Customer Reviews

The Best Science Fiction of the Year #1 (No. 1)

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After splitting off to go his own way, here's what Carr has to say in the conclusion to his introduction.

"The specific technique isn't important...any of an endless variety of approaches to fictional creation. What matters is the pleasure we experience in reading these sotires, and when the whole range of literary technique is usec to evoke the wondr, scope and beauty of the universe--yes, and its dangers too--then we have a genre that cannot fail to be exciting.
This year's collections of stories provides many examples of science fiction's growth and variety. There will be more to come toomrrow. (The is always more to come tomorrow.)..January 14, 1972"

If he could pop in and have a look at 2008, I am sure he would be quite pleased.

However, this volume is a bit on the weak side for a Year's Best, although its age of course has to be taken into account here. Poul Anderson's clever not-fantasy aside, there isn't lots of standout stuff.

The Panshin story though? If you put yourself, and your wife, and crapping on to your mates about selling short stories to editors AND YOUR FRACKING DUCKS in it, as you point out, you do have some problems when the most interesting character is a bit part goose. Ok, well, gander, actually, but still. Maybe they had been taking some of Spinrad's Psychedelics Inc. stuff.

Terry Carr 01 : Occam's Scalpel - Theodore Sturgeon
Terry Carr 01 : The Queen of Air and Darkness - Poul Anderson
Terry Carr 01 : In Entropy's Jaws - Robert Silverberg
Terry Carr 01 : The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World - Philip José Farmer
Terry Carr 01 : A Meeting with Medusa - Arthur C. Clarke
Terry Carr 01 : The Frayed String on the Stretched Forefinger of Time - Lloyd Biggle Jr.
Terry Carr 01 : How Can We Sink When We Can Fly? - Alexei Panshin
Terry Carr 01 : No Direction Home - Norman Spinrad
Terry Carr 01 : Vaster Than Empires and More Slow - Ursula K. Le Guin
Terry Carr 01 : All the Last Wars at Once - George Alec Effinger
Terry Carr 01 : The Fourth Profession - Larry Niven

People alteration protection.

3 out of 5

A fairy stole my baby.

4.5 out of 5

Communication let me down, now I'm left to fix myself out in space somewhere.

4 out of 5

Don't like Mondays? This is the place for you. If you like variety in your days, it isn't.

3 out of 5

Jovian airship's robojock first contact radio days.

4 out of 5

Justice suspension.

3.5 out of 5

Not even the goose could float this.

2 out of 5

How did we survive without all that acid?

3.5 out of 5

Empathetic comeback.

3 out of 5

Group expunging deadline.

4 out of 5

Alien alcohol test case quad pill investigation.

3.5 out of 5

3.5 out of 5