1960s short story collection?

[AlexCrewe]

Can anyone help find a long-lost but fondly remembered 1960s collection? I can remember 3 plots:

1) Astronaut awakes on spaceship using new technology. Discovers his subjective time is now passing very slowly with each second taking hours to pass. Gradually his subjective consciousness of time returns to normal... "Tick".
2) Background is human colony on alien planet. A cake competition is under way among the human families, judged by a wolf-like alien judge. When the wolf-like alien overhears a husband say of his wife "Never mind your cake, you are good enough to eat", the alien awards her the prize.
3) Astronaut has been a week making the first trip from earth to orbit the moon. When the rocket passes around to the dark side, he sees the moon is simply a cardboard and plywood fake. He goes mad with the thought of the implications, not knowing it is all a gone-wrong, earth-based simulation to test the systems. (How dated it sounds...)

Can anyone help with a name for the collection or for name or author for any of the stories? Thanks...

 

[chrispenycate]

I'm going to risk James Blish, "Galactic Cluster" (1959, but who's counting?) No, actually, that's just "common time, and I've read the others, too probably in 1960 or so. Anyway, that's almost certainly your #1 (with all of love left in me).

 

[AlexCrewe]

Dear Crispenycate

Thanks for that. My 1) is certainly James Blish's "Common Time" which I found on the web and have just (re)read. Odd that I only remembered the first half of the story and none of the "out-of-mind" experiences bits...
I don't think that the two other stories are from his "Galaxy Cluster" collection though, according to reviews of that collection...
Thanks again. I'm really grateful

 

[jojajihisc]

Anything here sound familiar? "Common Time" was anthologized quite bit but these are my best guesses from around that time. Keep looking here.

Shadow of Tomorrow by Fred Pohl

The Year of the Jackpot [Robert A. Heinlein]
A Bad Day for Sales [Fritz Leiber]
C-Chute [Isaac Asimov]
Perfect Creature [John Wyndham]
The Marching Morons [C. M. Kornbluth]
Transfer Point [Anthony Boucher]
Watchbird [Robert Sheckley]
To a Ripe Old Age [Wilson Tucker]
Orphans of the Void [Michael Shaara]
The Old Order [Lester del Rey]
Genesis [H. Beam Piper]
Halo [Hal Clement]
Common Time [James Blish]
Love [Richard Wilson]
The Miscogynist [James E. Gunn]
The Luckiest Man in Denv [Frederik Pohl (as Simon Eisner)]
Not a Creature Was Stirring [Dean Evans]

Yet More Penguin Science Fiction by Brian Aldiss

The Wall Around the World - Theodore R. Cogswell
Protected Species - H. B. Fyfe
Before Eden - Arthur C. Clarke
The Rescuer - Arthur Porges
I Made You - Walter M. MillerJr.
The Country of the Kind - Damon Knight
MS Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie - C. M. Kornbluth
The Cage - Bertram Chandler
Eastward Ho! - William Tenn
The Windows of Heaven [Two by Two] - John Brunner
Common Time - James Blish
Fulfillment - A. E. van Vogt

Second Orbit by G.D. Doherty

The Star • (1955) • shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
The Prize of Peril • (1958) • shortstory by Robert Sheckley
Outside • (1955) • shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
Common Time • (1953) • novelette by James Blish
And Now the News . . . • (1956) • novelette by Theodore Sturgeon
The Star • (1897) • shortstory by H. G. Wells
Allamagoosa • (1955) • shortstory by Eric Frank Russell
With These Hands • (1951) • novelette by C. M. Kornbluth
The Veldt • (1950) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
Trainee for Mars • (1958) • shortstory by Harry Harrison
Introduction (Second Orbit) • essay by G. D. Doherty

Best Science Fiction of James Blish

9 • A Preface to Tomorrow • (1964) • essay by James Blish
13 • There Shall Be No Darkness • (1950) • novelette by James Blish
72 • Surface Tension • [Pantropy] • (1952) • novelette by James Blish
119 • Testament of Andros • (1953) • novelette by James Blish
143 • Common Time • (1953) • novelette by James Blish
166 • A Work of Art • (1956) • novelette by James Blish
184 • Tomb Tapper • (1956) • novelette by James Blish
207 • The Oath • (1960) • novelette by James Blish

 

[J-Sun]

Are you sure those are from one anthology? The third is Asimov's "Ideas Die Hard" (1957) and the ISFDB has no record of that and "Common Time" ever appearing together.

 

[chrispenycate]

I remember practically every story on that list – but worse, I remember the conditioned alien and the cake one: "Three crumbs, actually. One of the filling, one of the icing, and one of the cake itself". List of ingredients " But unfortunately the blueberries were frozen; there is a distinct…"

And "When we are married, you won't need to cook; I could eat you." And she never knew why she had won.


But I can't for the life of me remember title, author, or where I read it.

 

[AlexCrewe]

Thanks for this help.

I, too, am now sure this collection I remember is as you suspected in fact a collection in my head and not one actually published.

I'm pretty sure I am remembering the British publication of The Third Galaxy Reader (ed H L Gold) which has the Asimov story and "The model of a judge" by William Morrison, which certainly sounds like it could be my number 2)... (The Blish story must have crept into my memories unseen). I am on my way to Amazon to buy it anyway.

Gosh. Thanks again for all the input. I am utterly impressed by the depth of knowledge here.

 

[J-Sun]

Thanks for this help

..."The model of a judge" by William Morrison, which certainly sounds like it could be my number 2)...

Ah. Thank you in turn for identifying your own #2. That would have bothered me. I'm embarrassed to say I've got that (in The Great SF Stories #15 (which also has Blish's "Common Time" but came out in the 80s)) but it just didn't click.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Your #3 story is the one that brought me here, over two years ago, and it was as swiftly identified back then! Stick around and check out the rest of the place -- it's very addictive.