The Best of Damon Knight

by Damon Knight, Barry N. Malzberg (Introduction)

Dark of the Knight • (1976) • essay by Barry N. Malzberg
Not with a Bang • (1950)
To Serve Man • (1950)
Cabin Boy • (1951)
The Analogues • (1952)
Babel II • (1953)
Special Delivery • (1954)
Thing of Beauty • (1958)
Anachron • (1954)
Extempore • (1956)
Backward, O Time • (1956)
The Last Word • (1957)
Man in the Jar • (1957)
The Enemy • (1958)
Eripmav • (1958)
A Likely Story • (1956)
Time Enough • (1960)
Mary • (1964)
The Handler • (1960)
The Big Pat Boom • (1963)
Semper Fi • (1964)
Masks • (1968)
Down There • (1973)

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Collections, Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction Fantasy

337 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 1976

About the author

Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, and critic.
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "Resilience", was published in 1941. He is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", which was adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was a recipient of the Hugo Award, founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop, and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop. Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife Kate Wilhelm.

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 to 4.5 stars. I have not read all of the stories in this collection so this review is for the following stories (I will supplelemnt as I read more of them):

"Not with a Bang" (4.0 stars): A cool short story conerning the last man and woman on Earth with a great "twilight zone" type ending.

"To Serve Man" (5.0 stars): One of Knight's most famous stories, thanks to the great "Twilight Zone" episode made from it. This is superb.

"Cabin Boy" (3.5 stars): Clever and original but not as satisfying as the other stories.

"The Analogues" (5.0 stars): Another superb story with a great premise and an even better ending.

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Master of the Short Story.

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In reading this collection of 22 short stories spanning Damon Knight's career from the 1940s to the 1960s, I was absolutely floored with Knight's craftmanship. Knight was able to provide a background, a character, and a story arc within the course of a few thousand words. More importantly, the stories have some kind of impact on the reader, whether the impact is humorous or thought-provoking.

And all of this during the early days of science fiction.

I compare these short stories to contemporary short stories and the latter fall short. I find that too many short stories today appear to be the first chapter in a planned novel and, therefore, are inconclusive and banal.

The topics and insights of Knight's short stories are often amazing. In "Semper Fi," Knight imagines societal energy being drained off by the invention of a device that can take the user to their own dream world. In a way, Knight anticipated the reality of social media back in the 1940s.

In "Down There," Knight imagines a short story writer in 2012 using a computer to write a short story by dictating to it and then using a pull-down menu to make changes or additions to the story. Except Damon Knight didn't use the term "pull-down menu" because when the story was written in the 1960s, the term didn't exist.

Some of the stories are based around jokes (To Serve Man), dirty jokes (The Cabin Boy), or puns (Eripmav). And, yet, there are some beautiful stories - "Mary" is beautiful romance set in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone is free to have sex but not free to change occupations. Then, there is "The Handler" which seems to reach a level of absurdist metaphor akin to "Being John Malkovich," which Knight disclaims.

A nice feature of this collection is that the stories are introduced with a short excerpt from Knight that situates the story in Knight's life.

This is an easy and enjoyable read, particularly for those who like the more "classic" age of science fiction.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worn dog-eared copy of this paperback is among the books I've kept since high school. I don't recall if I found it through a SciFi book club or Famous Monsters of Filmland book ad. I recently reread each story with a fresh perspective.

Knight's best short fiction is here, along with the classic "To Serve Man," which of course was adapted into the acclaimed Twilight Zone episode.

Time travel, alien language-warping pandemics, art-making robots, and other tales mostly include a moral of loss through ambition or greed.

Knight's prefaces to each story (or series of tales) is also interesting as a reflection of where he was in his life at the time he wrote them.

I also love the slightly creepy cover.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read. I came to Damon Knight through his last wife, Kate Wilhelm. She’s my favorite SF writer, the moods she creates and the beauty of her prose is something I cherish. But, once I found her husband, I realized he was a fantastic editor as well as a writer, mostly of short fiction. This collection included items from 1949-72, and was collected and introduced by Barry N. Malzberg, an SF writer of some really funky and twisted SF novels.

After reading these 22 stories, I feel that Knight is a better with short stories (~ 10 pages) than with a longer format. He can really nail a great piece in 8 pages. One thing I didn’t know was that he wrote the second story in this collection, “To Serve Man” (1950), which was the basis for a great Twilight Zone episode of the same name. The story is better than the adaptation, being so concise but still with all the punch of the larger adaptation. That was a highlight in this collection. I also loved the first story, “Not with a Bang” that left me thinking “oh, what just dessert!” I thought “Cabin Boy” (1951), was a clever and well written story. “The Analogues” (1952) was fantastic, a well-played piece with a very disturbing twist at the end.

I really wasn’t taken with the other stories, but those first four were really good and worth the time to work through this volume. One other thing, each story had a short introduction by Knight, only a few sentences, but they provided context on how the story came about or other tidbits on it. But, a few of them were just flat out condescending or arrogant and self-important. That really turned me off. Thankfully, the first four stories that I loved didn’t have a nasty “appetizer” to start them off.

[Deepa Nirmal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had never heard of Damon Knight, until I came upon his most well-known short story, To Serve Man, in the anthology I read recently, The Uncanny Gastronomic. I was quite intrigued by that, and I am fond of short stories, so I went looking in the stacks of Minneapolis Central and found this, complete with a pocket in the back of the book where the checkout card used to go. (Shout out to public libraries!)

I found this collection a decidedly mixed bag. I think Knight was extremely original and creative, maybe some stories, especially speculative fiction, don't fare very well once several decades have elapsed. There were a few real gems. One story is set in 2012 with a sort of AI agent that helps a writer, so that was pretty brilliant. There's time travel, controlled hallucinations, a society where love is forbidden, a super baby in utero, a world where you age backwards from death to birth and everything happens in reverse including ingestion and defecation... a lot of truly one of a kind stories. I loved some of these and was a bit bewildered by others. I wonder if Knight was just too quirky to achieve mass popularity, it wouldn't surprise me.

[Adam Becker · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1964 Damon Knight wrote about the dangers of becoming addicted to virtual reality! This short story collection features items published mostly in the 1950s. The earliest being from 1949 and the latest from 1973. I was very impressed by the quality of this material. Short SF is my favorite thing to read and I enjoyed this cover to cover. Very clever, varied themes, settings and "moods". His style at times reminded me of Ray Bradbury, evoking a warm feeling of mysticism as if you are looking into a dream of some kind. Some of the stories are meant to be deliberately funny while some are more of a pleasantly entertaining yarn with no deep meaning behind it. I very much enjoyed the authors brief introductions to each story. That combined with knowing the original publication dates help to put the stories into a context of history, adding to my appreciation. A wonderful book!

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Damon Knight was named a "Grand Master" by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1994. After his death in 2002 the award was renamed in his honor. I remember reading stories by him decades ago and so when I came across "The Best of Damon Knight" (selected by him) I thought I had a winner. Other than "To Serve Man" (famous for its adaptation on "The Twilight Zone") this book was a HUGE disappointment. Story after story landed with a thud.

Not every work by an author is guaranteed to stand the test of time, but I've read other such collections and often the very best hold up, but this didn't. It was one dud after another.

[Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't initially familiar with his work but he's not called the master of the short story form for nothing. Holy moly. All killer no filler. It's all a little dated since his heyday was the 60s and 70s but he was a writer as well as a ton of other positions in the writing industry. A titan. He wrote the 'To Serve Man' story that was later turned into a Twilight Zone episode and later lampooned on The Simpsons. Really glad to have made this writer's acquaintance, so to speak. He was apparently prolific so I'll hunt some more anthologies down.

[Nasir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some stories are superb, so much so, hint of it shows up in modern Sci fi tv shows ( e.g to serve man in Simpsons, the cabin boy in Future Rama, etc.). Some are just amazing, some are funny, maybe not to you or me, but still enjoyable. Lastly, some are for author's own enjoyment. Over all another superb contribution by the master, hold on to your imagination, and read through....

[Eddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Damon Knight showcases a diverse grouping of stories in this collection. His voice is distinct, his writing is clear and the subjects are interesting. However, I found most of the stories in this collection to become dull and drag on. At the time he was most likely being paid per word so that could be why. Still, there are a few gems in here worth checking out if you are a fan of science fiction.

[Jim Standridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Best of Damon Knight? I found these stories running from hot to cold. One or two pretty good, but most of average caliber. From the authors comments on these stories, he's a little strange. Many of the stories were just strange. I've read some of his short fiction in other collections but never any of his books or collections. Probably won't after this. Just not my thing...

[Ernest Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kids! Here's another writer you should look into. Humor and originality! Includes "To Serve Man" that was made into a Twilight Zone episode.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only read “Backward, O Time” from here.

[Jeffrey Powanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slick, sardonic science fiction short stories written from 1949 through 1972 by grand master Damon Knight. I picked up this collection because I was wowed by Knight's story "Four in One” (1953). (That story isn’t included in this best-of collection, but you can find it in In Deep, another Knight collection.) This collection has 22 other stories, some just as good. True, a few of these stories Knight wrote just for laughs to entertain himself or friends, but others are stylish gems worth reading multiple times, such as "Not With a Bang," "To Serve Man" (which inspired a famous Twilight Zone episode), "Special Delivery," "Mary," and “Down There." It's an impressive collection of inventive, touching, and well-crafted stories by a master of the short story.

[Lisajean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tight, well-constructed stories. Knight is a master of funny, surprising endings!

[Marc Goldstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

7 “Not With a Bang”
A man and a woman are apparently the last people on earth. The man wants to attempt to reproduce and further the race. The woman, a prude, priggish spinster, insists that they follow the rituals of courtship. The woman finally seems ready to consent, when the man goes into the men’s restroom and suffers a heart attack. Perhaps if the woman could reach him in time, she might save him. Unfortunately, it’s clear she could never bring herself to enter the men’s restroom.

9 “To Serve Man”
Aliens come to earth and bestow upon us incredible gifts: limitless energy, force fields that make war impossible, super fertilizers that make food abundant. What do they want in return? The aliens arrange to allow humans to visit their home world. A team of language experts set to translating an alien book titled “How to Serve Man.” It’s a cookbook.

6 “Down There”
A writer works with a computer to write a story. The computer seems to do most of the work, with the man simply editing the results. He goes home, ducking out of a date with some friends and a young single woman. Instead he goes to a whore house.

7 “Masks”
Something bubbling below the surface of this one. A man suffering a mortal injury, has his entire body replaced with prosthetics. He lobbies to have his humanoid body replaced with a robot explorer so he can visit other planets and contribute to space research. He insults his caretakers until they abandon him. When his dog bothers him, he methodically beats it to death. It seems, in the end, that he just wants to get away because he no longer identifies with humanity, or any living being.

5 “Cabin Boy”
Cute, silly tale of a mischievous alien cabin boy. The alien spaceship captures a human spacecraft. The aliens consume metal. The cabin boy discovers that the captured chuck of metal contains intelligent beings and takes the opportunity to sabotage his ship so the humans can escape.

5 “Anachron”
Two wealthy brothers living in a secluded mansion discover how to create a window in time that allows them to move objects from the past or future into the present. The objects return to their original time whenever a person in their time looks for them, thus avoiding paradoxes. One brother, and art collector, attempts to kill the other and launches a scheme to steal works of art from the future that are sealed in the basement where nobody will see them for centuries. The scientist survives and returns, looking for his art collector brother. A gunfight results in a conflagration that kills the brothers and destroys the time machine.

7 “The Analogues”
Psychiatrist invents a process to produce a hallucination that will prevent addicts and deviants from acting on their compulsions. Every time the compulsion arises, the hallucination manifests and berates the subject until they kowtow. A scientist explains this to a politician, begging for his help to shut down the project. He fears it will ultimately be used on political dissidents and lead to totalitarianism. The politician turns out to be his hallucination.

6 “Babel II”
An alien visiting earth to collect art objects activates a strange device. It’s the tower of Babel, revisited. Suddenly, everyone is speaking a separate, individual language. Spoken and written communication is impossible. The narrator finds the alien again and ask it to reverse what has happened. Then he changes his mind, and asks the alien to only restore written language and leave spoken language the way it is.

[Albert_Camus_lives]

Down There • (1973), recomendación


7 “Not With a Bang”
A man and a woman are apparently the last people on earth. The man wants to attempt to reproduce and further the race. The woman, a prude, priggish spinster, insists that they follow the rituals of courtship. The woman finally seems ready to consent, when the man goes into the men’s restroom and suffers a heart attack. Perhaps if the woman could reach him in time, she might save him. Unfortunately, it’s clear she could never bring herself to enter the men’s restroom.

9 “To Serve Man”
Aliens come to earth and bestow upon us incredible gifts: limitless energy, force fields that make war impossible, super fertilizers that make food abundant. What do they want in return? The aliens arrange to allow humans to visit their home world. A team of language experts set to translating an alien book titled “How to Serve Man.” It’s a cookbook.

6 “Down There”
A writer works with a computer to write a story. The computer seems to do most of the work, with the man simply editing the results. He goes home, ducking out of a date with some friends and a young single woman. Instead he goes to a whore house.

7 “Masks”
Something bubbling below the surface of this one. A man suffering a mortal injury, has his entire body replaced with prosthetics. He lobbies to have his humanoid body replaced with a robot explorer so he can visit other planets and contribute to space research. He insults his caretakers until they abandon him. When his dog bothers him, he methodically beats it to death. It seems, in the end, that he just wants to get away because he no longer identifies with humanity, or any living being.

5 “Cabin Boy”
Cute, silly tale of a mischievous alien cabin boy. The alien spaceship captures a human spacecraft. The aliens consume metal. The cabin boy discovers that the captured chuck of metal contains intelligent beings and takes the opportunity to sabotage his ship so the humans can escape.

5 “Anachron”
Two wealthy brothers living in a secluded mansion discover how to create a window in time that allows them to move objects from the past or future into the present. The objects return to their original time whenever a person in their time looks for them, thus avoiding paradoxes. One brother, and art collector, attempts to kill the other and launches a scheme to steal works of art from the future that are sealed in the basement where nobody will see them for centuries. The scientist survives and returns, looking for his art collector brother. A gunfight results in a conflagration that kills the brothers and destroys the time machine.

7 “The Analogues”
Psychiatrist invents a process to produce a hallucination that will prevent addicts and deviants from acting on their compulsions. Every time the compulsion arises, the hallucination manifests and berates the subject until they kowtow. A scientist explains this to a politician, begging for his help to shut down the project. He fears it will ultimately be used on political dissidents and lead to totalitarianism. The politician turns out to be his hallucination.

6 “Babel II”
An alien visiting earth to collect art objects activates a strange device. It’s the tower of Babel, revisited. Suddenly, everyone is speaking a separate, individual language. Spoken and written communication is impossible. The narrator finds the alien again and ask it to reverse what has happened. Then he changes his mind, and asks the alien to only restore written language and leave spoken language the way it is.

[Clayton Bye · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Best of Damon Knight
Barry N. Malzberg, Editor
Pocket Books, 1976
ISBN: 0-671-83375-8

“Knight is a man of stature and quality, a writer of importance, and a writer whose works will be a new and perhaps jarring experience for many people who were not around when this oeuvre was being built block by block over the decades.” - Barry M. Malzberg

This book will appeal to readers of short science fiction, fantasy and horror. I compare his works to writers like Neil Gaiman and Ray Bradbury.


The Best of Damon Knight

Not with a Bang, 1949
A funny but quietly horrifying end to the human race.

To Serve Man, 1950
This joke rates up there with the best of them. Some of you will be appalled.

Cabin Boy, 1951
Knight’s translation of an off-colour limerick.

The Analogues, 1952
Curing the disturbed by taking them even closer to crazy.

Babel II, 1953
The title should say it all, but it doesn’t. I won’t spoil your laughs.

Special Delivery, 1954
The life and death of a superman. When you understand the comment being made about human nature, you might agree with me that this is horror.

Thing of Beauty, 1958
Satire at its best.

Anachron, 1953
A study of time paradox where the author once again makes a disturbing comment on the base nature of man.

Extempore, 1956
Another time travel story. Be careful what you ask for!

Backward, O Time, 1956
What if time ran backward? A look at the emotional implications of such a paradox.

The Last Word, 1956
The origination of hell as a burning wasteland.

Man in the Jar, 1957
Capturing an alien has never been more tricky. A nasty story about a nasty man.

The Enemy, 1957
Bleak and much too probable to be a story you can enjoy. This is horror.

Eripmav, 1958
A pun.

A Likely Story, 1956
A science fiction convention visited by what seems to be the paranormal.

Time Enough, 1960
A sad look at the nature of mental disorder.

Mary, 1964
What should be Utopia is actually a horrifying existence for the true individual.

The Handler, 1960
An homunculus reveals society for the hell it really is.

The Big Pat Boom, 1963
You think today’s salesmen are trying? Read this story... and smile.

Semper Fi, 1964
Do we look out for the next generation? Do we?

Masks, 1968
A human prosthetic discovers he’s been left one, terrible emotion.

Down There, 1973
A bleak and, I think, horrifying look at where America might be headed in the future.

In The Best of Damon Knight we see just how easy it is for science fiction, fantasy and horror to be considered as interchangeable. If you truly love horror, and you want to explore what it means to you, I heartily recommend that you find a copy of this book and read it with care. You’ll be entertained, and you’ll learn a lot.

Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2009

[Mark Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

As I stepped into my literary rocketship, I brought with me my map of the Golden section of the galaxy, ready to explore and chart the celestial seas of the universe of speculative fiction. I have soared though several realms of imagination and thought I would document new ventures in my quest to continue to expand my knowledge of those who have used their creativity to expand the bookshelves of libraries across the world. I thought I would start out with Knight. When a sci-fi writer is deemed worthy after a lifetime of contributing great writing to the SF literary universe they are knighted with the Nebula Damon Knight Grand Master award.

With a reputation as a master of the genre and a title with the book ‘The Best’ I expected great things from author collection entitled, ‘The Best of Damon Knight’. My expectations were even higher after reading a description of each individual story and thinking, ‘These sound like stories worth investing sometime in to it. This book is out of print and is hard to come by. But through the magic of the library exchange program I got this book and stepped into the Knight.

It is best to describe and rate each story individually. But that takes time. Let me say at the that overall the personal reflections of when DK wrote each story was overall more interesting than the stories themselves. I may try to read another of his stories. I may even tackle his non-fiction book “How to Write Short Fiction.” But with so little time an so many good authors to read, it’s best to move on to someone else. Some of the stories that stand out are………
To Serve Man • (1950 Beware of aliens bearing gifts. I understand why this is considered a classic. It is found in several anthologies and was made into a classic Twilight Zone episode.

Special Delivery • (1954) • One of two Knight stories to be found free to read and distribute on Guttenburg.com. It is a story that shows the wonder of life in the womb and the bond between a mother and her puffed up bratty bayb.

Anachron • (1954) A time travel story I will read all the way through once I get the Best Time Travel Stories Of all Time anthology out at the library.

Man in the Jar • (1957) A greedy earthman traps a bellhop in a giant jar. The bellhop is apparently some type of creature who can create diamonds. The greedy earthman threatens to kill him if he doesn’t do it for him. A rather well crafted sci-fi story.

Masks • (1968) A popular story found in several Sci-Fi anthologies in which I actually plan on reading at somepoint.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up through the Science Fiction Book Club on the basis of price more than anything, one having to fulfill a minimum order for each year of membership in order to enjoy their come-on offer. Some of it I had read before, many of the stories having been anthologized elsewhere. The most notable of them is, of course, "To Serve Man" (1950), which had been shown as a Twilight Zone episode and seen by me long before I found it included in one of the innumerable Alfred Hitchcock collections. For those familiar only with the television version there will be some surprise at reading the original story.

[Patrick Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

22 short stories from the period 1949 - 1973. Each story has a brief foreword by Knight that provides some informative and/or entertaining background. The stories primarily fit into the Twilight Zone mold of nightmare scenarios or twist endings; in fact, "To Serve Man" was adapted into one of the more popular episodes. ‘Thing of Beauty’ is one of my favorites. Enjoy!

Included are:

Not With a Bang
To Serve Man
Cabin Boy
Analogues
Babel II
Special Delivery
Thing of Beauty
Anachron
Extempore
Backward, O Time
Last Word
Man in The Jar
The Enemy
Eripmav
Likely Story
Time Enough
Mary

[Sanuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting short stories if you like old science fiction. The stories kept my interest all the way and there was some nice punches at the end.

I enjoyed this book particularly because I was also reading a book on writing by the same author and he often refers to his own stories in his good book on writing.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cross-section, for good or bad, of classic science fiction by a notable author. Some of the stories are inconsequential, but others, like "Backwards, O Time" and "A Thing of Beauty" have aged quite well. I also discovered that the Twilight Zone episode adaptation of "To Serve Man" is better than the original. My apologies. Mr. Knight!