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Annual World's Best SF #16
The 1987 Annual World's Best SF
1987 Annual World's Best SF, by Donald A. Wollheim. ... Contributors include Tanith Lee, Roger Zelazny.
271 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
3 people are currently reading
104 people want to read
About the author
Donald A. Wollheim
297 books36 followersDonald Allen Wollheim was a science fiction writer, editor, publisher and fan. He published his own works under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell.
A member of the Futurians, he was one of the leading influences on the development of science fiction and science fiction fandom in the 20th century United States.
In 1937, Wollheim founded the Fantasy Amateur Press Association. The first mailing was distributed in July of that year and included this statement from Wollheim: "There are many fans desiring to put out a voice who dare not, for fear of being obliged to keep it up, and for the worry and time taken by subscriptions and advertising. It is for them and for the fan who admits it is his hobby and not his business that we formed the FAPA."
Wollheim was also a member of the New York Science Fiction League, one of the clubs established by Hugo Gernsback to promote science fiction. When Wollheim published a complaint of non-payment for stories against Gernsback, Gernsback dissolved the New York chapter of the club.
Wollheim's first story, "The Man from Ariel," was published in the January 1934 issue of Wonder Stories when Wollheim was nineteen. Wollheim was not paid for the story and when he began to look into the situation, he learned that many other authors had not been paid for their work, publishing his findings in the Bulletin of the Terrestrial Fantascience Guild. Gernsback eventually settled the case with Wollheim and other authors out of court for $75, but when Wollheim submitted another story to Gernsback, under the pseudonym "Millard Verne Gordon," he was again not paid. One of Wollheim's short stories, "Mimic" was made into the feature film of the same name, which was released in 1997.
He left Avon Books in 1952 to work for A. A. Wyn at Ace Books. In 1953 he introduced science fiction to the Ace lineup, and for 20 years edited their renowned sf list. Ace was well known for the Ace Doubles series which consisted of pairs of books, usually by different authors, bound back-to-back with two "front" covers. Because these paired books had to fit a fixed total page-length, one or both were usually heavily abridged to fit, and Wollheim often made many other editorial alterations and title changes — as witness the many differences between Poul Anderson's Ace novel War of the Wing-Men and its definitive revised edition, The Man Who Counts. It was also during the 1950s he bought the book Junk by William S. Burroughs, which, in his inimitable fashion, he retitled Junkie.
In 1965 Wollheim published an unauthorized Ace edition of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien in three volumes — the first mass-market paperback edition of Tolkien's epic. This was done because Wollheim believed the Houghton Mifflin hardcover editions failed to properly assert copyright. In a 2006 interview, Wollheim's daughter claimed that Tolkien had angered her father by saying that his magnum opus would never be published in so ‘degenerate a form’ as the paperback book. However, Tolkien had previously authorized a paperback edition of The Hobbit in 1961, and eventually supported paperback editions of The Lord of the Rings and several of his other texts. In any case, Ace was forced to cease publishing the unauthorized edition and to pay Tolkien for their sales following a grass-roots campaign and boycott by Tolkien's U.S. fans. In 1993 a court found that the copyright loophole suggested by Ace Books was incorrect and their paperback edition found to have been a violation of Tolkien's copyright under US law.
After leaving Ace he founded DAW Books in 1971, named by his initials, which can claim to be the first mass market specialist science fiction and fantasy fiction publishing house. In later years, when his distributors, New American Library, threatened to withhold distribution of Thomas Burnett Swann's Biblical fantasy How are the Mighty Fallen (1974) because of its homosexual con
A member of the Futurians, he was one of the leading influences on the development of science fiction and science fiction fandom in the 20th century United States.
In 1937, Wollheim founded the Fantasy Amateur Press Association. The first mailing was distributed in July of that year and included this statement from Wollheim: "There are many fans desiring to put out a voice who dare not, for fear of being obliged to keep it up, and for the worry and time taken by subscriptions and advertising. It is for them and for the fan who admits it is his hobby and not his business that we formed the FAPA."
Wollheim was also a member of the New York Science Fiction League, one of the clubs established by Hugo Gernsback to promote science fiction. When Wollheim published a complaint of non-payment for stories against Gernsback, Gernsback dissolved the New York chapter of the club.
Wollheim's first story, "The Man from Ariel," was published in the January 1934 issue of Wonder Stories when Wollheim was nineteen. Wollheim was not paid for the story and when he began to look into the situation, he learned that many other authors had not been paid for their work, publishing his findings in the Bulletin of the Terrestrial Fantascience Guild. Gernsback eventually settled the case with Wollheim and other authors out of court for $75, but when Wollheim submitted another story to Gernsback, under the pseudonym "Millard Verne Gordon," he was again not paid. One of Wollheim's short stories, "Mimic" was made into the feature film of the same name, which was released in 1997.
He left Avon Books in 1952 to work for A. A. Wyn at Ace Books. In 1953 he introduced science fiction to the Ace lineup, and for 20 years edited their renowned sf list. Ace was well known for the Ace Doubles series which consisted of pairs of books, usually by different authors, bound back-to-back with two "front" covers. Because these paired books had to fit a fixed total page-length, one or both were usually heavily abridged to fit, and Wollheim often made many other editorial alterations and title changes — as witness the many differences between Poul Anderson's Ace novel War of the Wing-Men and its definitive revised edition, The Man Who Counts. It was also during the 1950s he bought the book Junk by William S. Burroughs, which, in his inimitable fashion, he retitled Junkie.
In 1965 Wollheim published an unauthorized Ace edition of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien in three volumes — the first mass-market paperback edition of Tolkien's epic. This was done because Wollheim believed the Houghton Mifflin hardcover editions failed to properly assert copyright. In a 2006 interview, Wollheim's daughter claimed that Tolkien had angered her father by saying that his magnum opus would never be published in so ‘degenerate a form’ as the paperback book. However, Tolkien had previously authorized a paperback edition of The Hobbit in 1961, and eventually supported paperback editions of The Lord of the Rings and several of his other texts. In any case, Ace was forced to cease publishing the unauthorized edition and to pay Tolkien for their sales following a grass-roots campaign and boycott by Tolkien's U.S. fans. In 1993 a court found that the copyright loophole suggested by Ace Books was incorrect and their paperback edition found to have been a violation of Tolkien's copyright under US law.
After leaving Ace he founded DAW Books in 1971, named by his initials, which can claim to be the first mass market specialist science fiction and fantasy fiction publishing house. In later years, when his distributors, New American Library, threatened to withhold distribution of Thomas Burnett Swann's Biblical fantasy How are the Mighty Fallen (1974) because of its homosexual con
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 7, 2024
Quick review: 10 Stories: 2 Great / 3 Good / 2 Average / 3 DNF
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Long review https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comm...
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April 25, 2017I'm trying to review all the editions of these anthologies that I own. This is one of the ones I'd already read, though I didn't remember most of the stories very well.
Permafrost, Roger Zelazny - I think I like the concept here more than the execution. You've got a woman betrayed who becomes an organic world-spanning consciousness and then manipulates her former lover into becoming entrapped by a massively powerful computer system, and then the two of them spend eternity waging war on each other across an entire empty planet. Sounds cool, right? Except the cool stuff I just mentioned is confined to the last couple of pages, and the majority of the story is just the former lover sneakily preparing for a caving expedition and being vaguely misogynistic. If this had been told from the perspective of the vengeful planet-sized fungus-brain, I think I would have liked it a lot more.
Timerider, Doris Egan - The ending felt a little abrupt but I loved this one. It did a great job of slowly revealing an alien society and a complicated piece of made-up technology in a way that felt totally natural. I loved the main character - she was relatable and likable, but also just 'off' enough that she felt plausible as a person who'd been through so many bizarre experiences. And all of the secondary characters were much more well-developed and interesting than they had to be. I could easily have read a whole novel's worth of this.
Pretty Boy Crossover, Pat Cadigan - I heard somebody say recently that cyberpunk was dead because everything it predicted had already happened. This story puts the lie to that - it's from the earliest generation of cyberpunk but it didn't feel stale to me. I mean, it's your basic "kid from a weird clubbing subculture turns down a chance to become an immortal machine consciousness because it would mean sacrificing his selfhood" story, by which I mean it's totally full of cyberpunk tropes that everyone is sort of sick of by now, but it's well-written and the main character feels real.
R & R, Lucius Shepard - Ok, this one enchanted me, which is a weird thing to say about such a brutal and depressing story, but it did. It's a war story, about a guy who goes on leave from Future Middle-American War with two of his buddies and has to decide whether to desert. That describes the plot, but there's so much more going on here - amazingly vivid descriptions, painfully human characters, and a concept of the future so horrible it's almost spectacular in its horribleness. Run don't walk, etc.
Lo, How an Oak E'er Blooming, Suzette Haden Elgin - How would society react if completely incontrovertible proof of a miracle appeared? I really liked the idea and the multiple angles from which it was explored - cheap plastic souvenirs, scientists and priests joining together in perplexity and fear - but somehow the story felt almost flippant. I think the author was going for 'charming' but it left me wishing for a more naturalistic take on the exact same plot.
Dream in a Bottle, Jerry Meredith and D. E. Smirl - In a post-Matrix world, stories about 'what if someone is really a brain in a jar' just don't move me the way they used to. Not really the authors' fault, and I did like the way the various brains lived in worlds which were metaphorical analogies for their functions on the ship, although I kinda question how well that would really work in practice.
Into Gold, Tanith Lee - This is an interesting one, because it can be taken as sci-fi or as pure fantasy... because it's set after the fall of the Roman Empire, and if an alien with alien tech showed up then, everyone would assume they were a witch or a demon or a goddess. The characters and setting were very rich in this one, but the ending left me a little flat.
The Lions Are Asleep This Night, Howard Waldrop - This is set in an alternate world history timeline, where North America was never inhabited by Native Americans, indirectly leading to the fall of Europe and the rise of Africa as a seat of world power. But it's not actually ABOUT that - it's about a young boy writing a play. Odd, because I'm not 100% sure why it was necessary for this story to be told in this setting, yet there was nothing about it I didn't like.
Against Babylon, Robert Silverberg - Alien spaceships land near LA, setting off massive brushfires, and we learn about it from the perspective of an amateur pilot and volunteer firefighter whose wife is a total Southern California mystical type. I totally loved this one. Very effective personal-level view of an alien event, and the ambiguous nature of the aliens' agenda was great. (Apparently this was later adapted into a novel where the aliens are definitely bad guys, which is a shame.)
Strangers in Paradise, Damon Knight - Less of a gut punch the second time around, but I remember being so shocked and sad when I first read this one. I'll say no more, but it's pretty great.
Favorites: Timerider, R & R, Against Babylon
Permafrost, Roger Zelazny - I think I like the concept here more than the execution. You've got a woman betrayed who becomes an organic world-spanning consciousness and then manipulates her former lover into becoming entrapped by a massively powerful computer system, and then the two of them spend eternity waging war on each other across an entire empty planet. Sounds cool, right? Except the cool stuff I just mentioned is confined to the last couple of pages, and the majority of the story is just the former lover sneakily preparing for a caving expedition and being vaguely misogynistic. If this had been told from the perspective of the vengeful planet-sized fungus-brain, I think I would have liked it a lot more.
Timerider, Doris Egan - The ending felt a little abrupt but I loved this one. It did a great job of slowly revealing an alien society and a complicated piece of made-up technology in a way that felt totally natural. I loved the main character - she was relatable and likable, but also just 'off' enough that she felt plausible as a person who'd been through so many bizarre experiences. And all of the secondary characters were much more well-developed and interesting than they had to be. I could easily have read a whole novel's worth of this.
Pretty Boy Crossover, Pat Cadigan - I heard somebody say recently that cyberpunk was dead because everything it predicted had already happened. This story puts the lie to that - it's from the earliest generation of cyberpunk but it didn't feel stale to me. I mean, it's your basic "kid from a weird clubbing subculture turns down a chance to become an immortal machine consciousness because it would mean sacrificing his selfhood" story, by which I mean it's totally full of cyberpunk tropes that everyone is sort of sick of by now, but it's well-written and the main character feels real.
R & R, Lucius Shepard - Ok, this one enchanted me, which is a weird thing to say about such a brutal and depressing story, but it did. It's a war story, about a guy who goes on leave from Future Middle-American War with two of his buddies and has to decide whether to desert. That describes the plot, but there's so much more going on here - amazingly vivid descriptions, painfully human characters, and a concept of the future so horrible it's almost spectacular in its horribleness. Run don't walk, etc.
Lo, How an Oak E'er Blooming, Suzette Haden Elgin - How would society react if completely incontrovertible proof of a miracle appeared? I really liked the idea and the multiple angles from which it was explored - cheap plastic souvenirs, scientists and priests joining together in perplexity and fear - but somehow the story felt almost flippant. I think the author was going for 'charming' but it left me wishing for a more naturalistic take on the exact same plot.
Dream in a Bottle, Jerry Meredith and D. E. Smirl - In a post-Matrix world, stories about 'what if someone is really a brain in a jar' just don't move me the way they used to. Not really the authors' fault, and I did like the way the various brains lived in worlds which were metaphorical analogies for their functions on the ship, although I kinda question how well that would really work in practice.
Into Gold, Tanith Lee - This is an interesting one, because it can be taken as sci-fi or as pure fantasy... because it's set after the fall of the Roman Empire, and if an alien with alien tech showed up then, everyone would assume they were a witch or a demon or a goddess. The characters and setting were very rich in this one, but the ending left me a little flat.
The Lions Are Asleep This Night, Howard Waldrop - This is set in an alternate world history timeline, where North America was never inhabited by Native Americans, indirectly leading to the fall of Europe and the rise of Africa as a seat of world power. But it's not actually ABOUT that - it's about a young boy writing a play. Odd, because I'm not 100% sure why it was necessary for this story to be told in this setting, yet there was nothing about it I didn't like.
Against Babylon, Robert Silverberg - Alien spaceships land near LA, setting off massive brushfires, and we learn about it from the perspective of an amateur pilot and volunteer firefighter whose wife is a total Southern California mystical type. I totally loved this one. Very effective personal-level view of an alien event, and the ambiguous nature of the aliens' agenda was great. (Apparently this was later adapted into a novel where the aliens are definitely bad guys, which is a shame.)
Strangers in Paradise, Damon Knight - Less of a gut punch the second time around, but I remember being so shocked and sad when I first read this one. I'll say no more, but it's pretty great.
Favorites: Timerider, R & R, Against Babylon
August 1, 2024
Last year I read Donald A. Wollheim's 1980 ANnual World's Best SF, and while the 1987 edition doesn't surpass that one, it still looks great next to it on the shelves and manages to show off some of the best things about late 80s science fiction while also demonstrating its pitfalls, which is always the cool thing about a collection like this. Let's get started with story-by-story breakdowns and reviews.
--"Permafrost" by Roger Zelazny starts the book of strong by painting a vivid and interesting views of a resort planet during its glaciery off-season while overlaying said painting with an interesting character arc pertaining to the main character, who used to be one of the planet's two overseers, returning back with a young woman in tow to stir up trouble, and . I don't exactly understand what he was aiming to do, exactly, but I know that pretty much everything else in this story is exquisitely laid out and uses Zelazny's prose in the awe-nudging way of my other favorite short story of his, "Dismal Light." A fine start that warrants an 8.5/10.
--Doris Egan (no apparent relation to Greg Egan) wrote a few short stories before becoming an SF + Fantasy screenwriter, starting with "Timerider." It's quite good for a debut story, even if its story about a young woman plucked out of history and into some Olympian pocket-universe to help modify the past's events due to her adept ability to ride the waves of time (and possibly even steal art for her boss' pocketbook) rings true of *The Big Time*, *The End of Eternity*, and plenty of other time travel stories. It's still a good yarn with an interesting, if not all that impactful, ending. 7.75/10.
--I've never read Pat Caddigan before, which is why I was happy to see "Pretty Boy Crossover," a cyberpunk story about a teenage boy who enjoys his status of "Pretty Boy" and detests his old Pretty Boy friend's uploading of his consciousness. But will he hate it once the same offer is made to him?... Yes, *Neuromancer* and *Hardwired* by Walter Jon Williams and the like very much ring true here, but it is a discomforting tale that might even be a bit more relevant in our current age of computing than Caddigan's. 7.5.
--This collection's centerpiece is very much "R & R," a Lucius Sheppard novella that would later be incorporated into his novel *Life During Wartime*. His work is not my forte - I only knew it by reputation before this story - but I could quickly see why he is talked of so favorably: he's one helluva writer who writes very nice descriptive prose and can display sufficient emotion. But the story he chose to tell - a kind of Vietnam-esque story set in a wartime Central American with hints of futuristic technology - didn't do it for me. I didn't care if our main character deserted or ; he just... was there. A 6.5/10 because it was good, but I had a hard time feeling that goodness from the text.
--"Lo, How An Oak E'er Blooming" by Suzette Haden Elgin was also one of the weaker stories anthologized. It's about this feminist speaker and how a tree outside a conference she's holding erupts in golden, instantly regenerative blooms and how this state of being... defies the patriarchy? You do you, Suzette, but your botanical-miracle story felt a bit static and worthless to me, even if you can write. 6/10.
--Jerry Meredith and D. E. Smirl are two writers largely forgotten by their potential readership, but their story "Dream In a Bottle" was not only good enough for L. Ron Hubbard's second Writers of the Future volume and Donald A. Wollheim's best of, but for your current host Darnoc Leadburger. This story is set in one of those "awe-nudging" worlds in which its starships are powered by the dismembered brains of humans who believes they're living their best lives when their mental actions are actually flying their ship, and it focuses on one of the guys who's supposed to control them. It goes in a couple interesting ways and does the whole "is this a dream?" trope pretty effectively. It just left me with a smile and wishing that one or both of these guys would've written more than some short stories. 8/10.
--"Into Gold" has got to be the best Tanith Lee story I've read. It's also the most fantastical in this book - it's set in Roman times and focuses on a city descended from abandoned Legionaries, specifically the leader's most trusted advisor who becomes a little less trusted once a travelling merchant comes to town and gives the hand of his daughter, who can turn things into gold, over to the town's leader, which helps some scary things ensue. It's a bit intense but it's nicely written even if I can't find any important theme in . Still, it made me more excited to read more Lee than I ever have been before. 7.5/10.
--If Lee's entry is the most fantastical, Howard Waldrop's "The Lions Are Asleep This Night" is the book's least speculative. I might think it's an alternate history set in a very subtly different 1890s Niger, but I know it's about a young boy raised by a single mother who loves to read and write plays even though everyone in his life tells him it's a waste of his time. I liked the kid's perseverance, but I'm not that into theater so this story did fail to connect on a couple levels for me. Still, Waldrop's a good writer, so I'm thinking 7/10.
--"Against Babylon" by Robert Silverberg, our penultimate story, would go on to become *The Alien Years* in the 1990s. It's written in Silverberg's usual vaguely-opaque, sophisticated style and focuses on an irregular kind of protagonist: a pilot who releases flame retardant over Southern Californian wildfires. The plot incites when three alien ships land and start three separate Californian fires and thickens when . It's chilling and engaging but never quite as heartbreaking as the plot demands, and the ending is as inconclusive and unencouraging as the emotions the protagonist must certainly be feeling. Still, it's a unique take with good prose, so it's a 7.5/10.
--Finally, Damon Knight takes us and some "Strangers on Paradise" on an above-average ride through a human colony world without disease. Our main character is looking to write a biography of a famous poet who spent decades there before falling into ten years of "silence." He's welcomed warmly by the natives and loves the planet, but will he be able to ? This would've been more compelling if the group behind the twist at the end had been clearly laid out, but this is still better written than a lot of Knight's fiction and is a worthy effort warranting a 7.5/10.
These stories all even out to a 7.375, which I think is good enough to a book-wide rating of 7.5/10. It's a good book that collects a lot of things that are worth your time even if only a couple of them break that 8/10, four-star barrier. I do think I'll have to collect the Book Club hardcovers of every book in this series, and if Wollheim keeps anthologizing this well, I think I'll find a couple gems in each collection. Thanks for reading this far, and feel free to see how I'm doing with the other Annual World's Best SFs on my profile. Till then, keep reading short fiction, and best of luck trying to find "awe-nudging" science fiction for your own soul...
--"Permafrost" by Roger Zelazny starts the book of strong by painting a vivid and interesting views of a resort planet during its glaciery off-season while overlaying said painting with an interesting character arc pertaining to the main character, who used to be one of the planet's two overseers, returning back with a young woman in tow to stir up trouble, and . I don't exactly understand what he was aiming to do, exactly, but I know that pretty much everything else in this story is exquisitely laid out and uses Zelazny's prose in the awe-nudging way of my other favorite short story of his, "Dismal Light." A fine start that warrants an 8.5/10.
--Doris Egan (no apparent relation to Greg Egan) wrote a few short stories before becoming an SF + Fantasy screenwriter, starting with "Timerider." It's quite good for a debut story, even if its story about a young woman plucked out of history and into some Olympian pocket-universe to help modify the past's events due to her adept ability to ride the waves of time (and possibly even steal art for her boss' pocketbook) rings true of *The Big Time*, *The End of Eternity*, and plenty of other time travel stories. It's still a good yarn with an interesting, if not all that impactful, ending. 7.75/10.
--I've never read Pat Caddigan before, which is why I was happy to see "Pretty Boy Crossover," a cyberpunk story about a teenage boy who enjoys his status of "Pretty Boy" and detests his old Pretty Boy friend's uploading of his consciousness. But will he hate it once the same offer is made to him?... Yes, *Neuromancer* and *Hardwired* by Walter Jon Williams and the like very much ring true here, but it is a discomforting tale that might even be a bit more relevant in our current age of computing than Caddigan's. 7.5.
--This collection's centerpiece is very much "R & R," a Lucius Sheppard novella that would later be incorporated into his novel *Life During Wartime*. His work is not my forte - I only knew it by reputation before this story - but I could quickly see why he is talked of so favorably: he's one helluva writer who writes very nice descriptive prose and can display sufficient emotion. But the story he chose to tell - a kind of Vietnam-esque story set in a wartime Central American with hints of futuristic technology - didn't do it for me. I didn't care if our main character deserted or ; he just... was there. A 6.5/10 because it was good, but I had a hard time feeling that goodness from the text.
--"Lo, How An Oak E'er Blooming" by Suzette Haden Elgin was also one of the weaker stories anthologized. It's about this feminist speaker and how a tree outside a conference she's holding erupts in golden, instantly regenerative blooms and how this state of being... defies the patriarchy? You do you, Suzette, but your botanical-miracle story felt a bit static and worthless to me, even if you can write. 6/10.
--Jerry Meredith and D. E. Smirl are two writers largely forgotten by their potential readership, but their story "Dream In a Bottle" was not only good enough for L. Ron Hubbard's second Writers of the Future volume and Donald A. Wollheim's best of, but for your current host Darnoc Leadburger. This story is set in one of those "awe-nudging" worlds in which its starships are powered by the dismembered brains of humans who believes they're living their best lives when their mental actions are actually flying their ship, and it focuses on one of the guys who's supposed to control them. It goes in a couple interesting ways and does the whole "is this a dream?" trope pretty effectively. It just left me with a smile and wishing that one or both of these guys would've written more than some short stories. 8/10.
--"Into Gold" has got to be the best Tanith Lee story I've read. It's also the most fantastical in this book - it's set in Roman times and focuses on a city descended from abandoned Legionaries, specifically the leader's most trusted advisor who becomes a little less trusted once a travelling merchant comes to town and gives the hand of his daughter, who can turn things into gold, over to the town's leader, which helps some scary things ensue. It's a bit intense but it's nicely written even if I can't find any important theme in . Still, it made me more excited to read more Lee than I ever have been before. 7.5/10.
--If Lee's entry is the most fantastical, Howard Waldrop's "The Lions Are Asleep This Night" is the book's least speculative. I might think it's an alternate history set in a very subtly different 1890s Niger, but I know it's about a young boy raised by a single mother who loves to read and write plays even though everyone in his life tells him it's a waste of his time. I liked the kid's perseverance, but I'm not that into theater so this story did fail to connect on a couple levels for me. Still, Waldrop's a good writer, so I'm thinking 7/10.
--"Against Babylon" by Robert Silverberg, our penultimate story, would go on to become *The Alien Years* in the 1990s. It's written in Silverberg's usual vaguely-opaque, sophisticated style and focuses on an irregular kind of protagonist: a pilot who releases flame retardant over Southern Californian wildfires. The plot incites when three alien ships land and start three separate Californian fires and thickens when . It's chilling and engaging but never quite as heartbreaking as the plot demands, and the ending is as inconclusive and unencouraging as the emotions the protagonist must certainly be feeling. Still, it's a unique take with good prose, so it's a 7.5/10.
--Finally, Damon Knight takes us and some "Strangers on Paradise" on an above-average ride through a human colony world without disease. Our main character is looking to write a biography of a famous poet who spent decades there before falling into ten years of "silence." He's welcomed warmly by the natives and loves the planet, but will he be able to ? This would've been more compelling if the group behind the twist at the end had been clearly laid out, but this is still better written than a lot of Knight's fiction and is a worthy effort warranting a 7.5/10.
These stories all even out to a 7.375, which I think is good enough to a book-wide rating of 7.5/10. It's a good book that collects a lot of things that are worth your time even if only a couple of them break that 8/10, four-star barrier. I do think I'll have to collect the Book Club hardcovers of every book in this series, and if Wollheim keeps anthologizing this well, I think I'll find a couple gems in each collection. Thanks for reading this far, and feel free to see how I'm doing with the other Annual World's Best SFs on my profile. Till then, keep reading short fiction, and best of luck trying to find "awe-nudging" science fiction for your own soul...
January 31, 2026
1987
An introduction starts this collection by reflecting on the disasters of the year before: The Challenger explosion and The Chernobyl Disaster. Ultimately, the point being made is that sci fi is not just escapism, but operating under the belief that through it all; mankind will persevere and find a way to put these and other tragedies behind us and focus on making real those far off and fantastic futures.
Let’s hope we are still capable of walking that path.
Permafrost- A really good story about consciousness of many varieties and marked by some really excellent writing from Zelazny. A pleasure to read and an ending that leave room for thought, but still leaves you with that important feeling of closure.
Timerider - A very fast paced story about time travel, but not your usual time travel story. This is more so an adventure, rogue group pulling off that impossible heist. It’s a lot of fun.
Pretty Boy Crossover - Kinda cyberpunkish, a lot of charm in a quick story. Would you want to live forever? Lots of questions to ask before you answer that.
R & R- A really hard hitting psychic, drug , and military sci fi story that I promise you have no idea where it’s going. It’s one hell of a ride and the writing here is very very good.
Lo, How An Oak… - More like a bedtime fairy tale, it’s not bad , it’s just not something that blew me away.
Dream In A Bottle- This is the eerie and weird sci fi that I really like. It’s bold big ideas in an established world that just throws you in and is on the gas the whole time. It’s a short one, but packs a very good conclusion that has you immediately pondering what you just read.
Into Gold- Lee always has such good prose, excellent worlds to explore, and great characters. All that is on display here in a unique and more contemplative tale, that leaves a head scratching open ending- and I highly recommend you give it a chance.
The Lions Are Asleep… - A very interesting story, a lot of cultural subtext to this one that I may have not grasped all the way.
Against Babylon - Silverberg always shines. It’s a short but captivating look at man caught in a few different tight spots all at once, oddly enough the alien invasion is the easiest of his troubles; the real tough spot is a look at how we live as humans, and the vast differences in us. A very worthwhile story.
Strangers On Paradise - A great witty story that heads you in one direction, and then when the layers begin to peel back reveals something else entirely. Very well written and a great story to end this volume.
An introduction starts this collection by reflecting on the disasters of the year before: The Challenger explosion and The Chernobyl Disaster. Ultimately, the point being made is that sci fi is not just escapism, but operating under the belief that through it all; mankind will persevere and find a way to put these and other tragedies behind us and focus on making real those far off and fantastic futures.
Let’s hope we are still capable of walking that path.
Permafrost- A really good story about consciousness of many varieties and marked by some really excellent writing from Zelazny. A pleasure to read and an ending that leave room for thought, but still leaves you with that important feeling of closure.
Timerider - A very fast paced story about time travel, but not your usual time travel story. This is more so an adventure, rogue group pulling off that impossible heist. It’s a lot of fun.
Pretty Boy Crossover - Kinda cyberpunkish, a lot of charm in a quick story. Would you want to live forever? Lots of questions to ask before you answer that.
R & R- A really hard hitting psychic, drug , and military sci fi story that I promise you have no idea where it’s going. It’s one hell of a ride and the writing here is very very good.
Lo, How An Oak… - More like a bedtime fairy tale, it’s not bad , it’s just not something that blew me away.
Dream In A Bottle- This is the eerie and weird sci fi that I really like. It’s bold big ideas in an established world that just throws you in and is on the gas the whole time. It’s a short one, but packs a very good conclusion that has you immediately pondering what you just read.
Into Gold- Lee always has such good prose, excellent worlds to explore, and great characters. All that is on display here in a unique and more contemplative tale, that leaves a head scratching open ending- and I highly recommend you give it a chance.
The Lions Are Asleep… - A very interesting story, a lot of cultural subtext to this one that I may have not grasped all the way.
Against Babylon - Silverberg always shines. It’s a short but captivating look at man caught in a few different tight spots all at once, oddly enough the alien invasion is the easiest of his troubles; the real tough spot is a look at how we live as humans, and the vast differences in us. A very worthwhile story.
Strangers On Paradise - A great witty story that heads you in one direction, and then when the layers begin to peel back reveals something else entirely. Very well written and a great story to end this volume.
September 15, 2022
I first purchased this in 1987, from a now, long-defunct bookstore. I read the stories with mild interest. All of the stories are Donald A. Whollheim's choices for the best science fiction published in magazines for 1987, as the title indicates. During this time, OMNI Magazine was still in existence and the stories initially published there were (and are) the stories that draw me the most.
All of the stories are tight and explore a wide range of science fictional ideas, and I think that's the main reason to read this book now (in 2022).
Unlike most Best Of anthologies, this one contains only 10 stories: nine of which are of normal short story length, and one novella.
All of the stories, by well known science fiction writers deserve their place in this anthology, though I feel some of the more fantasy-infused stories seemed a little flat. The true gems in this book are the novella, R&R by Lucious Shephard. It's a near-futuristic war story set in Guatamala. I found it to be both the longest and the most engaging, with amazing imagery and well crafted characters.
I've always been a fan of Roger Zelazny, and his story Permafrost opens the anthology in a strong way. A few elements of its style seem a bit opaque, but the story itself is top notch, though it could actually stand to be a bit longer.
The range of stories presented in this book are a great glimpse into the publishing world in 1987, and the stories range from the pure Cyberpunk Prettyboy Crossover by Pat Cadigan to the alternate history, The Lions are Asleep, This Night by Howard Waldrop. It appeals to me more now than it did when I first read it.
Robert Silverberg's Against Babylon is a nice alien visitation story, and the collection closes with Strangers on Paradise by Damon Knight. Both are well-written, stand-out stories in my opinion.
All of the stories are tight and explore a wide range of science fictional ideas, and I think that's the main reason to read this book now (in 2022).
Unlike most Best Of anthologies, this one contains only 10 stories: nine of which are of normal short story length, and one novella.
All of the stories, by well known science fiction writers deserve their place in this anthology, though I feel some of the more fantasy-infused stories seemed a little flat. The true gems in this book are the novella, R&R by Lucious Shephard. It's a near-futuristic war story set in Guatamala. I found it to be both the longest and the most engaging, with amazing imagery and well crafted characters.
I've always been a fan of Roger Zelazny, and his story Permafrost opens the anthology in a strong way. A few elements of its style seem a bit opaque, but the story itself is top notch, though it could actually stand to be a bit longer.
The range of stories presented in this book are a great glimpse into the publishing world in 1987, and the stories range from the pure Cyberpunk Prettyboy Crossover by Pat Cadigan to the alternate history, The Lions are Asleep, This Night by Howard Waldrop. It appeals to me more now than it did when I first read it.
Robert Silverberg's Against Babylon is a nice alien visitation story, and the collection closes with Strangers on Paradise by Damon Knight. Both are well-written, stand-out stories in my opinion.
April 6, 2022
This time I'm going to send y'all to Liz's reviews at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... (I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but do find them more insightful than my own evaluations) before I add a very few comments.
"Pretty Boy Crossover" puts a snarky label to what I know about the real-life predatory youth-worshiping gay club scene. BtW, I guess I haven't read enough cyberpunk to be sick of its tropes.
"R&R". Forced myself through this one; I generally don't like war stories. Two unconnected notes:
Jay, the giant lieutenant, was supposed to be assigned to a gay unit, but the slots were filled. I suppose that would have been one idea for creating "unit cohesion" before DADT and its repeal. I don't know whether to be offended or laugh--but I guess I am offended that because he was outside the unit, he had to be chemically castrated. More of the horror Liz finds nearly spectacular.
You may have known or guessed I was an English major. Drawing on that vocabulary: This novella decides to end right after the protagonist's epiphany (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphan...). How thoroughly literary! But given that there's an obvious way all the prophecies given to him can prove true, and it's not what this reader wants to happen, I declare that Shepard should go genre instead and complete the fool plot!
"Pretty Boy Crossover" puts a snarky label to what I know about the real-life predatory youth-worshiping gay club scene. BtW, I guess I haven't read enough cyberpunk to be sick of its tropes.
"R&R". Forced myself through this one; I generally don't like war stories. Two unconnected notes:
Jay, the giant lieutenant, was supposed to be assigned to a gay unit, but the slots were filled. I suppose that would have been one idea for creating "unit cohesion" before DADT and its repeal. I don't know whether to be offended or laugh--but I guess I am offended that because he was outside the unit, he had to be chemically castrated. More of the horror Liz finds nearly spectacular.
You may have known or guessed I was an English major. Drawing on that vocabulary: This novella decides to end right after the protagonist's epiphany (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphan...). How thoroughly literary! But given that there's an obvious way all the prophecies given to him can prove true, and it's not what this reader wants to happen, I declare that Shepard should go genre instead and complete the fool plot!
August 12, 2025
One of the better volumes of the series, due to the presence of "Permafrost" by Roger Zelazny, "R & R" by Lucius Shepard, "Into Gold" by Tanith Lee, and "The Lions Are Asleep This Night" by Howard Waldrop. "R & R" especially is a spectacular story.
August 31, 2018
Nice collection of sci-fi. Some are short and easy and others are very substantial. Great stuff.
Read
February 21, 2021read "Pretty Boy Crossover" from this collection
February 10, 2017
I found it on train-station in little library of "books into train" so I did not have big expectations... Well it was better that I expected... but not so much better...
Some stories felt just empty (Into the gold, Pretty boy crossover, Lions Sleep this night), some have just bleak ending and let you felt dissapointed in the end (Timerider, The Lions are Asleep This Night) and most of them have some narrative problems.
But there are some really great ones, especialy Against Babylon, Dream in a Bottle
So overall I'm happy I read it this book, but there are better antologies. I think there were some bad stories that were totally unnecessary and I found no really outstanding story (maybe Timerider if it had better ending)
Some stories felt just empty (Into the gold, Pretty boy crossover, Lions Sleep this night), some have just bleak ending and let you felt dissapointed in the end (Timerider, The Lions are Asleep This Night) and most of them have some narrative problems.
But there are some really great ones, especialy Against Babylon, Dream in a Bottle
So overall I'm happy I read it this book, but there are better antologies. I think there were some bad stories that were totally unnecessary and I found no really outstanding story (maybe Timerider if it had better ending)
November 24, 2015
Pretty Boy Crossover I thought tedious. Sorry, Pat. I suspect running across this in 1988 is what put me off of your stuff. R&R I didn't find resolving itself well, and took too many words to get to to little pay off (though not Wheel of Time scale.)
For the rest; Lo, How an Oak E'er Blooming; Dream in a Bottle; Into Gold; and Strangers on Paradise are particularly good.
Permafrost, Timerider, the Lions are Asleep This Night, and Against Babylon are pretty good too.
For the rest; Lo, How an Oak E'er Blooming; Dream in a Bottle; Into Gold; and Strangers on Paradise are particularly good.
Permafrost, Timerider, the Lions are Asleep This Night, and Against Babylon are pretty good too.
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August 22, 2008The 1987 Annual World's Best SF by Donald A. Wollheim (1987)
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