>\n Christopher Priest<\/td>\n mv<\/td>\n N19<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
All Pieces of a River Shore<\/td>\n R. A. Lafferty<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n OR8<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
With Friends Like These...<\/td>\n Alan Dean Foster<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n ANA<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Aunt Jennie's Tonic<\/td>\n Leonard Tushnet<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n FSF<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Timestorm<\/td>\n Eddy C. Bertin<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n DAG<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Transit of Earth<\/td>\n Arthur C. Clarke<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n PLA<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 3<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Gehenna<\/td>\n Barry N. Malzberg<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n GAL<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n -<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 3<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty<\/td>\n Harlan Ellison<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n OR8<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Inconstant Moon<\/td>\n Larry Niven<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n ATM<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 7<\/td>\n <\/td>\n W<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 10<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Mother in the Sky with Diamonds<\/td>\n James Tiptree, Jr.<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n GAL<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
At the Mouse Circus<\/td>\n Harlan Ellison<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n ND1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Silent in Gehenna<\/td>\n Harlan Ellison<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n TMW<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Too Many People<\/td>\n H. H. Hollis<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n GAL<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Easy Way Out<\/td>\n John Brunner<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n WOI<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Doctor Zombie and . . .<\/td>\n Robert Sheckley<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n CYF<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Conquest<\/td>\n Barry N. Malzberg<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n ND1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n -<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Genius<\/td>\n Donald Barthelme<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n TNY<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n -<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Angouleme<\/td>\n Thomas M. Disch<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n NW1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n -<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
If \"Hair\" Were Revived in 2016<\/td>\n Arnold M. Auerbach<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n NYT<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n -<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Science Fiction Horror Movie . . .<\/td>\n Gahan Wilson<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n TNL<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n -<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Cohen Dog Exclusion Act<\/td>\n Steven Schrader<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n ECO<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
(Untitled) (From Cancerqueen)<\/td>\n Tommaso Landolfi<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n CAN<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n -<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
An Uneven Evening<\/td>\n Steve Herbst<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n CLA<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n -<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
A Special Kind of Morning<\/td>\n Gardner R. Dozois<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n ND1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n F<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 4<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Autumn Land<\/td>\n Clifford D. Simak<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n FSF<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Infinity Box<\/td>\n Kate Wilhelm<\/td>\n na<\/td>\n OR9<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Missing Man<\/td>\n Katherine MacLean<\/td>\n na<\/td>\n ANA<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n W<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Power of Time<\/td>\n Josephine Saxton<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n ND1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Being There<\/td>\n Jerry Kosinski<\/td>\n na<\/td>\n BET<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The God House<\/td>\n Keith Roberts<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n NW1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Plastic Abyss<\/td>\n Kate Wilhelm<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n ABY<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Mount Charity<\/td>\n Edgar Pangborn<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n UN1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Poor Man, Beggar Man<\/td>\n Joanna Russ<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n UN1<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Encounter<\/td>\n Kate Wilhelm<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n OR8<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Last Ghost<\/td>\n Stephen Goldin<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n PRO<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Horse of Air<\/td>\n Gardner Dozois<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n OR8<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Heathen God<\/td>\n George Zebrowski<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n FSF<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Dread Empire<\/td>\n John Brunner<\/td>\n na<\/td>\n FAN<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n F<\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Wheels<\/td>\n Robert Thurston<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n CLA<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
World Abounding<\/td>\n R. A. Lafferty<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n FSF<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
All the Way Up . . .<\/td>\n Robert Silverberg<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n GAL<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Gantlet (1972)<\/td>\n Robert E. Peck<\/td>\n ss<\/td>\n O10<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 0<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
The Pagan Rabbi (1966)<\/td>\n Cynthia Oczick<\/td>\n nv<\/td>\n TPR<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n x<\/td>\n x<\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n 0<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody> \n\n \n <\/table>\n\n Generated by wpDataTables<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>