The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time
If you own only one anthology of classic science fiction, it should beThe Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964. Selected by a vote of the membership of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), these 26 reprints represent the best, most important, and most influential stories and authors in the field. The contributors are a Who's Who of classic SF, with every Golden Age giant included: Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, John W. Campbell, Robert A. Heinlein, Fritz Leiber, Cordwainer Smith, Theodore Sturgeon, and Roger Zelazny. Other contributors are less well known outside the core SF readership. Three of the contributors are famous for one story--but what stories!--Tom Godwin's pivotal hard-SF tale, "The Cold Equations"; Jerome Bixby's "It's aGoodLife" (made only more infamous by the chillingTwilight Zoneadaptation); and Daniel Keyes's "Flowers for Algernon" (brought to mainstream fame by the movie adaptation,Charly).The collection has some minor but frustrating flaws. There are no contributor biographies, which is bad enough when the author is a giant; but it's especially sad for contributors who have become unjustly obscure. Each story's original publication date is in small print at the bottom of the first page. And neither this fine print nor the copyright page identifies the magazines in which the stories first appeared.Prefaced by editor Robert Silverberg's introduction, which describes SFWA and details the selection process,The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964is a wonderful book for the budding SF fan. Experienced SF readers should compare the table of contents to their library before making a purchase decision. Fans who contemplate giving this book to non-SF readers should bear in mind that, while several of the collected stories can measure up to classic mainstream literary stories, the less literarily-acceptable stories are weighted toward the front of the collection; adult mainstream-literature fans may not get very far intoThe Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964.--Cynthia Ward--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.