New Writings In Sf 26

New Writings in SF #26

by Kenneth Bulmer (Editor)

1st edition Corgi 1976 paperback, vg++ In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Henry Kenneth Bulmer
aka:
Alan Burt Akers
Ken Blake
Ernest Corley
Arthur Frazier
Adam Hardy
Philip Kent
Bruno Krauss
Neil Langholm
Karl Maras
Manning Norvil
Charles R. Pike
Andrew Quiller
Richard Silver
Tully Zetford

Reviews

[Kevin Phyland]

A typically mixed bag with these anthologies, which are an odd hangover from a moribund New Wave. John Keith shows us a one-dimensional superman whose fledgling attempts at controlling his superpower were catastrophic in “A Planet Called Cervantes”, while Christopher Priest, with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, takes part in a documentary on right-wing issues only to find it postponed and turned into a left-wing commentary in “Men Of Good Value”. An alien entity takes over an injured crewman to warn of a dangerously unstable colleague in Cherry Wilder’s “The Phobos Tapes”, but most of the remaining tales are like vignettes composed for a freshman composition class - the task being to describe as vividly as possible a scene from a story with no beginning and no end. Characters find themselves in situations both bewildering and vaguely menacing, and all-too-often, incomprehensible - and the reader is brought to the same conclusion. David S. Garnett’s eerie tale of perpetual deja vu on a Monday (“The Man Who”) was not without its paranoid charms.

[Michael Drakich]

Considering the names of some of the authors in this collection, I expected a whole lot more. Let me first break down the individual short stories and then the overall review.
A PLANET CALLED CERVANTES by John Keith. A lone Keridish navy officer lands on a planet to face off against the entire Rengol space navy. True space opera with good action and a surprise ending. Heck of a start. 5 stars
MEN OF VALUE by Christopher Priest. A man vacationing in a small town is recruited by a big town producer filming an expose on a coming entertainment complex. Head office has some strange rules. Is this science fiction? One has to be hard-pressed to admit it. 2 stars
THREE COINS IN ENIGMATIC FOUNTAINS by Brian W. Aldiss. Three short shorts combined together without any real ties to each other. CAREFULLY OBSERVED WOMEN. A male slave watches as his owner lies ill in bed and soon to die. People come and go to pay respects and boring talk. The surprise ending doesn't make it any better. THE DAFFODIL RETURNS THE SMILE. An alien being, somewhat akin to a spider, goes out on the surface to attack some giant creature. Is there a story? No. THE YEAR OF THE QUIET COMPUTER. A one pager of incoherent thoughts. Sad. 2 stars
THE PHOBOS TRANSCRIPTS by Cherry Wilder. Two spacemen crash landed on Phobos encounter an alien essence. Some good intensity in this one. Felt like an old Star Trek episode. 5 stars
YOU GET LOTS OF YESTERDAYS, LOTS OF TOMORROWS, AND ONLY ONE TODAY by Laurence James. A woman has a perfect life with a wonderful man and two wonderful children but weird dreams interrupt it. Two many disconnects in the story. 2 stars
THE MAN WHO by David S. Garnett. A man who has constant flashes of deja vu but with slight alterations, most notably one person always appearing, watching, from different locations and angles. Another story where I'm challenged to find the science fiction content. 2 stars
MURDERS by Ramsey Campbell. An empath takes 3D television to a whole new level. It reminded me of those religious political shows. Lovers and haters of it. What side do you take? 3 stars.
TO THE PUMP ROOM WITH JANE by Ian Watson. A future where water is scarce and people have to go to a pump room for their daily ration. How does a young woman meet anyone when subjected to such a moribund ritual? 3 stars
THE SEAFARER by Ritchie Smith and Thomas Penman. There is no other way to describe this than as WORD SALAD. My guess is two modern style poets, you know the kind, the ones where nothing rhymes and everything is open to interpretation, nothing direct, get together to write scifi. The result? A most horrendous piece of mishmash unintelligible to just about anyone. 1 star
The final analysis is nine short stories with only two worth reading. Just not enough quality material to make it worthwhile.

[Bohemian Book Lover]

*Short story anthologies are not the easiest to rate
*Fairly, so I'll dispense from giving this one a star-rating. Out of the nine stories here I DNFed
*2, 'Murders' & 'To The Pump Room With Jane'. I nearly DNFed 'The Phobos Transcripts' as well. Out of the other
*6 stories I absolutely loved the gradual suspense, atmosphere & writing of 'You Get Lots of Yesterdays, Lots of Tomorrows, and Only One Today' (it reminded me of the Matrix movies); I was kept fascinated & intrigued by the surrealist abstraction of 'Three Coins in Enigmatic Fountains' (Brian Aldiss is one of my top favourite SF short story writers & his contribution to this 1975/76 anthology was the main reason why I bought it). I became spellbound by the mysterious aura, Byronic melancholy, symbolism, elegiac lyricism & poetic/cultural references of 'The Seafarer'. 'The Man Who' kept me curious to know how it would end; it had good pace & pathos. 'A Planet Called Cervantes' was standard & pulpy. Finally, I was really disappointed with my first Christopher Priest, 'Men of Good Value'. I finished it, scratching my head, confused at what it was attempting to be about & why it was even in this SF anthology.

[James]

A curious mix of good and bad, averaging out at three stars. Nothing truly brilliant, nothing truly awful. Three of the stories - by Ramsey Campbell, Ian Watson, and Christopher Priest - have vaguely prophetic edges which seem more relevant now than at the time they were written in the 1970s, with Priest's wry tale hitting the era of fake news plumb in the face. Cherry Wilder's tale, of a possible alien encounter, is perhaps the most golden age-like of the stories, and it is also one of the best. The other tales range across the board from barely disguised sword and sorcery to heartfelt nostalgia for lost love.

[Raj]

This is a collection of SF stories from 1975. There's a decent selection with Christopher Priest's Men of Good Value, a near-future tale of an SF writer who gets tangled up with a TV crew, David S. Garnett's The Man Who, an early take on the "doomed to repeat the same day again and again" theme and Ian Watson's To the Pump Room With Jane, a somewhat disturbing tale of a climate-changed future where icebergs are towed in to provide water, being highlights.

There were a couple of weird stories that I didn't really get, with Brian Aldiss' Three Coins in Enigmatic Fountains and The Seafarer, by Richie Smith and Thomas Penman being chief amongst these. These were both very lyrical, but the plots didn't really go anywhere, I felt.

A mixed collection that was worth reading though.