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Top Fantasy The Authors' Choice
1st Dent 1985 trade paperback, fine , Ray Bradbury, JG Ballard In stock shipped from our UK warehouse
- GenresFantasyShort Stories
311 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1985
7 people want to read
About the author
Josh Pachter
116 books29 followersJOSH PACHTER is a writer, editor and translator. More than a hundred and twenty of his short crime stories have appeared in EQMM, AHMM, and many other periodicals, anthologies, and year’s-best collections. THE TREE OF LIFE (Wildside Press, 2015) collected all ten of his Mahboob Chaudri stories. His 2023 novel DUTCH THREAT was named a finalist for the Agatha, Lefty, and Macavity awards. FIRST WEEK FREE AT THE ROOMY TOILET, his first chapter book for younger readers, was published in 2024 and was a finalist for the Agatha Award in the Best Childrens/YA Mystery category.
He is the editor of many anthologies, including:
• FRIEND OF THE DEVIL: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD (Down and Out, 2024)
• HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF THE BEATLES (Down and Out, 2023)
• THE BEAT OF BLACK WINGS: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF JONI MITCHELL (Untreed Reads, 2020)
• THE MISADVENTURES OF NERO WOLFE (Mysterious Press, 2020)
• THE MAN WHO READ MYSTERIES: THE SHORT FICTION OF WILLIAM BRITTAIN (Crippen & Landru, 2018)
• THE MAN WHO SOLVED MYSTERIES: MORE SHORT FICTION BY WILLIAM BRITTAIN (Crippen & Landru, 2022)
• PARANOIA BLUES: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF PAUL SIMON (Down and Out Books, 2022).
He also co-edited AMSTERDAM NOIR (Akashic Books, 2019), THE MISADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN (Wildside Press, 2018), AND THE FURTHER MISADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN (Wildside Press, 2020), and co-wrote (with the legendary Ellery Queen) THE ADVENTURES OF THE PUZZLE CLUB (Crippen & Landru, 2022).
Coming in 2025:
• EVERY DAY A LITTLE DEATH: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF STEPHEN SONDHEIM (Level Best)
• CRYIN' SHAME: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF LYLE LOVETT (Down and Out)
He is the editor of many anthologies, including:
• FRIEND OF THE DEVIL: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD (Down and Out, 2024)
• HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF THE BEATLES (Down and Out, 2023)
• THE BEAT OF BLACK WINGS: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF JONI MITCHELL (Untreed Reads, 2020)
• THE MISADVENTURES OF NERO WOLFE (Mysterious Press, 2020)
• THE MAN WHO READ MYSTERIES: THE SHORT FICTION OF WILLIAM BRITTAIN (Crippen & Landru, 2018)
• THE MAN WHO SOLVED MYSTERIES: MORE SHORT FICTION BY WILLIAM BRITTAIN (Crippen & Landru, 2022)
• PARANOIA BLUES: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF PAUL SIMON (Down and Out Books, 2022).
He also co-edited AMSTERDAM NOIR (Akashic Books, 2019), THE MISADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN (Wildside Press, 2018), AND THE FURTHER MISADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN (Wildside Press, 2020), and co-wrote (with the legendary Ellery Queen) THE ADVENTURES OF THE PUZZLE CLUB (Crippen & Landru, 2022).
Coming in 2025:
• EVERY DAY A LITTLE DEATH: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF STEPHEN SONDHEIM (Level Best)
• CRYIN' SHAME: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF LYLE LOVETT (Down and Out)
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 1, 2023
Top Fantasy is an anthology of 24 fantasy short stories and novelettes, originally published in 1984. Each story has been selected and introduced by a noted fantasy author of the time, and supposedly chosen as representative of their best short works. The stories were originally published in various magazines, and this collection is edited by Josh Pachter. It is the fourth in his series of “Authors’ Choice” anthologies.
The stories are:
The Man Who Walked on Air - Michael Avallone ⭐⭐
This is an entertaining story told by a circus manager, who employs a man who can walk on air. However it doesn’t really go anywhere, and becomes overly domestic and predictable, before fizzling out without having made any point, or impression. The final ironic “twist” is merely weak.
Report on an Unidentified Space Station - J. G. Ballard ⭐⭐
An unusual story for J.G. Ballard, as it takes place in outer space. The crew of a spaceship discover a deserted interstellar space station. The story takes the form of 9 survey reports. Not for me.
The Ship of Disaster - Barrington J. Bayley ⭐⭐
Barrington J. Bayley was a friend of Michael Moorcock, and this story about an elven ship does feel Moorcockian, especially the fantasy descriptions. The main character Elen-Gelith, an elf lord, is very like Elric of Melnibone, although the story seems almost nonexistent; the descriptions meandering far more than Michael Moorcock’s ever do.
Collaborating - Michael Bishop ⭐
The story begins:
“How does it feel to be a two-headed man?”
Oh my sainted aunt - no!! Wrong ... and on so many levels. But the story continues:
“Better, how does it feel to be two men with one body? We can tell you.”
Too little, too late. If you shared your body with another distinct person, there is no way on Earth you could think of asking the first question in the way it is expressed. And it gets worse:
“I’m Robert. My brother’s name is James. James and I call our body The Monster.”
No - no - NO! But I kept these thoughts inside myself and listened. Maybe there was a good reason for this way of perceiving the world. Maybe these were not 20th century American men, but living in another time and place, or in an alternative fantasy world. Maybe they weren’t even human.
But sadly they are. The story continues to describe how they were taken from their mother at birth, who was given the convenient lie that her baby had been stillborn. Perfectly reasonable, since their father was “only an itinerant worker following the peach or cotton crops”. Instead the doctor who delivered them decided to do the job himself. Except that he didn’t. He farmed them out to a “black woman” … (Oh my giddy aunt, again …)
In vain I looked for signs that this was a satire. There were none. Eventually my reader (my husband) paused and said to me: “What do you think to this?” (It was too much for him too - and he’s a writer, so would recognise if there was a literary reason.) So I told him. We both remembered watching a very moving and inspirational documentary on dicephalic conjoined twins. The testimonies by several twins worldwide who currently share this condition, and from the parents of very young ones, were uplifting. They displayed amazing courage and determination to push themselves as far as they possibly could, the American ones fighting for the right to drive a car (and succeeding), giving talks, and starting up in business.
I suggested that the introduction by the author might cast light on the peculiar position taken. It didn’t. Michael Bishop said that people had sometimes been offended by the story (Really? Are you surprised?) and that it was about “the existential dilemma of two distinct intellects sharing one body … a persistent aspect of the human condition itself, namely the universal quest for some external validation of our own self-worth, and the concomitant fear that we are perhaps unworthy”.
Hmm. The word poppycock springs to mind. From the footage I watched, dicephalic conjoined twins usually have little leisure time for abstruse philosophical musings which have little bearing on their lives. They are more focused and concerned with practical matters, and have definite goals.
You can write, Mr. Bishop. The prose flows well, and as you “helpfully” gave a spoiler in your introduction (which I read afterwards) I can see that the story was developed into . (Ho hum hokum.) Seriously, you need to find another way to say all this!
In reviewing an anthology I have spent far too long on this one story. You might have guessed the reason. It is the fifth story in the book, and I resent giving it even one star. The other four barely scraped to two stars. Perhaps there might be one, or even two, good ones to come, but my heart is not in giving this editor any more of my time.
It remains an abandoned book, put in the charity box, since neither of us want to finish it. The rest of the stories are:
The Man Who Collected Poe - Robert Bloch
The Fog Horn - Ray Bradbury
The Day of the Butterflies - Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Depths - Ramsey Campbell
Touchstone - Terry Carr
Let Us Quickly Hasten to the Gate of Ivory - Thomas M. Disch
Trouble with Water - Horace L. Gold
Harpist - Joe L. Hensley
Blue Vase of Ghosts - Tanith Lee
The Wife’s Story - Ursula K. Le Guin
The House of Cthulhu - Brian Lumley
The Real Shape of the Coast - John Lutz
The Smallest Dragonboy - Anne McCaffrey
Caves in Cliffs - Josh Pachter
The Broken Hoop - Pamela Sargent
Dancers in the Time-Flux - Robert Silverberg
Amends: A Tale of the Sun Kings - Nancy Springer
Sing a Last Song of Valdese - Karl Edward Wagner
The Father of the Bride - Connie Willis
Kevin Malone - Gene Wolfe
There are some good names here - but what if they all contributed their duds? After all, every writer has their off days.
The stories are:
The Man Who Walked on Air - Michael Avallone ⭐⭐
This is an entertaining story told by a circus manager, who employs a man who can walk on air. However it doesn’t really go anywhere, and becomes overly domestic and predictable, before fizzling out without having made any point, or impression. The final ironic “twist” is merely weak.
Report on an Unidentified Space Station - J. G. Ballard ⭐⭐
An unusual story for J.G. Ballard, as it takes place in outer space. The crew of a spaceship discover a deserted interstellar space station. The story takes the form of 9 survey reports. Not for me.
The Ship of Disaster - Barrington J. Bayley ⭐⭐
Barrington J. Bayley was a friend of Michael Moorcock, and this story about an elven ship does feel Moorcockian, especially the fantasy descriptions. The main character Elen-Gelith, an elf lord, is very like Elric of Melnibone, although the story seems almost nonexistent; the descriptions meandering far more than Michael Moorcock’s ever do.
Collaborating - Michael Bishop ⭐
The story begins:
“How does it feel to be a two-headed man?”
Oh my sainted aunt - no!! Wrong ... and on so many levels. But the story continues:
“Better, how does it feel to be two men with one body? We can tell you.”
Too little, too late. If you shared your body with another distinct person, there is no way on Earth you could think of asking the first question in the way it is expressed. And it gets worse:
“I’m Robert. My brother’s name is James. James and I call our body The Monster.”
No - no - NO! But I kept these thoughts inside myself and listened. Maybe there was a good reason for this way of perceiving the world. Maybe these were not 20th century American men, but living in another time and place, or in an alternative fantasy world. Maybe they weren’t even human.
But sadly they are. The story continues to describe how they were taken from their mother at birth, who was given the convenient lie that her baby had been stillborn. Perfectly reasonable, since their father was “only an itinerant worker following the peach or cotton crops”. Instead the doctor who delivered them decided to do the job himself. Except that he didn’t. He farmed them out to a “black woman” … (Oh my giddy aunt, again …)
In vain I looked for signs that this was a satire. There were none. Eventually my reader (my husband) paused and said to me: “What do you think to this?” (It was too much for him too - and he’s a writer, so would recognise if there was a literary reason.) So I told him. We both remembered watching a very moving and inspirational documentary on dicephalic conjoined twins. The testimonies by several twins worldwide who currently share this condition, and from the parents of very young ones, were uplifting. They displayed amazing courage and determination to push themselves as far as they possibly could, the American ones fighting for the right to drive a car (and succeeding), giving talks, and starting up in business.
I suggested that the introduction by the author might cast light on the peculiar position taken. It didn’t. Michael Bishop said that people had sometimes been offended by the story (Really? Are you surprised?) and that it was about “the existential dilemma of two distinct intellects sharing one body … a persistent aspect of the human condition itself, namely the universal quest for some external validation of our own self-worth, and the concomitant fear that we are perhaps unworthy”.
Hmm. The word poppycock springs to mind. From the footage I watched, dicephalic conjoined twins usually have little leisure time for abstruse philosophical musings which have little bearing on their lives. They are more focused and concerned with practical matters, and have definite goals.
You can write, Mr. Bishop. The prose flows well, and as you “helpfully” gave a spoiler in your introduction (which I read afterwards) I can see that the story was developed into . (Ho hum hokum.) Seriously, you need to find another way to say all this!
In reviewing an anthology I have spent far too long on this one story. You might have guessed the reason. It is the fifth story in the book, and I resent giving it even one star. The other four barely scraped to two stars. Perhaps there might be one, or even two, good ones to come, but my heart is not in giving this editor any more of my time.
It remains an abandoned book, put in the charity box, since neither of us want to finish it. The rest of the stories are:
The Man Who Collected Poe - Robert Bloch
The Fog Horn - Ray Bradbury
The Day of the Butterflies - Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Depths - Ramsey Campbell
Touchstone - Terry Carr
Let Us Quickly Hasten to the Gate of Ivory - Thomas M. Disch
Trouble with Water - Horace L. Gold
Harpist - Joe L. Hensley
Blue Vase of Ghosts - Tanith Lee
The Wife’s Story - Ursula K. Le Guin
The House of Cthulhu - Brian Lumley
The Real Shape of the Coast - John Lutz
The Smallest Dragonboy - Anne McCaffrey
Caves in Cliffs - Josh Pachter
The Broken Hoop - Pamela Sargent
Dancers in the Time-Flux - Robert Silverberg
Amends: A Tale of the Sun Kings - Nancy Springer
Sing a Last Song of Valdese - Karl Edward Wagner
The Father of the Bride - Connie Willis
Kevin Malone - Gene Wolfe
There are some good names here - but what if they all contributed their duds? After all, every writer has their off days.
Displaying 1 of 1 review