SF Short Fiction – Page 4

VOYAGERS IN TIME edited by Robert Silverberg

TITLE: VOYAGERS IN TIME – Twelve Stories of Science Fiction
EDITED BY: Robert Silverberg
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Anthology
PUBLISHER: Meredith Press, New York, 1967
FORMAT: Hardcover, 243 pages.

In my last post I commented that I\’d recently bought a couple of nice old SF anthologies from Amazon UK. I made a few comments about one of the anthologies, TRIPS IN TIME and gave a contents listing for it. Here\’s the same routine for the other anthology, which was published ten years earlier, but can be considered a \”companion\” anthology, from a thematic viewpoint, since both books contain short stories about time travel. The second of the two anthologies is VOYAGERS IN TIME, edited by Robert Silverberg.

This anthology is a collection of more traditional (but still fun) time travel stories than those in TRIPS IN TIME. The stories in this one span a thirty year period, the earliest originally published in 1937, and the last in 1967. Here\’s a listing of the contents:

The Sands of Time by P. Schuyler Miller (1937)
…And It Comes Out Here by Lester del Rey (1950)
Brooklyn Project by William Tenn (1948)
The Men Who Murdered Mohammed by Alfred Bester (1964)
Time Heals by Poul Anderson (1949)
Wrong-Way Street by Larry Niven (1965)
Flux by Michael Moorcock (1963)
Dominoes by C. M. Kornbluth (1953)
A Bulletin from the Trustees by Wilma Shore (1964)
Traveler\’s Rest by David I. Masson (1965)
Absolutely Inflexible by Robert Silverberg (1956, revised version 1967)
THE TIME MACHINE [Chapter XI, XII – part] by H. G. Wells (1895)

This looks like another very interesting anthology of short fiction. Silverbob certainly does know how to put together a good anthology of stories. Again, some of them I remember well (Wells, Bester, Tenn, and Moorcock), others I vaguely remember (Miller, del Rey, Anderson, Niven, Kornbluth and Silverberg), and the last two I\’m not familiar with at all (Shore, Masson).

As I\’ve already said, this is a kinda/sorta \”sister\” anthology to the later TRIPS IN TIME (1977), which is a more unusual and quirky collection of time travel tales. I\’ve already read several of the stories in TRIPS IN TIME, but now I\’ve started reading some of the stories in VOYAGERS IN TIME as well. I\’m dipping in and out of both books, and it will be nice to compare the two anthologies when I\’ve finished both of them.

As usual, I\’m working my way through the stories in both books slowly, as and when I get free time to do so, and not in any kind of order. I\’ll just pick stories at random, usually with favourite authors first and working my way to least favourite or least familiar. Once I\’ve finished I\’ll start posting comments on individual stories (with the exception of the excerpts from The Time Machine, as I\’ll be reviewing the novel at some point), and comments on the two anthologies as a whole.

TRIPS IN TIME edited by Robert Silverberg

[R]ecently I bought a couple of nice old SF anthologies from Amazon UK, both edited by Robert Silverberg. The first of the two is:

TITLE: TRIPS IN TIME – Nine Stories of Science Fiction
EDITED BY: Robert Silverberg
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Anthology
PUBLISHED: Wildside Press, 1977
FORMAT: Trade paperback, 152 pages.

The anthology is a collection of quirky time travel stories, which span a thirty-five year period, the earliest being originally published in 1941, and the last in 1976. Here\’s a listing of the contents:

An Infinite Summer by Christopher Priest (1976)
The King\’s Wishes by Robert Sheckley (1953)
Manna by Peter Phillips (1949)
The Long Remembering by Poul Anderson (1957)
Try and Change the Past by Fritz Leiber (1958)
Divine Madness by Roger Zelazny (1966)
Mugwump 4 by Robert Silverberg (1959)
Secret Rider by Marta Randall (1976)
The Seesaw by A. E. van Vogt (1941)

This looks like a very interesting anthology of short fiction. Some of these stories I remember well as old favourites (the Priest and Leiber), others I vaguely remember (Sheckley, Anderson, Zelazny, van Vogt, Silverberg), and the other two I\’m not familiar with at all (Phillips, Randall).

Apparently this is a kinda/sorta \”sister\” anthology to an earlier one, VOYAGERS IN TIME (1967), which is a more traditional/typical collection of time travel tales. That\’s the other paper book I mentioned, and I\’ll get to that anthology once I\’ve finished with this one. It will be nice to compare the two collections of short stories.

I\’m looking forward to working my way through TRIPS IN TIME (however slowly, and most likely not in order of the contents listing), and will make a short progress report in this discussion thread as I finish each story.

Alastair Reynolds – Galactic North and Zima Blue

[A]nyone who knows me is very aware that I\’m a huge fan of the science fiction writing of leading British/Welsh \”hard\” SF author, Alastair Reynolds (and of New Space Opera/Hard SF in general). I have most of his novels, with the exception of a couple of the most recent – I\’ll have to rectify that omission soon – but as much as I like Reynolds\’ novels, I like his short fiction even more.

I\’ve been a fan of his short SF going right back to the very first short story of his (that is, the very first that I read, not the first he had published), \”Spirey and the Queen\”, which appeared in Interzone 108 (June 1996). I liked this story a lot, so I did my usual thing and put his name into my little mental list of \”new SF writers to watch out for\”, with the intention of reading any other Reynolds stories that I came across.

But it was really with \”Galactic North\”, which was published in Interzone 145, that he became one of my favourite SF authors. Reading \”Galactic North\” (and, around the same time, and also in Interzone, another one of his stories, \”A Spy in Europa\”) was like receiving a high-octane boost of adrenaline, and just pushed all the right buttons for me. This exciting New Space Opera, a fusion of ultra-hard SF and the more traditional action adventure of classic space opera, was like a breath of fresh air to me. From that point onwards, I began to hunt eagerly for every SF magazine that I could find containing any Alastair Reynolds stories, followed by every Reynolds novel that was released, starting with his Revelation Space sequence of novels, REVELATION SPACE, REDEMPTION ARK and ABSOLUTION GAP.

Right now, on my bookcase, I just happen to be looking right at a couple of lovely collections of short stories written by Reynolds:

$\"Galactic$

The first is a very nice signed 1st edition hardcover of GALACTIC NORTH, his first short story collection. This is a collection of stories set in his classic Revelation Space universe, which includes both of the above-mentioned stories, \”Galactic North\” and \”A Spy in Europa\”. This is a fantastic selection of stories, spanning a time from barely a couple of hundred years in the future, way up to a distant forty thousand years ahead, and set in a universe inhabited by the likes of the Conjoiners, Ultras, Demarchists (all sub-branches of humanity), the Inhibitors (ancient alien killing machines which have been awakened from aeons-long sleep, with one single objective – to annihilate any emerging intelligent species, in this case, humanity), and any number of other brilliant creations from the amazingly inventive mind of Mr. Reynolds.

$\"Zima$

The second hardback collection is ZIMA BLUE, a companion volume to GALACTIC NORTH, this time a selection of his non-Revelation Space short fiction, which includes the aforementioned \”Spirey and the Queen\” and other equally excellent tales. These fascinating and enjoyable stories show that Reynolds is not a one-trick pony, and has many other great stories to tell that are not based in the Revelation Space universe. His more recent novels based in various non-Revelation Space scenarios, including HOUSE OF SUNS, CENTURY RAIN and PUSHING ICE, show that there is an entire multiverse of new stories still to come from the fertile mind of Alastair Reynolds.

I\’d already previously read almost everything in these two collections, with the exception of several of the newer stories, but it\’s really nice to get all of these excellent stories in two nice books, instead of having to go hunting through piles of SF magazines trying to find individual stories.

These two books are an absolute must for all Alastair Reynolds fans, and I\’d not only recommend them to anybody who enjoys Hard SF/New Space Opera, but indeed good, ripping SF yarns of any kind. Anybody who may not yet have had the good fortune to have read any Alastair Reynolds, take my advice – grab these two collections, jump in, feet first, and enjoy some of the best SF short fiction available.

A Couple of Classic Alternate History Stories

[I]\’ve recently come upon an unusual (but nice) little paperback anthology of alternate history stories, OTHER EARTHS edited by Nick Gevers and Jay Lake. I\’ll talk more about that one at a later date.

Strangely enough (well, maybe not so much for me), finding this anthology started me on a major alternate history trip, sending me off on an expedition to dig out of the vaults some of the best examples of classic AH in my admittedly large collection of SF books. I\’ve just finished re-reading two of my favourite classic alternate histories, and these two stories are a perfect example of just how good AH can be.

The first is the magnificent novelette, He Walked Around the Horses, written by one of my favourite-ever SF authors, H. Beam Piper. The story was first published in the April 1948 edition of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, but I first read it back in 1982-1983, in the anthology THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION, edited by Kingsley Amis, which is also where I\’ve just finished re-reading it. It is set during the Napoleonic War, when a British ambassador to her European allies takes a step sideways into an alternate reality where Napoleon never made it big, there is no war, and the political and military alliances in Europe are quite different from those in \”our\” world. This world\’s alternate version of the protagonist leads a different life altogether, and, understandably, the authorities in this alternate reality consider \”our\” protagonist to be some crazy guy, so he\’s locked up.

The second story is the excellent novella The Summer Isles, written by one of the best SF authors in the UK, Iain R. MacLeod. I first read this little gem back in the October/November 1998 edition of ASIMOV\’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE, and I\’ve just re-read it in MacLeod\’s excellent short story collection, BREATHMOSS AND OTHER EXHALATIONS (2004). This is a sensitive tale of a forbidden homosexual relationship, set against a background of fear, paranoia and deadly political skullduggery. It takes place in an alternate 1930s Britain, in a reality in which the Allies lost in World War I, and the Germans were obviously victorious. In this reality, it is, ironically, Britain which has become the repressed fascist dictatorship, and not Germany.

Both stories are exquisitely written, and examples of the best of the genre. They\’re the sort of story you can show to even mainstream literary snobs without fear of them ridiculing you, and they are also the type of story that the pretentious \”mainstream literary wannabies\” within SF itself can\’t even begin to criticize. I don\’t believe in any of the elitist bullshit that these people hold to – a good story is a good story, irrespective of genre. And keep in mind that SF isn\’t merely a \”genre\”, it\’s a \”state of mind\”, a meta-genre, encompassing many other sub-genres. Alternate histories represent one of the many \”respectable\” faces of SF, a sub-genre with (in the vast majority of cases) no spaceships, laser guns or BEMs, just mankind and the \”human condition\”, and a lot of history, mixed with a big dollop of \”What If?\” that really gets the speculation flowing. And one of the main fundamental pillars of SF has always been \”What If?\”

In my \”mundane\”/non-SF persona, I\’m an historian. I\’ve always been fascinated by history, its mechanics, and its possibilities, its futures. And I\’ve also always loved SF. So mixing the two in the shape of alternate histories was always going to be a winner in my book. The two stories above are among my favourites, but there are so many other great alternate histories out there that I can\’t even begin to list them all. Go track them down, take your pick of a few of the recommended ones, and read some of the best stories that SF has to offer.

Reading SF: Galactic North, by Alastair Reynolds

Now Reading: Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds

I\’ve just bought a very nice collection of SF stories by leading British/Welsh \”hard\” SF author Alastair Reynolds. A signed 1st edition hardcover of Galactic North, a collection of stories set in his Revelation Space universe. I\’ve been a fan of Alastair\’s SF going right back to \”Spirey and the Queen\” in Interzone 108 (June 1996). I began to take note of any other Reynolds stories that appeared, but it was with \”Galactic North\” in Interzone 145 that he became one of my favourite SF authors.

It was like being shot between the eyes, and just pushed all the right buttons for me. The blend of hard SF and exciting action adventure was like a breath of fresh air, and I began to hunt eagerly for every SF magazine that I could find containing Alastair Reynolds stories, followed by every Reynolds novel that was released. At the time, I didn\’t realise it, but this was the real start of my love affair with the then-relatively new sub-genre of New Space Opera.

Now I\’m delighted to get my sweaty, eager paws on Galactic North, his first collection. I\’ve already read almost everything in this, with the exception of the newer stories, but it\’s really nice to get all of these Revelation Space stories in one lovely hardback book, instead of having to hunt through back issues of SF magazines such as Interzone, Asimov\’s SF and Spectrum SF for individual stories. A must for all Alastair Reynolds fans, and I\’d recommend it to any fans of hard SF and ripping yarns who may have had the misfortune to not have read any Reynolds yet.

Now I have to find Zima Blue and Other Stories, his second collection, this time of a selection of his non-Revelation Space short fiction. Hopefully, some of these days, we\’ll finally see all of his short fiction collected in book form.