Dan’s Comments (group member since Oct 07, 2023)

Dan’s comments from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.

The Last Spell (1995) ★★★½

Oh my goodness! If I were the editor, I so would not have chosen this first story to lead such an important collection with. I liked the story. Sure. But I already like and know something of Andre Norton's works and themes. I also know some important Norton background that helped me appreciate the story. But if were a newcomer to Andre Norton? What would I make of this? Not as much, I fear. What was the editor thinking!?

The first thing to know about Andre Norton is that she was not a short story writer. Short stories were not her preferred medium. I have read in interviews she gave that she did not consider herself particularly talented in writing them. She tried her hand at a few when she was breaking into the speculative fiction field as a writer, just to get her, or a pseudonym's (Andrew North) name out there. They aren't bad stories, but they're not spectacular either.

Later, I think she might have edited some of her novels, decided to chop out sections of them that didn't work. Then, rather then simply chuck those sections, I suspect she retooled them into short stories. She could sell the stories to certain periodicals on the basis of her name alone, after all. And some money was better than no money. Frankly, I'm glad she did. Most of those stories are well worth reading.

This is all to say that after 1955 or so, I doubt she wrote many short stories from beginning to end that she ever intended from the start to sell purely as a short story. Maybe a cat story or two. She did love cats.

This story is a Merlin story, set in the complicated world of Arthurian legend. That's why this is so unfortunate a choice. First, the reader has to be familiar with Arthurian legend, who the players were, the characters' motives, foibles, back stories, etc. How many of us really know this?

Second, it helps to understand Norton's take on the Arthurian legend. Although, because this story is so short, maybe that isn't so necessary. Norton's unique take on the Arthurian legend was to science fictionize it. Merlin isn't just a magician in command of magic. Merlin is an extraterrestrial in command of advanced science. Done the way Norton does it, making a blend of the two--science and magic with legend and lore--it's a fun read. Merlin's Mirror is the place to start with all this, if you aren't already familiar with it.

That's a lot of baggage to put into a seven-page story at the start of a three-volume collection, providing no explanation whatsoever! Despite all that, maybe it still works. You tell me!

As if this weren't enough of a handicap to place a story under, this story was first published in 1995. Norton would have been 83 years old. This story has all the earmarks of having been a tossed away scrap of the sort I mentioned earlier, retooled to be a short story, sold to some random anthology that wanted to print a "new" Norton short story.

At the beginning it's hard to tell who the narrative voice is or who the two characters are that make the story. This is very much in one of Norton's styles I call the in medias res style, there is a wikipedia page on it if you haven't heard of it, of thrusting the reader right in during the middle and expecting the reader to catch up on the fly. Norton uses this style a little over half of the time to begin any of her works.

The story is told from Nimue's (she has a wikipedia page too) perspective. Merlin, her mystic master, has been struck and is dying. She is considering casting a spell to save Merlin's life. What is Merlin's answer? Well, you will have to read the story to find out. I try not to be a spoiler after all.

I loved Nimue's predicament and the outcome. Hence my rating of this story, despite its aforementioned issues. I maintain that this story was an unfortunate choice to start the collection with. Even so, there are some bright sides. Many people consider Andre Norton to be a young adult author. I suppose this is because she usually has youthful protagonists who are trying to prove themselves in her stories. People thus pigeonhole Norton as a YA author because this sounds like what they and only they do, use youngsters as protagonists.

This story has the virtue of showing that Norton is way too deep and complicated an author to be classified as a mere YA author. She may not write sex scenes, use profanity, and she almost always has youthful protagonists. But only the brightest of young people could keep up with the depth of Norton's plotting and writing style. She is not really a YA author therefore, in my opinion, though very bright teens can get a lot from her. This story shows how Andre Norton was an intellectual force in her storytelling to be reckoned with and appreciated.

C.P. wrote: "Thank you for this!"

Sure. That Horror Historia anthology series is amazing, whatever the topic. I really like C.S.R. Calloway's style of thoroughly covering the earliest examples in chronological order and his commentary about them. He seems to find all the key early stories and edits them perfectly.

Calloway only has two of his color series out in publication so far. The other one is Horror Historia Violet: 31 Essential Faerie Tales and 4 Mystical Poems. Brown (Werewolves, shapeshifters), Green (Lethal vegetation), Gold (Mummies and the Nile), Pink (Murderers, ghouls, and other monsters of the flesh), and White (Ghosts, phantoms, and other visitants) are planned.

Lena wrote: "I had a great time with the vampire mammoth and I’m still working my way through the fantasy mammoth. I do like chronological anthologies. I’ve made it to the 2000s of The Weird. Just ten more year..."

May I ask specifically which Weird Mammoth anthology this is? Not the VanderMeers' one by any chance? I don't think they used Mammoth in their title....

Did you enjoy that anthology? If so, Horror Historia Red: 31 Essential Vampire Tales might interest you. It's my favorite vampire anthology because it contains every vampire short story, I believe, in chronological publication order up through 1927.

Ten years or so ago I aspired to collect (and read) every Andre Norton book written. I really, really loved her Witch World series as a teen and young man. Witch World is still my favorite work by her.

To collect Norton is folly, of course, or at least unrealistic. One would have to purchase several hundred books to get everything in print. I got pretty far along though. I bought perhaps fifty or sixty of her books. I even read a dozen or twenty works before my tastes changed slightly, away from pure genre SF or fantasy. I still have forty or so of her unread (by me) books on my shelves in various places. I didn't think I had this one and almost bought a Kindle version, when I got to remembering it. The book seemed so familiar. I hunted and finally found the print version on an obscure shelf, purchased six years ago. Yay!

I guess it's a good thing I purchased it when it was relatively cheap. The book now costs a small fortune on the used book market. The ISBN of it was hard for me to track down for some reason. It is 978-1-62467-189-0. That's from the back cover. You can input that ISBN into bookfinder.com and see how insanely the used book market prices the book if you want. Fortunately, it's still in print, so ordering a brand-new print copy is still possible (bookfinder covers those options too, of course) and a lot cheaper. It's a beautiful book with high production values, even if it's a bit thin by today's standards, just 222 pages. Still, I think you'd consider the book a good buy at $22 dollars, if print is your thing.

The collection contains 18 short stories. Maybe the longest one, "Sword of Unbelief" (1977), 27 pages, is a novelette. I've previously read about half of them in various places at various times. Many of them appear in other Norton story collections. A few of them appear in only this collection and nowhere else that's still obtainable. Not all of them are fantasy or science fiction, incidentally. Early Norton, which this collection contains, wrote in other genres. In fact, Norton didn't become predominantly an SF author until the 1950s, though she began writing in the 1930s.

I won't spoil those stories by discussing them further at this point. Get the collection if you're curious about Norton's SF, fantasy, and other writing, and join in!

I imagine most, maybe all, of us are aware of this series. If we have read at all widely, we have no doubt read at least a few books in it. I really enjoy these massive, inexpensively priced anthologies. So I did a little research into the history of it and thought I would share my results.

The series' scope is wider than our group's interest. It includes the speculative fiction (the SF, fantasy, horror, and weird genres) we are interested in, but there are also Mammoth books of westerns, mysteries, historical fiction, and the like. I estimate almost half of mammoth books are in the speculative fiction field we specialize in. That makes this a rather important series for us!

Since 1986, Mammoth Books have been in constant production and they now number in the hundreds of different titles. But which were the first? Well, I'm glad you asked, because I have researched a definitive answer. Below, I list and describe every speculative fiction mammoth anthology published through 1989.

More than one publisher produces this series, and starting with #2 below, only modern (1986 and later) books can be listed. Surprisingly though, the first Mammoth Book was published in 1936, and its style and subject material is perfectly aligned with all of those in the latter series. Therefore, I begin with that 1936 anthology.

1) The Mammoth Book of Thrillers, Ghosts and Mysteries (1936). I have a copy of this book (they can still be found in the used book market, sometimes for under $50) and it's one of my favorites. Yes, one third of the stories are well-known classics to us even today. But the other two thirds are lost and forgotten gems no one would know to consider reading had they not been preserved in this anthology. Check out these contents!
17 The Diver (1927) short story by A. J. Alan
24 The Ghoul of Golders Green (1923) novelette by Michael Arlen
59 The Murder of the Mandarin (1907) short story by Arnold Bennett
70 Powers of the Air short story by J. D. Beresford [as by John D. Beresford]
76 Keeping His Promise (1906) short story by Algernon Blackwood
92 Dearth's Farm (1923) short story by Gerald Bullett
105 The Hammer of God non-genre [Father Brown] (1911) short story by G. K. Chesterton
121 The Blue Geranium short story by Agatha Christie
173 The Tiger (1921) short story by A. E. Coppard
195 The Looking Glass short story by Walter de la Mare (variant of The Looking-Glass 1923)
195 The Hostelry (1923) short story by Guy de Maupassant (trans. of L'auberge 1886)
208 A Large Diamond [Jorkens] (1931) short story by Lord Dunsany
218 The Cupboard (1922) short story by Jeffery Farnol
235 The Other Sense short story by J. S. Fletcher [as by Joseph S. Fletcher]
246 Ghost of Honour short story by Pamela Hansford Johnson
254 Roads of Destiny (1903) novelette by O. Henry
277 The Trapdoor short story by C. D. Heriot
286 Ben Blower's Story short story by Charles Fenno Hoffman [as by C. F. Hoffman]
297 The Shadow of a Shade (1869) short story by Tom Hood
311 The Dwarfs (1921) short story by Aldous Huxley
322 Guests from Gibbet Island (1839) short story by Washington Irving
333 The Mezzotint (1904) short story by M. R. James
346 The Dancing Partner (1928) short story by Jerome K. Jerome
353 The Woman Who Rode Away (1925) novelette by D. H. Lawrence
390 Honolulu (1921) novelette by W. Somerset Maugham
413 Rooum (1910) short story by Oliver Onions
429 The Green Light (1897) short story by Barry Pain
435 The Iron Pineapple (1926) short story by Eden Phillpotts
451 The Demon King (1931) short story by J. B. Priestley
466 The Queen of Spades (1909) short story by Александр Пушкин? (trans. of Пиковая дама? 1834) [as by Alexander Sergeievitch Pushkin]
492 The Seventh Man short story by Arthur Quiller-Couch [as by Sir Arthur T. Quiller-Couch]
504 Laura (1914) short story by Saki
509 Goat-Cry, Girl-Cry (1929) short story by William B. Seabrook
522 The Mahatma's Story (1924) short story by May Sinclair
533 Deep in the Forest short story by H. de Vere Stacpoole
548 The Island of Voices novelette by Robert Louis Stevenson (variant of The Isle of Voices 1893)
568 Man of the Night short story by Edgar Wallace
578 Major Wilbraham (1921) short story by Hugh Walpole
594 The Inexperienced Ghost (1902) short story by H. G. Wells
608 The Salt of the Earth novelette by Rebecca West
652 A Tale of a Gas-Light Ghost (1866) short story by uncredited
665 The Confession of Charles Linkworth (1912) short story by E. F. Benson
680 The Moonlit Road (1907) short story by Ambrose Bierce
689 A Visitor from Down Under (1926) short story by L. P. Hartley
705 The Voice in the Night (1907) short story by William Hope Hodgson
717 His Brother's Keeper non-genre (1922) short story by W. W. Jacobs
728 Berenice (1850) short story by Edgar Allan Poe (variant of Berenice—A Tale 1835)
736 The Coat (1934) short story by A. E. D. Smith
743 The Squaw (1893) short story by Bram Stoker
755 Presentiments (unknown) short fiction by P. C. Wren

2) Mammoth Book of Short Fantasy Novels (1986). This book was originally titled 13 Short Fantasy Novels and is why you might see the above Mammoth Book dated from 1984 in other sources. Since it did not gain the "Mammoth" title until 1986, I prefer the latter date. Contents include:
3 • The Gate of the Flying Knives • [Thieves' World] • (1979) • novella by Poul Anderson
37 • Unicorn Tapestry • [The Vampire Tapestry] • (1980) • novella by Suzy McKee Charnas
93 • Sleep Well of Nights • [Jack Limekiller] • (1978) • novelette by Avram Davidson (variant of A Good Night's Sleep)
139 • Black Heart and White Heart • (1896) • novella by H. Rider Haggard
189 • Red Nails • [Conan] • (1936) • novella by Robert E. Howard
263 • Storm in a Bottle • [Brak the Barbarian] • (1977) • novella by John Jakes
303 • Ill Met in Lankhmar • [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser] • (1970) • novella by Fritz Leiber
347 • The Lands Beyond the World • [The Elric Saga] • (1977) • novella by Michael Moorcock
395 • A Man and His God • [Sacred Band Tales] • (1981) • novella by Janet Morris
431 • Spider Silk • [Witch World Universe] • (1976) • novelette by Andre Norton
469 • Where Is the Bird of Fire? • [The Latium Trilogy] • (1962) • novella by Thomas Burnett Swann
517 • Guyal of Sfere • [Dying Earth] • (1950) • novella by Jack Vance
563 • Tower of Ice • [Dilvish] • (1981) • novella by Roger Zelazny

3) The Mammoth Book of Short Science Fiction Novels (1986). This book was originally titled 13 Short Science Fiction Novels and is why you might see the above Mammoth Book dated from 1985 in other sources. Since it did not gain the "Mammoth" title until 1986, I prefer the latter date. Contents include:
1 • Profession • (1957) • novella by Isaac Asimov
49 • Who Goes There? • [Who Goes There?] • (1938) • novella by John W. Campbell, Jr.
97 • For I Am a Jealous People! • (1954) • novella by Lester del Rey
133 • The Mortal and the Monster • (1976) • novella by Gordon R. Dickson (variant of The Monster and the Maiden)
177 • Time Safari • [Time Safari / Henry Vickers • 2] • (1981) • novella by David Drake
227 • In the Western Tradition • (1981) • novella by Phyllis Eisenstein
269 • The Alley Man • (1959) • novella by Philip José Farmer?
305 • The Sellers of the Dream • (1963) • novelette by John Jakes
337 • The Moon Goddess and the Son • (1979) • novella by Donald Kingsbury
385 • Enemy Mine • [Dracon] • (1979) • novella by Barry B. Longyear [as by Barry Longyear]
439 • Flash Crowd • [Teleportation] • (1973) • novella by Larry Niven
485 • In the Problem Pit • (1973) • novella by Frederik Pohl
531 • The Desert of Stolen Dreams • [Majipoor] • (1981) • novella by Robert Silverberg

4) The third speculative fiction Mammoth book of that year came out in September (as opposed to January or June) and was titled The Mammoth Book of Classic Chillers (1986). Edited by Tim Haydock , his one and only speculative fiction publication as far as I know, these story contents appear to be very similar to the entry #1 above, don't they? Amazing! Almost like this was a sequel to the 1936 edition.
14 • The Man Who Liked Dickens • non-genre • (1933) • short story by Evelyn Waugh
30 • The Case of M. Valdemar • (1924) • short story by Edgar Allan Poe (variant of The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar 1845)
40 • The Pipe-Smoker • (1932) • short story by Martin Armstrong
50 • The Red Room • (1896) • short story by H. G. Wells
60 • The Derelict • (1912) • novelette by William Hope Hodgson
86 • The Judge's House • (1891) • short story by Bram Stoker
106 • From What Strange Land • (1935) • short story by Blanche Bane Kuder
114 • El Verdugo • non-genre • (1900) • short story by Honoré de Balzac? (trans. of El Verdugo 1830)
126 • Telling • (1927) • short story by Elizabeth Bowen
136 • The Treasure of Abbot Thomas • (1904) • short story by M. R. James
156 • The Birthright • (1931) • short story by Hilda Hughes
166 • Lazarus Returns • (1935) • short story by Guy Endore
188 • The Island of the Ud • [Captain Jat] • (1912) • novelette by William Hope Hodgson
212 • Fear • [La peur • 1] • (1909) • short story by Guy de Maupassant (trans. of La peur 1882)
220 • Twelve O'Clock • (1926) • short story by Charles Whibley
226 • A Descent Into the Maelström?
• (1841) • short story by Edgar Allan Poe
244 • The Stranger • (1909) • short story by Ambrose Bierce
250 • The Pioneers of Pike's Peak • (1897) • short story by Basil Tozer
260 • The Fourth Man • (1917) • short story by John Russell
280 • Dracula's Guest • [Dracula] • (1914) • short story by Bram Stoker
294 • The Fall of the House of Usher • (1839) • novelette by Edgar Allan Poe
314 • A Warning to the Curious • (1925) • short story by M. R. James
332 • Nobody's House • (1927) • short story by A. M. Burrage
346 • The Werewolf • (1934) • short story by Frederick Marryat [as by Captain Frederick Marryat]
368 • The Mysterious Mansion • non-genre • (1934) • short story by Honoré de Balzac? (trans. of La Grande Bretèche 1832)
380 • No. 1 Branch Line: The Signalman • (1927) • short story by Charles Dickens (variant of The Signalman 1866)
392 • The Monkey's Paw • (1902) • short story by W. W. Jacobs
404 • The Turn of the Screw • [The Turn of the Screw] • (1898) • novel by Henry James
506 • Wandering Willie's Tale • [Redgauntlet Excerpts] • (1824) • short story by Sir Walter Scott
526 • The Horla • [Le Horla • 3] • (1925) • novelette by Guy de Maupassant (trans. of Le Horla 1887)
550 • The Haunted and the Haunters • (1931) • novelette by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (variant of The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain 1859) [as by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton]
588 • Carmilla • [Martin Hesselius] • (1872) • novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
646 • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • [Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde] • (1886) • novel by Robert Louis Stevenson (variant of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)

I am running out of space, so I'll just list the 1987-1989 entries:

5) The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction (1987)
6) The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels (1988)
7) The Mammoth Book of Fantasy All-Time Greats (1988) originally The Fantasy Hall of Fame . This truly is an awesome book. Won a 1984 Locus award for best anthology.
8) The Mammoth Book of Classic Science Fiction: Short Novels of the 1930's (1988) The 1930s had some surprisingly good stories.
9) The Mammoth Book of Golden Age Science Fiction: Short Novels of the 1940's (1989)

I'm on the verge of starting the second story in this anthology.

The Wall Around the World (1953) by Theodore R. Cogswell ★★★1/2

Cogswell, as the prefatory note indicates, did not write that much literature. His main achievement appears to have been writing about thirty or so mostly excellent short stories that appeared in fantasy and science fiction magazines in the 1950s through 1962. He wrote a few more stories in the early 1970s and that's it. Most of his earlier stories were collected into two story collections. His later stories might be in that megapack sold on Amazon.

It took me a while to figure out why his name seemed so familiar to me. Then I researched it and realize I've read the one novel he wrote that had his name associated with it: Spock, Messiah!! This is the second original story ever written in the Star Trek franchise. It sucked, of course. My review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2.... But it's nice to finally read one of his better stories.

"The Wall Around the World" is technically a novelette, and was the story that gave its title to his first story collection, The Wall Around the World (1962). I see the comparison of this story to Harry Potter. I did the same thing, which only makes the shortcomings of this story stand out more. Where's the rich background? The interplay with his friends and the other students?

Still, if we treat Cogswell's story for what is and not ask it to be Harry Potter, we have a great mystical adventure yarn of a boy trying to get across a wall, which is clearly a symbol of what it takes to go from childhood to maturity. This is a great young adult fantasy that leaves the reader wanting more.

I must be nuts to buy another fantasy anthology when I have the following already sitting on my shelf waiting to be read:
The Fantasy Hall of Fame by Robert Silverberg,
Classic Fantasy Stories, and
The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy by Mike Ashley.

But what the hey, it's only $5.51 including tax and shipping for a dead tree version. It's only $2.99 as a Kindle, a really good deal for 512 real text pages of this quality, it seems to me. But I like holding books enough to pay the extra $2.52. I can't search text in the paper anthology, an ability I appreciate when a character I don't remember well pops up out of the blue from some time earlier in a story. But I simply remember what I've read better when it's hard text.

I won't have the book until next weekend at the earliest, fingers crossed. Looking forward to joining everyone then.

Intrigued by the fact Lena DNF'ed this story, I skipped ahead to try to determine if it was really that bad. While I can now understand how someone could get exasperated with the story and DNF it--it requires a lot of work to read it--I think it's truly a tremendous story. I don't rate it higher because I think the novella is the wrong length for it. But it certainly is a thought provoking, exciting story. I loved the ending, by the way, bringing the story back to where it started, reality.

To Hie From Far Cilenia by Karl Schroeder ★★★½

At 37 pages length, this is the longest story of the anthology. It is actually a novella, and an extremely dense one at that. I had to read it twice, word for word, to feel I grasped it. There is enough material, especially rich and difficult concepts, that I think it would have worked better as a novel. I also kept a character chart to help me keep characters and their attributes straight.

The story's protagonist is named Gennady Malianov. He's an Interpol agent that specializes in nuclear material crimes. In this story he is commissioned to search for some plutonium that is in the process of being stolen and stop the theft from being completed. This is the outer frame of the story.

Gennady is helping law enforcement agents who are having a hard time tracking, apprehending, or even locating or identifying the criminals because they're not a typical entity. They are a group that exists only in virtual reality. Gennady wears glasses that superimpose another reality over the reality that he is physically located in. Both are together at the same time. I am not going to take the pages Schroeder does to explain the parameters of how this works. I'll only say there are pretty amazing concepts at work here all in all. I can see why the editors let this story take up so much room in their anthology. It depicts a lot of what is likely to happen to us as a society very soon as cryptocurrencies, Artificial Intelligence, and virtual reality blend in more and more with our current orthodox reality.

I recommend this story for readers that are up for an intellectual challenge who like to think about societal trends and what role technology could play in shaping these. It's for TED talks lovers in other words.

I should note that this is not the first story Schroeder wrote featuring this protagonist, Gennady Malianov. It's actually the third of five. In order the series is as follows:

1) The Dragon of Pripyat (1999) in Tesseracts 8
2) Alexander's Road (2005) in The Engine of Recall
3) To Hie from Far Cilenia (2008) in METAtropolis: The Dawn of Uncivilization
4) Laika's Ghost (2010) in Engineering Infinity
5) Kheldyu (2014) in Reach for Infinity

There are references to the two earlier Malianov stories in this story that might confuse a reader unaware that this is a series. No, it is not at all necessary to have read those earlier two stories. I haven't. But I think it would enrich the reading of this one if I had.

Finally, I tried to find out online what Karl Schroeder has been working on lately. He was born in 1962 and thus is in his early 60s now, certainly not over the hill. He was very active from the late 1990s until early 2021. He maintained a blog, a website, and wrote new works frequently. But since early 2021, nothing. His website is defunct, no new blog entries, no con appearances since then I could find, no new publications. Nothing. Radio silence. I sure hope Covid, or something like it, didn't incapacitate him.

Lena wrote: "To Hie From Far Cilenia by Karl Schroeder DNF
Bored. I was just bored by this."

This surprises me. Karl Schroeder has published eleven science fiction novels and is well regarded in the field. I've been meaning to tackle his first novel Ventus (2000) at some point. I have not yet tried this short story.

The fourth story, "Strood" by Neal Asher was a challenge. Asher immerses readers in a world peopled with various sorts of aliens all with attributes Asher knows well, but the reader doesn't. The protagonist has a terminal disease and can't be helped by advanced aliens he hopes can. So he takes a vacation. But he keeps being hounded by an alien's pet that wants to eat him.

Neal Asher is of course a famous name now, easily a top ten current author in the world of SF. It's funny how the intro calls his field Space Opera. I thought it was more cyberpunk. Anyway, I have not read Asher before and I'm not sure I want to any more now. He's a lot of work to read. I find much of modern SF to be overwritten, and this story is a good example. One doesn't need to blow a reader away with worldbuilding and complicated technologies just to tell a good story. In fact, trying to do that takes space, as it does here, and can distract from the kernel that should be the story.

Another impressively written story, like the last, that I can't give more than three stars because the entertainment factor doesn't quite match.

In "The Gambler" by Paolo Bacigalupi we have a protagonist who is a Journalist (note the use of a capital J) who takes his profession extremely seriously. He would come across as a dude with a major stick up his keester if Bacigalupi had not provided so much background showing the protagonist's family, who they were, where they came from, and what they had to flee, how uncompromising the father was and how the son admired that aspect.

The result is a story that is about the important role journalism has to play in our society. I can't argue against that on a philosophical level, but do on a practical one. I also can't feign great interest in the topic any longer either.

In the sixteen years since this story was written I have become disillusioned with Journalism. It played no role in helping us as a society avoid a catastrophic mistake in the 2016 presidential election, nor appears to be doing anything meaningful (in terms of impact) in helping us repeat it in our current one. I'm not trying to climb up on a political soapbox here; just trying to explain my disinterest in the powers of, or belief in the importance of Journalism, especially its self-appointed role of exposing truth. If so few care about the truth, what's the point in revealing it?

The story is an achievement in writing craft, I grant. I just didn't enjoy it that much or think it had a point that's valid any longer. Onwards!

"Rogue Farm" by Charles Stross was an impressive achievement of world-building. I give it 3.5 stars. While I had never before heard of Vandana Singh, the first author, I have heard of Charles Stross, of course. His magnum opus, Accelerando, has graced my shelves for years, started twice, or thrice, but never finished. I get fifteen pages or so into it, fail to remember anything I had read, and have to start over again the following week. I got tired of doing that, so it sits on my shelf awaiting a more sustained singular effort from me.

This story likewise took two readings by me before I felt I adequately understood what I had read. The premise was easy enough. A rogue farm wants to trespass. Landowner protagonists want nothing to do with it and wish it would go away. The rogue farm settles down for a while next door.

The difficult part of reading the story is trying to figure out the exact nature of the beings that feature in it and how they came to be that way. It's also the fun part, I guess, for most readers. Those who will love this story love this kind of challenge. I don't. Fortunately, there was enough of a story here, not just the figure-me-out game so many authors like to play, that I was able to enjoy it, despite the frustration at the extra mental work required of me to do so. Also, I repeat, the world-building was a stunning achievement: very similar to China Miéville's elaborate efforts.

My copy arrived Tuesday in the mail. Yay! Why do used book companies put so many stickers all over their books? I couldn't see the covers for all the labels! Well, lots of water and peeling later, I am happy to see a beautiful if somewhat sticky book.

My first question is the title. If this book were being published in the year 2098 maybe it would make sense. But how can a book published 1/8 of the way through a century claim to be that century's science fiction representative?

The first story, "Infinities" by Vandana Singh started off very strong. I loved the author's description of math as the "alphabet of God." I could very much identify with the protagonist, having recently gone back myself near the end of my life to relearn my college calculus, differentiation and integration, just because I wanted to see if this time I could understand the purpose better rather than just memorize mechanical methods. Now if I can just make sense of linear algebra this time around.

But then the story devolves into one over religious struggles and brutalities committed in the name of religion. What's that doing in a short story about mathematics? And what is either story doing in an anthology that's supposed to be about science fiction?

Three stars. And a hope Hartwell hasn't completely forgotten what science fiction as a genre is in his doddering old age.

I've gone ahead and ordered this. On bookfinder.com I saw 22 previously owned copies are out there available for under $7, including shipping. I recommend searching via isbn: 9780765326010.

I sort of consider this anthology to be the sequel to The Science Fiction Century, an even more massive SF collection of 20th century stories currently sitting on my shelf. I've only managed to read the first story so far ("Beam Me Up" by James Tiptree Jr. of the 45 stories in this 1005-page monster, and I've had the book for more than 20 years! A book this large is absolutely intimidating, but one of these days.... Anyway, I hope I can do better with this half-sized sequel.

There is a huge series I imagine members are either completely aware of, or at least peripherally aware of, from having seen a few at various times. This is The Mammoth Book of ... series. I am a new member here, so I did a search through the group's discussions and see that two books of this series have been group reads here before:

1) The Mammoth Book of Steampunk (April 2020 group read, 100 posts)
2) The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women (October 2020, 80 posts)

There are a lot of Mammoth books out there in genres we read. I'm going to estimate between 200 and 300. Lists have been made of them. Three useful ones I have seen:

1) https://www.fantasticfiction.com/seri...
2) https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/the...
3) https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/4...

That last entry is the Goodreads list of Mammoth books, but listing just 141 of them shows it is clearly not definitive. I have five or six Mammoth books sitting on my shelves, picked up at used bookstores at some time. I've dabbled read a few stories in most of them, probably got the furthest in The Mammoth Book of Angels and Demons, (I will finish this one day) but have yet to read all of a single one. That may soon change. I have the first one, the 1936 British go at the concept. And frankly, it's blowing me away so far.

What's the thought here among members of the group? Do you like them? Are they so large they're intimidating? By editors soliciting inputs from current practitioners and just publishing whatever they send in, are they too ephemeral? Time-based? Like, is reading a bunch of time travel stories from 1991 and pretty much only 1991 something we here in 2023 might find sufficiently interesting? How many of those writers still produce? I mean, did they escape short story writing hell to break into the world of novels or did these authors peak with a few 1990s short stories, never to accomplish much?

From looking at these lists of Mammoth books, does anyone think the group has been missing any opportunities?

I'm reading The Mammoth Book of Thrillers, Ghosts and Mysteries, a wonderful 1936 anthology of strange stories may of which border on weird fiction. The stories are arranged in alphabetical order by author. The first is the only one I have read so far: "The Diver" by A.J. Alan. It's a story of a man who has to tell a "real" supernatural story for the BBC. But he's a skeptic. However, one weird thing happened to him. There was this high diver ghost from America, you see....

"The Ghoul of Golders Green" by Michael Arlen (1895- ) is the next story. With title alliteration like that, how can the author go wrong?

The collection has some surprises. It has "The Squaw" by Bram Stoker, which I've never heard of. Its one Edgar Allen Poe selection is "Berenice," another story I have not heard of. A Somerset Maugham story titled "Honolulu." Lord Dunsany, Agatha Christie, Algernon Blackwood, D.H. Lawrence, etc. And authors I've never heard of, like May Sinclair, Oliver Onions, P.C. Wren, etc.

I think this might be the first Mammoth anthology. The second was produced in the late 1980s maybe? The 500th last year maybe?