THE SWORD & SORCERY ANTHOLOGY edited by David G. Hartwell and Jacob Weisman

TITLE: THE SWORD & SORCERY ANTHOLOGY
EDITED BY: David G. Hartwell and Jacob Weisman
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Anthology
PUBLISHER: Tachyon Publications, San Francisco, 2012
FORMAT: Trade Paperback, 1st Edition, 480 pages
ISBN 13: 978-1-61696-069-8
ISBN 10: 1-61696-069-8

CONTENTS:

  • Introduction: Storytellers: A Guided Ramble into Sword and Sorcery Fiction by David Drake
  • \”The Tower of the Elephant\” by Robert E. Howard (Weird Tales, March 1933)
  • \”Black God\’s Kiss\” by C. L. Moore (Weird Tales, October 1934)
  • \”The Unholy Grail\” by Fritz Leiber (Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, October 1962)
  • \”The Tale of Hauk\” by Poul Anderson (first appeared in Swords Against Darkness, Vol. 1, edited by Andrew J. Offutt, Zebra Books, New York, 1977)
  • \”The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams\” by Michael Moorcock (first appeared as \”The Flame Bringers\”, Science Fantasy #55, October 1962)
  • \”The Adventuress\” by Joanna Russ (first appeared in Orbit 2, edited by Damon Knight, Putnam, New York, 1967)
  • \”Gimmile\’s Songs\” by Charles R. Saunders (first appeared in Sword and Sorceress #1, edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley, DAW Books, New York, 1984)
  • \”Undertow\” by Karl Edward Wagner (Whispers #10, August 1977)
  • \”The Stages of the God\” by Ramsey Campbell [writing as Mongomery Comfort] (Whispers #5, November 1974)
  • \”The Barrow Troll\” by David Drake (Whispers #8, December 1975)
  • \”Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat\” by Glen Cook (Berkley Showcase, Volume 2, edited by Victoria Schochet and John Silbersack, Berkley Books, New York, 1980)
  • \”Epistle from Lebanoi\” by Michael Shea (Original to this anthology, 2012)
  • \”Become a Warrior\” by Jane Yolen (Warrior Princess, edited by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough and Martin H. Greenberg, DAW Books, New York, 1998)
  • \”The Red Guild\” by Rachel Pollack (Sword and Sorceress #2, edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley, DAW Books, New York, 1985)
  • \”Six from Atlantis\” by Gene Wolfe (Cross Plains Universe: Texans Celebrate Robert E. Howard, edited by Scott A. Cupp and Joe R. Lansdale, MonkeyBrain Books & Fandom Association of Central Texas, 2006)
  • \”The Sea Troll\’s Daughter\” by Caitlín R. Kiernan (Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders, EOS, New York, 2010)
  • \”The Coral Heart\” by Jeffrey Ford (Eclipse Three, edited by Jonathan Strahan, Night Shade Books, San Francisco, 2009)
  • \”Path of the Dragon\” by George R. R. Martin (Asimov\’s SF, December 2000)
  • \”The Year of the Three Monarchs\” by Michael Swanwick (Original to this anthology, 2012)

[R]ight, we have something a bit different this time around. Firstly, this anthology is a lot more recent than most of the others that I\’ve posted about on the blog so far. It\’s relatively new, in fact, published in 2012, and edited by David G. Hartwell, with whom I\’m very familiar for his work on SF anthologies (one of my favourite modern SF editors, but I\’m not familiar at all with his co-editor, Jacob Weisman). But I will be including new anthologies that I\’m impressed with from time to time, so this may be the first, but it won\’t be an exception, although the main focus of the blog will always be on the older, \”forgotten\” anthologies.

Secondly, and this is a first for this blog, this isn\’t a science fiction anthology, it\’s a fantasy anthology. Or, to be more precise, a sword and sorcery anthology. The \”About\” section of this blog does state that I would be including very occasional reviews of fantasy books, although they will be very far and few between. I\’m not overly fond of reading fantasy at the best of times (I\’m more of an Analog nuts \’n\’ bolts hard SF kinda guy), and I simply can\’t abide the modern dominant Tolkein-imitation strain of mainstream fantasy. Hey, I can\’t even read Tolkein himself, as his writing totally bores me to tears, so how could I abide second and third-rate imitators?

However, I do like some of the older, more traditional forms of fantasy (for instance, the Narnia books, which IMHO are far superior to Tolkein) and some Young Adult SF&F. Like I said, there will be only very rare reviews of fantasy books, as it only comprises a tiny percent of what I read. More than 95% of my fiction reading is SF, most of the rest is classic/older horror (not the modern stuff), and only about 1% (maybe less) is fantasy.

But this is a sword and sorcery anthology, and s&s is a very rare exception, the only sub-genre of fantasy that I actually enjoy reading on a more widespread basis. It\’s definitely the darker, horror elements that really attract me to s&s, as well as the fact that most s&s stories are not afflicted by that excruciatingly boring pseudo-medieval, rustic scenario that the vast majority of modern mainstream fantasy is set in. I could never be a farmer! 🙂

I have to admit that my s&s reading has been mostly confined to the classic 1930\’s and 1940\’s work of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, C. L. Moore, maybe a little of Fritz Leiber and a few others. I haven\’t read anything in this genre post-1950. So tackling this anthology is going to be quite interesting. Only two of the stories are pre-1950 (both early 1930\’s), and the rest are from the 1960\’s onwards, and covering every decade from then up until the two original 2012 stories written for the anthology. I don\’t know how different modern s&s is to the classic form, but I reckon I\’ll find out soon enough.

I must admit that my tastes in SF&F reading material have changed and narrowed drastically in the last 10-15 years. I know I\’ll still enjoy the earlier Robert E. Howard and C. L. Moore stories, and most likely the Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock and Poul Anderson. But as for the more modern stories by the authors that I\’m not familiar with, that remains to be seen. Let\’s see if I can make it the whole way through this one without giving up. 🙂

POSSIBLE WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by Groff Conklin

[T]his is an interesting anthology, edited by one of the great classic SF anthologists, and another of my favourites, Groff Conklin.

TITLE: POSSIBLE WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION
EDITED BY: Groff Conklin
CATEGORY: Anthology
SUB-CATEGORY: Short Fiction
FORMAT: Hardback, 256 pages
PUBLISHER: Grayson & Grayson, Ltd, London, 1952.

CONTENTS:

Introduction by Groff Conklin

PART ONE: THE SOLAR SYSTEM

  • \”Operation Pumice\” by Raymond Z. Gallun (Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1949)
  • \”Enchanted Village\” by A. E. Van Vogt (Other Worlds Science Stories, July 1950)
  • \”Lilies of Life\” by Malcolm Jameson (Astounding Science Fiction, January 1945)
  • \”Asleep in Armageddon\” by Ray Bradbury (Planet Stories, Winter 1948)
  • \”Not Final!\” by Isaac Asimov (Astounding Science Fiction, October 1941)
  • \”Moon of Delirium\” by D. L. James (Astounding Science Fiction, January 1940)
  • \”The Pillows\” by Margaret St. Clair (Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1950)

PART TWO: THE GALAXY

  • \”Propagandist\” by Murray Leinster (Astounding Science Fiction, October 1947)
  • \”Hard-Luck Diggings\” by Jack Vance (Startling Stories, July 1948)
  • \”Space Rating\” by John Berryman (Astounding Science Fiction, October 1939)
  • \”Limiting Factor\” by Clifford D. Simak (Startling Stories, November 1949)
  • \”Exit Line\” by Samuel Merwin, Jr. (Startling Stories, September 1948)
  • \”The Helping Hand\” by Poul Anderson (Astounding Science Fiction, May 1950)

The theme of this anthology is \”Possible Worlds\”, mankind\’s possible future exploration of space, and the worlds and lifeforms he might encounter \”out there\”. The book is divided into two sections. The first, containing seven stories, deals with possible worlds within the solar system. The second section, comprised of six stories, takes us out to encounter worlds and life out in the galaxy.

There are quite a few familiar names here from the many anthologies I\’ve collected over the years. Anderson, Asimov, Vance, Simak, Van Vogt, Leinster, Bradbury and Gallun. The others – Merwin, St. Clair, Jameson, Berryman and James – aren\’t familiar to me at all. I either don\’t know them at all, or have met them so infrequently that they don\’t register in my fading memory. As for the stories, however, only the Van Vogt, Asimov, Bradbury and Leinster ring a bell. I don\’t recall the others at all. Maybe I\’ve read some or all of them at some point in the distant past, but I just don\’t remember them. So it should be fun making my way through this anthology, given that I really love vintage SF from this era.

We\’ve got thirteen stories in all, the oldest from 1939, the newest from 1950. They are culled from a range of SF magazines from that period – unsurprisingly there\’s a large contingent (six stories) from Astounding, and the rest are spread around Startling Stories (three stories), Thrilling Wonder Stories (two stories), and one story each from Planet Stories and Other Worlds Science Stories.

I\’ve had this anthology in my collection for many years, but I don\’t think I\’ve ever actually read it. As I have a rather huge collection of many thousands of SF books, it\’s not exactly on its lonesome there – so many books to read, not enough years left in my life to read \’em all. But at least this one has moved to the top of the list and will not remain unread before I shuffle off this mortal coil. 🙂

Some New Books, First Quarter 2014

Here are some SF books, some new, some old, that I\’ve picked up over the past two or three months from various places such as Ebay UK, Amazon UK and my regular supplier of comics and books in the US:

Novels:

  • THE SPACE MACHINE & A DREAM OF WESSEX Omnibus by Christopher Priest (paperback)
  • STARFARERS by Poul Anderson (hardback)
  • HAWKMOON: THE HISTORY OF THE RUNESTAFF Omnibus by Michael Moorcock (trade paperback)
  • THE LIGHT AGES by Ian R. MacLeod (paperback)
  • THE SPACE TRILOGY Omnibus by Arthur C. Clarke (trade paperback)

Collections:

  • THE BEST OF JACK WILLIAMSON (paperback)
  • THE EARLY WILLIAMSON (hardback)
  • BREATHMOSS AND OTHER EXHALATIONS by Ian R. MacLeod (trade paperback)

Anthologies:

  • THE GREAT SF STORIES 19 edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg (paperback)
  • THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF TIME TRAVEL SF edited by Mike Ashley (trade paperback)
  • RAYGUN CHRONICLES – SPACE OPERA FOR A NEW AGE edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt (trade paperback)
  • GREAT TALES OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg (hardback)
  • THE YEAR\’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY 2013 edited by Rich Horton (trade paperback)
  • AFTER THE END: RECENT APOCALYPSES edited by Paula Guran (trade paperback)
  • WORLDS OF EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS edited by Mike Resnick and Robert T. Garcia (trade paperback)
  • MODERN GREATS OF SCIENCE FICTION – NINE NOVELLAS OF DISTINCTION edited by Jonathan Strahan (trade paperback)
  • RAGS & BONES: NEW TWISTS ON TIMELESS TALES edited by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt (hardback)

Non-Fiction:

  • H.G. WELLS: CRITIC OF PROGRESS by Jack Williamson (hardback)
  • AFTER THE NEW WAVE: SCIENCE FICTION SINCE 1980 by Nader Elhefnawy (trade paperback)

That\’s quite a nice selection, leaning very heavily towards short fiction, particularly anthologies, plus three collections of individual author short stories. There are only two novels, plus three omnibus editions containing two (the Priest), three (the Clarke) and four (the Moorcock) novels, respectively. Only two of the books are non-fiction, which is pretty unusual, given my buying habits in recent years, which has swung sharply towards including much more non-fiction.

But no surprise with the large number of anthologies and individual author collections. Most of my book buying lists will always lean heavily in that direction, as I always tend to read a lot more short fiction than novels.

Reading Science Fiction

Reading Science Fiction literature has always been one of my main interests in life, and I\’ve been reading \”proper\” science fiction since I first signed out H.G. Wells\’ The Time Machine from the local library at the tender age of about eight or nine years old (circa 1969-1970).

I usually prefer older (classic) SF, pre-\”New Wave\”, with a particular fondness for the vintage SF of the \”Golden Age\” and the SF \”Pulps\”. Any list of my favourites classic SF authors would contain some very familiar and famous names:

H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Jack Williamson, Robert A. Heinlein, John W. Campbell Jr, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, Leigh Brackett, C. L. Moore, Frederik Pohl, Cyril M. Kornbluth, Philip K. Dick, Poul Anderson, Brian W. Aldiss, Harry Harrison, H. Beam Piper, Cordwainer Smith, Alfred Bester, Algis Budrys… and many, many others (I\’d be here all night listing them).

Although I\’m mainly a reader of older SF, there are a few types of modern SF that I do like to read, in particular New Space Opera, Hard SF, and good old Classic Space Opera, which never seems to go out of fashion, no matter how hard the literary wannabes among the SF writing and reading fraternity have tried to kill it off over the years. Some of the modern SF authors that I\’m a huge fan of would include:

Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, Peter F. Hamilton, Greg Bear, Greg Egan, Linda Nagata, Iain M. Banks, Ken MacLeod, Wil McCarthy, Peter Watts, Ian R. MacLeod, Paul J. McAuley, Iain MacDonald and a few others.

Although I do still like the occasional good SF novel by my favourite old and modern authors, the volume of novels that I read has declined sharply over the years. I used to read a lot more novels when I was younger, particularly during my teens (the 1970s), but that started to drop off sharply from about 1978 onwards, as the increasingly intensive study commitments during my A-Levels and university years totally wiped out most of my previously plentiful free reading time.

Once I finished university (1983, at the age of twenty-two), started work, discovered a social life (I didn\’t even know what a social life WAS back in my teens, no going out, no drinking, no women – it\’s really no wonder that I\’d had so much reading time), and with the many trials and tribulations of adult life kicking in, any free time that I may have had left for reading disappeared as quickly as Roadrunner with Wile E. Coyote on his tail. So the number of novels that I read declined sharply during those years, and has never recovered to its former levels, even now, thirty years later.

I also loved reading short story collections and anthologies back in my teens. At that time, it was pretty much 50-50 between novels and short fiction, but as the number of novels that I read declined sharply during the late-1970s and early-1980s, the balance swung sharply towards short fiction, which began to take up more and more of what reading time I did have remaining. I\’ve always considered short fiction to be the bedrock of the science fiction genre anyway, and, if you add to that the fact that it\’s simply much easier to fit the occasional short story into a hectic lifestyle, particularly in these days of monstrously bloated and padded novels, nine times out of ten, you\’ll find me reading a good anthology or author collection, rather than a novel.

I do NOT like (and never have liked) reading a novel piecemeal, a few chapters at a time, and prefer to do it all in one go. But that pretty much became impossible once the size of the average SF novel went above four hundred pages or so. I can usually manage about 300-350 pages max before I want to call it a day. That was okay with most classic SF novels, which usually came in at about 250-300 pages, and which I can read in one sitting. I can\’t do that with these bloated modern bricks. I have to read a few chapters at a time, but I often find it very hard to go back and just pick up where I left off. My train of thought and enjoyment of the story has been broken, and before I start on new chapters of the novel I almost always have to go back and do a recap, and re-read the earlier chapters again (certainly if it\’s been days, maybe weeks even, since I\’d read the previous chapters), because I\’ve forgotten details of the story.

I do still sometimes long for the days when a good SF novel was a mere 250-300 pages, and I could finish it in one sitting. If that were still the case, I\’d probably have gotten back into reading SF novels, and I\’d be reading a lot more of them today. But I find myself looking at these eight hundred page bricks and thinking \”Nah, can\’t be bothered\”. It\’s simply too much time and effort to put into reading a single story, when I can read twenty short stories in a similar-sized anthology much more easily. With a short story collection or anthology, I can read one story at a time, one over lunch, another when I visit the bathroom, another before I go to bed. I can leave the book down for days, weeks even, and start on a completely new story when I lift it up again, without missing out on anything, or having to go back and recap.

While I may be much more a fan of short fiction these days, the real truth is that reading short fiction has become habitual for me over the past thirty years, whereas I seem to have lost the knack (and the patience) for reading novels. I\’ve become much more accustomed to reading short fiction in recent decades, and while I can still tackle the much shorter, older classic SF novels easily enough, reading one of those overly-padded modern monsters is a real effort, and one that I\’m rarely willing to make, unless it\’s one of my favourite modern authors (someone like Alastair Reynolds or one of the others mentioned above).

Maybe I can re-train myself to read these big novels. And maybe this blog can help me focus, get back into the groove, and give me a reason to start into reading novels on a regular basis. Fingers crossed.

ON OUR WAY TO THE FUTURE edited by Terry Carr

[W]e\’ve certainly got an interesting anthology here, an oldish one from 1970. It\’s also the first anthology posting (but definitely will not be the last) on this blog from another of my favourite SF anthologists, Terry Carr.

TITLE: ON OUR WAY TO THE FUTURE
EDITED BY: Terry Carr
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Anthology
PUBLISHER: Ace Books, New York, 1970
FORMAT: Paperback, 253 pages.

CONTENTS:

  • Introduction by Terry Carr
  • Greenslaves by Frank Herbert (1965)
  • A Better Mousehole by Edgar Pangborn (1965)
  • Ballenger\’s People by Kris Neville (1967)
  • King Solomon\’s Ring by Roger Zelazny (1963)
  • Sundance by Robert Silverberg (1969)
  • Be Merry by Algis Budrys (1966)
  • Under the Dragon\’s Tail by Philip Latham (1966)
  • A Taste for Dostoevsky by Brian W. Aldiss (1967)
  • Cyclops by Fritz Leiber (1965)
  • Goblin Night by James H. Schmitz (1965)

This anthology isn\’t restricted to a single theme, as were the two Robert Silverberg anthologies in my previous posts, and is more of a general multi-theme \”ten science fiction adventures in tomorrow\” kind of thing, charting our journey into infinity, our way into the future. There\’s a wider variety of stories here by big-name SF authors, stories which, up until the time of publication, had never appeared in paperback before.

As usual, I\’ll continue working my way through the stories in this, and the previous anthologies, completely at random, in a totally haphazard fashion, pretty much as the whim takes me and when I get free time to do so. I usually just lift a book, any book, from the \”to read\” stack, and read any story that takes my fancy. Next time, I might do the same, but with a completely different anthology, and so on.

I don\’t have any real system for reading, but usually pick my favourite authors first, then work my way down to least favourite (or authors I haven\’t encountered before), The main postings themselves are more for providing general overall information about the various anthologies and individual author collections, but will also be interspersed with posts on the individual stories as and when I have read them.

VOYAGERS IN TIME edited by Robert Silverberg

[I]n my last SF Anthologies post I commented that I\’d recently bought a couple of nice old SF anthologies from Amazon UK. I made a few comments about the newer of the two anthologies, TRIPS IN TIME and gave a contents listing for it. Here\’s the same routine for the second anthology, which was published ten years earlier, but can be considered a \”companion\” anthology, from a thematic viewpoint, since both books contain short stories about time travel. This one is VOYAGERS IN TIME, edited by Robert Silverberg.

TITLE: VOYAGERS IN TIME – Twelve Stories of Science Fiction
EDITED BY: Robert Silverberg
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Anthology
PUBLISHER: Meredith Press, New York, 1967
FORMAT: Hardcover, 243 pages.

This anthology is a collection of more traditional (but still fun) time travel stories than those in TRIPS IN TIME. The stories in this one span a thirty year period, the earliest originally published in 1937, and the last in 1967. Here\’s a listing of the contents:

  • The Sands of Time by P. Schuyler Miller (1937)
  • …And It Comes Out Here by Lester del Rey (1950)
  • Brooklyn Project by William Tenn (1948)
  • The Men Who Murdered Mohammed by Alfred Bester (1964)
  • Time Heals by Poul Anderson (1949)
  • Wrong-Way Street by Larry Niven (1965)
  • Flux by Michael Moorcock (1963)
  • Dominoes by C. M. Kornbluth (1953)
  • A Bulletin from the Trustees by Wilma Shore (1964)
  • Traveler\’s Rest by David I. Masson (1965)
  • Absolutely Inflexible by Robert Silverberg (1956, revised version 1967)
  • THE TIME MACHINE [Chapter XI, XII – part] by H. G. Wells (1895)

This looks like another very interesting anthology of short fiction. Silverbob certainly does know how to put together a good anthology of stories. Again, some of them I remember well (Wells, Bester, Tenn, and Moorcock), others I vaguely remember (Miller, del Rey, Anderson, Niven, Kornbluth and Silverberg), and the last two I\’m not familiar with at all (Shore, Masson).

As I\’ve already said, this is a kinda/sorta \”sister\” anthology to the later TRIPS IN TIME (1977), which is a more unusual and quirky collection of time travel tales. I\’ve already read several of the stories in TRIPS IN TIME, but now I\’ve started reading some of the stories in VOYAGERS IN TIME as well. I\’m dipping in and out of both books, and it will be nice to compare the two anthologies when I\’ve finished both of them.

As usual, I\’m working my way through the stories in both books slowly, as and when I get free time to do so, and not in any kind of order. I\’ll just pick stories at random, usually with favourite authors first and working my way to least favourite or least familiar. Once I\’ve finished I\’ll start posting comments on individual stories (with the exception of the excerpts from The Time Machine, as I\’ll be reviewing the novel at some point), and comments on the two anthologies as a whole.

VOYAGERS IN TIME edited by Robert Silverberg

TITLE: VOYAGERS IN TIME – Twelve Stories of Science Fiction
EDITED BY: Robert Silverberg
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Anthology
PUBLISHER: Meredith Press, New York, 1967
FORMAT: Hardcover, 243 pages.

In my last post I commented that I\’d recently bought a couple of nice old SF anthologies from Amazon UK. I made a few comments about one of the anthologies, TRIPS IN TIME and gave a contents listing for it. Here\’s the same routine for the other anthology, which was published ten years earlier, but can be considered a \”companion\” anthology, from a thematic viewpoint, since both books contain short stories about time travel. The second of the two anthologies is VOYAGERS IN TIME, edited by Robert Silverberg.

This anthology is a collection of more traditional (but still fun) time travel stories than those in TRIPS IN TIME. The stories in this one span a thirty year period, the earliest originally published in 1937, and the last in 1967. Here\’s a listing of the contents:

  • The Sands of Time by P. Schuyler Miller (1937)
  • …And It Comes Out Here by Lester del Rey (1950)
  • Brooklyn Project by William Tenn (1948)
  • The Men Who Murdered Mohammed by Alfred Bester (1964)
  • Time Heals by Poul Anderson (1949)
  • Wrong-Way Street by Larry Niven (1965)
  • Flux by Michael Moorcock (1963)
  • Dominoes by C. M. Kornbluth (1953)
  • A Bulletin from the Trustees by Wilma Shore (1964)
  • Traveler\’s Rest by David I. Masson (1965)
  • Absolutely Inflexible by Robert Silverberg (1956, revised version 1967)
  • THE TIME MACHINE [Chapter XI, XII – part] by H. G. Wells (1895)

This looks like another very interesting anthology of short fiction. Silverbob certainly does know how to put together a good anthology of stories. Again, some of them I remember well (Wells, Bester, Tenn, and Moorcock), others I vaguely remember (Miller, del Rey, Anderson, Niven, Kornbluth and Silverberg), and the last two I\’m not familiar with at all (Shore, Masson).

As I\’ve already said, this is a kinda/sorta \”sister\” anthology to the later TRIPS IN TIME (1977), which is a more unusual and quirky collection of time travel tales. I\’ve already read several of the stories in TRIPS IN TIME, but now I\’ve started reading some of the stories in VOYAGERS IN TIME as well. I\’m dipping in and out of both books, and it will be nice to compare the two anthologies when I\’ve finished both of them.

As usual, I\’m working my way through the stories in both books slowly, as and when I get free time to do so, and not in any kind of order. I\’ll just pick stories at random, usually with favourite authors first and working my way to least favourite or least familiar. Once I\’ve finished I\’ll start posting comments on individual stories (with the exception of the excerpts from The Time Machine, as I\’ll be reviewing the novel at some point), and comments on the two anthologies as a whole.

TRIPS IN TIME edited by Robert Silverberg

[R]ecently I bought a couple of nice old SF anthologies from Amazon UK, both edited by Robert Silverberg. The first of the two is:

TITLE: TRIPS IN TIME – Nine Stories of Science Fiction
EDITED BY: Robert Silverberg
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Anthology
PUBLISHED: Wildside Press, 1977
FORMAT: Trade paperback, 152 pages.

The anthology is a collection of quirky time travel stories, which span a thirty-five year period, the earliest being originally published in 1941, and the last in 1976. Here\’s a listing of the contents:

  • An Infinite Summer by Christopher Priest (1976)
  • The King\’s Wishes by Robert Sheckley (1953)
  • Manna by Peter Phillips (1949)
  • The Long Remembering by Poul Anderson (1957)
  • Try and Change the Past by Fritz Leiber (1958)
  • Divine Madness by Roger Zelazny (1966)
  • Mugwump 4 by Robert Silverberg (1959)
  • Secret Rider by Marta Randall (1976)
  • The Seesaw by A. E. van Vogt (1941)

This looks like a very interesting anthology of short fiction. Some of these stories I remember well as old favourites (the Priest and Leiber), others I vaguely remember (Sheckley, Anderson, Zelazny, van Vogt, Silverberg), and the other two I\’m not familiar with at all (Phillips, Randall).

Apparently this is a kinda/sorta \”sister\” anthology to an earlier one, VOYAGERS IN TIME (1967), which is a more traditional/typical collection of time travel tales. That\’s the other paper book I mentioned, and I\’ll get to that anthology once I\’ve finished with this one. It will be nice to compare the two collections of short stories.

I\’m looking forward to working my way through TRIPS IN TIME (however slowly, and most likely not in order of the contents listing), and will make a short progress report in this discussion thread as I finish each story.