The Good Old Stuff: Adventure Sf in the Grand Tradition [Paperback]

Gardner R. Dozois (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1998

"Dozois is a fine editor." -- "Washington Post Book World"

"Dozois once again unites a magnificent gamut of epic storytellers into one volume that travels beyond the outermost galaxies and stirs the emotional foundations of the human condition." -- "Bookpage" on "The Year's Best Science Fiction"

"The most imaginative editor is SF today." -- "The Village Voice"

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This is the first of two companion anthologies compiled by SF's leading short fiction editor, Gardner Dozois. Although Dozois is notable for tastes that are skewed heavily toward the literary side of the science fiction spectrum, his avowed purpose with this volume is to collect the seminal works of good old-fashioned adventure SF. Dozois has limited his stomping grounds to the years between 1948 and 1971, though the bulk of these stories were first published in the 1950s, a period he calls "the second great Age of the Space Opera." The book starts off with A.E. van Vogt's classic "The Rull" and continues with 16 more adventure stories, culminating with James Tiptree Jr.'s "Mother in the Sky with Diamonds." In between are works by James H. Schmitz, L. Sprague de Camp, Jack Vance, C.M. Kornbluth, Leigh Brackett, Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson, Cordwainer Smith, Brian W. Aldiss, H. Beam Piper, Ursula K. Le Guin, Fritz Leiber, and Roger Zelazny. Although The Good Old Stuff may contain some tough moments for contemporary readers--the tales here are, after all, a product of times when race and gender discrimination were more prominent than they are today--this is an excellent collection of some of the best SF, adventure or otherwise. --Craig E. Engler

From Booklist

Some may disparage early sf pulp magazine stories as only so much space opera, but many were not only well written--they were also whopping good adventures. Dozois, an editor said to have an especially good eye for talent, here gathers 16 stories, dating from the late 1940s to the 1970s, representing magazine sf stories at their best. Unlike the tales in Future on Ice (reviewed above), these stories don't involve razor-edged moral conundrums but, rather, more basic--and fun!--battles for survival. The selections include "The Second Night of Summer" by James Schmidt, in which a grandmother secretly saves a planet; "Semley's Necklace" by Ursula K. LeGuin, in which a woman chooses a jewel and loses a world; and "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth" by Roger Zelazny, in which a fisherman who is really bait is caught but wins a trophy. Eric Robbins

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Product Details

• Paperback: 434 pages
• Publisher: Griffin (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312192754
• ISBN-13: 978-0312192754
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,157,326 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great selection of some of the great adventure SF., April 8, 1999

By 

Michael J. Lord (Hanover, New Hampshire) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Good Old Stuff: Adventure Sf in the Grand Tradition (Paperback)

I just finished reading this book, and there's not a bad story in the bunch! I also was unfamiliar with all of these stories, although I had read works by some of the authors previously. Recommended to anyone who loves SF, and even as an entryway for those who are unfamiliar with the genre.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Grand Old Writers Slipslidin' Away, January 28, 2008

By 

Paul Camp (Chattanooga, TN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Good Old Stuff: Adventure Sf in the Grand Tradition (Paperback)

_The Good Old Stuff_ (1998) is an anthology edited by Gardner Dozois. It consists of adventure science fiction stories from the 1940s through the 1960s. When it was first published, it received a rather stern review by Norman Spinrad, and I must acknowledge that there is some justice to Spinrad's position. By my own count, out of the sixteen stories in this anthology, only five stories represent the author at the top of his form: James Schmitz's "The Second Night of Summer," Murray Leinster's "Exploration Team," Brian W. Aldiss's "A Kind of Artistry," H. Beam Piper's "Gunpowder God," and Roger Zelazny's "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth." And out of those, I would rank only the Aldiss and the Zelazny as clear classics.

But Dozois, after all, was not trying to assemble a "best of all time" sf anthology. As he makes clear in his introductory material, he was motivated partly because he saw that many top-notch science fiction writers were going out of print at an alarming rate, along with some of their adventure tales. His anthology is a means of keeping some of those tales (and some of those authors!) alive. Dozois includes an excellent index of anthologies containing old adventure science fiction, and there is a beautiful cover by Ed Emshwiller (a reprint of his 1959 cover for Andre Norton's _Galactic Derelict_).

The remaining stories are: A.E. van Vogt's "The Rull," L. Sprague de Camp's "The Galton Whistle," Jack Vance's "The New Prime," C.M. Kornbluth's "That Share of Glory," Leigh Brackett's The Last Days of Shandakor," Poul Anderson's "The Sky People," Gordon R. Dickson's "The Man in the Mailbag," Cordwainer Smith's "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons," Ursula K. Le Guin's "Semley's Necklace," Fritz Leiber's "Moon Duel," and James Tiptree, Jr.'s "Mother in the Sky, with Diamonds." Some (like the de Camp, the Kornbluth, the Brackett, and the Dickson) are amiable pieces of entertainment. Others (like the Anderson, the Smith, and the Tiptree) aim at something more ambitious.

If, as I do, you have many of the magazines in which these stories originally appeared, you will welcome this anthology. If not... it is all the more reason for you to snap it up. Keep some of these authors from slipsliding away.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid SF Anthology, September 14, 2009

By 

Joseph S. Romaninsky "joesreads" (Gouldsboro, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Good Old Stuff: Adventure Sf in the Grand Tradition (Paperback)

Highly recommend, especially for folks new to SF. As old as
these stories from the Golden Age of Space Opera are, they
stand the test of time exceedingly well. The various authors
are/ were first and foremost good writers spinning captivating
tales. I have the follow-up anthology, The Good New Stuff,
and am very much looking forward to reading it.