Classic Anthologies and Collections of Bests.

pogopossum

pogopossum

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Having looked at the Arbor collection of Great Sf Novellas, mentioned on the reading SF thread, it occurred to me to start a discussion of classic collections.
Rules: There aren't any.
I will post what seems to be of interest - to me.
My fond wish is that anyone taking the time to glance at the thread will do the same.
Disagreements, additions, comments, reactions, statements of personal interest, will add to what I hope might be a conversation.
When I did a miniscule bit of investigation, I was overwhelmed by others comments, lists and actual research on historic publications. I have published a grand total of one academic paper on SF. This does not purport to be in depth research.
So. What I will post about is what seem to me to be classic, both single shot and some best of the year series.
To get things started,

Adventures in Time and Space Hardcover – 1957. Healy & McComas
Republished by the Book of the Month Club, I found it in my living room when I was twelve. I struggled through it, opening new worlds. Since then I have learned that it was ground breaking, not only as a pub to the non SF world. but for the quality of the stories. Heinlein, Stuart, Campbell, Harry Bates, and a plethora of familiar and forgotten authors. Here's the Wikipedia with a list of stories. LINK

The Best Science Fiction Stories Bleiler & Dikty. 1949 through 1954. A three year continuation includes excerpts of novels.
I was not familiar with this in my youth. Bumped into them while looking for Judith Merrill anthologies. Interesting as a precursor to later greats.

More later.
 
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Galactic Empires Volume One and Two edited by Brain Aldiss It stories by Poul Anderson , R A Lafferty, Cordwainder Smith and others.
 
Pogopossum, you'll probably find matter of interest -- possibly a lot -- to you in this lengthy thread:

Reading Around in Groff Conklin's Anthologies

I propose to read at least two stories a month from science fiction anthologies edited by Groff Conklin, and to report here. The earliest one I have is The Best of Science Fiction (1946), and the most recent in my collection is Another Part of the Galaxy (1966). Conklin died in 1968, so I...
www.sffchronicles.com www.sffchronicles.com

And don't miss these:

Browsing Around in Pre-1975 Anthologies Other Than Conklin's

Herewith I invite interested folk to browse around in anthologies that they may have on hand, that were published 40 or more years ago (as of 2015), and edited by someone other than Groff Conklin -- who for many years seems to have been the sf anthology king. Anthologists who would be...
www.sffchronicles.com www.sffchronicles.com

Year's Best Short Stories Anthology Thread

I thought I'd start up a thread for folk to review, comment or recommend particular Year's Best anthologies of SF, fantasy or both. This could include specific volumes edited by Dozois, Strahan, Hartwell, etc., or older ones that predate the current crop. This will contain posts that would...
www.sffchronicles.com www.sffchronicles.com

Reading Around in Astounding's Jan. 1953 Basic Science Fiction Library

Reading Around in Astounding’s Jan. 1953 Basic Science Fiction Library In the Jan. 1953 issue of Astounding, P. Schuyler Miller presented a “basic” library of SF that included input from the magazine’s readers during 1952. “These are the books you would keep if your science-fiction collection...
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Essential Anthologies

The Essential Ellison A 50 Year Retrospective This one is a must have. :)
www.sffchronicles.com www.sffchronicles.com

Here's someone thinking along your lines:

Influential sci-fi

I've explored sci-fi in the past but it was entirely on the basis of names of authors and novels that came recommended to me and there was no real structure to my reading. Based on what I know about my tastes I prefer new wave and beyond but I can worry about that stuff later. Right now I'd...
www.sffchronicles.com www.sffchronicles.com
 
Thanks Extolloger. As they say,"There's nothing new under the sun."
Th Groff Conklin anthologies are on my list, as are a few other items mentioned. I'll start off and see if there is a continuing interest in oldie collections"
Hopefully there will be enough of a different spin to interest current posters.
Note: Sadly when checking a few participants on your suggested threads, I see that many are no longer with us.
In the posting sense, that is.
 
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Around 2005, I was able to pick up reading copies of a bunch of such anthologies for very little $$$.

Here's an article about Conklin's anthologies:


Some of the later ones (first published in paperback) that I have don't seem all that great, but those first half-dozen thick anthologies -- the Treasury of Science Fiction and its immediate sequels -- are pretty nifty.
 
A Science Fiction Anthology of the 1930's Before the Golden Age Collected With Autobiographical introductions by Isaac Asimov
 
The Bleiler/Dikty does not go back as far as other series, Before the - - - mentioned above by Baylor. The Asimov gives coverage of stories written in the 30s by stalwarts such as Edmond Hamilton, Clifford Simak, Jack Williamson and others. The first volume came out in 74'. The continuing series edited by the good doctor and Martin Greenberg Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1 (1939)(pub. in 79) starts a 25 book sequence that with it's overall coverage includes what is (I think) is the most impressive collection under one aegis. Book 1 starts with I Robot, which in his intro, Dr Asimov points out is not by him, but by "Eadndo Binder" a pair of brothers well known in the field. A paragraph penned by one or both of the editors, gives a chatty introduction to each of the stories. Of particular note is that Marty Greenberg edited hundreds of collections, often with a name author, making him, I believe, one of the three great Sf anthologists.

The Blieler/Dikty was, as far as I can determine, the first published series to cover individual years. Each volume contains a rundown of the SF year plus an index of everything published that year. If you are interested in what was in each volume, you will find links in the Wikipedia entry for T. E. Dikty. He and Blieler were enmeshed in the field. He was married to Julian May. Who I discovered was the first woman to chair a Worldcon (10th, 1952) way before she was known as an author.
 
Extollager- and you all.
I found the Groff Conklin thread, the first of Extollager's links above, to be great reading if you have an hour or more to spend. Besides some profiling of individual books there is coverage of MANY individual stories including their Conklin location and their source(s) of individual original publication. It ends (on page11!!) with a Conklin bibliography. I had not intended to be a completist in this discussion, just perhaps to provide some links. Well, Extolloger has already done that. In the specific Conklin thread there are also a fair number of comments by others on diverse favorite collections. The Anthropology 101 link, in the fourth post above, is a VERY thorough bib, with stories listed. Be aware that many Conklin anthologies were re-published under a variety of other titles.

On to my favorite oldie series. Not the longest or most complete, but for me the most fun, Judith Merrill's "Year's Best" series.1956-1967.
 
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I hope you'll tell us about your findings in the Merril anthologies. Right now I don't have any of them!
 
Extollager said:
What are some of the greatest of the great? : )
Click to expand...

The two volume one that I cited by Brain Aldiss has great stories by well known authors But my favorite All The Way Back Michael Shaara he left science fiction and went to write historical novels such as The The Killer Angels and Gods and Generals.

I wish he'd stayed with Science fiction and I wish he's written a sequel to All The Way Back:(
 
BAYLOR said:
The two volume one that I cited by Brain Aldiss has great stories by well known authors But my favorite All The Way Back Michael Shaara he left science fiction and went to write historical novels such as The The Killer Angels and Gods and Generals.

I wish he'd stayed with Science fiction and I wish he's written a sequel to All The Way Back:(
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure his bank account was happier with The Killer Angels.
 
I put together a list of some of the best (in my opinion) stories from the 12 Annual Year's Best Anthologies edited by Judith Merril (covering the years 1955-1966):

The Golem - Avram Davidson
The Hoofer - Walter M. Miller, Jr.
One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts - Shirley Jackson
The Country of the Kind - Damon Knight
Silent Brother - Algis Budrys
Stranger Station - Damon Knight
Prima Belladonna - J. G. Ballard
The Anything Box - Zenna Henderson
The Fly - George Langelaan
Now Let Us Sleep - Avram Davidson
The Edge of the Sea - Algis Budrys
The Prize of Peril - Robert Sheckley
The Yellow Pill - Rog Phillips
Casey Agonistes - Richard McKenna
Space-Time for Springers - Fritz Leiber
Or All the Seas with Oysters - Avram Davidson
The Handler - Damon Knight
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
A Death in the House - Clifford D. Simak
The Sound Sweep - J. G. Ballard
The Man Who Lost the Sea - Theodore Sturgeon
I Remember Babylon - Arthur C. Clarke
Mine Own Ways - Richard McKenna
Old Hundredth - Brian W. Aldiss
The Ship Who Sang - Anne McCaffrey
A Planet Named Shayol - Cordwainer Smith
Seven-Day Terror - R. A. Lafferty
The Face in the Photo - Jack Finney
Such Stuff - John Brunner
The Man Who Made Friends with Electricity - Fritz Leiber
Kings Who Die - Poul Anderson
A Miracle of Rare Device - Ray Bradbury
All the Sounds of Fear - Harlan Ellison
Puppet Show - Fredric Brown
Home from the Shore - Gordon R. Dickson
Bernie the Faust - William Tenn
Fortress Ship - Fred Saberhagen
They Don't Make Life Like They Used to - Alfred Bester
The Faces Outside - Bruce McAllister
Eight O'Clock in the Morning - Ray Nelson
Hot Planet - Hal Clement
Drunkboat - Cordwainer Smith
A Rose for Ecclesiastes - Roger Zelazny
The Terminal Beach - J. G. Ballard
The Last Lonely Man - John Brunner
Slow Tuesday Night - R. A. Lafferty
Eyes Do More Than See - Isaac Asimov
The Circular Ruins - Jorge Luis Borges
The Drowned Giant - J. G. Ballard
Traveller's Rest - David I. Masson
The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D - J. G. Ballard
Light of Other Days - Bob Shaw
When I Was Miss Dow - Sonya Dorman
An Ornament to His Profession - Charles L. Harness
Narrow Valley - R. A. Lafferty
The Winter Flies - Fritz Leiber
The Star Pit - Samuel R. Delany
 
Wow, what an array -- most of these stories I've never read, but I see a number of favorites there too.
 
Yes, and that just scratches the surface. Lots of other interesting stuff, including some nonfiction and stories from nontraditional sources.
 
Judith Merril published her first Science Fiction story in 1948. She is best remembered as an anthologist. The selection of stories listed by johnnyjet from her Year's Best Science-Fiction and Fantasy (it went by a variety of names over its 12 years) above, start to explain why.
Merril was highly thought of as an author, receiving plaudits from luminaries such as Groff Conklin, Tony Boucher, Francis McComas and others. She was book editor for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and edited a number of anthologies before her epochal series.
She was a member of the Futurians along with Fred. Pohl (who she briefly married), Cyril Kornbluth, Damon Knight, Isaac Asimov, Donald Wollheim and a bunch of others. Not only did her cohorts become famous in the field but within a decade of the group's founding, members thereof were editing more than half the SF mags being published.
At first a pb original, pub by Dell and then published in limited hardcover edition by Gnome Press & then in pb. by Dell, the series received huge praise from both inside the field and pubs. that included the NYT as the best Best out there.

I browsed around for an active link to all of the volumes without success. If a better searcher than I should find one, please post it.
A did find a couple to specific volumes. HERE is one to the first (1955) volume.
Notably that volume's introduction is by Orson Welles.

What do I like about her is that every SF author that you ever heard of from the period is represented. Also many, many that you have not.
But she does not stop there, Volumes have pieces by authors such as Howard Fast, William Burroughs, and Lawrence Durrell. Also a few cartoons by Jules Feiffer and one by WALT KELLY!!! (If you don't know him, look up my name.) Poems by Tuli Kupferberg. There are a few thought pieces about writing. Most volumes have summaries of the year in SF written by Merrill, a few by Anthony Boucher.
But the strong majority of the books are stories from SF periodicals. So if you want to know what was going on, find copies.
 
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