Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Year's Greatest and Fantasy by Judith Merril The Great Gnome Press Science Fiction Odyssey. Close Up: SF 58: The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy. Judith Merril, editor 1958. Very nice condition. There isn’t really much to talk about with this, just a couple of things to point out – all on the dust jacket. Nice, bright and clean. The only blemish on the cover is down on the lower right corner – you can see a small strange circular stain. The spine of the jacket looks like it might be faded as well. It’s hard to tell. I mean it’s definitely a lighter color, but I don’t really know if that’s by design or not. The bare cloth boards look fantastic. They are unblemished, bright and there is only one very small bump on the bottom front corner. The head and tail of the spine are in superb condition. The view from the top looks just as good. Just a bit of dust spotting to the top of the block. The bottom looks great. Nice and white as the text block is within. Quite exceptional for a Gnome Press book of the later years. At least some noticeable discoloration is usually evident. Not so here. The head and tail of the spine look great too. Just a couple of very minute closed tears. On to the rear of the cover and we can see the major defect. It looks like a sticker has been removed at some point from the upper left hand corner. A disappointing end to a book in otherwise fantastic condition. Still, for 8 bucks… I’m not complaining!! Sweet Freedom. In 1956, Judith Merril was already a veteran anthologist in the fantastic-fiction arena, her first effort thus a 1950 assem bly of sf, fantasy and horror from Bantam entitled Shot in the Dark in part because that's how the publishers looked at the project; you don't see stories by Jack London, Merril's old Futurian Society friend John Michel and Marjorie Allingham in immediate succession in too many books then, or now. She was given, by Dell, the opportunity to edit the second US-based Best of the Year series to focus on short sf and fantasy, stressing the former . she could live with that. S-F in her early volumes officially stood for "science-fantasy" in the broadest sense (later, it abbreviated her revival of Robert Heinlein's suggestion of "speculative fiction"--covering all the fantastic, as Merril used it). Since 1949, there had already been a primarily science fictional BOTY, from the minor but professional hardcover house Frederick Fell, edited by Everett F. Bleiler and Ted Dikty (and George Kelley has been reviewing each in turn); Bleiler tapped out with the 1954 volumes, The Best Science Fiction of the Year and Year's Best Science Fiction Novels (devoted to novelets and novellas) , perhaps in part because Fell didn't want to go forward with the longer-story annual, and the remaining volumes combined the shorter and longer stories. Dikty came to depend more and more on unofficial co-editor Earl Kemp, who was also part of the group of s-f/fanzine/convention fans who in 1955 came together to form Advent: Publishers, mostly with the intent of collecting 's critical essays and reviews in book form, and In Search of Wonder saw its first edition that year. Advent decided to continue in that mode (publishing books about sf and related matter by James Blish, Robert Bloch and others), and apparently Fell, which began publishing operations in 1949 with, among other books, an artistically wildly uneven and not terribly commercial set of sf releases, and whose sf program shrank almost immediately to their two annuals, decided after the 1956 volume that they didn't want to publish The Best Science Fiction of the Year either, and so there was no 1957 volume. but there was a 1958 volume, published via a partnership between Advent and Doubleday's Science Fiction Book Club: Doubleday printed the copies, including the perhaps thousand or so Advent received for sale to the general and library trade, while the SFBC edition, identical except for the lack of price on the jacket and "Book Club Edition" in its usual place on the front flap, was made available to the membership. The fan-initiated Gnome Press, one of the most prosperous (but apparently not the most ethically-run) of the small houses publishing a lot of sf and fantasy magazine reprint material the larger houses weren't picking up too readily in the early and mid 1950s, got the rights to publish the hardcover editions for the first several volumes from Dell, till Gnome began to completely collapse and Merril and Dell struck up a deal with Simon & Schuster for the hardcover editions with the fourth volume. Meanwhile, the Richard Powers cover for the Dell paperback and the Edward Emshwiller design for the Gnome hardcover jacket were both typically impressive. one wonders who misspelled Avram Davidson's name below, however--and left off Shirley Jackson's name altogether! Introduction · Orson Welles · in Preface · Judith Merril · pr The Stutterer · R. R. Merliss · nv Astounding Apr 1955 The Golem · Avram Davidson · ss F&SF Mar 1955 Junior · Robert Abernathy · ss Galaxy Jan 1956 The Cave of Night · James E. Gunn · ss Galaxy Feb 1955 The Hoofer · Walter M. Miller, Jr. · ss Fantastic Universe Sep 1955 Bulkhead · Theodore Sturgeon · nv Galaxy Mar 1955, as “Who?” Sense from Thought Divide [ Ralph Kennedy ] · Mark Clifton · nv Astounding Mar 1955 Pottage [ People ] · Zenna Henderson · nv F&SF Sep 1955 Nobody Bothers Gus · Algis Budrys · ss Astounding Nov 1955, as by Paul Janvier The Last Day of Summer · E. C. Tubb · ss Science-Fantasy #12 1955 One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts · Shirley Jackson · ss F&SF Jan 1955 The Ethicators · Willard Marsh · ss If Aug 1955 Birds Can’t Count · Mildred Clingerman · ss F&SF Feb 1955 Of Missing Persons · Jack Finney · ss Good Housekeeping Mar 1955 Dreaming Is a Private Thing · · ss F&SF Dec 1955 The Country of the Kind · Damon Knight · ss F&SF Feb 1956 The Public Hating · Steve Allen · ss Bluebook Jan 1955 Home There’s No Returning · Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore · nv No Boundaries , Ballantine 1955 The Year’s S-F, Summation and Honorable Mentions · Judith Merril · ms. 1 · The Science-Fiction Year · T. E. Dikty · ar 14 · 2066: Election Day · Michael Shaara · ss Astounding Dec 1956 28 · The Mile-Long Spaceship · Kate Wilhelm · ss Astounding Apr 1957 37 · The Last Victory · Tom Godwin · ss If Aug 1957 53 · Call Me Joe · Poul Anderson · nv Astounding Apr 1957 85 · Didn’t He Ramble · Chad Oliver · ss F&SF Apr 1957 97 · The Queen’s Messenger · John J. McGuire · nv Astounding May 1957 119 · The Other People · Leigh Brackett · nv Venture Mar 1957, as “The Queer Ones” 155 · Into Your Tent I’ll Creep · Eric Frank Russell · ss Astounding Sep 1957 164 · Nor Dust Corrupt · James V. McConnell · ss If Feb 1957 178 · Nightsound · Algis Budrys · ss Satellite Science Fiction Feb 1957, as “The Attic Voice” 189 · The Tunesmith · Lloyd Biggle, Jr. · nv If Aug 1957 226 · Hunting Machine · Carol Emshwiller · ss Science Fiction Stories May 1957 233 · The Science-Fiction Book Index · Earl Kemp · ix. one character to another in terms of point of view in a scene to no good purpose, and explains every action of his characters at times in such a way that should've been pruned, but this was the beginning of the Tin Age at John Campbell's Astounding , where his attention was beginning to be concentrated in fringe "science" and the political content of his editorials, and such miserable writers as E. B. Cole and the blandest sort of yard- goods writing by those who could do better, such as the young and Randall Garrett, began to be staples of the magazine. Not a terrible story, but probably the worst in the book, and a very poor choice to start with. The next, much better story is also about an android, one of Avram Davidson's most famous, if a bit heavy on the fan service and easy schtick, "The Golem". an elderly couple, the Gumbeiners, are visited one afternoon by a lumbering, gray-complected fellow who invites himself up onto their front porch, and begins to lecture them about how there is clearly an innate emnity between humanity and androids such as itself. The Gumbeiners are unimpressed. Humor, a bit more labored, continues with Robert Abernathy's "Junior", involving sentient polypoid sea creatures including an innovative young male who manages to upset tradition. A lot of fan service in this one, though with a cute notion to end with. James Gunn's "The Cave of Night" is, like the Davidson, his earliest widely- cited story, an account of the first human astronaut, launched in military secrecy and on a budget mission. and apparently through misadventure stranded in his disabled space capsule in Earth orbit, making broadcasts to the Earth below over shortwave as he awaits probably unlikely rescue or for his oxygen to run out in about a month's time. The pompous tone which runs through the piece is not completely excused by it being told by an old newspaper-reporter friend of the broadcasting astronaut. Nicely encapsulates the notion of three-stage rocketry for Earth-based space exploration, and deftly describes the impressive vistas from an orbiting craft, though. More to come. 9 comments: Briefly comparing the contents of the Merril (or her editor who made the final cut) against the Asimov/Greenberg makes me wonder if this was more a “varied selection” than a “Best”. Why was it called Astounding’s “Tin Age”? A joke on "the Golden Age". much of what Campbell was running was perfunctory at best. E. B. Cole's "Philosophical Corps" stories were the worst imitation of Jack Vance anyone would see till Barry Longyear's "Momus" stories in the latest '70s, and about as omnipresent. Merril made all her own choices for the first several volumes, as far as I know. but she was constrained a bit for those same early volumes by which stories were snapped up by Dikty and Kemp, and what was tied up for the annual volumes from F&SF. this lack of competition for stories, and the arguments the DAW books' editorial team would have with each other and with the verdicts of history made it easier for the latter-day books to seem more impressive, I'd say. but the 1956 Merril, for example, has several of the more brilliant stories yet published in the field, and the Dikty/Kemp is no slouch either, as I hope to suggest, if not quite up to the Merril. The Dikty/Kemp annual was gone just in time for her to have moved the hardcover contract over the soon-overweening Simon & Schuster, and when she finally got Dell to publish the hardcovers through Delacorte Press, the Ace Wollheim/Carr book started up. I'd say the first Merril compares rather well to the 1955 Asimov/Greenberg retro book, and overlaps not a little. notable that the Asimov/Greenberg leaves out the non-fantasy/sf by Shirley Jackson but includes a very similar borderline-at-best by Charles Beaumont. both stories from F&SF, unsurprisingly. Frederik Pohl's "The Tunnel Under the World" is more satirical fantasy, and excellent in that, but Pohl was underrated in those years. 9 • 1955 Introduction (The Great SF Stories #17 (1955)) • essay by Martin H. Greenberg 13 • The Tunnel Under the World • (1955) • novelette by Frederik Pohl 46 • The Darfsteller • (1955) • novella by Walter M. Miller, Jr. 112 • The Cave of Night • [Station in Space Universe] • (1955) • short story by James E. Gunn 130 • Grandpa • [The Hub] • (1955) • novelette by James H. Schmitz 153 • Who? • (1955) • novelette by Theodore Sturgeon (variant of Bulkhead) 187 • The Short Ones • (1955) • novelette by Raymond E. Banks 209 • Captive Market • (1955) • short story by Philip K. Dick 228 • Allamagoosa • (1955) • short story by Eric Frank Russell 243 • The Vanishing American • (1955) • short story by Charles Beaumont 254 • The Game of Rat and Dragon • [The Instrumentality of Mankind] • (1955) • short story by Cordwainer Smith 270 • The Star • (1955) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke 277 • Nobody Bothers Gus • [Gus] • (1955) • short story by Algis Budrys 292 • Delenda Est • [Time Patrol • 5] • (1955) • novelette by Poul Anderson 333 • Dreaming Is a Private Thing • (1955) • short story by Isaac Asimov. While the Dikty/Kemp is mostly a BOTY for 1957 (since the of-1956 volume was mostly skipped), and it stacks up reasonably well against the Asimov/Greenberg with this lineup in the latter: 9 • Introduction (The Great SF Stories #19 (1957)) • essay by Martin H. Greenberg 15 • Strikebreaker • (1957) • short story by Isaac Asimov 33 • Omnilingual • [Federation • 1] • (1957) • novelette by H. Beam Piper 89 • The Mile- Long Spaceship • (1957) • short story by Kate Wilhelm 103 • Call Me Joe • (1957) • novelette by Poul Anderson 149 • You Know Willie • (1957) • short story by Theodore R. Cogswell 157 • Hunting Machine • (1957) • short story by Carol Emshwiller 167 • World of a Thousand Colors • (1957) • short story by Robert Silverberg 187 • Let's Be Frank • (1957) • short story by Brian W. Aldiss 199 • The Cage • (1957) • short story by A. Bertram Chandler 215 • The Education of Tigress McCardle • (1957) • short story by C. M. Kornbluth (variant of The Education of Tigress Macardle) 229 • The Tunesmith • (1957) • novelette by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. 281 • A Loint of Paw • (1957) • short story by Isaac Asimov 285 • Game Preserve • (1957) • short story by Rog Phillips 305 • Soldier • (1957) • novelette by 335 • The Last Man Left in the Bar • (1957) • short story by C. M. Kornbluth. --and the Asimov joke story doesn't really deserve inclusion, Ellison and Silverberg weren't too widely respected as a fiction writers, either, at that point (and the Ellison story takes on more importance later as a result of what a/v work was adapted from it), and the Cogswell is more well- meant than actually good. and there's still a fair amount of overlap. It was the omission of the Miller, Russell (Hugo winners), Clarke and Smith that made me doubt the Merril. Well. not all Hugo-winners are created equal, and not even back then. The Dikty/Kemp for 1956 snagged the "Smith" story. and the very arguably even better Walter Miller story before Merril could (as well as including one of Robert Bloch's key short fictions demonstrating his working up to PSYCHO. through another rather borderline inclusion in an SF BOTY). Kemp has noted that their getting the rights to the Miller and "Smith" stories was held rather bitterly against them by Merril--who was partially responsible, along with then-husband Frederik Pohl, for coaxing more sf from "Smith", and who had had a romantic affair with Miller. which helped precipitate the end of her marriage with Pohl: The Game of Rat and Dragon • [The Instrumentality of Mankind] • (1955) • short story by Cordwainer Smith Swenson, Dispatcher • (1956) • novelette by R. DeWitt Miller The Man Who Always Knew • (1956) • short story by Algis Budrys Clerical Error • (1956) • novelette by Mark Clifton Judgment Day • (1955) • short story by L. Sprague de Camp Dream Street • (1955) • short story by Frank M. Robinson The Cyber and Justice Holmes • (1955) • short story by Frank Riley I Do Not Love Thee, Doctor Fell • (1955) • short story by Robert Bloch Jungle Doctor • (1955) • novelette by Robert F. Young The Shores of Night • novella by Thomas N. Scortia You Created Us • (1955) • short story by Tom Godwin A Canticle for Leibowitz • [Saint Leibowitz] • (1955) • novelette by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Thing • (1955) • short story by Algis Budrys [as by Ivan Janvier] The Science-Fiction Book Index • essay by Earl Kemp The Science-Fiction Year • essay by T. E. Dikty. Also, the relevant Asimov/Greenberg leaves out the utterly brilliant "The Country of the Kind" by Damon Knight. perhaps thinking that since it's one of the highlights of THE SCIENCE FICTION HALL OF FAME, Volume 1, still in print at that time, it might not need reprinting as much as some others. Or something. Mmm. Don’t know why they would leave the Knight story out—the fact that it is in another book shouldn’t have mattered. I’ll have to dig my copy out to see if they say anything. Where are Earl’s comments? FM? The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy. ed Judith Merril, Dell 1956. I picked this one up in 2017, but have dated it 2003 so that it files in date order with other volumes in this series. The book was read and this review created in the second half of 2018. If you know your way around the Best SF site you’ll know I have amassed a collection of annual Year’s Best SF volumes going back to when they first appeared, that is -almost- complete. I’ve got just a couple of the Bleiler/Dikty volumes that started the whole thing way back in the 1950s, and am missing a couple of other volumes here and there. (If you don’t know you’re way around the site, use the category listing!). As I’m not at the moment buying new SF other than the Dozois/Clarke annual SF volumes (eschewing the SFF anthologies), I decided to splash out and fill one of those gaps – namely the first in Merril’s series of Year’s Bests. You can browse the other ones in her series that I have here. This Dell First Edition was published in 1956, and got delivered from a bookseller in Germany, and doesn’t look like it’s been read. It’s four years older than me – a little fragile, frayed around the edges, and with a slightly dodgy lower spine, but what’s inside is still drop-dead gorgeous. But that’s enough about me, what about the book? The volume has an introduction by no less than Orson Welles, who opines that SF is often at its worst at book length, with good novels ‘about as rare as ambergris’, and his advice for all but the most ‘bug-eyed addict’ is to abstain from novels and to stick to short stories, which ‘come off much better than the long ones’. Merril has 18 short stories in the collection, all published in 1955, although several are from a 1955 collection of The Best of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, some stories of which are therefore a year or two older. She notes that there is a word limit of 20,000 words, so that excludes longer length short SF. I’m going to read through and review stories individually, and append the reviews here, so keep checking back. R.R. Merliss. The Stutterer. Originally in : Astounding, 1955. The anthology opens with a story, the theme of which holds up well some fifty years later. Interestingly the illustrator of a German translation (‘The War Robot’) was prescient in his drawing of a Terminator-like android. Full Best SF Review here. Avram Davidson. The Golem. Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1955. A sweet little story in which an elderly, retired Jewish couple sitting on their porch are paid a visit by a Golem hell-bent on world domination. Full Best SF Review here. Robert Abernathy. Junior. Originally in : Galaxy Magazine, January 1956. As with the preceding story, a short, gentle amusing tale. A troublesome teen decides that he wants more from life than putting roots down with a nice girl. (Oh, and he’s an alien). Full Best SF Review here. James E. Gunn. The Cave of Night. Originally in : Galaxy Magazine, February 1955. After two shorter stories, lighter in tone, an altogether more serious tone, as Gunn foreshadows the drama of Apollo 13 and the ‘fake Moon landing’ conspiracy theorists with a story that holds up well. Full Best SF Review here. Walter M. Miller Jr. The Hoofer. Originally in : Fantastic Universe, September 1955. A spacer is back on Earth, having completed a seventh, and final mission, supposedly to turn his back on space and to settle with his wife and child. A sobering tale, with some great writing. Full Best SF Review here. Theodore Sturgeon. Bulkhead. Originally in : Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1955 (titled ‘Who?’) The two titles, ‘Who?’ and ‘Bulkhead’ get to the crux of the story. The protagonist is a space cadet who wants to be a starship captain, and this requires him to go on a solo Long Haul space trip to prove his mettle. An intense story with a doozy of an ending. Full Best SF Review here. Mark Clifton. Sense From Thought Divide. Astounding Science Fiction, March 1955. A mildly amusing tale of psi, swamis, scientific frameworks and anti-gravity. Rather longer than it really needed to be, and probably made more sense back in the 50s when psychic abilities had evidently not yet been fully debunked. (No Full Best SF Review, that’s it..) Zenna Henderson. Pottage. Originally in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1955. One of a series of stories in Henderson’s ‘The People’ series, featuring an alien race, indistinguishable from humans and living amongst us, typically in small remote communities, hiding their special abilities and remaining incognito. Full Best SF Review here. Algis Budrys. Nobody Bothers Gus. Originally in Astounding November 1955. One of a trio of stories about Gussie Kusevic, one of a breed of humans that have developed beyond homo sapien. Full Best SF Review here. The same theme as Henderson’s preceding story in the volume (the alien living amongst us) but a story I engaged with much more. E.C. Tubb. The Last Day of Summer. Originally in : Science Fantasy #12 1955. After three rejuves, old age comes apace, and John Melhuey wishes to avoid decrepitude. Full Best SF Review here. Shirley Jackson. One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts. Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1955. Nice little story featuring the awfully nice Mr. Johnson, who spends his day in New York being rather helpful to people who cross his path. Full Best SF Review here. Willard Marsh. The Ethicators. Worlds of If Magazine, August 1955. Bewhiskered missionaries from the Antarean region arrive on Earth and are horrified by what they find. Full Best SF Review here. Mildred Clingerman. Birds Can’t Count. Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1955. A touch of sauciness for the 1950s! Hungover Maggie suspects an invisible other-worldly voyeur is in the room…. Full Best SF Review here. Jack Finney. Of Missing Persons. Originally in : Good Housekeeping, March 1955. A travel agent can get you a one-way ticket to somewhere very different and very special. It’s one-way and a one-off chance. Full Best SF Review here. Isaac Asimov. Dreaming Is A Private Thing. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1955. Asimov posits a new technology, ‘dreamies’, a form of immersive VR, but instead of being digitally coded, the dreamies are created by capturing and editing the dreams of the small percentage of the population who dream vivid dreams. Full Best SF Review here. Damon Knight. The Country of the Kind. The Magazine of Fantasy of Science Fiction, February 1956. A rather dark, disturbing story from Knight, somewhat at odds with the rest of the volume (and possibly the majority of SF in the mid-50s). Somewhat frustrating that a Feb 1956 story appears in a 1955 year review! Full Best SF Review here. Steve Allen. The Public Hating. Originally in The Blue Book Magazine, January 1955. Imagine – a sports stadium full of hateful citizens, encouraged to be hateful by the government. Sheer fantasy of course. Full Best SF Review here. Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore. Home There’s No Returning. Originally published in : No Boundaries, 1955. ‘Mr. & Mrs. Henry Kuttner’ ponder whether flesh & blood, despite their inherent weaknesses, are superior to computers in an action story similar to scenes from Terminator/Robocop/Alien movies. Full Best SF Review here. The stories finished, Merril provides a summation of the year at the back of the volume, in which she bemoans the end of the boom in SF, following the mushrooming in recent years (which was partly due to paper becoming much more available after a post-war shortage!). And finally a list of ‘Honorable Mentions’ which include many of the Big Names of SF not included in this volume (potentially for stories beyond the 20,000 word limit). Notable amongst these is Walter M. Miller Jr., whose short story ‘A Canticle for Liebowitz’ appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1955 and was subsequently followed by a couple of linked stories, which were ‘fixed-up’ to become the novel of the same name which won a Hugo for Best Novel in 1961. And Miller’s ‘The Darfsteller’ won the 1955 Hugo for best Novelette. Also in this list is Eric Frank Russell’s short story ‘Allamagoosa’, which won the 1955 Hugo for Best Short Story. (Footnote : in the following year’s volume, Merril looks back at this first volume and notes “..Last year the stories showed such a pronounced paranoid streak that I made several hasty changes at the last moment, to avoid the irksome effect of story after story in which a persecuted protagonist stood alone against a hostile world”.) The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy. ed Judith Merril, Dell 1956. I picked this one up in 2017, but have dated it 2003 so that it files in date order with other volumes in this series. The book was read and this review created in the second half of 2018. If you know your way around the Best SF site you’ll know I have amassed a collection of annual Year’s Best SF volumes going back to when they first appeared, that is -almost- complete. I’ve got just a couple of the Bleiler/Dikty volumes that started the whole thing way back in the 1950s, and am missing a couple of other volumes here and there. (If you don’t know you’re way around the site, use the category listing!). As I’m not at the moment buying new SF other than the Dozois/Clarke annual SF volumes (eschewing the SFF anthologies), I decided to splash out and fill one of those gaps – namely the first in Merril’s series of Year’s Bests. You can browse the other ones in her series that I have here. This Dell First Edition was published in 1956, and got delivered from a bookseller in Germany, and doesn’t look like it’s been read. It’s four years older than me – a little fragile, frayed around the edges, and with a slightly dodgy lower spine, but what’s inside is still drop-dead gorgeous. But that’s enough about me, what about the book? The volume has an introduction by no less than Orson Welles, who opines that SF is often at its worst at book length, with good novels ‘about as rare as ambergris’, and his advice for all but the most ‘bug-eyed addict’ is to abstain from novels and to stick to short stories, which ‘come off much better than the long ones’. Merril has 18 short stories in the collection, all published in 1955, although several are from a 1955 collection of The Best of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, some stories of which are therefore a year or two older. She notes that there is a word limit of 20,000 words, so that excludes longer length short SF. I’m going to read through and review stories individually, and append the reviews here, so keep checking back. R.R. Merliss. The Stutterer. Originally in : Astounding, 1955. The anthology opens with a story, the theme of which holds up well some fifty years later. Interestingly the illustrator of a German translation (‘The War Robot’) was prescient in his drawing of a Terminator-like android. Full Best SF Review here. Avram Davidson. The Golem. Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1955. A sweet little story in which an elderly, retired Jewish couple sitting on their porch are paid a visit by a Golem hell-bent on world domination. Full Best SF Review here. Robert Abernathy. Junior. Originally in : Galaxy Magazine, January 1956. As with the preceding story, a short, gentle amusing tale. A troublesome teen decides that he wants more from life than putting roots down with a nice girl. (Oh, and he’s an alien). Full Best SF Review here. James E. Gunn. The Cave of Night. Originally in : Galaxy Magazine, February 1955. After two shorter stories, lighter in tone, an altogether more serious tone, as Gunn foreshadows the drama of Apollo 13 and the ‘fake Moon landing’ conspiracy theorists with a story that holds up well. Full Best SF Review here. Walter M. Miller Jr. The Hoofer. Originally in : Fantastic Universe, September 1955. A spacer is back on Earth, having completed a seventh, and final mission, supposedly to turn his back on space and to settle with his wife and child. A sobering tale, with some great writing. Full Best SF Review here. Theodore Sturgeon. Bulkhead. Originally in : Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1955 (titled ‘Who?’) The two titles, ‘Who?’ and ‘Bulkhead’ get to the crux of the story. The protagonist is a space cadet who wants to be a starship captain, and this requires him to go on a solo Long Haul space trip to prove his mettle. An intense story with a doozy of an ending. Full Best SF Review here. Mark Clifton. Sense From Thought Divide. Astounding Science Fiction, March 1955. A mildly amusing tale of psi, swamis, scientific frameworks and anti-gravity. Rather longer than it really needed to be, and probably made more sense back in the 50s when psychic abilities had evidently not yet been fully debunked. (No Full Best SF Review, that’s it..) Zenna Henderson. Pottage. Originally in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1955. One of a series of stories in Henderson’s ‘The People’ series, featuring an alien race, indistinguishable from humans and living amongst us, typically in small remote communities, hiding their special abilities and remaining incognito. Full Best SF Review here. Algis Budrys. Nobody Bothers Gus. Originally in Astounding November 1955. One of a trio of stories about Gussie Kusevic, one of a breed of humans that have developed beyond homo sapien. Full Best SF Review here. The same theme as Henderson’s preceding story in the volume (the alien living amongst us) but a story I engaged with much more. E.C. Tubb. The Last Day of Summer. Originally in : Science Fantasy #12 1955. After three rejuves, old age comes apace, and John Melhuey wishes to avoid decrepitude. Full Best SF Review here. Shirley Jackson. One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts. Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1955. Nice little story featuring the awfully nice Mr. Johnson, who spends his day in New York being rather helpful to people who cross his path. Full Best SF Review here. Willard Marsh. The Ethicators. Worlds of If Magazine, August 1955. Bewhiskered missionaries from the Antarean region arrive on Earth and are horrified by what they find. Full Best SF Review here. Mildred Clingerman. Birds Can’t Count. Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1955. A touch of sauciness for the 1950s! Hungover Maggie suspects an invisible other-worldly voyeur is in the room…. Full Best SF Review here. Jack Finney. Of Missing Persons. Originally in : Good Housekeeping, March 1955. A travel agent can get you a one-way ticket to somewhere very different and very special. It’s one-way and a one-off chance. Full Best SF Review here. Isaac Asimov. Dreaming Is A Private Thing. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1955. Asimov posits a new technology, ‘dreamies’, a form of immersive VR, but instead of being digitally coded, the dreamies are created by capturing and editing the dreams of the small percentage of the population who dream vivid dreams. Full Best SF Review here. Damon Knight. The Country of the Kind. The Magazine of Fantasy of Science Fiction, February 1956. A rather dark, disturbing story from Knight, somewhat at odds with the rest of the volume (and possibly the majority of SF in the mid-50s). Somewhat frustrating that a Feb 1956 story appears in a 1955 year review! Full Best SF Review here. Steve Allen. The Public Hating. Originally in The Blue Book Magazine, January 1955. Imagine – a sports stadium full of hateful citizens, encouraged to be hateful by the government. Sheer fantasy of course. Full Best SF Review here. Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore. Home There’s No Returning. Originally published in : No Boundaries, 1955. ‘Mr. & Mrs. Henry Kuttner’ ponder whether flesh & blood, despite their inherent weaknesses, are superior to computers in an action story similar to scenes from Terminator/Robocop/Alien movies. Full Best SF Review here. The stories finished, Merril provides a summation of the year at the back of the volume, in which she bemoans the end of the boom in SF, following the mushrooming in recent years (which was partly due to paper becoming much more available after a post-war shortage!). And finally a list of ‘Honorable Mentions’ which include many of the Big Names of SF not included in this volume (potentially for stories beyond the 20,000 word limit). Notable amongst these is Walter M. Miller Jr., whose short story ‘A Canticle for Liebowitz’ appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1955 and was subsequently followed by a couple of linked stories, which were ‘fixed-up’ to become the novel of the same name which won a Hugo for Best Novel in 1961. And Miller’s ‘The Darfsteller’ won the 1955 Hugo for best Novelette. Also in this list is Eric Frank Russell’s short story ‘Allamagoosa’, which won the 1955 Hugo for Best Short Story. (Footnote : in the following year’s volume, Merril looks back at this first volume and notes “..Last year the stories showed such a pronounced paranoid streak that I made several hasty changes at the last moment, to avoid the irksome effect of story after story in which a persecuted protagonist stood alone against a hostile world”.) L. W. Currey, Inc. Merril, Judith (editor). S-F: '59: THE YEAR'S GREATEST SCIENCE-FICTION AND FANTASY. Hicksville, New York: Gnome Press, Inc., [1959]. Octavo, green boards with spine panel lettered in black. First edition. Probable second binding of green boards. The fourth volume of this important anthology series. Collects fifteen stories, including a first publication in hardcover of a John Steinbeck story (first published in PLAYBOY), also fiction by Brian Aldiss, Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon, and others, plus nonfiction essays on science. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-1394. A fine copy in fine dust jacket. (#162605).