Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year: Second Annual Collection

Best Science Fiction Stories of the year (Del Rey/Dozois) #2

by Lester del Rey

Contents
When We Went to See the End of the World / Robert Silverberg
Patron of the Arts / William Rotsler
Eurema's Dam / R.A. Lafferty
The Man Who Walked Home / James Tiptree, Jr.
The Greatest Asset / Isaac Asimov
Cloak of Anarchy / Larry Niven
The Long Silence / Donald Noakes
Long Shot / Vernor Vinge
Thus Love Betrays Us / Phyllis MacLennan
The Meeting / C.M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl
Woman's Rib / Thomas N. Scortia
Teratohippus / Robert L. Davis
Underbelly / Gordon Eklund
Watchdøg / Jack C. Haldeman, II
Miscount / Carolyn Gloeckner
The Science Fiction Yearbook (1972) / Lester del Rey
Foreword: The Spice of Variety / Lester del Rey

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Lester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. Del Rey is especially famous for his juvenile novels such as those which are part of the Winston Science Fiction series, and for Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction branch of Ballantine Books edited by Lester del Rey and his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.

Also published as:
Philip St. John
Erik van Lhin
Kenneth Wright
Edson McCann (with Frederik Pohl)

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second volume of del Rey's annual picks of the best short sf of the year, and includes stories that appeared initially in 1972, along with an interesting introduction and afterword that summarizes the year. It includes some really fine stories, such as the amusing Eurema's Dam by R.A. Lafferty, The Meeting, a posthumous collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth by Frederik Pohl, Larry Niven's Cloak of Anarchy, Robert Silverberg's When We Went to See the End of the World, and James Tiptree, Jr.'s The Man Who Walked Home. My favorite is Patron of the Arts by William Rotsler, a true now-forgotten classic. The book has a very odd cover, featuring a young lady's face on the body of what appears to be a lobster-spider mutation, which I doubt did little to make critics want to consider the book as serious literature.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

1972 was a poor year for sci-fi, despite Del Rey enthusing that this was the best year since 1940. (I think that was meant as a compliment.) One thing is certain about the future -- it's gonna be depressing.

The entire series edited by del Rey is at the Internet Archive, but you might need to use the Advanced Search feature to find this particular book. Just enter the exact title and that should take you to at least two copies of the original hardback edition.

Selections:

* "Forward: The Spice of Variety" by Our Editor. Del Rey describes how he selected stories for this anthology. Yer basic sci-fi intro stuff.
* "The Cloak of Anarchy" by Larry Niven. In a future California, there are no more combudtible engines, but there is legal nudity and fusion power. What to do? Just another day in the Park ... or not.
* "When We Went to See the End of the World" by Robert Silverberg. Congratulations if you read this -- you get to see the normally brilliant Silverberg pull a shit out of his pen with this parody of America in the 1960s.
* "Underbelly" by Gordon Eklund. Becoming immortal may be the worst thing that happens in your life. WARNING: Rat killed in an experiment.
* "The Greatest Asset" by Isaac Asimov. This is one of the scariest things Asimov experienced wrote. He wrote of Earth with very, very few domestic animals left, and no wild animals. It was hard for me to get passed that.
* "The Meeting" by Frederick Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth. Kornbluth died of a heart attack in 1958, but left unfinished stories abd notes behind. His friend and collaborator finished this story ... sorta. A father has a terrible decision to make about his son, but what the final decision is ... is left to the reader to make. Yeah, I get the point, "What would YOU do in this situation?" But it seemed a cop-out. Pohl's completion of Kornbluth's "The Gift of the Garigolli" was much better.
* "Eurema's Dam" by R. A. Lafferty. This damn thing won a Hugo. I have a theory that all of the Hugo voters felt sorry for Lafferty. Either that, or all of the other stories were worse than crap.
* "Teratohippus" by Robert L. Davis. Very sad story of a giant creature forced to save a ship full of humans at the cost of her life and the lives of her babies. There are hints that she was the last of her species. This seems to be a lament for all species that have been exterminated by humans.
* "The Long Silence" by Donald Noakes. Set in the early 1970s London, where counterculture protesters blare transistor radios. An invention manages to neutralize the sound, but there's an alarming side effect.
* "Long Shot" by Verner Vinge. Earth's sun is about to go nova, so a sentient rocket nicknamed Ilse is built to fly a desperate mission to another planet. The journey takes over 10,000 years ... which is about as long as it feels like to read this story.
* "Miscount" by C. N. Gloeckner. By itself, this little comic story is meh. However, dropped in among all if these heavy duty downers of stories, this made for blessed relief.
* "Thus Love Betrays Us" by Phyllis MacLennan. An astronaut is accidentally abandoned on a misty, moldy planet called Dierdre and goes apeshit.
* "Woman's Rib" by Thomas N. Scortia. Written when John Lennon was still alive and it was thought he'd age like any celebrity. An elderly scientist has a boyfriend too good to be true. Read carefully, and you'll find out why.
* "The Man Who Walked Home" by James Tiptree, Jr./Alice Hastings Bradley/Racoona Sheldon/etc.yeah. This is the most anthologized story in the collection, and I'm getting sick of seeing it. Apparently, time travel happened in 1989 and we all somehow missed it. A guy stuck in time keeps appearing to freak out onlookers. In 1972, no one knew thst Tiptree was a pen name, so the intro was quaint.
* "Watchdog" by Jack C. Haldeman/Jay Haldeman. This was only his second published story. The watchdog is a term given to a huge computers complex left to tend Earth after humans leave. One day, a man comes back. WARNING: Field mouse killed.
* "Patron of the Arts" by William Rotsler. Not much to say about the future of art. Has some eye-rolling sci-fi tropes, like colonies throughout the solar system by 2000. Also notes the Shah of Iran was still in power (oops) and has a chauffeur named Bowie (double oops.)
* "The Science Fiction Yearbook" by Our Editor. The good, bad and ugly in the sci-fi literary world in 1972 in about five pages.

[James Swenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some lovely stories in this collection. The funniest is "Eurema's Dam" by R. A. Lafferty, and the best is "The Meeting" by Frederick Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth.