BUG-EYED MONSTERS edited by Anthony Cheetham

[T]his is a nice little anthology, containing ten stories (more accurately NINE stories and one radio play adaptation) spanning thirty years 1938-1968. It is edited by Anthony Cheetham, with whom I am totally unfamiliar.

TITLE: BUG-EYED MONSTERS
EDITED BY: Anthony Cheetham
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Anthology
FORMAT: Hardback, 280 pages
PUBLISHER: Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1972.
ISBN: 0 283 97864 3

CONTENTS:

  • Introduction by Anthony Cheetham
  • \”Invasion from Mars\” by Howard Koch (with Orson Welles) – 1938 radio adaptation of War of the Worlds, CBS, October 30, 1938
  • \”Not Only Dead Men\” by A. E. Van Vogt (1942) (Astounding Science Fiction, November 1942)
  • \”Arena\” by Fredric Brown (1944) (Astounding Science Fiction, June 1944)
  • \”Surface Tension\” by James Blish (Galaxy, August 1952)
  • \”The Deserter\” by William Tenn (1953) (reprinted from Star Science Fiction Stories, edited by Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, February 1953)
  • \”Mother\” by Philip José Farmer (1953) (Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1953)
  • \”Stranger Station\” by Damon Knight (1956) (Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1956)
  • \”Greenslaves\” by Frank Herbert (1965) (Amazing Stories, March 1965)
  • \”Balanced Ecology\” by James H. Schmitz (1967) (Analog, March 1965)
  • \”The Dance of the Changer & Three\” by Terry Carr (1968) (reprinted from The Farthest Reaches, edited by Joseph Elder, Trident 1968)

According to Cheetham\’s interesting little introduction, the title of the book is a gentle, fun jibe at the old, stereotypical \”bug-eyed monster\” of the pulps. However the ten stories in the anthology are of an altogether higher quality than those old yarns in the pulps, almost a \”rehabilitation\” of the old bug-eyed monster.

There\’s quite a mix in this anthology. We start off with one which is very apt, given the title of the anthology. Howard Koch\’s (and Orson Welles\’s) classic 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells\’s seminal 1898 interplanetary invasion novel War of the Worlds. It first appeared in book form in the anthology Invasion from Mars), edited by Orson Welles (Dell, 1949). The Martian invaders are probably the original archetype for all the B.E.M.s that came afterwards, so this one is as good a place to start as any. I\’ve read it before in a number of publications, and it\’s always nice to revisit it.

As for the other nine stories, as usual, there are a few that I\’m familiar with, and a few that I\’m not. Fredric Brown\’s classic Arena and James Blish\’s Surface Tension are the two that I remember best. Both have always been favourites of mine. Frank Herbert\’s Greenslaves is another one that I recall liking, although my memory is a bit fuzzier on the details of that one. I have very vague memories about encountering the Van Vogt, Knight, Tenn and Carr stories at some point in the distant past, but don\’t recall anything about them except the briefest details. I don\’t recall ever reading either the Farmer or Schmitz stories before.

I may not know (or recall) a few of the stories, but with the exception of Koch, the other nine authors in the anthology are all VERY familiar to me. No obscure writers here, although I must admit that I\’m much more familiar with Terry Carr as one of my favourite anthologists, rather than as an author. Overall, this looks like a good one. With those names in it, how could it not be? I think I\’m going to really enjoy reading BUG-EYED MONSTERS. 🙂

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.