This is the 1976 Science Fiction Book Club Readers Union edition. It contains fifteen stories and a brief foreword by Lester del Rey.
Please note that this edition does not contain “The Science Fiction Yearbook”, a brief chapter by Lester Del Rey at the end of the original edition discussing the state of science fiction in that year.
I don't think this is a "stand-out" collection. There are (for me) no outstanding stories and some are relatively mediocre, but then I prefer the freshness of the better stories of the 50s and 60s. However, I still found it worth reading.
I do not know enough about science fiction to give detailed comments. I'm also concerned that in the detail I might give away too much of the storylines. My main motivation for reviewing is to give an easily accessible list of contents to those browsing through anthologies on Amazon.
Here is a list of the contents together with a brief scene setting comment or quote (definitely not plot spoiling):
(1) "Something Up There Likes Me" by Alfred Bester
First lines: " There were these three lunatics, and two of them were human. I could talk to all of them because I speak languages, decimal and binary."
(2) "A Thing of Beauty" by Norman Spinrad
First lines: "There's a gentleman by the name of Mr Shiburo Ito to see you," my intercom said. "He is interested in the purchase of an historic artefact of some significance."
(3) "With Morning Comes Mistfall" by George R.R. Martin
Mistfall in the morning, mistrise with the sunset. Both are stunningly beautiful viewed from Sanders' hotel on its mountain peak on Wraithworld. Despite this beauty, it is the wraiths that interest the tourists
(4) "Construction Shack" by Clifford D. Simak
This is the first manned expedition to Pluto, following up orbiting probe pictures that showed a surprisingly smooth surface.
I always enjoy any Simak story.
(5) " Thou Good and Faithful" by Thomas N. Scortia
First lines: "On the second night of planetfall on Berrigan's World, Lieutenant Royce met Meer on the Street of Reeds. In the half light of the ochre moon, her face was delicate and only slightly alien."
(6) " Androids Don't Cry" by Edward Wellen
First lines: "The man was just drifting into the rainbow at the end of his pot when the shadow of an android passed over him. The man raised up on an elbow, muttered, `A stinking andy,' and sank back into his reefer dream."
(7) "The Population Implosion" by Theodore R. Cogswell
Two pages playing on the idea that population must be shrinking because of the number of ancestors that we have,
(8) "Think Only This of Me" by Michael J. Kurland
Christopher Charles Mar d'Earth is a legislator in the Senior Chamber of the Parliament of Stars. He has returned to Sol to take his first holiday in twenty years, walking among the men and women of Earth. He falls in love.
(9) "Ghosts" by Robert F.Young
First lines: "When Professor Tom died he left Jenny and Jim the house he had lived in, the old movies he had loved to watch and the workshop where he had tinkered away the final years of his life."
Touching story.
(10) "Afterword" by Frederik Pohl
Frederik muses on the function of cities and why he loves them. Five pages.
(11)"The Problem of Pain" by Poul Anderson
Peter Berg recounts how his Christian faith was challenged while working on an expedition with his Ythrian employers.
(12) "Parthen" by R.A.Lafferty
First lines: "Never had the springtime been so wonderful. Never had business been so good. Never was the World Outlook so bright. And never had the girls been so pretty,
Typically quirky Lafferty tale of alien invasion.
(13) "The National Pastime" by Norman Spinrad
Sports programmer will be sacked unless he can come up with a new sport that will boost viewing figures.
(14) "Paradise Regained" by Cogswell Thomas (pseudonym of Theodore Lockard Thomas)
First lines: "When Petro Anthos stepped out of the matter transmitter on the planet Hel, the guards promptly surrounded him and searched him for weapons."
(15) "Whatever Happened to the Olmecs?" by Kate Wilhelm
A top astronomer has gone into hiding. His colleague (and brother in law) knows where he is and asks his daughter to meet him.
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- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 February 2015
