The Year 2000

by Harry Harrison (editor)

First UK Edition hardcover with unclipped dust jacket, in good condition. Jacket is sunned and marked, and edges are creased and nicked, including a small, taped tear to the front cover upper edge, spine side. Lower board edges and spine ends are bumped, and page block is slightly blemished. Pages are clear and unmarked throughout. LW

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies

288 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1970

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Harry Harrison (born Henry Maxwell Dempsey) was an American science fiction author best known for his character the The Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966), the basis for the film Soylent Green (1973). He was also (with Brian W. Aldiss) co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Craig]

This is an anthology that Harrison edited in 1970 of stories set in the future world 2000. Such prognosticative volumes are primarily of interest past their due dates to see how inaccurate the predictions were, of course, and this one is no exception. For example, in the first paragraph of the first story the narrator is aboard a rocket bound for London from Dallas. It's possible to flip through the pages and see where technology didn't advance as much as the authors thought it would, and how society didn't change as drastically, either. The stories themselves are average ones of the day, if seems to me, with none really sticking out as superior or inferior. Each title is tagged with a theme, including Race Relations, Overpopulation, The City, World Economy, etc. My favorites were the ones by Chard Oliver, A. Bertram Chandler, Mack Reynolds, and Fritz Leiber.

[Peter Tillman]

Noteworthy for the opening story, Fritz Leiber's "America the Beautiful" (1970). A Viet Nam era story of a militarized future America, that would likely have unpleasnt resonances now. I'll have to find my copy and reread. Likely my favorite Leiber short. 5-star, by memory.

I think I kept my copy. None of the other stories ring a bell.

[Tom B]

13 authors in the 60s were asked for their vision of the year 2000 (now 25 years ago). Have any of their speculations come true?
No, there is no Communist League, and America is not a post-scarcity eco heaven.
No, there are no magnetically powered commercial carriers that get out of the stratosphere.
Yes, society in Kenya is different from the 1960s.
No, there has not been a nuclear holocaust that requires women to give birth to mutants who could survive on off-world colonies.
No, there is no utopia that made the global population inert to a level of near-extinction.
Yes, there are droughts in India (Brian Aldiss, do better.)
No, there are no hyper-modern cargo vessels.
No, New York is not a city inhabited only by black people. (Robert Silverberg did take some chances with this one).
No, we haven't changed the English language to incoherent gibberish.
No, there are no laws prohibiting pregnancies to keep the population in check.
No, there are no cyborgs with love appendages.
No, people are not walking into the ocean to make place for an alien race of squid.
No, there is no second US Civil War (black vs white). (Harry Harrison, good job).

Even in 2025, the list is still accurate. It seems the authors' imagination got the better of them, or society doesn't develop as quickly as projected.
Overall a decent anthology with the expected highs and lows.

[Phil]

As with all short stories, some good and some are duds. But pandemics, population control and war are themes that are current.

[Rena Sherwood]

Published in 1970, the stories about life in the year 2000 were way off in their predictions. Some were just off as stories -- they may describe a strange situation but does not have much of a story with the situation.

The story I enjoyed the most was the last one by editor Harry Harrison, "American Dead." There also was a cute story about a World War II pilot trying to help save the super-duper new commercial flight craft, "Prometheus Rebound." All the other stories were instantly forgettable.

Selections:

* "Introduction" by Our Editor.
* "America the Beautiful" by Fritz Lieber.
* "Prometheus Rebound" by Daniel F. Galhouye.
* "Far From This Earth" by Chad Oliver.
* "After the Accident" by Naomi Mitchison.
* "Utopian" by Mack Reynolds.
* "Orgy of the Living and the Dying" by Brian W. Aldiss.
* "Sea Change" by Bertram Chandler.
* "Black is Beautiful" by Robert Silverberg.
* "Take It or Leave It" by David I. Masson.
* "The Lawgiver" by Keith Laumer.
* "To Be a Man" by J. J. Coupling.
* "Judas Fish" by Thomas M. Scortia.
* "American Dead" by Harry Harrison.
* The Authors, written by the authors.

[Erik Graff]

A collection of science fiction short stories by established authors which, obviously, has become a bit dated now except, of course, to those who are interested in the history of prognostication and in alternative histories.

[Finch]

I found it interesting to read these stories of how people thought our lives could be. All the technological advances that have not come to pass. It's an interesting parallel between what is and what was once imagined for us.

[Kyle D.]

Some interesting stuff amid lots of meh. Most interesting for what people in 1970 thought would still matter most 30 years later (race riots, communism, etc.)

[42]

this was an anthology of stories written in 1970 about the future year of 2000. the stories were mostly sci fi and we're not well written or interesting to read.

[David Pyle]

There were really only three stories from this anthology I enjoyed: "Lawgiver", "To Be a Man" and "Judah's Fish". All were written for this collection in 1970, prospective of the year 2000.