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Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories #6
Le Grandi Storie della Fantascienza 6
This book don't have ISBN. News-stand pubblication.
Le grandi storie della fantascienza, dedicate al meglio della fantascienza dell'età d'oro. Una per anno, i dieci volumi coprono il periodo dal 1939 al 1948. E' già in edicola il primo volume, di oltre 500 pagine, allegato a Newton di giugno al prezzo di 3,90 euro. Nel volume, che riguarda l'annata 1939, moltissimi grandi classici, come Io, robot di Eando Binder, Il mantello di Aesir di John Campbell, Il distruttore nero di A.E. Van Vogt (dal quale secondo alcuni ha tratto spunto il film Alien), Il triangolo quadrilatero di William F. Temple. Fantascienza sicuramente datata, in qualche caso ingenua, ma sempre ricchissima di quel sense of wonder che in quegli anni era la maggior ricchezza del genere.
Le grandi storie della fantascienza, dedicate al meglio della fantascienza dell'età d'oro. Una per anno, i dieci volumi coprono il periodo dal 1939 al 1948. E' già in edicola il primo volume, di oltre 500 pagine, allegato a Newton di giugno al prezzo di 3,90 euro. Nel volume, che riguarda l'annata 1939, moltissimi grandi classici, come Io, robot di Eando Binder, Il mantello di Aesir di John Campbell, Il distruttore nero di A.E. Van Vogt (dal quale secondo alcuni ha tratto spunto il film Alien), Il triangolo quadrilatero di William F. Temple. Fantascienza sicuramente datata, in qualche caso ingenua, ma sempre ricchissima di quel sense of wonder che in quegli anni era la maggior ricchezza del genere.
345 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
110 people want to read
About the author
Isaac Asimov
4,344 books27.9k followersWorks of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles,
The Foundation Trilogy
(1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.
Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.
Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).
People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.
Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.
Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...
Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.
Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).
People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.
Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.
Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 1, 2010
They don't make 'em like they used to, I guess. There was some extremely good stuff in this collection, some of it much better than the material that passes for SF today. Three of the "city" stories by Cliford Simak, the excellent "Killdozer!" by Sturgeon, "No Woman Born" by C. L. Moore, "The Veil of Astellar" by Leigh Brackett. A very nice surprise was "invariant" by John R. Pierce, whose work I cannot remember coming across before. If you like Golden Age SF then you'll like this collection.
July 30, 2025
Hailing from the ancient year of 1944, the stories inevitably feel old, especially so in the gruffly aged recording, but that's part of the charm, a reminiscence of childhood nostalgia spent hidden in similar wondrous and unbelievable visions.
The sexism of the male writers is obvious by now (or at least should be), and so is the sexism of the overwhelming majority of the writers being male, so much so that when the third story’s author was introduced as a woman, I was surprised, having presumed there would be none. But as far as the sexism goes in these stories, I've read far worse, with much of it less like outright misogyny and more like outdated social norms and perceptions (e.g. describing women as “sweet little things” that comfortably fit into the role of the “feminine” the moment they gaze upon a pan, even if the woman in question is a hardened warrior). There's even one that comes close to being feminist (just have to read everything else before it).
Asimov’s forewords to the stories are quite interesting, especially when they give context to the writers and the stories (or share anecdotes of their making); some also reveal Asimov as a rather amiable person - but before we get too ahead of ourselves, let's not forget all the sexual harassment this self-described feminist did. So, all compliments are presented with more than a pinch of salt. It's an enjoyable collection, but f* Isaac Asimov.
It is also truly amusing how much fascination science fiction has for science and progress -- and how much fear.
As for the stories, here be notes from the readings:
Far Centaurus can touch the reader with its sense of time & loved ones lost in generational space travel in its haunting first half, and was quite a bit striking in its reveal of our slow astronauts meeting fast ones, but then kind of threw away the bleak potential by settling for a far weaker (and perhaps editorially required) happy ending.
Deadline was a surprisingly enjoyable paranoia thriller, presciently aware of the maddeningly self-destructive power of the atomic bomb. Has some lousy gender stuff (read: the example above), but the paranoia & the world-shattering stakes made for a thrilling read.
The Veil of Astellar is by Leigh Brackett, the first of the two female authors in the collection, and a name I would have recognised had I bothered to peruse the contents beforehand. The story itself unfortunately didn't quite work for me - a rather unique twist on vampirism, mixing space horror & light fantasy into it, but it felt too ephemeral for my mood, even if the lead’s self-doubting thoughts about the betrayals that he's commiting, both against humans and vampires, were somewhat interesting. Reading it during an emotionally distressing time probably also worked against it, but I have little interest in returning.
Sanity was introduced as an anti-war story, and I'm already interested (giving the inclusion of Deadline with its anti-nuclear-destruction theme, City with a mention of nuclear fears, and Asimov’s vehemently anti-war introduction to Sanity, this collection is starting to take on a certain face that I quite like). The story itself is a rather humorous musing on human needs, sporting an ambiguous loyalty as to which side it falls on. In the story the world leader keeps implementing laws to remove madness, but seems to be going mad himself. In the meanwhile, the people under him are just humouring him as they continue secretly role-playing the anti-social systems (e.g. having an army in a world that doesn't really need it) because it's more fun like that. Everybody seems to have a mental problem or deficiency that requires them to continue doing something the author can use to criticise modern institutions (e.g. the very same army, the secret police, the stock market, the world leadership itself). It's a quite humorous and a somewhat thought-provoking tale, although I'm still wondering what exactly to make of it.
Invariant was written by an actual scientist so, as apropos the stereotype, it has no interest whatsoever in character and story, but only in a scientific idea and its exploration. The idea is that a scientist, perhaps attempting to unlock immortality, modified his body to eternally regenerate into as it was at the point of the inoculation; unfortunately the brain happens to also be part of the body and hence it keeps regenerating itself into the preexisting condition as well, and so the man is unable to generate any new thoughts, memories or experiences, living in the frozen moment unto eternity. His existence is considered tremendously valuable to science, but also no other human has gone through the process, for obvious reasons. It's a cool idea, one I haven't heard before, and quite sad; but that's also all there is to it -- and once done explaining, the story just ended.
City, written by the great Clifford D. Simak (at least if the amount of exposure I had to his works in my childhood is anything to go by), is concerned with the place of humans and our communities in a world hypercharged with scientific progress, and as it's hard not to feel a connection to it when we are yet again living through a revolution that is seeking to replace human beings (with LLMs) without a care as to what happens to them (and if American brutal capitalism, the brutality suddenly hypercharged by the current monster in charge, is anything to go by, things aren't pretty when we stop caring about the welfare of each other). Simak’s vision is, of course, different - he, for example, sees us moving away from the cities for the countryside, leaving them as dying wastelands, while quite the opposite is true, with only small cities succumbing to the pull of the large ones, and the countryside no poor person’s game. Simak also can't quite rid himself of the scientific & technological optimism of a science fiction writer, opining that progress for progress sake was of course good, even if we did it without a care for the humans caught in-between, just too bad about them and we really should do something nice to them now that they're screwed (which he pretty much says out loud, believe it or not). At least he is aware that progress without awareness, plus inhumane capitalism, does create problems and inhumane humans (chicken or egg maybe, but they feed each other); plus a surprisingly socialist ending, with a victory of common goods and public housing, and a middle-finger to autocratic city leaders; just too bad it's all achieved thanks to a benevolent rich person with an eye for the future that remembers the past. Make of these things what you will, but a good story isn't supposed to agree with everything the reader agrees with, and one that intelligently challenges the reader is better anyway than a purely sycophantic one (as we're also learning the hard way with LLMs), and so there are things in the tale that I quite like, even if the age is showing and I don't agree with everything. But boy, did it make me think.
Arena might be the best pure story in the collection as age -- such an enemy of so much pulp writing as social norms & dominant technologies change faster than the sometimes simplistic genre can hope to live up to -- has done little damage to its ferociously minimalistic survivalist essence of two creatures pitted against each other unto death. Within lies some commentary on the absurdity and futility of war and aggression, but it is, unlike the Star Trek episode connected to it, incapable of seeing common ground between the adversaries, letting xenophobia and a lack of understanding dominate. It is quite understandable considering the event the author has envisioned, and I'm not going to be naive enough to argue that you can communicate with anybody in good faith, if you just work hard enough (there are enough examples of people incapable of “good faith” arguments, or who'll gladly take your good faith and destroy you with it; the trick, I guess, is knowing who's who, a not so simple conundrum), and yet I still prefer the pacifist idealism of Star Trek, not because I think it's more realistic, but because it works to the ideas I myself support; and an eye for an eye had no place there. Still, a gripping yarn.
Huddling Place takes us back to Simak (and even with this we're not done with him; what a great year he apparently had), and talk about missing and hitting at once - instead of cities overflowing with global overpopulation and severe economic inequality, he imagines a future where all cities have been deserted for the comforts of personal manors (very fun to read it after Tchaikovsky’s Service Model with its robot servants who don't quite get it; works almost like a prequel); and yet his imagined people feel no need to ever go outside because everything can be brought to them right there at home, including other people through vidscreens, so why even bother? I hope you can see parallels flaring. The story is concerned with the overwhelming fear we unwittingly create within ourselves with the ways we change our world; and the ending is a punch right into your gut.
Kindness starts with more fear - the fear of being left intellectually behind with what progress has wrought; this time at least it's not our fault, but the same thing that made us dominate our ancient Neanderthal neighbours, now come to dominate us (and if you're unsure of the parallel, the story spells it out as the new higher species wonders about their own future). The idea and the lead’s diminished situation are pretty cool but the twist of his is pretty obvious from the get-go, though I'd say it does little to diminish the melancholy vibe or our disappointing inability to handle mental inequalities, giving the story’s ending a bit of an anti-intellectual bent.
Desertion is called the pinnacle of Simak’s City series by Asimov, and while I have no opinion on that, the Asimov-acclaimed final line, , is pretty dang good. Makes the author’s disappointment in humanity pretty clear (especially having been apparently written after the discovery of the gas chambers and such).
When the Boughs Break is an example of the dangers of valuing intelligence and ability at the expense of one's humanity and empathy; or, what happens when a man who became genius at 13 years sends other men back to turn him into a genius at around 8 months, avoiding any and all lessons his down-to-earth parents gave him while speedrunning towards becoming a superhuman. You can imagine from my description where it takes them, and so could I while reading it, so it wasn't exactly the most gripping read; however, the point is well made. On a sidenote, the relationship between the married couple was surprisingly realistic and equal for a sci-fi story of its age, but perhaps it becomes less surprising once you find out it was written by a married (hetero) couple as well; it brings out in disappointing relief how pathetic these sci-fi men were writing women alone. One could also imagine this story growing out of the frustrations of parenthood, though it doesn't seem like they themselves had children, so perhaps they just got lucky.
Killdozer is another one heavier on the thrills than ideas, even though it starts slow as we meander through the unremarkable introduction of a working class mining crew out on a solitary job in a world not quite like ours in some personally forgotten ways (listening to it while tired might have also worked against it), but as the killdozer gets to killdozing the story is filled with sudden dread at the potential of the supernatural evil that our lead character doesn't even dare tell his buddies about, lest he be christened a madman, and not just a potential murderer in the ‘dozer’s stead. The workers also slowly fit into more graspable personalities, and I appreciated how the author used the chance to dump on racist fools who see themselves as better than certain others purely due to their pigmentation. All through it, the tone is melancholy, often sparse, befitting of the forlorn workers just trying to get the job done while an ancient unknown evil intruders upon their lives (though the writer is also quite willing of rosy asides for the reader's enlightenment of his world). Much time is spent on describing what the men are doing, especially when struggling against the dozer. There is little depth here, but when it works, my goodness, what a thrillride.
No Woman Born, or, a man creates a woman and everybody thinks he has the right over her life and death. Well, except for her, of course. Penned by a female writer, it’s far more interesting than I imagine a male writer would have made it, concerned with the woman’s role in society and what rights she has over her own body. For some reason it’s all described through the eyes of a nearly random by-stander, and at times it feels a tiny story concerned with just a person trying to live her life and a guy trying to convince her not to, but there’s enough allegorical potential here to whet one’s appetite (plus the possibilities of taking it at face value). Not that fun though. Oh well.
And that’s all for now. What surprised me the most perhaps was that I found myself interested in the other volumes. The stories show their age, sure, and I didn’t find all of them quite as fascinating as Asimov did, but they’re not exactly trash either and I found each of them to have something interesting in it. Too bad then that apparently the audiobooks have all been removed from the internet between my discovery and listening of this. In an age of unimaginable progress and powerful technologies, we still keep taking two steps back every now and then, as if to remind each other what a damn dumb species we are.
The sexism of the male writers is obvious by now (or at least should be), and so is the sexism of the overwhelming majority of the writers being male, so much so that when the third story’s author was introduced as a woman, I was surprised, having presumed there would be none. But as far as the sexism goes in these stories, I've read far worse, with much of it less like outright misogyny and more like outdated social norms and perceptions (e.g. describing women as “sweet little things” that comfortably fit into the role of the “feminine” the moment they gaze upon a pan, even if the woman in question is a hardened warrior). There's even one that comes close to being feminist (just have to read everything else before it).
Asimov’s forewords to the stories are quite interesting, especially when they give context to the writers and the stories (or share anecdotes of their making); some also reveal Asimov as a rather amiable person - but before we get too ahead of ourselves, let's not forget all the sexual harassment this self-described feminist did. So, all compliments are presented with more than a pinch of salt. It's an enjoyable collection, but f* Isaac Asimov.
It is also truly amusing how much fascination science fiction has for science and progress -- and how much fear.
As for the stories, here be notes from the readings:
Far Centaurus can touch the reader with its sense of time & loved ones lost in generational space travel in its haunting first half, and was quite a bit striking in its reveal of our slow astronauts meeting fast ones, but then kind of threw away the bleak potential by settling for a far weaker (and perhaps editorially required) happy ending.
Deadline was a surprisingly enjoyable paranoia thriller, presciently aware of the maddeningly self-destructive power of the atomic bomb. Has some lousy gender stuff (read: the example above), but the paranoia & the world-shattering stakes made for a thrilling read.
The Veil of Astellar is by Leigh Brackett, the first of the two female authors in the collection, and a name I would have recognised had I bothered to peruse the contents beforehand. The story itself unfortunately didn't quite work for me - a rather unique twist on vampirism, mixing space horror & light fantasy into it, but it felt too ephemeral for my mood, even if the lead’s self-doubting thoughts about the betrayals that he's commiting, both against humans and vampires, were somewhat interesting. Reading it during an emotionally distressing time probably also worked against it, but I have little interest in returning.
Sanity was introduced as an anti-war story, and I'm already interested (giving the inclusion of Deadline with its anti-nuclear-destruction theme, City with a mention of nuclear fears, and Asimov’s vehemently anti-war introduction to Sanity, this collection is starting to take on a certain face that I quite like). The story itself is a rather humorous musing on human needs, sporting an ambiguous loyalty as to which side it falls on. In the story the world leader keeps implementing laws to remove madness, but seems to be going mad himself. In the meanwhile, the people under him are just humouring him as they continue secretly role-playing the anti-social systems (e.g. having an army in a world that doesn't really need it) because it's more fun like that. Everybody seems to have a mental problem or deficiency that requires them to continue doing something the author can use to criticise modern institutions (e.g. the very same army, the secret police, the stock market, the world leadership itself). It's a quite humorous and a somewhat thought-provoking tale, although I'm still wondering what exactly to make of it.
Invariant was written by an actual scientist so, as apropos the stereotype, it has no interest whatsoever in character and story, but only in a scientific idea and its exploration. The idea is that a scientist, perhaps attempting to unlock immortality, modified his body to eternally regenerate into as it was at the point of the inoculation; unfortunately the brain happens to also be part of the body and hence it keeps regenerating itself into the preexisting condition as well, and so the man is unable to generate any new thoughts, memories or experiences, living in the frozen moment unto eternity. His existence is considered tremendously valuable to science, but also no other human has gone through the process, for obvious reasons. It's a cool idea, one I haven't heard before, and quite sad; but that's also all there is to it -- and once done explaining, the story just ended.
City, written by the great Clifford D. Simak (at least if the amount of exposure I had to his works in my childhood is anything to go by), is concerned with the place of humans and our communities in a world hypercharged with scientific progress, and as it's hard not to feel a connection to it when we are yet again living through a revolution that is seeking to replace human beings (with LLMs) without a care as to what happens to them (and if American brutal capitalism, the brutality suddenly hypercharged by the current monster in charge, is anything to go by, things aren't pretty when we stop caring about the welfare of each other). Simak’s vision is, of course, different - he, for example, sees us moving away from the cities for the countryside, leaving them as dying wastelands, while quite the opposite is true, with only small cities succumbing to the pull of the large ones, and the countryside no poor person’s game. Simak also can't quite rid himself of the scientific & technological optimism of a science fiction writer, opining that progress for progress sake was of course good, even if we did it without a care for the humans caught in-between, just too bad about them and we really should do something nice to them now that they're screwed (which he pretty much says out loud, believe it or not). At least he is aware that progress without awareness, plus inhumane capitalism, does create problems and inhumane humans (chicken or egg maybe, but they feed each other); plus a surprisingly socialist ending, with a victory of common goods and public housing, and a middle-finger to autocratic city leaders; just too bad it's all achieved thanks to a benevolent rich person with an eye for the future that remembers the past. Make of these things what you will, but a good story isn't supposed to agree with everything the reader agrees with, and one that intelligently challenges the reader is better anyway than a purely sycophantic one (as we're also learning the hard way with LLMs), and so there are things in the tale that I quite like, even if the age is showing and I don't agree with everything. But boy, did it make me think.
Arena might be the best pure story in the collection as age -- such an enemy of so much pulp writing as social norms & dominant technologies change faster than the sometimes simplistic genre can hope to live up to -- has done little damage to its ferociously minimalistic survivalist essence of two creatures pitted against each other unto death. Within lies some commentary on the absurdity and futility of war and aggression, but it is, unlike the Star Trek episode connected to it, incapable of seeing common ground between the adversaries, letting xenophobia and a lack of understanding dominate. It is quite understandable considering the event the author has envisioned, and I'm not going to be naive enough to argue that you can communicate with anybody in good faith, if you just work hard enough (there are enough examples of people incapable of “good faith” arguments, or who'll gladly take your good faith and destroy you with it; the trick, I guess, is knowing who's who, a not so simple conundrum), and yet I still prefer the pacifist idealism of Star Trek, not because I think it's more realistic, but because it works to the ideas I myself support; and an eye for an eye had no place there. Still, a gripping yarn.
Huddling Place takes us back to Simak (and even with this we're not done with him; what a great year he apparently had), and talk about missing and hitting at once - instead of cities overflowing with global overpopulation and severe economic inequality, he imagines a future where all cities have been deserted for the comforts of personal manors (very fun to read it after Tchaikovsky’s Service Model with its robot servants who don't quite get it; works almost like a prequel); and yet his imagined people feel no need to ever go outside because everything can be brought to them right there at home, including other people through vidscreens, so why even bother? I hope you can see parallels flaring. The story is concerned with the overwhelming fear we unwittingly create within ourselves with the ways we change our world; and the ending is a punch right into your gut.
Kindness starts with more fear - the fear of being left intellectually behind with what progress has wrought; this time at least it's not our fault, but the same thing that made us dominate our ancient Neanderthal neighbours, now come to dominate us (and if you're unsure of the parallel, the story spells it out as the new higher species wonders about their own future). The idea and the lead’s diminished situation are pretty cool but the twist of his is pretty obvious from the get-go, though I'd say it does little to diminish the melancholy vibe or our disappointing inability to handle mental inequalities, giving the story’s ending a bit of an anti-intellectual bent.
Desertion is called the pinnacle of Simak’s City series by Asimov, and while I have no opinion on that, the Asimov-acclaimed final line, , is pretty dang good. Makes the author’s disappointment in humanity pretty clear (especially having been apparently written after the discovery of the gas chambers and such).
When the Boughs Break is an example of the dangers of valuing intelligence and ability at the expense of one's humanity and empathy; or, what happens when a man who became genius at 13 years sends other men back to turn him into a genius at around 8 months, avoiding any and all lessons his down-to-earth parents gave him while speedrunning towards becoming a superhuman. You can imagine from my description where it takes them, and so could I while reading it, so it wasn't exactly the most gripping read; however, the point is well made. On a sidenote, the relationship between the married couple was surprisingly realistic and equal for a sci-fi story of its age, but perhaps it becomes less surprising once you find out it was written by a married (hetero) couple as well; it brings out in disappointing relief how pathetic these sci-fi men were writing women alone. One could also imagine this story growing out of the frustrations of parenthood, though it doesn't seem like they themselves had children, so perhaps they just got lucky.
Killdozer is another one heavier on the thrills than ideas, even though it starts slow as we meander through the unremarkable introduction of a working class mining crew out on a solitary job in a world not quite like ours in some personally forgotten ways (listening to it while tired might have also worked against it), but as the killdozer gets to killdozing the story is filled with sudden dread at the potential of the supernatural evil that our lead character doesn't even dare tell his buddies about, lest he be christened a madman, and not just a potential murderer in the ‘dozer’s stead. The workers also slowly fit into more graspable personalities, and I appreciated how the author used the chance to dump on racist fools who see themselves as better than certain others purely due to their pigmentation. All through it, the tone is melancholy, often sparse, befitting of the forlorn workers just trying to get the job done while an ancient unknown evil intruders upon their lives (though the writer is also quite willing of rosy asides for the reader's enlightenment of his world). Much time is spent on describing what the men are doing, especially when struggling against the dozer. There is little depth here, but when it works, my goodness, what a thrillride.
No Woman Born, or, a man creates a woman and everybody thinks he has the right over her life and death. Well, except for her, of course. Penned by a female writer, it’s far more interesting than I imagine a male writer would have made it, concerned with the woman’s role in society and what rights she has over her own body. For some reason it’s all described through the eyes of a nearly random by-stander, and at times it feels a tiny story concerned with just a person trying to live her life and a guy trying to convince her not to, but there’s enough allegorical potential here to whet one’s appetite (plus the possibilities of taking it at face value). Not that fun though. Oh well.
And that’s all for now. What surprised me the most perhaps was that I found myself interested in the other volumes. The stories show their age, sure, and I didn’t find all of them quite as fascinating as Asimov did, but they’re not exactly trash either and I found each of them to have something interesting in it. Too bad then that apparently the audiobooks have all been removed from the internet between my discovery and listening of this. In an age of unimaginable progress and powerful technologies, we still keep taking two steps back every now and then, as if to remind each other what a damn dumb species we are.
June 4, 2018
Issac Asimov was an excellent editor and really appreciated the work these authors put out. It is a well put together anthology, the stories flow together in a way that many other anthologies can not do successfully.
June 2, 2025
Media finale: 3,42/5 stelle
February 21, 2020
Far Centaurus by A.E. van Vogt (Astounding, January - short story)
3 Stars
A crew spends 500 years in hibernation traveling to another solar system, only to find humanity's inventiveness has far outstripped theirs in the intervening years. The ending is a bit of a cop out, trying to have a happy ending when a more downbeat one would have been more powerful, in my opinion.
Deadline by Cleve Cartmill (Astounding, March - novelette)
2 Stars
The only really remarkable thing about this story is how well it predicted the workings of an atomic bomb, so much so that the FBI interviewed editor John Campbell about its origins. Otherwise, it's a straightforward military adventure with aliens instead of humans.
The Veil of Astellar by Leigh Brackett (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Spring - novelette)
4 Stars
The only story in this anthology not from Astounding, this is an emotional tale of a world weary man (a man, at least before he encountered the alienness of the Veil of Astellar) who fends off horror by remembering a lost love.
Sanity by Fritz Leiber (Astounding, April - short story)
3 Stars
Lots of talk and not much action in this surprisingly anti-war piece.
Invariant by John R. Pierce (Astounding, April - short story)
5 Stars
Pierce was an engineer/scientist who didn't publish much fiction, but certainly this story proves he could match any writer. This is a moving tale of a man whose body and memories are stuck at a single point in time, many decades past, reminding me of how some dementia patients live their lives.
City by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding, May - novelette)
4 Stars
The first of Simak's City stories (collected with linking material in book form in 1952). The story predicts some of today's automated wonders, but misses the mark about how automation and telecommunications would allow people to move out of cities en masse. Perhaps some day.
Arena by Fredric Brown (Astounding, June - novelette)
3 Stars
This is a problem story popular in the pages of Astounding. A single human must find a way to defeat a single alien lest all of humanity be destroyed by another all-powerful alien. The two combatants are placed on a desolate beach surrounded by an impenetrable force field and separated by another force field. The problem is to find a way through the barrier and kill the other without weapons before dying of hunger and thirst. The plot of this story was adapted for an episode of the first season of Star Trek (the one where Kirk fights the alien Gorn).
Huddling Place by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding, July - short story)
4 Stars
The second in the City series, taking place a couple generations after the first. Mankind has fully transitioned to living on isolated homesteads, and the protagonist of this story suffers from agoraphobia as a result. Just as he thinks he has to courage to break his fear, his well meaning robot butler interferes with his plans.
Kindness by Lester del Rey (Astounding, October - short story)
3 Stars
The last homo sapiens on a world of supermen gets a chance to travel to another world where he might find more like himself.
Desertion by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding, November - short story)
5 Stars
Ostensibly part of the City series, this story takes place entirely on a space station orbiting Jupiter. A means has been invented to change humans into beings that can withstand Jupiter's harsh environment, but every volunteer fails to come back to verify the success of the experiment. Finally, out of desperation, the project's leader (and his dog) undergo the transformation, finding results that are unimaginable. One of the great last lines in science fiction history.
When the Bough Breaks by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore [as Lewis Padgett] (Astounding, November - novelette)
2 Stars
Kuttner and Moore try to replicate the success of 1943's Mimsy Were the Borogoves with a story of a precocious infant who is visited by advanced time travelers for the purpose of educating the tot in how to use his abilities to their fullest. The put-upon parents finally find a solution in an ending that is as dark as anything, all the more disturbing because the authors try to coat it with humor.
Killdozer! by Theodore Sturgeon (Astounding, November - novella)
3 Stars
A bulldozer is possessed by an alien entity bent on killing every living thing. One positive note is that the team of construction workers who find themselves battling this machine behave believably insofar as not accepting that an inanimate object could be haunted (to their ultimate deaths). The last couple of survivors do finally solve the problem of defeating the monster in a rather ingenious way (Sturgeon clearly knew a lot about heavy machinery). This otherwise exciting story is marred by some racist stereotypes.
No Woman Born by C.L. Moore (Astounding, December - novelette)
5 Stars
This story examines the psychological and ethical effects of transferring the brain of a dead human into a mechanical body. It raises lots of questions with which we will probably someday have to contend.
3 Stars
A crew spends 500 years in hibernation traveling to another solar system, only to find humanity's inventiveness has far outstripped theirs in the intervening years. The ending is a bit of a cop out, trying to have a happy ending when a more downbeat one would have been more powerful, in my opinion.
Deadline by Cleve Cartmill (Astounding, March - novelette)
2 Stars
The only really remarkable thing about this story is how well it predicted the workings of an atomic bomb, so much so that the FBI interviewed editor John Campbell about its origins. Otherwise, it's a straightforward military adventure with aliens instead of humans.
The Veil of Astellar by Leigh Brackett (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Spring - novelette)
4 Stars
The only story in this anthology not from Astounding, this is an emotional tale of a world weary man (a man, at least before he encountered the alienness of the Veil of Astellar) who fends off horror by remembering a lost love.
Sanity by Fritz Leiber (Astounding, April - short story)
3 Stars
Lots of talk and not much action in this surprisingly anti-war piece.
Invariant by John R. Pierce (Astounding, April - short story)
5 Stars
Pierce was an engineer/scientist who didn't publish much fiction, but certainly this story proves he could match any writer. This is a moving tale of a man whose body and memories are stuck at a single point in time, many decades past, reminding me of how some dementia patients live their lives.
City by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding, May - novelette)
4 Stars
The first of Simak's City stories (collected with linking material in book form in 1952). The story predicts some of today's automated wonders, but misses the mark about how automation and telecommunications would allow people to move out of cities en masse. Perhaps some day.
Arena by Fredric Brown (Astounding, June - novelette)
3 Stars
This is a problem story popular in the pages of Astounding. A single human must find a way to defeat a single alien lest all of humanity be destroyed by another all-powerful alien. The two combatants are placed on a desolate beach surrounded by an impenetrable force field and separated by another force field. The problem is to find a way through the barrier and kill the other without weapons before dying of hunger and thirst. The plot of this story was adapted for an episode of the first season of Star Trek (the one where Kirk fights the alien Gorn).
Huddling Place by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding, July - short story)
4 Stars
The second in the City series, taking place a couple generations after the first. Mankind has fully transitioned to living on isolated homesteads, and the protagonist of this story suffers from agoraphobia as a result. Just as he thinks he has to courage to break his fear, his well meaning robot butler interferes with his plans.
Kindness by Lester del Rey (Astounding, October - short story)
3 Stars
The last homo sapiens on a world of supermen gets a chance to travel to another world where he might find more like himself.
Desertion by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding, November - short story)
5 Stars
Ostensibly part of the City series, this story takes place entirely on a space station orbiting Jupiter. A means has been invented to change humans into beings that can withstand Jupiter's harsh environment, but every volunteer fails to come back to verify the success of the experiment. Finally, out of desperation, the project's leader (and his dog) undergo the transformation, finding results that are unimaginable. One of the great last lines in science fiction history.
When the Bough Breaks by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore [as Lewis Padgett] (Astounding, November - novelette)
2 Stars
Kuttner and Moore try to replicate the success of 1943's Mimsy Were the Borogoves with a story of a precocious infant who is visited by advanced time travelers for the purpose of educating the tot in how to use his abilities to their fullest. The put-upon parents finally find a solution in an ending that is as dark as anything, all the more disturbing because the authors try to coat it with humor.
Killdozer! by Theodore Sturgeon (Astounding, November - novella)
3 Stars
A bulldozer is possessed by an alien entity bent on killing every living thing. One positive note is that the team of construction workers who find themselves battling this machine behave believably insofar as not accepting that an inanimate object could be haunted (to their ultimate deaths). The last couple of survivors do finally solve the problem of defeating the monster in a rather ingenious way (Sturgeon clearly knew a lot about heavy machinery). This otherwise exciting story is marred by some racist stereotypes.
No Woman Born by C.L. Moore (Astounding, December - novelette)
5 Stars
This story examines the psychological and ethical effects of transferring the brain of a dead human into a mechanical body. It raises lots of questions with which we will probably someday have to contend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 3, 2020
Far Centaurus by A.E. van Vogt 3/5
Deadline by Cleve Cartmill 4/5
The Veil of Astellar by Leigh Brackett 3/5
Sanity by Fritz Leiber 3/5
Invariant by John R. Pierce 3/5
City by Clifford D. Simak 4/5
Arena by Fredric Brown 5/5
Huddling Place [City] by Clifford D. Simak 4/5
Kindness by Lester del Rey 3/5
Desertion [City] by Clifford D. Simak 5/5
When the Bough Breaks by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore 4/5
Killdozer! by Theodore Sturgeon 5/5
No Woman Born by C.L. Moore 4/5
Deadline by Cleve Cartmill 4/5
The Veil of Astellar by Leigh Brackett 3/5
Sanity by Fritz Leiber 3/5
Invariant by John R. Pierce 3/5
City by Clifford D. Simak 4/5
Arena by Fredric Brown 5/5
Huddling Place [City] by Clifford D. Simak 4/5
Kindness by Lester del Rey 3/5
Desertion [City] by Clifford D. Simak 5/5
When the Bough Breaks by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore 4/5
Killdozer! by Theodore Sturgeon 5/5
No Woman Born by C.L. Moore 4/5
April 26, 2017
Starts off with arguably my favorite story of em all: "Far Centaurus." "Astellar" was good if you like that sort of breathless, contraction-less stuff, and I've never really liked Leiber's "Sanity" too much. This collection ends though as it began, with a true masterpiece: Moore's "No Woman Born." The kind of story that you (or at least, I) read scifi for. :)
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June 9, 2019I have the german edition: Science Fiction aus den goldenen Jahren 1944
September 8, 2025
When the Bough Breaks by Lewis Padgett
August Derleth book ; Beyond time & space
22:22-23-32
Interesting sf story, kind of like had resemblance, element of the Terminator story.
August Derleth book ; Beyond time & space
22:22-23-32
Interesting sf story, kind of like had resemblance, element of the Terminator story.
January 22, 2014
Il sesto volume di "Le grandi storie della fantascienza" comprende racconti scritti nel 1944, quando la Seconda guerra mondiale volgeva al termine e già si intuiva chi ne sarebbe uscito vincitore. Questo volume include un racconto che fece scalpore, "Termine ultimo" di Cleve Cartmill. Vi era descritta una bomba potentissima assai simile alla bomba atomica che gli scienziati del progetto Manhattan stavano elaborando in segreto.
March 13, 2015
Asimov and Greenberg selected their picks for the best of the Golden Age year of 1944 and presented them in this volume, one of the best in the series. It features three great stories by Clifford D. Simak, Fredric Brown's classic "Arena" that became a Star Trek episode (you can still hear that Alexander Courage soundtrack from the fight scene, I'll bet!), one of my favorite Van Vogt stories, and C.L. Moore, Fritz Leiber, etc. My favorite is "Killdozer!" by Theodore Sturgeon, possibly the best story ever written with an exclamation point in the title.
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