Black Gate

Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction (St. Martin’s Griffin, 1994). Cover by Kim Poor

When I talked about Gardner Dozois’ 1997 anthology Modern Classics of Fantasy a few years ago, I called it “a book that makes you yearn to be stranded on a desert island” (or anywhere you could read interrupted for a few days, really.) That description applies equally well to his 1994 volume Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction, a book that over the last few decades has become one of my favorite fall reads. It’s packed with a surprising assortment of 13 novellas from some of the greatest SF writers of the 20th Century.

I say surprising because the first time I opened it, I was a bit taken aback at Dozois’ selections. There’s no sign of Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, or any of the usual suspects you might expect — no “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, Jr., nor Kornbluth’s “The Marching Morons,” or Kuttner and Moore’s “Vintage Season,” or Theodore Sturgeon’s “Baby Is Three” for that matter. No “Rogue Moon” by Algis Budrys, or “The Witches of Karres” by James H. Schmitz, or “The Big Front Yard” by Clifford D. Simak. Not even H.G. Well’s The Time Machine.

In fact, there’s not a single story overlap between this book and The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume II, which for many of us old timers is the gold standard of classic SF novella anthologies.

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Isaac Asimov’s Magical Worlds of Fantasy 10: Ghosts (Signet/New American Library, 1988). Cover by J. K. Potter

Isaac Asimov had a lot of gifts. He was a world famous polymath, a marvelous science explainer and popularizer, and a pretty darned skilled writer of science fiction. But he doesn’t get a lot of credit for one of his greatest talents, a skill in short supply even today: The man knew how to sell anthologies.

After some of his early SF anthologies became enduring top-sellers, often remaining in print for decades (including The Hugo Winners, Volume I and II, Before the Golden Age, and Where Do We Go From Here), publishers discovered that the name Isaac Asimov on the cover of an anthology almost guaranteed it would sell.

Asimov exploited this heavily for the remainder of his career, lending his fame to many important anthology series, often co-created with frequent collaborators Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh. These include The Great Science Fiction Stories (25 volumes in 23 years), Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction (10 volumes in 8 years), and Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Fantasy (12 volumes in 9 years). It’s that last one we’re going to look at today, with one of the final volumes: Ghosts, published by Signet in 1988.

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Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home (Ace Books, 1973). Cover by Chris Foss

Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home was the debut collection from one of the most important science fiction writers of the 20th Century, James Tiptree, Jr (the well known pseudonym of Alice B. Sheldon). Tiptree published half a dozen additional collections during her lifetime, and several very important volumes gathering her best short fiction have been assembled since her death, most notably Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (Arkham House, 1990), one of the seminal SF books of the century.

But it probably won’t surprise any of you to learn that I still prefer the original paperbacks, flawed and poorly edited as they were. Thomas Parker called Ten Thousand Light Years from Home “the worst-proofread book I’ve ever read,” and let’s just say he’s not the only one to notice.

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Supermind (DAW Books, 1979). Cover by Attila Hejja

In the mid-70s A.E. van Vogt was one of the most prolific and respected SF authors on the shelves. His books Slan, The Voyage of the Space Beagle, and The World of Null-A were required reading for any serious science fiction fan, and half a dozen publishers — including DAW, Ace, Berkley and Pocket Books — were competing to keep his large and lucrative back catalog in print.

Today he’s essentially forgotten. And unlike a lot of popular authors of the era — Heinlein, Asimov, Philip K. Dick, just as a few examples — there isn’t a highly visible group of fans fighting to keep his memory alive, or bring his most popular work to the attention of Hollywood. Van Vogt first emerged in the pulps, and he mastered the art of writing for a pulp audience. Of the writers I still read read today, his voice most vividly reminds me of the pulp era of science fiction, with all its strengths and weaknesses — including, unfortunately, a simple and unadorned writing style that’s largely unappealing to modern readers.

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