The Wild Years 1946-1955

by Martin H. Greenberg

Short stories deal with fakes, a mysterious disease, a revolt by appliances, international blackmail, robots, and a windup world

318 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Martin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and speculative fiction anthologist. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel.

For the 1950s anthologist and publisher of Gnome Press, see Martin Greenberg.

Reviews

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was perhaps the most consistently "good" volume of the three Greenberg/Amazing anthologies. It was definitely the most interesting.

This book will make you rethink your assumptions about science fiction and the Cold War. Basically, we are usually told that Asimov and Sturgeon wrote some anti-McCarthy stories in the late Fifties. However, this book shows a surprising amount of criticism of American Cold War policies in the early Fifties. "The Peacemaker" by Ward Moore even mentions Truman and HUAC (as opposed to giving a McCarthyite character an Italian name), while "The Little Creeps" by Walter M. Miller Jr. shows American officers in the Far East essentially plotting to launch WWIII because they think they can win it.

Hell, "Breakfast at Twilight" by Philip K. Dick is actually a politically engaged PKD story about the need to prevent nuclear war. (It had a Twilight Zone feel to it, as did Sheckley's "Restricted Area.")

Basically, this volume suggests that a "lesser" SF magazine like Amazing can hold surprises for readers.