Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year: Fifth Annual Collection

Best Science Fiction Stories of the year (Del Rey/Dozois) #5

by Lester del Rey (editor)

Ace mass market paperback, 1977. Fifth annual collection of science fiction/fantasy short stories by various authors.

Genres: Science Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories, Fiction

245 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1976

About the author

Lester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. Del Rey is especially famous for his juvenile novels such as those which are part of the Winston Science Fiction series, and for Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction branch of Ballantine Books edited by Lester del Rey and his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.

Also published as:
Philip St. John
Eric van Lihn
Erik van Lhin
Kenneth Wright
Edson McCann (with Frederik Pohl)

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was published in 1976 and had been sitting in a box of old books for years. Well, I finally pulled it out and dusted it off and discovered some hidden gems in it. I was surprised as most of the ten stories turned out to be excellent. Interestingly, these were all stories from the 70s, a great time for me when I was reading a lot of SF--and, yet, only the Clifford Simak story, "Senior Citizen," was familiar to me. Moreover, three of the authors were unknown to me--including P.J. Plauger, whose story, "Child of All Ages" is the outstanding story of the collection. It's a story about a child who never grew up and I'll say no more except--find it and read it! I googled the name of the author and found out P.J. stands for Phillip James and he was born in 1944. He's a computer programmer who has written books about programming. His one great contribution to science fiction is this short story which was published in "Analog" in March 1975 and was nominated for both a Nebula and a Hugo Award. Following this story, the second best one for me is "Tree of Life" by Phyllis Eisenstein (1946-2020). This story about an alien marooned on Earth and looking for a host body struck a chord with me. "The Peddler's Apprentice" by Joan D. Vinge (b. 1948) & Vernor Vinge (b. 1944) is the longest story in the book. It's about a world of magic-- or, rather, what appears to be magic to some and this story could have been even better as a full-length novel.
All the stories are above average. Usually a collection of stories like this is more of a mixed bag. So a nice discovery from my box o' books. No problem giving this book a solid 4 stars.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

My younger brother is a postman in Benton Harbor, Michigan. The underfunded library there has a front room with an ongoing booksale which I try to visit when in the area. Fin, working there, has more opportunity and, for Christmas, gave me a stack of old science fiction anthologies the library was discarding. It cost him nothing but it was the best gift I've gotten for many a year. I've read barely any books in the genre for a long while. Now I'm reading one nightly and remembering why I liked them so much as a kid.

The best of this lot was "High Yield Bondage" by Hayford Peirce. It tells an amusing tale of a stranded alien taking over the Earth's economy in some detail. It is the first SF story I've ever seen which intelligently focuses on economics.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed bag of *different* stories than listed on the blurb. Yes, the cover for my copy is the astronauts on the Moon (?) examining (?) the stone monument on which is engraved the title of the book. But the stories here are:

Poul Anderson // The Bitter Bread (long, read elsewhere, culture clash)
Hayford Pierce // Mail Supremacy, and High Yield Bondage (both meant to be social satire, one short & clever, one long and boring)
P.J. Plauger //Child of All Ages (Tuck Everlasting is better but this is interesting)
Phyllis Eisenstein //Tree of Life (alien chooses the wrong host, is stuck until host dies...)
Stephen Robinett //Hellbent Four (sentient ship w/ attitude)
Robert Hoskins //Pop Goes the Weasel (last three people post-apocalypse)
Liz Hufford //The Book Learners (first, the gave the Imitians the Bible... then....)
Clifford D. Simak //Senior Citizen (too short; another musing on longevity)
Joan D. Vinge and Vernor Vinge //The Peddler's Apprentice (long for a short story, but some Sword&Sorcery trilogies would have less quest, adventure, intrigue, world-building, and characterization)

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved A Child of All Ages, that one story makes the whole book worth reading. The Bitter Bread went over my head for the most part, I still have no idea what happened. Mail Supremacy was just plain fun. The Peddler's Apprentice made me want to read more about Buckry and how he won his kingdom. Helbent Four, well, it made me smile. More than once. All ten of them are excellent stories, worth their place in an anthology.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did not disappoint. Of the first nine shorts only one that I didn’t care for. Even the last one is a fantasy winner so far. My favorites is Liz Hufford’s “The Book Learners” which has humans screwing up by not adhering to the likes of the Prime Directive and the Vinge’s “The Peddler’s Apprentice” which beautifully crossed fantasy and sci-fi.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Del Rey's swan song as Editor. Next year, Gardner Dozois would take over and completely change this series from a fun read at 200 pages to fucking work to slog through with 1000+ pages with teeny-tiny print, and the yearly essays from Hell.

1975 was a rather iffy year in sci-fi, judging from this collection. There were some decent stories and a fair share of head-scratchers. There was even one where, halfway through, I just skimmed. I don't often do that for short stories or novellas. Even into the 1970s, sci-fi writers were still assuming there'd be colonies on Mars, and time travel by 1984.

Selections:

* "Foreward: Fifty Years of Science Fiction" by Our Editor. Yada yada yada.
* "The Bitter Bread" by Poul Anderson. In the far future, after Armageddon, when the Church rules everything, a spacecraft gets pulled into an impossible situation inspired by Einstein's theories anout black holes and some such. This was very difficult. Good luck trying to figure out what happened.
* "Mail Supremacy" by Hayford Pierce. Huh?
* "Child of All Ages" by P. J. Plauger. Interesting concept of a 2400 year old child, but the story is clunky, far too wordy and just not very good.
* "Tree of Life" by Phyllis Eisenstein. This about a mulberry tree and an alien trying to live in it. We used to have a white mulberry tree in my yard. It took a violent storm to kill that motherfucker.
* "Hellbent Four" by Stephen Robinett. This had one prediction come true-- Walter Kronkite was still on the air in 1980. Otherwise, a huge disappointment.
* "Pop Goes the Weasel" by Robert Hoskins. A twist on the familiar theme of "last man in the world" where the man is about 12 and the world is not Earth.
* "The Book Learners" by Liz Hufford. A copy of the Bible drastically changes a planet ... but (this time) it's not religion that's the problem. It's not even the authors.
* "High Yield Bondage" by Hayford Pierce. I had to start skimming halfway through because this was so boring. It's similar to "Tree of Life" in that an alien ship crash lands on Earth. In order to get the repairs, they have to cause Earth to invent the technology, which means they have to become the three richest men in the world. Most of this consists of stock market talk, but Pierce is no Heinlein, so it's best to just skip this story.
* "Senior Citizen" by Clifford D. Simak. Simak was at least 70 when he wrote this. The more things change, the more things stay the same, such as how society treats the elderly.
* "The Peddlar's Apprentice" by Victor Vinge and Joan D. Vinge. This novella starts slowly at first, but stick with it.
* "The Science Fiction Yearbook" by Our Editor. Del Ray looks back on 1975, where the World Science Fiction Convention was in Australia, magazines were in decline, sci-fi novels hit a then-record high, and Harlequin Books tried to launch their own sci-fi line called Laser Books. All two years before Star Wars. Del Rey doesn't let us know why he left editing this series, but in listing just some of his other work, he may have just been too busy to continue.