Saving Worlds

by Roger Elwood (Editor)

Contents

xi • Introduction (Saving Worlds) • (1973) • essay by Frank Herbert
1 • Ecommando Tactics (#1) • (1970) • essay by Roger Robert Lovin [as by Roger Lovin]
2 • Saving the World • (1973) • short story by Terry Carr
17 • Parks of Rest and Culture • (1973) • short story by George Zebrowski
31 • The Quality of the Product • (1973) • short story by Kris Neville and Lil Neville
55 • Ecommando Tactics (#2) • essay by Roger Robert Lovin [as by Roger Lovin]
57 • Ode on the Source of the Clitumnus • (1973) • poem by Thomas M. Disch [as by Tom Disch]
59 • The Politics of Darkness • (1973) • poem by Thomas M. Disch [as by Tom Disch]
61 • Small War • (1973) • short story by Katherine MacLean
67 • Ecommando Tactics (#3) • essay by Roger Robert Lovin [as by Roger Lovin]
69 • Desirable Lakeside Residence • (1973) • novelette by Andre Norton
89 • The Smokey the Bear Sutra • (1973) • short story by Gary Snyder
93 • An Article About Hunting • (1973) • short story by Gene Wolfe
105 • Noonday Devil • (1973) • short story by Dennis O'Neil
117 • Ecommando Tactics (#4) • essay by Roger Robert Lovin [as by Roger Lovin]
118 • Scorner's Seat • (1973) • novelette by R. A. Lafferty
141 • The Battered-Earth Syndrome • (1973) • short story by Barry N. Malzberg
149 • Windmill • [Maurai] • (1973) • novelette by Poul Anderson
149 • Ecommando Tactics (#5) • essay by Roger Robert Lovin [as by Roger Lovin]
173 • Paradise Regained • (1973) • shortstory by Theodore R. Cogswell and Theodore L. Thomas [as by Cogswell Thomas]
183 • Beautyland • (1973) • short story by Gene Wolfe
189 • The Day • (1973) • short story by Colin Saxton
199 • Starfish • (1973) • poem by D. M. Price
202 • Billennium: A Note to Deadcat • (1973) • poem by D. M. Price
205 • Don't Hold Your Breath • (1973) • short story by A. E. van Vogt
227 • The Wind and the Rain • (1973) • short story by Robert Silverberg
227 • Dies Irae • (1950) • poem by James Blish

Genres: Science Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Roger Elwood was an American science fiction writer and editor, perhaps best known for having edited a large number of anthologies and collections for a variety of publishers in the early 1970s. Elwood was also the founding editor of Laser Books and, in more recent years, worked in the evangelical Christian market.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an anthology of cautionary short science fiction edited by Virginia Kidd and Roger Elwood with an ecological theme. It was originally published in hardback under the title Saving Worlds, which I preferred. It includes a nice introduction by Frank Herbert, but was a book that had considerable ambition with not quite as much accomplishment. The list of authors is impressive, including Gene Wolfe, Robert Silverberg, A.E. van Vogt, Dennis O'Neil, Poul Anderson, and other such masters of the genre at the time. Some of the stories are more disjointed descriptions and vignettes than they are stories. (I liked the one by Barry N. Malzberg.) It also includes some interesting poetry; my favorite story was by Andre Norton.

[Zach · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of those books that is so painfully mediocre that just motivating myself to get down a few pithy comments here is like pulling teeth. I finished this like a week ago and now I've mostly forgotten these mostly-forgettable stories, so... here goes.

Saving the World by Terry Carr: A story about a conference of policy makers and ecological experts. No twists, no surprises, just... a conference.

Parks of Rest and Culture by George Zebrowski: A bleak little piece about a man who works in an air-filtration plant in an unlivably-polluted future whose faltering marriage echoes the faltering of society. Nice and elegiac.

The Quality of the Product shortstory by Kris Neville and Lil Neville: Um... I think this was the one that was a series of unconnected paragraph-long vignettes about people dealing with encroaching pollution. I skimmed a lot of it.

Small War by Katherine MacLean: MacLean set up the novum for her story (wars have been outlawed between nations but still take place between NGOs, here the Audobon Society and some hunters) but then forgot to actually write a story.

Desirable Lakeside Residence by Andre Norton: One of the best stories in this anthology is by Andre Norton - I kind of wish that I had just written that one sentence and let it stand as the review by itself. It's pretty telling.

The Smokey the Bear Sutra by Gary Snyder: Age of Aquarius hippie-dippie nonsense. Next.

An Article About Hunting by Gene Wolfe: Lesser Wolfe, but still one of the better stories here, narrated by an incompetent reporter (maybe?) who's taking part in a bear hunt (although the bear might be a person, or a mutant bear, or a regular old bear?) because the bear has been eating too many apples. I did appreciate greatly that this was an unreliable narrator tale about something other than rape or pedophilia.

Noonday Devil shortstory by Dennis O'Neil: Lecherous priest protagonist fits the overall grotesque approach of this story (including a truly nightmarish scene with a father and son), but still... spare me.

Scorner's Seat by R. A. Lafferty: A closed-system-village battles pollution and monsters. Not bad but it couldn't decide if it was a plot/character story or just an exercise in worldbuilding and so it kind of muddled its way down the middle.

The Battered-Earth Syndrome by Barry N. Malzberg: Another disjointed series of vignettes and I hated the way it was written so I skipped it.

Windmill by Poul Anderson: See Norton mini-review but replace "Andre Norton" with "Poul Anderson"

Paradise Regained by Theodore R. Cogswell and Theodore L. Thomas [as by Cogswell Thomas]: This was written in 1973 but it really reads like one of the hilariously bad pulp shorts from the 1940s: prisoners are exiled to a new planet far away from the heavily polluted Earth which has a toxic atmosphere and they escape and terraform it and we fast forward to five years later and it turns out that by terraform they meant "horrifically pollute" because, you know, that's what they were used to on Earth! Whoa!

Beautyland by Gene Wolfe: Better than "An Article About Hunting" but still far from his best.

The Day by Colin Saxton: I do not remember a thing about this story.

Don't Hold Your Breath by A. E. van Vogt: Impressively misogynistic! Something about the "kind of man" who would have four mistresses being the kind of man who would build shelters for people but then rig it with bombs (I never did piece together why he put bombs in this thing? I thought it was to kill people but when he realized that would be a side effect he raced to stop it. I don't know.) and something about mutating humanity to breathe... something other than oxygen, I don't remember what.

The Wind and the Rain by Robert Silverberg: Not a story but a series of descriptions of a ruined Earth. Not bad for what it is.

There were some poems in here too but I don't care about poetry so I skipped them - a philosophy I should have just applied to the whole book (heyooooooooooo).

[Nathan Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this anthology on a whim at a local used bookstore because it had an intro by Frank Herbert, and contained a couple of short stories by Gene Wolfe and R.A. Lafferty.

The theming of the collection is that of climate and ecology, of environmental disaster in a time when subjects like Climate Change and the "Greenhouse Effect" were starting to gain prominence in the scientific community. As such, I think this collection has an incredibly admirable goal of getting its readers to realize the problem we've made for ourselves and the effect we've had on our planet. Each story is prefaced by an article or snippet from the Los Angeles Free Press, an underground, left-wing newspaper that had a large focus on environmentalism.

This all said, I think the collection is a bit hit-or-miss, which is to be expected of anthologies that contain as many authors as this one has, even if it does have its fair share of heavy-hitters (Andre Norton, Tom Disch, Gene Wolfe, R.A. Lafferty, A.E. Van Vogt, Poul Anderson and Robert Silverberg to name a handful.) I'm not sure if it's a product of being desensitized to the hazardous effects of climate change being a daily reality or not, but I'd say a good half of these stories are pretty underwhelming or quaint (not necessarily in a bad way, just an 'outdated' one), even if I appreciate the sentiment behind them.

Standouts are Andre Norton's "Desirable Lakeside Residence", a bucolic and wistful take on climate fiction that also highlights the gradual loss of childhood innocence in times of disaster... Gene Wolfe's An "Article About Hunting" and "Beautyland", a duo of stories that take aim at corporate greed and man's indifference toward environmental preservation (Wolfe is the only author that has more than a single story in here)... and lastly, R.A. Lafferty's "Scorner's Seat", which is far and away my favorite of the lot, in its eccentric combination of the tale of Beowulf and that of the Minotaur/Labyrinth tale with a quasi-religious subterranean society that willingly and periodically sacrifices one of their own to a sewer-dwelling creature dubbed "The Grendel".

[Monique Bouchard · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an anthology. Some decent concepts are good and well executed. Some are not. A couple of "sticky" stories, but most are read-and-forget. Still, it's ok and worth the read, if only academically, for those who are fans of the genre.

[Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has a good theme, but as with (most likely) every anthology edited by Roger Elwood it is mediocre and second-rate.

The only story to rise above the level of mediocrity here is Scorner's Seat by R.A. Lafferty. It's unique Lafferty-style myth-making with some beautiful strange scenes and ideas to amuse and entertain. It's the only thing worth reading in this whole dated affair that doesn't really do justice to its theme of "ecological" SF.

[James Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps one of the best parts of this book is the introduction by Frank Herbert. It is truly an amazing prediction of events that have taken place since it was written. The stories are a mixture of quality and originality, but overall I thought this was an amazing book, especially on account of when it was written.

[Samwise Chamberlain · Rating 2 out of 5]

Noonday Devil by Dennis O'Neil and Scorner's Seat by R.A. Lafferty were the only decent stories. The rest were lackluster at best. Especially the short piece by Roger Lovin that I can only describe as "An Ode To Sperm Whale Peckers"

[Shira and Ari Evergreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome different ideas about the future, written from an early 1970s viewpoint. Scary to see how little has changed about our behavior, especially considering how much has changed about our understanding of our impact on our environment.