Tag: Robert Silverberg

THE MARATHON PHOTOGRAPH AND OTHER STORIES (1986)
by
Clifford D. Simak

\"The

[T]his time out, we have a single author collection of short fiction by one of my favourite authors, Clifford D. Simak, in which all of the stories have an underlying thematic link dealing with the mysterious paradox of time.

It\’s quite a short collection, at only 171 pages, and only four stories (making it a relatively quick and easy read compared to most of the modern brick-sized entities masquerading as books). But one of those stories is a long novella, and there are also two novelettes and a single short story making up the rest of the book. And what stories they are.

 

TITLE: THE MARATHON PHOTOGRAPH AND OTHER STORIES
AUTHOR: Clifford D. Simak
EDITOR: Francis Lyall
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Single Author Collection
FORMAT: Hardback, 171 pages
PUBLISHER: Severn House (SH), London, 1986
ISBN: 0 7278 1221 1

  • The Introduction
  • \”The Birch Clump Cylinder\” (from Stellar #1, edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey, Ballantine, 1974)
  • \”The Whistling Well\” (from Dark Forces), edited by Kirby McCauley, Viking, 1980
  • \”The Marathon Photograph\” (from Threads of Time), edited by Robert Silverberg, Nelson, 1974
  • \”The Grotto Of The Dancing Deer\” (from Analog, April 1980)

The stories are all quite long. Even the shortest, \”The Grotto of the Dancing Deer\”, comes in at just over twenty-one pages. This story is a good one, first published in Analog back in April 1980, and winning the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards for that year. It\’s a lovely story, and one which I recall enjoying a lot when I first read it twenty or so years ago.

\”The Marathon Photograph\” at seventy pages, is the longest story in the collection. I read this one many years ago on its original publication in Threads of Time, edited by Robert Silverberg (1974). I loved it then, and still do. It\’s my favourite of the four stories in this collection.

The other stories in the collection, \”The Birch Clump Cylinder\” and \”The Whistling Well\”, are two that I haven\’t read before. From what I\’ve read of both stories so far, I\’m quite sure that I\’ll enjoy them just as must as I did the other two.

Simak had his first SF story published in Astounding way back in 1931 (\”World of the Red Sun\”), and most of my favourite Simak short fiction came from much earlier in his career – \”The World of the Red Sun\” (1931), \”Sunspot Purge\” (1940), \”Beachhead\” aka \”You\’ll Never Go Home Again\” (1951), \”The Trouble with Ants\” (1951), \”Small Deer\” (1965), and a few others – and I haven\’t read a lot of his later stuff. By contrast, the stories in this collection are all from quite late in Simak\’s career (he died in 1988, at the age of 83), the earliest two being written when he was almost 70, and the other two during his mid-70\’s.

It\’ll be interesting to compare and contrast with his earlier material. \”The Marathon Photograph\” already rates as one of my favourite Simak tales, if not my overall favourite.

Definitely a nice little collection, from a pretty much forgotten (except by the oldies) and greatly underappreciated author.

THE MARATHON PHOTOGRAPH AND OTHER STORIES (1986) by Clifford D. Simak

\"The

This time out, we have a single author collection of short fiction by one of my favourite authors, Clifford D. Simak, in which all of the stories have an underlying thematic link dealing with the mysterious paradox of time.

It\’s quite a short collection, at only 171 pages, and only four stories (making it a relatively quick and easy read compared to most of the modern brick-sized entities masquerading as books). But one of those stories is a long novella, and there are also two novelettes and a single short story making up the rest of the book. And what stories they are.

 

TITLE: THE MARATHON PHOTOGRAPH AND OTHER STORIES
AUTHOR: Clifford D. Simak
EDITOR: Francis Lyall
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Single Author Collection
FORMAT: Hardback, 171 pages
PUBLISHER: Severn House (SH), London, 1986
ISBN: 0 7278 1221 1

  • The Introduction
  • \”The Birch Clump Cylinder\” (from Stellar #1, edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey, Ballantine, 1974)
  • \”The Whistling Well\” (from Dark Forces), edited by Kirby McCauley, Viking, 1980
  • \”The Marathon Photograph\” (from Threads of Time), edited by Robert Silverberg, Nelson, 1974
  • \”The Grotto Of The Dancing Deer\” (from Analog, April 1980)

The stories are all quite long. Even the shortest, \”The Grotto of the Dancing Deer\”, comes in at just over twenty-one pages. This story is a good one, first published in Analog back in April 1980, and winning the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards for that year. It\’s a lovely story, and one which I recall enjoying a lot when I first read it twenty or so years ago.

\”The Marathon Photograph\” at seventy pages, is the longest story in the collection. I read this one many years ago on its original publication in Threads of Time, edited by Robert Silverberg (1974). I loved it then, and still do. It\’s my favourite of the four stories in this collection.

The other stories in the collection, \”The Birch Clump Cylinder\” and \”The Whistling Well\”, are two that I haven\’t read before. From what I\’ve read of both stories so far, I\’m quite sure that I\’ll enjoy them just as must as I did the other two.

Simak had his first SF story published in Astounding way back in 1931 (\”World of the Red Sun\”), and most of my favourite Simak short fiction came from much earlier in his career – \”The World of the Red Sun\” (1931), \”Sunspot Purge\” (1940), \”Beachhead\” aka \”You\’ll Never Go Home Again\” (1951), \”The Trouble with Ants\” (1951), \”Small Deer\” (1965), and a few others – and I haven\’t read a lot of his later stuff. By contrast, the stories in this collection are all from quite late in Simak\’s career (he died in 1988, at the age of 83), the earliest two being written when he was almost 70, and the other two during his mid-70\’s.

It\’ll be interesting to compare and contrast with his earlier material. \”The Marathon Photograph\” already rates as one of my favourite Simak tales, if not my overall favourite.

Definitely a nice little collection, from a pretty much forgotten (except by the oldies) and greatly underappreciated author.

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.

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.