New Writings in SF-8

New Writings in SF #8

by John Carnell (Editor), Colin Kapp (Contributor), Gerald W. Page (Contributor)

Contents

Colin Kapp. The Pen and the Dark. 1966
Gerald W. Page. Spacemen Live Forever. 1966
R. W. Mackelworth. The Final Solution. 1966
John Rackham. Computer's Mate. 1966
John Baxter. Tryst. 1966
Keith Roberts. Synth. 1966

Genres: Science Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Reviews

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book of two halves, the first of which can be safely ignored. Things get better in the second half however, with David Rome showing us an idyllic farming community that may not be quite as pleasant as it appears in "They Shall Reap"; H. A. Hargreaves has a bureaucracy gone totally automatic with Brazil-like results in "Dead To The World" and M. John Harrison has a seminal piece of New Wave writing in "Visions Of Monad" - not sure what it's about but the writin' shure is purty. :) Finally, a tale of saving the planet by setting up automated religions and moving to another star in "The Wall To End The World" by Vincent King.

[Perry Middlemiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

At last a decent collection of stories in this original anthology series, with five of the six worthy of being on a recommended reading list for 1966. Colin Kapp returns with an Unorthodox Engineers novelette in “The Pen and the Dark”, which is the best of those I’ve read so far. Keith Roberts supplies the other novelette in the anthology with “Synth” – an interesting tale about a synthetic human being involved in a divorce proceedings – which is the only story here which is not a planet-based space story of some sort; contact with aliens on extra-solar planets was a strong theme in the mid-1960s obviously. Of the short stories which worked well, Gerald W. Page’s “Spacemen Live Forever” reminded me of the recent Chris Pratt/Jennifer Lawrence film Passengers; “The Final Solution” by R. W. Mackelworth pits two militaristic, fascist planetary societies against each other in an attempt to determine whose is the more racially pure; and Australian John Baxter’s “Tryst” deals with a planet on the galactic rim that has been abandoned by its rulers. John Rackham’s “Computer’s Mate” is the only story that falls flat. It has possibilities but the author falls into the trap of stereotyping women in space and spending too much time philosophising, in a condescending way, about the nature of humans with disabilities. R: 3.6/5.0