Great Science Fiction by Scientists

by Groff Conklin

What If · Isaac Asimov
The Ultimate Catalyst · Eric Temple Bell
The Gostak and the Doshes · Miles J. Breuer
Summertime on Icarus · Arthur C. Clarke
The Neutrino Bomb · Ralph S. Cooper
Last Year's Grave Undug · Chan Davis
The Gold Makers · J. B. S. Haldane
The Tissue Culture King · Julian Huxley
A Martian Adventure · Willy Ley
Learning Theory · James McConnell
The Mother of Necessity · Chad Oliver
John Sze's Future · John R. Pierce
Kid Anderson · Robert S. Richardson
Pilot Lights of the Apocalypse · Dr Louis N. Ridenour
Grand Central Terminal · Leo Szilard
The Brain · Norbert Wiener

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies

313 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Edward Groff Conklin (September 6, 1904, Glen Ridge, New Jersey - July 19, 1968, Pawling, New York) was a leading science fiction anthologist. Conklin edited 41 anthologies of science fiction, wrote books on home improvement and was a freelance writer on scientific subjects. From 1950 to 1955, he was the book critic for Galaxy Science Fiction.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting theme anthology edited by Groff Conklin that first appeared in 1962. At the time, before the New Wave mid-'60s era, science fiction was defined by strict purists as fiction about future scientists doing future science in the future, so it has to be considered in this historical light. Also, I think Conklin was a little loose in his definitions of both "great science fiction" and "scientists," but if the title had been "some pretty good stories by some people with some scientific connections" sales might not have been as brisk. The stories originally appeared from 1927 up to one story that was original to the book. There are stories from well-knowns such as Leo Szilard, J.B.S. Haldane, Willy Ley, Julian Huxley, and Norbert Wiener, as well as science fiction notables like Chad Oliver, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov. (Curiously, Asimov's story is one of his rare fantasies; his The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline might have been a better choice.) The story that Conklin presented for the first time was by Chan Davis, a now almost forgotten writer. He was a very well-known mathematician who began publishing very good stories in Astounding SF shortly after the end of the Second World War. He was fired from his position at the University of Michigan because of his political beliefs, and was put into prison for refusing to cooperate with McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee investigations. He moved to Canada after his release and wrote little science fiction thereafter. Overall, it's not one of Conklin's best titles, but is of interest both for the curiosity value of the scientist-as-author cachet, and for being an example of one of the earliest "themed" anthologies in the genre.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

What If · Isaac Asimov - 3* fantasy
The Ultimate Catalyst · Eric Temple Bell - 2.5* pseudo-scientific horror
The Gostak and the Doshes · Miles J. Breuer - 2.5* commentary on propaganda
Summertime on Icarus · Arthur C. Clarke - 3.5* brief survival story akin to A Fall of Moondust, ie 'man against nature'
The Neutrino Bomb · Ralph S. Cooper - unstarred because I don't know enough science to get the joke
Last Year's Grave Undug · Chan Davis - 3.5* haunting post-apoc.
The Gold Makers · J. B. S. Haldane - 3* reads like a cloak & dagger thriller which is not what I like
The Tissue Culture King · Julian Huxley - 1.5* misguided white scientist in darkest Africa
A Martian Adventure · Willy Ley - 3* finally a 'real' SF story, unfortunately not v. good
Learning Theory · James McConnell - 2.5* - I've seen the 'gotcha' done better elsewhere
The Mother of Necessity · Chad Oliver - 4* - Oliver knows how to write; this is both interesting and well-done, with good What If
John Sze's Future · John R. Pierce - 2.5* basically a joke that still has threads in it to leave loose
Kid Anderson · Robert S. Richardson - 4* interesting enough, reminded me of a classic Twilight Zone episode, but then the end, Whammo! aka Philip Latham
Pilot Lights of the Apocalypse · Dr Louis N. Ridenour - 3* cautionary fable about nuclear bombs, written between WWII and the Cold War
Grand Central Terminal · Leo Szilard - 1.5* humanity through the eyes of aliens who visit just the one installation after all life on earth is extinct; too many gaffes
The Brain · Norbert Wiener - 3* - wordy but makes an interesting speculation, as in, What If surgeons had perfected the art of frontal lobotomies & related alterations of ppls' brains...

Overall, a very dated collection, with few strong stories, but I am glad it was published and that I read it. It is avl. on openlibrary so give it a try, at least the Richardson and Oliver stories. I found no new authors to explore, but will continue to read what I can find from Chad Oliver.

Btw, I just checked openlibrary and they not only have plenty of books by Oliver, but they also have a 1985 'companion' (or something?) to this, Great Science Fiction Stories by the World's Great Scientists ed. by Asimov.

[Steve Rainwater · Rating 3 out of 5]

The quality of stories varies wildly in this anthology since the selection criteria is based only on the author being a scientist, but most were enjoyable.

There are a few recognizable science fiction authors who also happen to be scientists like Asimov and Clark but most of the authors are primarily scientists. While most of the stories follow the conventions of pulp-era science fiction, there are a few exceptions. One is a play. One is little more than an extended joke that appeared in a Las Alamos newsletter. The standouts for me in this book were "The Gold Makers" by J. B. S. Haldane, which reads like a script for a Hitchcock suspense film and "The Brain" by Norbert Weiner, in which a neurosurgeon goes up against a mafia kingpin. Several of these stories were submitted to the pulps and rejected. Some ended up being published in technical journals or newsletters and a few were published for the first time in this anthology. Overall, it's worth a read if you enjoy old science fiction.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept behind this anthology is fun: What happens when people who have actual degrees in science write sci fi? The cover emphasizes this by listing the names of the authors in the book best known as scientists and not the two well-known sci fi writers (Asimov and Clarke) who happen to also be scientists. The stories are also generally fun. The book came out in the heady Kennedy year of 1962, and the stories range from written in 1927 right up to that year. They are certainly of historical interest to sci fi fans, but, probably because of the background of the writers, they often hold up better in terms of plausibility today than more popular sci fi of even more recent periods.

Below, I have copied and pasted my short notes on each story, but for those who don’t want to read that much detail, I will summarize by saying that the best stories include some contemplations on nuclear warfare by physicists and others, as well as the contributions by Asimov and Clarke and a few neat humor pieces, including one about a behavioral psychologist trapped in an alien’s equivalent of a rat maze by James McConnell.

The first story is “What If,” by Isaac Asimov, and it is very atypical of his work. It is a short fantasy about a couple on a train who meet a man that can show them what would have happened in their lives if their meeting had been altered just slightly. It is surprisingly whimsical and un-scientific, but I found it quite effective.

The second story is “The Ultimate Catalyst” by Eric Temple Bell, a mathematician dabbling in biochemistry for the purposes of his story. It is about a dictator of a tiny, isolated country (apparently Latin American, perhaps a breakaway republic from Brazil) and how he gets his comeuppance at the hands of an Anglo-American scientist named “Beetle.” It’s a bit creepy, but I found it far-fetched in several respects.

Next is “The Gostak and the Doshes,” by Miles J. Breuer, MD. He is the least “scientific” of the scientists presented, but he tackles a very scientific subject – relativity – in a whimsical yet intelligent manner. The title is attributed to a quote from The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and the Science of Symbolism. I quite enjoyed it, and it seemed less dated than some of the others.

This is followed by “Summertime on Icarus” which had also been published under the title “The Hottest Piece of Real Estate in the Solar System,” by Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke is a genius, of course, and this is a wonderful little story about an accident during a quite plausible space mission to an asteroid that travels close to the sun. If anything, I wish there were more of Clarke in this volume.

The shortest piece is Ralph M. Cooper’s “The Neutrino Bomb,” which is essentially an April Fool’s joke about a scientifically possible, but utterly useless, nuclear weapon, ostensibly developed by the Soviets.

This is followed by a longer piece, also about the Cold War, “Last Year’s Grave Undug,” by Chan Davis, a mathematician. It’s a post-apocalypse story with an interesting twist ending. Maybe not the best story in the book, but quite satisfying.

JBS Haldane, a geneticist, wrote “The Gold Makers,” the next story. It is a thriller about a British professor in France who comes into possession of the secret to deriving gold from sea water, and immediately becomes the target of a murderous gold cartel, eager to preserve gold’s scarcity. The ending is a bit lame; I think Haldane wrote himself into a corner he couldn’t get out of. The introductory note (written 1962) says that the film rights had been purchased, but I don’t think any movie was ever made.

The next story, “The Tissue-Culture King” by Julian Huxley, is a mixed bag. It is a story about a scientist who gets captured by a tribe in Africa and uses his scientific skills to create a new religious cult, while simultaneously using the resources he is given to promote his own research. It is clearly a somewhat clumsy metaphor for the relationship between science and the State in Western countries, but by using the “primitive” environment to avoid offending anyone it winds up being more offensive to modern sensibilities, through its use of outdated racial terminology and attitudes.

At over fifty pages, Willy Ley’s story, “A Martian Adventure” is the longest in the book, and to my mind, one of the weakest. It’s based on a colonized Mars with an atmosphere and some rather nasty native life forms. That’s OK, but what’s more of a problem is that it’s laced with pre-Cold War anti-Communism that now looks really dated, along with a really silly romantic subplot. The part of the “adventure” that’s the most scientific is the orbital escape back to Earth, after we leave Mars altogether.

James McConnell was an experimental psychologist, and his story “Learning Theory” is basically a fantasy about finding himself inside of the kind of experiment he regularly performed on animals, at the mercy of an alien scientist. The result is a darkly comic, and is a cautionary tale about the misuse of scientific experimentation.

The story by Chad Oliver, “The Mother of Necessity,” reminds me of Philip K. Dick in a lot of ways, and is also based in about as inaccurate a prediction of the social future as most of his stories. Oliver was an anthropologist, and the premise of the story is that a new social system takes over the world through a kind of elective social darwinism. Not convincing, but fun.

“John Sze’s Future” is a very clever joke by John R. Pierce, who worked for Bell Labs on communications research. A man is transported to the future and completely misinterprets everything he sees. He is also thoroughly misunderstood by the people he meets. The funniest part today is the footnote in which the editor found it necessary to tell his audience who B.F. Skinner is.

Robert S. Richardson contributed “Kid Anderson,” which reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode “Steel,” since they are both about human boxers fighting androids. Where “Steel” is about the triumph of man over machine, in this case human error proves to be the deciding factor.

“Pilot Lights of the Apocalypse” by Louis N. Ridenour is a story more typical of the late 60s or 70s, but written in 1946. It is a one-act play about global thermonuclear war being set off because of a mistake in a command center.

“Grand Central Terminal” by Leo Szilard is an excellent followup, since it is a story about aliens investigating the planet Earth after a nuclear holocaust has extinguished life. It includes some humorous musings on what extraterrestrials would make of our odd relics, and is actually a bit more up-beat than “Apocalypse.”

Norbert Wiener, the only scientist in the collection I’ve heard of as a scientist (he’s the “father of cybernetics”), wrote the last story, “The Brain.” The title is a kind of pun, since it is about both brain surgery and a gangster who is known by that moniker. It’s probably the most disturbing story in the book, as it deals with the horrible results of traumatic brain injury and frontal lobotomies.

[Bob R Bogle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking to take a brief break from the kind of books I usually read and so I pulled this dusty old volume off the shelf: Great Science Fiction by Scientists, edited by Groff Conklin, published in 1962. My expectations were not high. Surely the science would be pretty dated. The sort of narrowly-envisioned fiction written by narrowly-focused scientists would probably reinforce the idea that writers and technicians would usually be better off remaining on their own side of the dividing line. Etc.

To a degree these expectations were fulfilled, but I must admit many of the stories anthologized here were more engaging than I'd anticipated.

Arthur C Clarke's "Summertime on Icarus" turned out to be a little better than expected. Clarke of course is now remembered more as a science fiction writer than a scientist. The best part of the story is when the doomed protagonist dismisses as pointless sentiment memories of his wife and family back on Earth as he prepares to die, only to wax poetical about his home planet.

Chan Davis' "Last Year's Grave Undug" had some very fine writing on display as a small band of travelers treks across the post-atomic holocaust landscape.

JBS Haldane's "The Gold-Makers" likewise was surprisingly well-written, if a bit too action-adventure, shoot-em-up for my taste.

I was sure I would not enjoy Willy Ley's "A Martian Adventure," but the further along I read, the better it became. I learned more astrophysics in the last few pages than I have in all my life preceding.

[Ronn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really pretty disappointing. There were four stories worth the time to read, and the rest were entirely forgettable.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of these were pretty good. Some I wished had gone on longer. Overall, a decent sci-fi blend for people who can only read in snatches. :)