Customer Reviews

Omnibus of Science Fiction

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My dad loved science fiction and subscribed to a magazine called Fantasy and Science Fiction in the 1950's. I think this book may have been a premium for subscribing. It was around our house while I was growing up and I eventually read all of the short stories in it. Many of the stories staid with me for years. I later found out my two younger brothers shared the same love for the stories in this book. Dad passed away back in the 1970's and nobody knew what happened to his original copy. But I bought this one and two more copies for my brothers. We have had many conversations reminiscing about our Dad and his love of science fiction all inspired by re-reading this Sci-Fi classic.

This is Groff Conklin's fourth anthology, and it was published originally in 1952. It contains 43 stories, 22 of them from 1950-1952, and the rest from the 40's, 30's and 20's, and one by Jack London from 1912. As one might expect, with the surge in number of anthologies in this period, they draw more and more on the stories which were published more recently.

Two of these stories have been nominated for Retro Hugos: "What You Need" by Lewis Padgett was nominated in 1996 for the Retro Hugo for Short Stories written in 1945, while "A Subway Named Mobius" by A. J. Deutsch was nominated in 2001 for the Retro Hugo for Short Stories written in 1950. In addition "The Colour Out Of Space" by H. P. Lovecraft is included, which tied for 12th on the Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll in 1971 for stories written before 1940, and tied for 26th on the Locus All-Time Poll for Novelettes in 1999.

Other noteworthy stories include Jack London's "The Scarlet Plague", and end of civilization story, André Maurois' "The War Against The Moon", Ann Griffith's "Zeritsky's Law, and many others. While this collection is not as strong as the previous ones, it is still a very good collection of stories. This is definitely worth picking up if you have the chance and enjoy early science fiction.

Although he has since been overshadowed by John Campbell, Groff Conklin was an influential editor who produced several collections of science fiction short stories long before SF was fashionable. This book contains a treasure-trove of stories by authors whose names are still familiar as well as a few who may be new to the younger reader.

I certainly hope a new publisher decides to reissue some of Conklin's collections. It has been too long since we were able to enjoy stories by Kris Neville and Ross Rocklynne.