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The Best of Science Fiction

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"The Best of Science Fiction", edited by Groff Conklin, is an anthology of short fiction first published in 1946. The first edition of this book was a large volume which tried to live up to its ambitious title. There were 40 short stories put into 6 sections titled as follows: "The Atom", "The Wonders of Earth", "The Superscience of Man", "Dangerous Inventions", "Adventures in Dimension", and "From Outer Space". The collection includes a large number of stories originally published between 1930 and 1945, from authors like Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Clifford D. Simak, Theodore Sturgeon, A.E. van Vogt, and many more. In addition, there were some older stories from Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, among others.

The revised edition, published in 1963 included just 22 of the original 40 stories, losing all of the older stories, and some of the newer ones as well. It is true that some of the stories were somewhat dated, and certainly the revised edition is a very good selection of stories from the 30's and first half of the 40's. However, I prefer the lengthier original edition, which was republished in 1980 under the name "The Golden Age of Science Fiction." There are too many stories to name them all, but among those that are included are "Deadline" by Cleve Cartmill, "Killdozer!" by Theodore Sturgeon, "Goldfish Bowl" by Anson MacDonald (a.k.a. Robert Heinlein), "First Contact" by Murray Leinster (a.k.a. William F. Jenkins), and "Jackdaw" by Ross Rocklynne, all of which appear in both editions of this book.

This book was tied for 13th on the Arkham Survey in 1949 as one of the `Basic SF Titles'. It also was rated as the 6th best book on the 1952 Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll. As for awards for the stories in this collection: "Killdozer!" was tied for 35th on the Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll for Short Fiction in 1971. "First Contact" was tied for 9th on the same poll, and won the Retro Hugo for novelettes written in 1945 which was awarded in 1996. "The Piper's Son" was also nominated for the Retro Hugo for novelettes written in 1945.

Say, I wonder how many readers today remember Groff Conklin? He was the first book reviewer for _Galaxy_ (1950-55), and his reviews consistently reflected the views of a man who both knew science fiction and who had a sense of taste. He was an editor at various times for both magazines and book publishers. But he was best known for his editorship of science fiction anthologies. He started off with a series of jumbo anthologies in the 1940s and early 1950s. Then he recycled some of the better stories from them in abridged versions. And finally, he produced a series of theme anthologies such as _Science Fiction Thinking Machines_, _Invaders of Earth_, and _Great Science Fiction about Doctors_. (Someone once waggishly suggested that he put together an anthology entitled _Great Science Fiction About Dog Doctor's Robots_.)

There was a period of time when Conklin was considered the premiere American science fiction anthologist. I don't mean to say that there weren't other good ones about-- Ted Ditky, Anthony Boucher, Damon Knight, and Judith Merril spring to mind-- but Conklin produced so many anthologies over the years. And if his books weren't always classic, they tended to be... solid. Reliable. Intelligent. In good taste. You could always count on Conklin to deliver the goods.

_The Best Book of Science Fiction_ (1946) was Conklin's very first anthology, and it is a classic. It was one of the very first science fiction anthologies, ever. Donald Wolheim had just come out with the very first. And the same year that Conklin published his tome, Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas published _Adventures in Space and Time_. Conklin's anthology contained forty stories, while the Healy-McComas anthology had thirty-three. As we shall see, the Healy-McComas anthology is generally considered the better from a strictly literary perspective. But both anthologies served as models for many sf anthologists to come.

There were a number of stories in the Conklin that were certainly modern classics. There were four stories by Robert A. Heinlein: "Blowups Happen," "Solution Unsatisfactory," "Goldfish Bowl," and "Universe".
There was also "The Piper's Son" by Lewis Padgett, "Killdozer!" by Theodore Stugeon, "The Machine" by Don A. Stuart (John W. Campbell, Jr.), "The Search" by A.E. van Vogt, "First Contact" by Murray Leinster, and "Blind Alley" by Isaac Asimov. Not in the same league, but still respectable stories were: "Deadline" by Cleve Cartmill, "Lobby" by Clifford D. Simak, "Tricky Tonnage" by Malcolm Jameson, "The Ultimate Metal" by Nat Schachner, "Expedition" by Anthony Boucher, and "Jackdaw" by Ross Rocklynne. And there were some good stories by old masters: "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Great Keinplatz Experiment" by Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes" by H.G. Wells, "The Tissue Culture King" by Julian Huxley, and "The Ultimate Catylist" by John Taine. An impressive lineup of stories, I think you will agree.

But _The Best of Science Fiction_ also contained "Giant in the Earth" by Morrison Collady, "The Ivy War" by David H. Keller, "Liquid Life" by Ralph Milne Farley, "The Terrible Sense" by Calvin Peregoy, "The Lanson Screen" by Arthur Leo Zagat, "The Monster from Nowhere" by Donald Wandrei, "The Retreat to Mars" by Cecil B. White, "The Man Who Saved the Earth" by Austin Hall, "The Flame Midget" by Frank Belknap Long, and "The Conquest of Gola" by Leslie F. Stone. None of these stories can be said to have cast long shadows down the science fiction hall of fame.

Why were over a quarter of the stories so forgettable? I think that it was a matter of methodology. Healy and McComas zeroed in on _Astounding_ as their primary source, with only a few pieces from other sources. Conklin reviewed a wide variety of pulp magazines (he lists eighteen of them in his introduction) in order to get a feel for the range of modern science fiction. He did a historical, if not a literary, service. He captured a good sampling of what much pulp sf was like in the twenties and thirties.

The book has its faults. But it is a monumental work in spite of them. If you think that later anthologists like Martin Greenberg, David Hartwell, and Gardner Dozois now routinely assemble works that are of a generally higher quality, remember this: Conklin showed them how to do it in the first place.