Customer Reviews

Best SF: 1967

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In a 'Credo' piece at the start of the book, this is part of what James Blish has to say about a Year's Best:-

"1. Its contents should be science fiction which means that at the worst, every story ought to contain some trace of some science, and at best they ought to depend on it. This means no fantasies, nothing put in solely because the author wrote a best-selling mainstream novel in 1920, no political parables and no what-is-its.

2. Its contents should be science fiction meaning no cartoons, psuedoscientific articles, how-to-write-it pieces or bad verse.

3. It ought to be reasonably honest about what it is offering. Just to begin with, no such volume can hope to include the best SF of its year, regardless of length. Furthermore, not even all the best short fiction is available; some of it gets tied up in exclusive contracts by other anthologies or collections, and occasionally some of it is even priced too high. Both these limitations ought to be made known to the reader.

4. It ought to be responsible. If the editor is actually being overruled by another editor, or the publisher, that ought to be made known, too, naming names.

I am carefully not adding that within these limits its "bests" ought really to be the best; it isn't humanly possible for any such volume to satisfy everybody on that count. But it ought at least to try."

The editors then go on to disagree with him a bit, and of course put stories in outside this selection.

There is also an afterword that at times is a bit of an unrelated to the book rant.

For a 40 year old volume, or close enough, this is pretty reasonable, with a 3.43 average.


Harrison Aldiss 01 : Hawksbill Station [short story] - Robert Silverberg
Harrison Aldiss 01 : Ultimate Construction - C. C. Shackleton
Harrison Aldiss 01 : 1937 A.D.! - John T. Sladek
Harrison Aldiss 01 : Fifteen Miles - Ben Bova
Harrison Aldiss 01 : Blackmail - Fred Hoyle
Harrison Aldiss 01 : The Vine - Kit Reed
Harrison Aldiss 01 : Interview with a Lemming - James Thurber
Harrison Aldiss 01 : The Wreck of the Ship John B. - Frank M. Robinson
Harrison Aldiss 01 : The Left-Hand Way - A. Bertram Chandler
Harrison Aldiss 01 : The Forest of Zil - Kris Neville
Harrison Aldiss 01 : The A55a55ination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race - J. G. Ballard
Harrison Aldiss 01 : Answering Service - Fritz Leiber
Harrison Aldiss 01 : The Last Command - Keith Laumer
Harrison Aldiss 01 : Mirror of Ice - Gary Wright
Harrison Aldiss 01 : Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes - Harlan Ellison


The authorities have come up with an unconventional but effective way of controlling dissidents. Send them back a billion or so years into the past. A bit hard to escape from there, really.

When a new prisoner is sent back, the current top dog, an aging main with a recent serious injury has to try and hang onto his life, and work out what is up with the new guy.

3 out of 5


Deserted planet boy. With spade and bucket, luckily.

3.5 out of 5


Time Engine to look yourself up.

3 out of 5


"Wonder how many Jesuits have been carried home on their shields?"

3.5 out of 5


Only a bunch of monkeys would watch a lot of tv.

3.5 out of 5


Grape growers are wroth.

3.5 out of 5


Surprised humans don't off themselves.

3.5 out of 5


Spacegoing slum.

4 out of 5


Contemplative metal monks.

4 out of 5


Tree history.

3.5 out of 5


Finishing gun.

2.5 out of 5


Old style phone convo.

4 out of 5


A Bolo is a cybernetic supertank, basically. In this story, an old inactive one comes to life.

3 out of 5


Possible sledicide.

3.5 out of 5


Maggie, I wish I had something to say to you. But you're dead.

3.5 out of 5




4 out of 5