A Treasury of Science Fiction

by Groff Conklin

One of the earliest hardbound anthologies of science fiction, this collection includes 30 stories by recognized leaders in the field including H.F. Heard, Lewis Padgett, Robert Heinlein, Murray Leinster, A. E. Van Vogt, Arthur Clarke, and many others. Edited by the master of early science fiction anthologies, Groff Conklin.



vii · Introduction · Groff Conklin · in
· Part The Atom and After
3 · The Nightmare · Chan Davis · nv Astounding May ’46
19 · Tomorrow’s Children · Poul Anderson & F. N. Waldrop · nv Astounding Mar ’47
40 · The Last Objective · Paul Carter · nv Astounding Aug ’46
62 · Loophole · Arthur C. Clarke · ss Astounding Apr ’46
67 · The Figure · Edward Grendon · ss Astounding Jul ’47
· Part The Wonders of Earth
75 · The Great Fog · H. F. Heard · ss The Great Fog and Other Weird Tales, Vanguard, 1944
85 · The Chrysalis · P. Schuyler Miller · ss Astounding Apr ’36
97 · Living Fossil · L. Sprague de Camp · ss Astounding Feb ’39
110 · N Day · Philip Latham · ss Astounding Jan ’46
· Part The Superscience of Man
129 · With Folded Hands... [Humanoids] · Jack Williamson · nv Astounding Jul ’47
164 · No Woman Born · C. L. Moore · nv Astounding Dec ’44
201 · With Flaming Swords · Cleve Cartmill · nv Astounding Sep ’42
234 · Children of the “Betsy B” · Malcolm Jameson · ss Astounding Mar ’39
· Part Dangerous Inventions
247 · Child’s Play · William Tenn · nv Astounding Mar ’47
268 · The Person from Porlock · Raymond F. Jones · nv Astounding Aug ’47
286 · Juggernaut · A. E. van Vogt · ss Astounding Aug ’44
294 · The Eternal Man [Herbert Zulerich] · D. D. Sharp · ss Science Wonder Stories Aug ’29
· Part Adventures in Dimension
303 · Mimsy Were the Borogoves · Lewis Padgett · nv Astounding Feb ’43
329 · Time and Time Again · H. Beam Piper · ss Astounding Apr ’47
342 · Housing Shortage · Harry Walton · ss Astounding Jan ’47
358 · Flight of the Dawn Star · Robert Moore Williams · ss Astounding Mar ’38
369 · Vintage Season [by Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore] · Lawrence O’Donnell · na Astounding Sep ’46
· Part From Outer Space
407 · Of Jovian Build · Oscar J. Friend · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct ’38
418 · Wings Across the Cosmos · Polton Cross · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Jun ’38
429 · The Embassy · Martin Pearson · ss Astounding Mar ’42
435 · Dark Mission · Lester del Rey · ss Astounding Jul ’40
· Part Far Traveling
451 · The Ethical Equations · Murray Leinster · ss Astounding Jun ’45
464 · It’s Great to Be Back! · Robert A. Heinlein · ss The Saturday Evening Post Jul 26 ’47
476 · Tools · Clifford D. Simak · nv Astounding Jul ’42
496 · Rescue Party · Arthur C. Clarke · nv Astounding May ’46

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Pulp

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1948

About the author

Edward Groff Conklin (September 6, 1904, Glen Ridge, New Jersey - July 19, 1968, Pawling, New York) was a leading science fiction anthologist. Conklin edited 41 anthologies of science fiction, wrote books on home improvement and was a freelance writer on scientific subjects. From 1950 to 1955, he was the book critic for Galaxy Science Fiction.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Berkley paperback presents eight of the thirty stories from Groff Conklin's giant hardback anthology from 1948, which was one of the first great anthologies of the field. Six of them originally appeared in John W. Campbell's Astounding SF magazine, and Robert A. Heinlein's It's Great to Be Back was from the prestigious Saturday Evening Post. Curiously, there are two stories by Arthur C. Clarke, as well as good ones by A.E. van Vogt, Jack Williamson's classic With Folded Hands, and another classic, Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Lewis Padgett, a pseudonym of the great husband-and-wife team of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore. My favorite in this edition is Murray Leinster's The Ethical Equations.

[Skjam! · Rating 3 out of 5]

“A Treasury of Science Fiction” was first published as a hardback in 1948; the edition I read was the paperback reprint from 1957 which only contains eight of the original thirty stories. This was one of the first major science fiction collections, and set the stage for many more.

A Treasury of Science Fiction
“Rescue Party” by Arthur C. Clarke begins this volume with an alien starship learning of the existence of intelligent life on Earth–hours before the planet will be destroyed by its star going nova. It’s a razor-thin hope, but it’s their duty to try to save at least some inhabitants, if they can find any. Curiously, it appears humanity has already vanished, and one of our automated machines means the rescue party itself needs rescue! And then comes the twist ending.

“Juggernaut” by A.E. van Vogt is set during World War Two, when it was written. (All the stories in this volume were written either during or very shortly after the war.) The Americans discover a new steel alloy that’s indestructible and start building weapons out of it. Surely this will win the war for the Allies. Except that there’s a side effect that becomes more and more obvious over time, and the war may be over in a different way.

“With Folded Hands” by Jack Williamson is a chilling tale, and the best story in this volume. A man that owns a small town android dealership is already struggling when a new type of mechanical servant opens up business. Androids require a lot of human supervision for any complex task (such as setting the table), but the new Humanoids are in no need of such instruction. In fact, they’re better than humans at practically everything, and they’re so polite and humble! Who wouldn’t want a Humanoid?

Our protagonist, for starters. He doesn’t like the way the Humanoids just insert themselves into his family’s life and start remodeling the house. The doors are rebuilt so that humans can’t open them, because the Humanoids don’t think humans should have to go through the effort when a Humanoid can do that for them.

Eventually, the protagonist learns that the Humanoids were created on a planet that had suffered atomic war, as a way to help the humans there recover and have war no more. But the Prime Directive is “To Serve and Obey, and Keep Humans from Harm” with the latter being the most important bit. Indeed, obedience quickly goes out the window whenever the human wants to do something that might harm them. Like shave themselves, or play sports, or read a book with disturbing ideas…and if you’re unhappy about that, the Humanoids have learned ways of fixing bad thoughts.

The fact that the Humanoids are depicted as naked black people with “blind” eyes is probably not entirely symbolic, but is suggestive. Note that the novel The Humanoids that this story was eventually turned into is substantially different.

“The Great Fog” by H.F. Heard has a new mildew appear and spread; a meteorologist notices an interesting but tiny rise in humidity everywhere it appears, but his warning that this might be a serious problem is ignored. Soon enough, the entire world is blanketed in a never ending fog; the old civilizations collapse, but humanity survives.

“Mimsey Were the Borogroves” by Lewis Padgett is the other truly classic story in this volume. A scientist who’s invented a time machine needs a payload for it so that he can study the changes when the payload comes back to learn more about the time period it was sent to. He sends two boxes with random assortments of his son’s educational toys; neither returns and he abandons the experiment.

One box winds up in the possession of Scott Paradine, an intelligent and inquisitive seven year old. Being a halfway decent big brother, he shares his new toys with his two year old sister Emma. But the future is a different place, and the education these toys give is not the one their parents might have wanted. We learn that the other box of toys fell into the possession of a girl named Alice, but she was already too old, and only her wild tales shared with a certain author survived.

By the time the Paradine parents take the toys away, it may already be too late. There’s a place the children have to find, not of the present Earth.

“The Ethical Equations” by Murray Leinster is set in a future where the Space Patrol has become hidebound, and only political pressure has gotten them out to investigate a strange object entering the solar system. It turns out to be an alien spacecraft, with the crew in suspended animation. What is the ethical thing to do? What is the right thing to do? Are they the same thing? A lot of technobabble here.

“It’s Great to Be Back” by Robert A. Heinlein has a couple of lunar colonists throw in the towel and head back to Earth for the things like fresh air they’ve been missing. It looks semi-realistically at the issues someone who’s gotten used to lunar gravity would have adjusting to Earth gravity again. The “backwards small town” segments have aged less well, a reminder of just how much technology has caused social change even in the remotest regions.

“Loophole” by Arthur C. Clarke (yes, two stories, and this was before he became one of the most bankable SF writers!) has the Martians decide that they don’t want the Earthlings coming to the red planet with their atomic weaponry. So they blockade Sol 3 with battleships and insist that humans give up rocketry. The humans find a loophole.

Overall, a good representative collection of state of the art science fiction as of 1948. I’ve indicated my favorites, but the Clarke stories may appeal more to the “humans are special” fans. It hasn’t been reprinted in decades, but most of the stories have been collected in other anthologies so should not be hard to find.

[Matthew McElroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was tough, because the good stories in here were excellent, and the last story "Rescue Party" by Arthur C. Clarke was the perfect ending to the compilation. However there are some clunkers in here, which made it less than stellar.

There are enough strong stories in here for me to recommend it with little hesitation. My only advice would be to move past stories where you don't enjoy the writing style. If you do enjoy the writing, then stick with them- the payoff is usually thought-provoking.

One of the big revelations- I think I found the author on which Kurt Vonnegut based his repeat character/inspiration Kilgore Trout. I'm embarrassed to admit I don't remember his name right now. 1/12/24 Update: H. Piper Beam- a few friends have looked into it and said his writing is classic sci-fi pulp.

Traditional criticisms of the 50s apply- all the writing is by white men, but thankfully, sexism, racism and other standard bigotry of the Era is at a minimum if nonexistent.

This is definitely science fiction, not speculative fiction or fantasy. You will read about worlds influenced by discovery and curiosity.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a dud between the covers. Ended with a fun Heinlein short of a couple becoming homesick for the moon and a 6 page Arthur C. Clarke that was a page turner with a reread double take at the end. Oh, the finish to Jack Williamson’s “With Folded Hands” will haunt me for some time.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always been kind of indifferent towards science-fiction. I certainly don't dislike it, and I find it a much more appealing genre than fantasy, but I have never really gotten its being such a popular literary genre, with so many true fanatics who live and breathe it. Like any self-respecting reader, I have Dune on my shelf, which I will read one day. Like any self-respecting Western male, I have always adored Star Wars, and I even read the "expanded universe" books very occasionally. I happened to love Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and I'm a fan of Michael Crichton, whose work usually can be categorised as science-fiction. But all in all, I'm not a major fan of the genre at large.

So I approached this book - a large one, by the way - with some trepidation. I was a little more curious to read it after having recently read (and enjoyed) a non-fiction book about the possibilities of alien life, which partly explored the SF genre and how aliens are depicted. However, I think I was also looking to make some space on my shelf, so reading and passing this one back into circulation would have proved helpful (I hate having to relinquish books from my collection without reading them first - and the amount of times I have done could be counted on one hand).

Upon starting the book, I was pleasantly surprised with how great the stories were. They were all pretty varied, even if centred around broader themes (the atomic bomb, different dimensions, space travel, etc.), so each story usually offered a unique experience. But there were still some slower stories I couldn't not start skimming through eventually (I refer here to No Woman Born by C.L. Moore, and a number of others later in the book).

But there were some absolutely brilliant stories too - my favourites being Robert Heinlein's It's Great to be Back, Paul Carter's The Last Objective, H.F. Heard's The Great Fog, Cleve Cartmill's With Flaming Swords, and D.D. Sharp's The Eternal Man.

There were plenty of others I also liked very much. But unfortunately, I guess my overall lack of passion for the genre still prevailed in the end, as during the last third of the book, I just lost stamina and couldn't be bothered reading the stories anymore. I'm afraid I skipped a few just to be done with the book. And I am glad to be done with it. But for what's it worth, it's still perfectly decent for any true lover of the genre.

[Chris Raiin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great collection! I went through it one section at a time (I'd read a story from a section, then read another story from another section, top to bottom, rotating through sections until I finished). Doing so gave me a cursory glance of early science fiction without feeling stuck in one theme...and gave me enough space between stories sharing a theme to see how different authors treated the idea differently.

I discovered this collection in a used bookstore in Ventura, CA and I'm happy I did. It's something I'll read again. Perhaps my biggest attraction to it is that the stories are well written. Today's writing, in any genre, seems too simplistic; the beauty of language is gone (though not totally). Maybe that was happening back in the '30s and '40s too, but this collection provides great stories with hard scifi that are written well. And it made me happy! I'm sure I'll reread this collection again.

[Dkolacinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second Gruff Conklin science fiction anthology, this one almost exclusively containing stories from Astounding Science Fiction magazine. There is a single story originally published in the Saturday Evening Post which is, frankly, too similar of the popular fiction of the era and the two (?) from other works, one from 1929 and one from another science fiction magazines of the 1940's, while enjoyable, are inferior to those from Astounding.

[Jim Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good selection of science fiction written in 1947 or earlier.

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains some fairly hokey items from days of yore...but a lot of good stuff as well. :)

[Brett]

Science Fiction,Anthology

[William Ritch · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Conklin anthologies were pivotal in my love of science fiction. I read all of them as a teen. They still hold up.