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The Year's Best Science Fiction #1
The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 1 [= Best SF 1967]
Credo essay by James Blish
Introduction essay by Harry Harrison
Hawksbill Station 67 novella by Robert Silverberg
Ultimate Construction 67 story by Brian Aldiss=C.C. Shackleton
1937 AD! 67 story by John T. Sladek
Fifteen Miles/Kinsman 67 story by Ben Bova
Blackmail 67 story by Fred Hoyle
The Vine 67 story by Kit Reed
Interview With a Lemming 41 story by James Thurber
The Wreck of the Ship John B. 67 novelette by Frank M. Robinson
The Left-Hand Way 67 story by A. Bertram Chandler
The Forest of Zil 67 story by Kris Neville
The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race 66 story by J.G. Ballard
Answering Service 67 story by Fritz Leiber
The Last Command/Bolo 67 story by Keith Laumer
Mirror of Ice 67 story by Gary Wright
Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes 67 novelette by Harlan Ellison
Knights of the Paper Spaceship: A Retrospective Glance at Science Fiction essay by Brian W. Aldiss
Introduction essay by Harry Harrison
Hawksbill Station 67 novella by Robert Silverberg
Ultimate Construction 67 story by Brian Aldiss=C.C. Shackleton
1937 AD! 67 story by John T. Sladek
Fifteen Miles/Kinsman 67 story by Ben Bova
Blackmail 67 story by Fred Hoyle
The Vine 67 story by Kit Reed
Interview With a Lemming 41 story by James Thurber
The Wreck of the Ship John B. 67 novelette by Frank M. Robinson
The Left-Hand Way 67 story by A. Bertram Chandler
The Forest of Zil 67 story by Kris Neville
The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race 66 story by J.G. Ballard
Answering Service 67 story by Fritz Leiber
The Last Command/Bolo 67 story by Keith Laumer
Mirror of Ice 67 story by Gary Wright
Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes 67 novelette by Harlan Ellison
Knights of the Paper Spaceship: A Retrospective Glance at Science Fiction essay by Brian W. Aldiss
207 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1968
61 people want to read
About the author
Brian W. Aldiss
834 books676 followersPseudonyms: Jael Cracken, Peter Pica, John Runciman, C.C. Shackleton, Arch Mendicant, & "Doc" Peristyle.
Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.
Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads
Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.
Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 21, 2018
I would recommend this collection as part of a survey into science fiction of the era, rather than a stand-alone example of it. The stories are mediocre, even the bigger names feel phoned in.
Several of the stories have a strong premise but get bogged down by the technical jargon and "telling not showing" of short speculative fiction in this format.
From the forward and the afterward by the preparing editors, it's clear that science fiction is being wielded exclusively by men at this time, in a boys club that is even described by Aldiss as a brotherhood of "knights".
Definitely a trip.
Several of the stories have a strong premise but get bogged down by the technical jargon and "telling not showing" of short speculative fiction in this format.
From the forward and the afterward by the preparing editors, it's clear that science fiction is being wielded exclusively by men at this time, in a boys club that is even described by Aldiss as a brotherhood of "knights".
Definitely a trip.
November 7, 2022
"1937 AD" by John Sladek: 4
- If any sf still forgettable, I’m sure it’s this one. A story that nearly falls asleep on its own, weighed down, as it is by the weight of received banality. Strange for Blish to talk up Sladek’s poetry before this story. You’d think he had a notion to humiliate or patronize Sladek, were the mention not so sincere, calling to mind ones grand artistic designs before then unleashing this chock-a-block mid-teriority on them. STORY: Time traveller slowly realizes how to effectively manipulate his own future, and get the girl and destroy the bully. The only worthwhile thing was the initial cognitive estrangement of even the very first world presented to us being marginally off (mentions of the United States of Columbia in the periodic on the Friday evening post), which effectively tells us that someone’s been here before and it might not end up so neat and tidy for our protagonist after all.
- If any sf still forgettable, I’m sure it’s this one. A story that nearly falls asleep on its own, weighed down, as it is by the weight of received banality. Strange for Blish to talk up Sladek’s poetry before this story. You’d think he had a notion to humiliate or patronize Sladek, were the mention not so sincere, calling to mind ones grand artistic designs before then unleashing this chock-a-block mid-teriority on them. STORY: Time traveller slowly realizes how to effectively manipulate his own future, and get the girl and destroy the bully. The only worthwhile thing was the initial cognitive estrangement of even the very first world presented to us being marginally off (mentions of the United States of Columbia in the periodic on the Friday evening post), which effectively tells us that someone’s been here before and it might not end up so neat and tidy for our protagonist after all.
November 12, 2014
This is the first volume in what was a very important and influential series of Year's Best SF collections. Edited by Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison these annuals pushed the boundaries and helped to redefine not only what could be classed as SF, but what format it should adopt. Later volumes include poetry and other more experimental writing. The series was also known for its opinionated articles, the first issue's dealing with the definition of SF.
Kit Reed's story 'The Vine' is included in this volume. Is it SF? I would label it as allegorical fantasy personally, and as James Blish has written a part introduction to this book in which he questions what is labelled as SF, it needs to be pointed out. Aldiss, however, in his afterword, has a more liberal point of view.
Some forty years plus after this volume was written we can see that Aldiss’ argument holds more water than Blish’s. Blish seems to be implying that SF is only SF if it works within the rules he has set out. Within this volume, perhaps as a perverse response to Blish we have 'The Vine' and Ballard’s ‘The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race’. Within Blish’s rules we would not have included these pieces or evolved such writers as M John Harrison, China Mieville, Ballard himself and countless others.
This volume comprises of:-
Hawksbill Station – Robert Silverberg
An excellent concept, predating Julian May’s Exiles Saga in which political dissidents and misfits are sent back to the Palaeozoic Era. This is, however, more of a character study of what might happen to men under such circumstances, and one man in particular. Novelised subsequently under the same title.
1937 A.D.! – John T Sladek (New Worlds 1967)
John Sladek shows early promise with this tale of how the future could influence the present, when a young inventor, from Kiowa in the United States of Columbia, creates a time engine powered by a bicycle and travels to 1937, where Julius Doppler explains his ‘Doppler Effect’ to him.
Fifteen Miles – Ben Bova
Bova chooses the moon for this story, where a priest (one of three astronauts on the moon during the current mission) gets himself trapped in a crater while looking for water and has to be rescued. It is not clear why a priest was on the moon in the first place, although it is a rather cumbersomely inserted device to explore the story’s theme of redemption
The Vine – Kit Reed (F & SF 1967)
This could be seen as a metaphor for any business whose survival comes to mean more than the lives of the individuals who toil for it. A family has spent generations tending a vast grapevine, during which time other dependent industries have evolved around it, catering to the tourists who come to visit The Vine. Some of the family are having second thoughts about their hereditary roles as tenders of The Vine, but the Vine is not prepared to let them leave.
Interview With a Lemming – James Thurber (My World and Welcome To It – 1942)
A satirical short from humourist Thurber, which transcribes a philosophical discussion between human and lemming.
The Left Hand Way – A Bertram Chandler (Australian Science Fiction Review 1967)
A colonist ship crashlands, and the only survivor is a Buddhist priest who, when finding a cargo full of trainable humanoid robots, activates them and begins training them as Buddhist monks.
The Wreck of The Ship John B – Frank M Robinson (Playboy 1967)
In one of the better stories in this volume, Robinson looks at the effects of space travel on humans. Several young men on a three year flight to a colony world find a series of space-suited corpses in space, and then their abandoned ship.
The Captain, studying records from the ship, realises that his own crew is showing early signs of the same psychoses which led to the deaths of the other astronauts, and determines to find a solution before it is too late.
The Forest of Zil – Kris Neville
Earth has sent spaceborne arcologies out to try and find habitable worlds. One world, discovered after countless lifeless stars, is covered by a forest, the trees of which seem to be the only life-form, and seem to whisper the word ‘Zil’ when wind blows through their leaves.
The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race – JG Ballard (Ambit 1967)
One of Ballard’s more memorable and controversial creations, heralding an obsession with the President, and indeed with other media icons, who turn up in later stories and novels.
Answering Service – Fritz Leiber (Galaxy 1967)
An interesting piece here about a rich hypochondriac who rings and abuses what she supposes to be an answering service comprised of automated tapes.
Character driven and compelling.
The Last Command – Keith Laumer (Analog Jan 1967)
During construction of a new shopping mall on a colony planet a supposedly decommissioned automated warfare unit is awakened. A retired soldier is the only one who recognises the unit and remembers how to shut it down.
Mirror of Ice – Gary Wright (Galaxy 1967)
Interesting in that it explores a potential future sport, indeed presages the current fascination with dangerous sports. Here, a sled has to be specially designed to to ride the course which has been constructed to wind around a mountain and which has brought glory to some and death to others.
Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes – Harlan Ellison (Knight Magazine 1967)
Harlan Ellison, in a suitably Chandler-esque mode, tells the tale of the femme-fatale Maggie, whose man Nuncio, done her wrong. Now Maggie’s spirit possesses a Las Vegas fruit machine, looking for a man who can be true to her. Again, this is not SF. I am not sure what it is. It somehow deserves its place here though.
Kit Reed's story 'The Vine' is included in this volume. Is it SF? I would label it as allegorical fantasy personally, and as James Blish has written a part introduction to this book in which he questions what is labelled as SF, it needs to be pointed out. Aldiss, however, in his afterword, has a more liberal point of view.
Some forty years plus after this volume was written we can see that Aldiss’ argument holds more water than Blish’s. Blish seems to be implying that SF is only SF if it works within the rules he has set out. Within this volume, perhaps as a perverse response to Blish we have 'The Vine' and Ballard’s ‘The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race’. Within Blish’s rules we would not have included these pieces or evolved such writers as M John Harrison, China Mieville, Ballard himself and countless others.
This volume comprises of:-
Hawksbill Station – Robert Silverberg
An excellent concept, predating Julian May’s Exiles Saga in which political dissidents and misfits are sent back to the Palaeozoic Era. This is, however, more of a character study of what might happen to men under such circumstances, and one man in particular. Novelised subsequently under the same title.
1937 A.D.! – John T Sladek (New Worlds 1967)
John Sladek shows early promise with this tale of how the future could influence the present, when a young inventor, from Kiowa in the United States of Columbia, creates a time engine powered by a bicycle and travels to 1937, where Julius Doppler explains his ‘Doppler Effect’ to him.
Fifteen Miles – Ben Bova
Bova chooses the moon for this story, where a priest (one of three astronauts on the moon during the current mission) gets himself trapped in a crater while looking for water and has to be rescued. It is not clear why a priest was on the moon in the first place, although it is a rather cumbersomely inserted device to explore the story’s theme of redemption
The Vine – Kit Reed (F & SF 1967)
This could be seen as a metaphor for any business whose survival comes to mean more than the lives of the individuals who toil for it. A family has spent generations tending a vast grapevine, during which time other dependent industries have evolved around it, catering to the tourists who come to visit The Vine. Some of the family are having second thoughts about their hereditary roles as tenders of The Vine, but the Vine is not prepared to let them leave.
Interview With a Lemming – James Thurber (My World and Welcome To It – 1942)
A satirical short from humourist Thurber, which transcribes a philosophical discussion between human and lemming.
The Left Hand Way – A Bertram Chandler (Australian Science Fiction Review 1967)
A colonist ship crashlands, and the only survivor is a Buddhist priest who, when finding a cargo full of trainable humanoid robots, activates them and begins training them as Buddhist monks.
The Wreck of The Ship John B – Frank M Robinson (Playboy 1967)
In one of the better stories in this volume, Robinson looks at the effects of space travel on humans. Several young men on a three year flight to a colony world find a series of space-suited corpses in space, and then their abandoned ship.
The Captain, studying records from the ship, realises that his own crew is showing early signs of the same psychoses which led to the deaths of the other astronauts, and determines to find a solution before it is too late.
The Forest of Zil – Kris Neville
Earth has sent spaceborne arcologies out to try and find habitable worlds. One world, discovered after countless lifeless stars, is covered by a forest, the trees of which seem to be the only life-form, and seem to whisper the word ‘Zil’ when wind blows through their leaves.
The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race – JG Ballard (Ambit 1967)
One of Ballard’s more memorable and controversial creations, heralding an obsession with the President, and indeed with other media icons, who turn up in later stories and novels.
Answering Service – Fritz Leiber (Galaxy 1967)
An interesting piece here about a rich hypochondriac who rings and abuses what she supposes to be an answering service comprised of automated tapes.
Character driven and compelling.
The Last Command – Keith Laumer (Analog Jan 1967)
During construction of a new shopping mall on a colony planet a supposedly decommissioned automated warfare unit is awakened. A retired soldier is the only one who recognises the unit and remembers how to shut it down.
Mirror of Ice – Gary Wright (Galaxy 1967)
Interesting in that it explores a potential future sport, indeed presages the current fascination with dangerous sports. Here, a sled has to be specially designed to to ride the course which has been constructed to wind around a mountain and which has brought glory to some and death to others.
Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes – Harlan Ellison (Knight Magazine 1967)
Harlan Ellison, in a suitably Chandler-esque mode, tells the tale of the femme-fatale Maggie, whose man Nuncio, done her wrong. Now Maggie’s spirit possesses a Las Vegas fruit machine, looking for a man who can be true to her. Again, this is not SF. I am not sure what it is. It somehow deserves its place here though.
December 5, 2022
I've been in a bit of a reading slump (for prose, anyway) so I decided to go back to some sci fi short stories. Lots of good names in this one.. I had heard of but not read what could be called the headliner of the book 'Hawksbill Station' by Robert Silverberg. I was not disappointed, it was very good (though like maybe other really good short stories, no need for it to be expanded into a novel, no interest in reading that).
My favorite I think, though was 'Answering Service' by Fritz Leiber. I work in a call center, so it was such an amazing portrayal, I was laughing the whole time (until the end of course). One thing this collection doesn't have is alot of happy endings, but very few stinkers, and the few I didn't love were quick and painless. Excellent collection.
My favorite I think, though was 'Answering Service' by Fritz Leiber. I work in a call center, so it was such an amazing portrayal, I was laughing the whole time (until the end of course). One thing this collection doesn't have is alot of happy endings, but very few stinkers, and the few I didn't love were quick and painless. Excellent collection.
January 3, 2022
This was the first in a series of what would be nine volumes, all edited by Harrison and Aldiss, giving a British view of the best sf stories of the year. This is a basic collection of stories from 1967, which included: Ellison’s “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes” (as above); Silverberg’s Hawksbill Station; Sladek’s “1937 A. D.”; Bova’s “Fifteen Miles”; and Wright’s “Mirror of Ice” (also mentioned above). These were the best of the stories here, and there were also some acceptable and some that you really have to question. Oh, yes, and add in James Thurber’s story “Interview with a Lemming” from 1941, because.., well, who knows? As expected the bulk of the stories are from the US prozines, augmented by a couple from the UK magazines, and one from John Bangsund’s Australian Science Fiction Review. I made it 5 good stories out of 13, with no real duds; a bit under a pass, but this was the editors’ first shot at this concept so some leeway is required. The weirdest story: Ballard’s “The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race”, a story only slightly longer than its title. R: 3.1/5.0
December 8, 2025
Various sci-fi short stories from 1967 (mostly) chosen by two well-known authors in the field. Harry Harrison & Brian Aldiss continued collaboratively editing 8 more yearly anthologies like this one until 1976. It opens with an essay outlining a four point credo for their story selections: 1) it contains some trace of science, 2) it should be fiction, 3) its okay if the best is not included, & 4) editorial choices may be informed by outside influences. Let's be honest, these criteria are kinda pointless, no? For one, they don't even mention limiting work from any particular year, despite the title of this book clearly saying “1967”. Ok, so why even bother pretending? Well, some of the stories are just plain fun.
The scientist appearing in James Thurber’s Interview with a Lemming (1941) gets scolded for failing to see why he should go jump in a lake. In The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race (1966). J.G. Ballard takes us on slapstick tour of the the Zapruder Film (1963). Its a short piece and the reader is immediately dropped into the fray - like some kind of slow-motion bullet ricocheting from person to person. Celebrity faces contort in horror while blood and brains lace the air. This is a defining work of flash microfiction that ultimately got J.G. Ballard expelled from the College of Pataphysics. In Answering Service (1967) Fritz Lieber offers a head scratching tale about a terminally ill patient trauma-dumping on the voice on the other end of the help line because she assumes its just a robot. What if Siri wasn’t fake AI psychology? And what if blood came dripping out of the speaker after you bitched her out? There a lot of forgettable stories too. I first read Ben Bova’s Fifteen Miles (1967) when he presented it in The Craft of Writing SF That Sells (1994). He pointed to this story as if it was a good example of why a writer must relentlessly describe every minute detail of the protagonist’s action. Reading it for a second time I realize that I’m still totally missing his point.
Hawksbill Station (1967) is Robert Silverberg’s Cold war inspired novella about a one way time-machine that sends political prisoners to a remote Siberian mountain base circa the Paleolithic era. These are garden-variety anarcho/communists who subsist on trilobite-soup and boasts about the coming revolution. Then a new guy shows up telling them that back home in the future there’s a new liberal government and that its ended all political oppression, so now they'll be freeing the prisoners. But not everyone is keen on returning home to face the music. What about the revolution? I get the author's point, but the political ideas described in this story are rendered in such vague broad brush stokes that I wasn't able to suspend my disbelief and get on board with the idea that these are legit revolutionaries. I'm not even convinced the author genuinely understands why communists have a problem with capitalism. In Robert Silverberg’s universe the monopoly of violence used by capitalists for extracting capital from other people’s labor is simply ignored as being a form of political oppression.
Even Harlan Ellison has a story. I got to find out what cocktail he mixed when he wrote Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes (1967) because the style is sloppy fun mess. Its about a sad sack gambler who’s luck changes when he falls in love with his slot-machine, and she loves him right back in all the right ways.
The scientist appearing in James Thurber’s Interview with a Lemming (1941) gets scolded for failing to see why he should go jump in a lake. In The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race (1966). J.G. Ballard takes us on slapstick tour of the the Zapruder Film (1963). Its a short piece and the reader is immediately dropped into the fray - like some kind of slow-motion bullet ricocheting from person to person. Celebrity faces contort in horror while blood and brains lace the air. This is a defining work of flash microfiction that ultimately got J.G. Ballard expelled from the College of Pataphysics. In Answering Service (1967) Fritz Lieber offers a head scratching tale about a terminally ill patient trauma-dumping on the voice on the other end of the help line because she assumes its just a robot. What if Siri wasn’t fake AI psychology? And what if blood came dripping out of the speaker after you bitched her out? There a lot of forgettable stories too. I first read Ben Bova’s Fifteen Miles (1967) when he presented it in The Craft of Writing SF That Sells (1994). He pointed to this story as if it was a good example of why a writer must relentlessly describe every minute detail of the protagonist’s action. Reading it for a second time I realize that I’m still totally missing his point.
Hawksbill Station (1967) is Robert Silverberg’s Cold war inspired novella about a one way time-machine that sends political prisoners to a remote Siberian mountain base circa the Paleolithic era. These are garden-variety anarcho/communists who subsist on trilobite-soup and boasts about the coming revolution. Then a new guy shows up telling them that back home in the future there’s a new liberal government and that its ended all political oppression, so now they'll be freeing the prisoners. But not everyone is keen on returning home to face the music. What about the revolution? I get the author's point, but the political ideas described in this story are rendered in such vague broad brush stokes that I wasn't able to suspend my disbelief and get on board with the idea that these are legit revolutionaries. I'm not even convinced the author genuinely understands why communists have a problem with capitalism. In Robert Silverberg’s universe the monopoly of violence used by capitalists for extracting capital from other people’s labor is simply ignored as being a form of political oppression.
Even Harlan Ellison has a story. I got to find out what cocktail he mixed when he wrote Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes (1967) because the style is sloppy fun mess. Its about a sad sack gambler who’s luck changes when he falls in love with his slot-machine, and she loves him right back in all the right ways.
March 3, 2010
I recall the cover and some of the stories from this book read sometime in during a high school year, but that's it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews