SF: Authors' Choice 4

SF Authors Choice #4

by Harry Harrison

Putnam, 1974. Hardcover with dustjacket; 1st edition with $5.95 price on jacket flap. 4th of four books in series of anthologies of science fiction stories. Each story is prefaced by the author, explain why the are particularly fond of that tale. Includes stories by Brian W. Aldiss, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Sheckley, Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, and 10 others. There was a Book Club edition of this book; see separate catalog page for that book.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

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 the fourth volume of a series that Harrison edited, the gimmick of which was the individual authors chose which of their stories was to be included, and provided a brief introduction as to why they made the choice and added some comments about the story. It was an interesting idea, but by the fourth volume I believe he may have already run through many of the best short fiction writers who wished to participate. I had fun arguing with the choices that the authors made, and substituting my own. Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, Clifford D. Simak, Arthur C. Clarke, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Sheckley, and James Tiptree, Jr. are the ones with whom I disagreed.

[Roberts]

These are some old stories, circa early 1970's (some written much earlier). I probably picked this up at the library for 25 cents a few years ago. I'd read one or two stories before (Old Hundreth, which wasn't bad), but re-read them all recently on vacation. (What else is there to do on a beach?)

I liked Warrior, The Fire and The Sword, The Man Who Loved the Faoili. There were a few other decent stories, and a couple dogs.

I probably wouldn't recommend this unless you're into classic sci fi, have read everything else under the sun, or get hold of this for 25c also :-).

[Annabelle]

There are times when my attention span is best suited to short stories. Better yet, retro SF stories, my description of retro being any science fiction written before the moon landing of July 1969. This book was published in 1974, but the entries were written between 1949 and 1971. It's my first time to come across Harry Harrison, but based on this anthology, I'll be sure to look out for his other SF Authors' Choice collections. My thoughts on the stories:

1) Old Hundredth by Brian W. Aldiss - Fantasy/SF, but more of the latter. While I appreciate what sublimity music-columns can bring to the inner consciousness of ESP (Extraordinarily Sensory Perceptive) super-sloths and baluchitheriums, I find it difficult to follow a story, no matter how short, while learning of new worlds, their flora and fauna, and their quirks, at the same time.

2) Fair by John Brunner - Brunner's explanation of the trajectory of this tale made fairly better reading than the story, which reminded me of one of the story's in Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man.

3) The Forgotten Enemy by Arthur C. Clarke - It is some twenty years since the end of the world--a blitzkrieg of ice--and Professor Millward, sentinel by choice to King's College Senate House Library and its volumes of priceless editions, senses a thaw in the air. Change is coming...This is one of my favorites in the collection. Arthur C. Clarke can do no wrong.

4) Warrior by Gordon R. Dickson - A testosterone overload, and what to me must have been the progenitor for those cyborg movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude van Damme. The reveal at the end fell flat, though. What was the big deal over that?

5) Et In Arcadia Ego by Thomas M. Disch - Occasionally there comes a science fiction story which I will fail to grasp--completely. This is one of them.

6) But Soft, What Light by Carol Emshwiller - And number 6 makes two.

7) The Misogynist by James Gunn - If John Cheever were tasked to write a short science fiction story, he would likely have come up with this. And The Enormous Radio.

8) All of Us Are Dying by George Clayton Johnson - Storyline is taut, and fast-paced. And of course, the title seemed familiar, because I had seen this often enough on Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone series (the sixties edition) on my external hard drive.

9) The Fire and the Sword by Frank M. Robinson - I still don't get title, but I was fascinated with the plot and the narrative. It felt like an old Star Trek episode featuring Doc McCoy and Chekov.

10) Bad Medicine by Robert Sheckley - Once upon a time, science fiction short stories of the retro kind could afford to make light of insanity, random shootings, and grossly irresponsible sales and marketing. But even without the sensitive issue of a random shooting, I've always shied away from this type of almost condescending storytelling, egging the reader to find the eccentric, homicidal protagonist endearing.

11) The Autumn Land by Clifford D. Simak - Simak seems to have a thing for just walking away from it all, a metamorphosis he narrated to perfection in Desertion, my Holy Grail of retro SF stories, with an Earthman-turned-Jovian and his dog lumbering toward an uncertain paradise. This story features a beckoning, equally uncertain autumnal paradise of sorts, featuring characters in a permanent state of limbo.

12) A Sense of Beauty by Robert Taylor - This is the only short story, SF or otherwise, which features the coolest, calmest, and most collected reaction involving an alien encounter. Picture this conversation, in a nutshell, between a beautiful human girl and a handsome alien, a galactic art collector at that--post-coitus:

Girl, slipping her fingers away from his wrist: You're an alien, aren't you?
Alien: How did you know?
Girl: I don't know. I think I suspected something all along.
Alien: I think I need a drink.
Girl: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.

13) The Last Flight of Dr Ain by James Tiptree, Jr - My number one favorite among the selections, and that includes Tiptree's visual, engaging description not so much of his creative process but of his contagious pessimism concerning the evolutionary byproduct that is man--a sentiment which, in 1969, was not as widely felt as it is today. I have read the story thrice. Why, in a world still reeling from the financial, physical, and emotional effects of a global pandemic--why do I still empathize with Dr Ain? Five supernovas!

14) Ullward's Retreat by Jack Vance - An amusing story of man's capacity for discontent. Best appreciated if you have also read Leo Tolstoy's short story How Much Land Does a Man Need?

15) The Man Who Loved the Faioli by Roger Zelazny - Another grey area where SF meets fantasy. I think it would have worked better without the robots...then again, as Zelazny explains, he had written this "in a matter of hours" based on the artwork for Galaxy magazine, as commissioned by then-editor Frederick Pohl.

* I picked up this selection of short SF stories the night before spending a long, itinerary-less weekend at a friend's house at Siquijor Island, where I was promised endless hours of reading on a balcony by the sea, a constant, nap-inducing breeze, towering coconut trees swaying around me. I had just started on The Medici by James Cleugh, but deemed it too heavy, and so I settled on this hardbound, but surprising light anthology.

[Cheryl]

Interesting reading these notes, written as I was coming of age and learning about the issues of the world, the things that were bothering these writers: alienation, the Cold War and the futile War with Vietnam, the growing but pessimistic ecological movement.... We weren't talking so much about racism anymore, you see, nor feminism, and gay rights & gender diversity were outré speculations....

Old Hundredth - Aldiss - maybe sort of an Uplift story, not for me

Fair - Brunner - a different kind of propaganda machine, with a different message; smart

The Forgotten Enemy - Clarke - hard science short-short; I like Clarke in that mode much better than in his woo-woo mode

Warrior - Dickson - a teaser for his Dorsai / Childe cycle. makes me even less interested in the one that I have on my to-read shelf :(

Et in Arcadia Ego - Disch - p'raps a satire of pretentiousness; p'raps pure weirdness, I certainly don't know nor care for such

But Soft, What Light - Emshwiller - experimental self-indulgence imo

The Misogynist - James Gunn - from his prefatory note, it's clear that the author is only slightly less ignorant than the title character... blech

All of Us Are Dying - George Clayton Johnson - with a generic name like that, it's only natural that he came up with this kind of generic character for this gimmick short-short

The Fire and the Sword - Robinson - Interesting prefatory note about alienation to this pseudo-anthropological tale: should the locals protect themselves from the outsiders, or welcome and adopt them? Would also make a good Star Trek episode, but Kirk would not have been given six months to get an answer from this culture!

Bad Medicine - Sheckley - the author's normal spun-out weirdness, but I do like this bit, "Both the manager and the clerk exchanged horrified looks. They were thinking of the General Motors Reformatory outside of Detroit, where Company offenders passed their days in sullen silence, monotonously drawing micro-circuits for pocket television sets."

The Autumn Land - Simak - this time the author's pastoralism is a veneer over a base of horror

A Sense of Beauty - Robert Taylor - From the author's note: "There are no villains here in my story.... We have gone beyond that humbug.... the serpent merely gave us the excuse we were searching for." Luminous fable; I'll look for more by the author

The Last Flight of Dr. Ain - Tiptree - Yes, the planet would be better off it 90% of humans were gone, but who was Dr. Ain's woman friend? Gaea herself, maybe?

Ullward's Retreat - Vance - when you're so accustomed to synthetic simulated algae that genuine algae is the height of luxury, when you're 37 billionth in line to get permission to have a child, what would you do if you bought half a planet? Btw, I won't single Vance out, but his preface might make it the most clear why writers need editors & publishers to vet their stuff & make them fix it...

The Man Who Loved the Faioli - Zelazny - erotic fantasy for men who lust for girls

Ok done thank goodness. Stories vary from weak, to lame, to, well, corpselike. Sorry.

[Tim]

Yet another of my S-F books from the 70's, this one from the Science Fiction Book Club. This was a compliation of short stories that the authros themselves chose for inclusion, along with a little piece on how the story came to be written. I read short stories to sort of "clear my palate" between novels and other works. This one, like all such collections, is a bit uneven but quite enjoyable; all the authors have had some fame in thw wider S-F community, such as Arthur C. Clarke ("2001: A Space Oddysy"); John Bruner (who wrote of overcrowding and pollution, in a British manner); Clifford D. Simak (who wrote very engaging and readable stuff) and, as a surprise, Frank M. Robinson, who was a speechwriter for Harvey Milk ("sean Penn, best actor, "Milk?), and has a bit part in the movie. Glad to share this with you.