The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, Third Series

by Anthony Boucher (Editor), J. Francis McComas (Editor)

Introduction '54 essay by Anthony Boucher & J. Francis McComas
Attitudes/Father Carmody '53 story by Philip José Farmer
Maybe Just a Little One '53 story by Reginald Bretnor
The Star Gypsies '53 story by William L. Gresham
The Untimely Toper/Gavagan's '53 L. Sprague deCamp & Fletcher Pratt story
Vandy, Vandy/John the Balladeer '53 story by Manly Wade Wellman
Experiment '53 written by Kay Rogers
Lot/David Jimmon '53 story by Ward Moore
Manuscript Found in a Vacuum '52 story by P.M. Hubbard
The Maladjusted Classroom/C.P. Ransom '53 H. Nearing Jr. story
Child by Chronos '53 story by Charles L. Harness
New Ritual '53 Margaret St. Clair story [aka Idris Seabright]
Devlin '53 story by William Bernard Ready [aka W.B. Ready]
Captive Audience '53 story by Ann Warren Griffith
Snulbug '41 story by Anthony Boucher
Shepherd's Boy '12 story by Richard Middleton
Star Light, Star Bright '53 story by Alfred Bester

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Anthologies, Fiction

252 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

William Anthony Parker White, better known by his pen name Anthony Boucher, was an American author, critic, and editor who wrote several classic mystery novels, short stories, science fiction, and radio dramas. Between 1942 and 1947, he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle. In addition to "Anthony Boucher", White also employed the pseudonym "H. H. Holmes", which was the pseudonym of a late-19th-century American serial killer; Boucher would also write light verse and sign it " Herman W. Mudgett" (the murderer's real name).
In a 1981 poll of 17 detective story writers and reviewers, his novel Nine Times Nine was voted as the ninth best locked room mystery of all time.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the third annual anthology of the best stories from F&SF as selected by the editors, and presents their selections from the issues published in 1953. This was the last year that McComas worked with Boucher on the book. It has a Father Carmody story by Philip Jose Farmer, a Gavagan's Bar story by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, and a Silver John story by Manly Wade Wellman, as well as good stories by Alfred Bester, Charles L. Harness, Ward Moore, R. Bretnor, and Boucher himself, not to mention Idris Seabright, a pseudonym of Margaret St. Clair. The 1954 book club edition I inherited from my father has the neatest Mars painting you ever saw by Chesley Bonestell.

[Michael Fierce]

[Johan Haneveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

8 Another very enjoyable collection of Fantasy and Science Fiction stories taken from the pages of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The fifties were truly the golden age of science fiction and I find I enjoy these stories a lot even though the science and technology are no longer up to date and attitudes on gender en sex are, well, stuck in the fifties. But the wild range of ideas and speculation, the clear prose and the often suprising conclusion never fail to entertain me. Not really deep in exploration of human nature, but that's not always what's required. Sometimes a dose of sense of wonder, a bit of escapism and a dose of optimism are all that's needed for a good time. A lot of great stories here. It starts with a great story by Philip Jose Farmer (one of the greats of the genre, who is still remembered) who tells a story about a gambler on another planet, deciding to join the natives in what he interprets as a game of chance. A priest with another attitude to things tries to save him from a gruesome fate. Well written. R. Bretnor contributes a farce about a small town inventor who makes a fusion generator running on black beans, who is not taken seriously by the press. It's fun, with a wry twist, but not really that memorable. 'The star gypsies' was a postapocalyptic story, written in an engaging mythical tone of voice, that managed to engage me. I liked this one. 'The untimely toper' was a fun tale of magical revenge. 'Vandy, vandy' was another tale written in a mythical tone of voice, a sort of weird western, where a guitar player finds a secluded valley and uncovers the mystery going on. It was well written, but the end could have been a bit bigger, I thought. 'Experiment' is a sad story about aliens that conquered earth. 'Lot' by Ward Moore is a tightly written story that conveys great atmosphere. After an atomic bomb (this is from the fifties) has gone off over Los Angeles a man tries to get his family to safety. His wife and kids don't see the situation as all that serious, though, which makes is a fraught journey. With a bleak ending it was a powerful (thought dated) story. 'The madadjusted classroom' was another humorous story, this time about a teacher trying to solve a double booked classroom in an unorthodox way and thereby misplacing a Colonel in time and space. 'Child by Chronos' was an interesting story about time travel, where a woman tells of her weird time growing up with a mother earning her wages by telling the future. I liked the circular nature of the story a lot. 'New ritual' is a story by one of the female authors, with a magical fridge. I don't think this would pass in our time and age, though. 'Devlin' is a kind of Irish folk tale about a band of pipers going missing on a parade. Great use of Irish inflected language here. I liked the story by Ann Warren Griffith: a chilling dystopia, written with a great sense of irony, and even in our time suprisingly up to date. Even more than in the time it was written. It describes a time where marketing has become inescapable (and it reminded me of the flood of pup ups on my computer). The end is truly chilling. One of the best stories of this collection. Anthony Boucher has a fun little story about a bit of magic gone wrong. The collection closes with a story by another classic author 'Star light, star bright' with several characters searching for a child prodigy. It has interesting twists and turns, and a chilling ending. Another author where it's clear why his name is still reminded. All in all a fun collection to read with some gems of fifties SF!

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up some time ago from a used bookstore and I've finally sat down and started to read it. It's a collection of short stories from the 1950s that the Editors feel best exemplify the genre at the time. I'm curious about this look into stories written from a pretty different time than right now and what is similar/different. So far it's a mix - but there's a lot more racism at play.

*Attitudes* by Philip Farmer is the first. It's about a psychic gambler on a space cruise ship who is terribly addicted to scamming people and picking fights with Priests. The ship lands on a planet and people are warned not to leave the immediate area and bug the locals - which the Gambler does immediately. He finds a big group of aliens (dog people with 'dark skin') that appear to be playing a gambling game and he immediately joins in and rigs it for himself. As he is about to win one of the Priests arrives and desperately tries to get him to stop, which he ignores, and goes for the final spin. However, someone else in the crowd has enough psychic prowess to overpower his push and the Gambler ends up losing. He's stunned - until the Priest shows him that the winner of the game gets strung up on a cross and ritually killed for the Alien God. There were some allusions to religion being like gambling and how 'primative' religions in worship can seem like Gamblers. The science fiction veneer was thin and could've been replaced with anything.
C-
Maybe Just a Little One by R. Bretnor is next. It's about a Suburban American White Man discovering free atomic energy from frijoles. Yup, beans. It's played as satire about (what I'm assuming) is the attitudes at the time: journalistic media only caring for weapons/violence and marital drama over scientific achievement, petty suburban politics, and how the US views 'smaller' more 'docile' nations. The main character discovers this frijoluem and the papers only care if he can make it into a bomb. His more well to do neighbor derides him and gets him fired from his job - which leads into the papers mocking him and no one caring for his invention of free energy. Eventually, Raptarian officials arrive and offer him a place in their small government to continue his research. I'm unsure who they are parodying but they are described as a small country, military honor focused (there is a Colonel of Education), and bloodthirsty for war. The story ends by saying small countries can only follow the way of peace because they lack firepower to stand up to the Mighty (aka US). Which the Raptarians won't follow.
C+ it's ok.
Unfortunately the best written and most creative one so far is The Star Gypsies by William Lindsey Gresham. It's also the most openly stereotypical/racist with its characters as one of the main factions are Romanian travellers (described with the racist term in the title) vs the non-travellers (described with a Romanian slang term for those not Romani). In a post-apocalyptic world after the War of Burning, Great Kings walk the roads and impart basic knowledge to non-travellers if the Old Ways are followed and supplication is given. We follow the son of the Great King Johnny Petulengro as he falls in love with a non-Romani - a follower of Civilization -As-We-Know-It. These people live in ancient pre-war homes and use technology they do not know how to create, upkeep, or properly use. (Ex. The MC finds 'ancient technology' under a tarp in the corner of a basement and the populace are baffled by it's use or purpose. We quickly learn it's a simple bicycle.) They also fall prey to the Heartsickness: a disease affecting only non-Romani that happens when the limited technology these people use to survive breaks, leaving them without a way to survive. Death quickly follows after a period of listlessness. It's hopelessness/depression as a quick killer.
However, the Great Kings aka the Romani know how to use and repair these tools but keep it to themselves so they can trade them out. But the not-Romani have no drive to survive, so when the King's son stays to marry a girl in town and a tornado hits and destroys the towns only wheat harvester, the populace accepts death. It takes the combined effort of the King's son, his soon to be wife, and enemy-turned-friend to find the Great King and beg for knowledge. They are told how to make a scythe to manually get the wheat and all is saved. It goes even further at the end as the Grandma of the caravan says that the Romani people are the original travelers and came from the stars to give technology to mankind - which mankind then used to prop themselves up and subsequently burn themselves down. It is apparently an unending cycle for the non-Romani forgot the wisdom and law of life: simply To Survive.

As far as I can tell the author is not Romanian and simply used multiple slang terms and the stereotypical depiction of Romanian caravan travelers as the basis for this. I think despite showing them as superior to others the story definitely hangs on the racist ideas and stories attributed to Romani people. It's a shame as it is the best written so far and is lauded by the Editors as the "best story in here". Shows how much we've changed and gotten better...
And one more better one.
The Untimely Toper by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt.
Tl:Dr don't fuck with a magician at a bar.
Short story about a bartender asking his regulars to help find a missing man. Possibly missing in time. Done entirely through dialogue, we're told a story of a regular named Mr Pearce swatting and killing a bat in front of our Magician Dr. Albis who does not take kindly to this. The magician then curses him to slow down and take his time - which manifests whenever Mr Pearce drinks and goes to the men's restroom where he does not reappear for days at a time depending on how drunk he is. He comes back out of the men's room and is not aware of the missing time until he notices the calendar change. He drinks and disappears again. Two more times. The regulars solve this by saying they need to get Mr Pearce sober to break the hex - so the bartender gives him a horrific concoction(worshire sauce, oysters, tomato juice, and more) and supposedly saves the day.
Fun little story. The dialogue took me a bit to get used to but it works well once you get used to it.
B-
Vandy, Vandy by Manly Wade Wellman (cool name btw). It's a story the author made when he was taught an old, strange song by a woman who didn't know its origins. The song is about a girl named Vandy who is waiting 'seven long years' for her soldier man to come home which the author interprets to mean someone serving in the American revolution. The resulting story involves a magical incarnation of George Washington that kills a wizard with a backhand.
Kind of a neat start to the story that falls apart as it gets more Americanized. Our MC, a bard travelling for songs, finds the actual Vandy who lives with her Mountain Family in the Appalachian mountains. She, her mother and her grandmother have all been hounded by a mysterious man for all of their lives as he tries to court them. This is the wizard who is a survivor of the Salem witch trials who actually sold their sold to the devil for magic. There's a fun tense dinner conversation going on for a bit but that's the most exciting part. Everyone also calls George Washington King Washington because the people of the Appalachia apparently don't know the difference.

C-
Experiment by Kay Rogers. Our first female author! And our shortest as this is only about 3 pages. Three pages too long. I'm not going to go into it but it's trying to make alien slavers be the good guys. It's bad.
Lot by Ward Moore. This is a horrific combination of biblical fanfiction, Doomsday prepper self congratulatory nonsense, and pedophilia incest nods. It's a long, long story about the father of a family being accused of being crazy for preparing for the fall of the United States. Due to nuclear war. Los Angeles is hit with a nuke and he sees this as his time to shine as all of his plans are working out and he travels to get his family somewhere safe and away from the hordes of looters and monsters trying to escape LA. The main character is so abrasive and unlikable and maybe one of the most hateable characters I have ever read. I thought it was parody but it goes on for so long and there is no punchline at the end that I think the author was serious in the depiction as if we are supposed to root for him. He hates and degrades his wife multiple times and sees her as infantile, accuses her of having an affair (which he says is fine since that means the kids he hates aren't his), picks out the logical survivability of his children and comes to the conclusion that his eldest daughter is the best for reasons are not subtle. In fact, we get a whole sentence about how her body is not a child's anymore. He's an utterly horrid piece of shit who is so petty that he would refuse to pull over to let everyone go to the bathroom just so he can prove to them that he's in charge.
If it was parody I could see something here about a commentary of the doom saying during the fear of the Cold War. But it never gets to that point and I really can't tell if the author intended it or not.

F

--

Manuscript Found in a Vacuum by P. M. Hubbard. Another short one (4 pages) about a manuscript written by a British Space Captain who was overthrown and sent adrift by his mutiny crew. How do I know he's British? Because everything is for His Majesty.
Fine story with little teases about a larger world: Mars Earth war, new metals found, and aliens on most planets in the solar system. I forgot at this point in time I don't think we knew a lot about Mars? Kinda neat!

B
The Maladjusted Classroom by H. Nearing Jr.
A new winner for the most creative story! It's about a Professor named Cleanth Penn Ransom and his small spat he has with the ROTC Professor named Colonel Flowerbottom. The problem? They've both been booked to use the same classroom at the same time and neither will back down. So, Ransom has a solution: simply shift the ROTC class into another dimension so they can use it at the same time!
Ransom can do this because he accidentally messed up making a self inflating car tire and created a Klein bottle (Mobius strip but 3d) using a bike tire, magnets, and the cold. One enters the 4th dimension but putting their hand into the bottle and then reaching for your 3D hand and pulling yourself into it. Both the Colonel and a ROTC student get pulled in through an amusing sequence of appearing and disappearing body parts. The colonel ends up breaking the bottle and gets himself trapped in the 4th dimension for a bit. He later reappears an hour earlier in a completely different state on a farm. We then have some more sequences of ransom morning. The loss of the bottle, trying to teach both classes at the same time (resulting in an alternate history that the South could have won the civil War if they had tactical Klein bottles), and both professors threatening each other until the situation is diffused.
A fun little story besides the odd civil War moment, plus the explanations of entering 4D space were highly creative and fun. There's also a mention at the end of the story that the author turned this into an ongoing series with professor Ransom and his other adventures and it seems he only published the one collection.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/sho...

A-
--
Child by Chronos by Charles L. Harness. A woman telling the story of how she gave birth to herself via time travel. This time we get an Elektra complex for our main character! It's aight. B-
New Ritual by Idris Seabright. Another female author is the book and this one is better than the first. It's the story of a woman who learns she got a magic electric freezer that changes whatever is put into it to what she desires. By the end of it she stuffs her elderly husband into it to make him young and actually like her. C+
Devlin by W. B. Ready. The editor explains that Ready is an Irish immigrant and puts a lot of Irish folklore, songs, and traditions into his stories and it shows here. It's the story of how a Catholic church marching band is envious of other town's marching bands and they put together a plan to outdo everyone next year. Problem is, the plan is hatched by The Devil (Devlin) and by the end of it the entire marching band disappears mid-festival and is never seen again. C+, as all of the references were lost on me.
Captive Audience by Ann Warren Griffith. This story is what I was hoping for when picking up this book and starting to read it! It's a look at the horrific future of the distant year of 1984. Our main character is Fred Bascom, the Vice-President of Sales for the Master Ventriloquism Corporation that specializes in MV technology which permiates every aspect of life in 1984. What is an MV, you may ask. It's a small metallic disc placed in everyday items that emits an audio advertisement at set times during the day. So, during breakfast, your cereal box will tell you to eat it! not the pesky competition! Bread will ask 'Mother' to make some toast for those growing kids, while a box of cigs entices you to have that "first great smoke of the day". Nor does it end there, as the laundry soap, dish soap, cake batter, cookie mix, shampoo, dog food, washing machine, sugar, flour, and more will tell you to use it! Often degradingly or in a sexist manner, mind you.

But all is not well for Mr. Bascom as his mother-in-law is coming home. At first we're only told this is Bad (especially for an exec!), but we soon learn why. You see, his mother-in-law just got out of Federal prison for breaking a simple law: owning earplugs. Back when the MVs first started, the sale of earplugs exploded as nobody wanted to be subjected to ads they weren't choosing to hear or consent to. This cost the Corporation thousands of accounts! So, they sued the National Earplug Association for Restraint of Advertising....made it all the way to the Supreme Court and won. Earplugs were now unconstitutional in the US!

As you can imagine things don't go great. The Mother-in-law isn't enthused about the children's Soldier Cereal doing loud canon booms in the morning or for Fred's new get of The New York Times which talked to you from your doorstep. Every doorstep. As everyone in the neighborhood had a copy. It takes less than a day for her to tell them she has earplugs and plans to call the police to get arrested so she can finally go back to 'peace and quiet' in jail. The story ends with Fred realizing there is a huge market potential they have been ignoring...prisoners. Sure they cant buy anything now, but think of when they get out! His wife then lauds him for being so kind and considerate to think of prisoners and to help their purchasing habits when they get out of prison.
Snulbug by Anthony Boucher. It follows Snully, a demon only about an inch tall, who is completely and utterly exasperated by humanity. He gets summoned by a man looking to make money and tasks Snully to get him tomorrow's paper so he can predict winning horse race numbers to win big. What then happens in this 'idiot human' learning that taking something from the future thus sets it in stone and any attempt to change it forces reality to reset so the 'set' event can play out. Eventually our human tries to stop an assasination and gets stuck in a Groundhog Day loop for a while before just giving up. Kinda fun, I like Snully's just pure exasperation at everything that happens.

Shepard's Boy by Richard Middleton. Real short one again (3 pages) but confusing. A traveler is asked by a Shepard if he saw his Son (he did not) and when he gets into town is told the Shepard's Son is long dead - or never existed to begin with? It's a bit unclear as to who isn't reliable: the Shepard or the Store Clerk, so it's hard to say what's going on outside of a tragic tale of a boy dying. Pretty meh.

Star Light, Star Bright by Alfred Bester. The intro by the Editor is interesting here as it notes that science fiction and mystery are a perfect match but not one that has been heavily explored at the time. Bester is one such explorer and this is one of his mystery/sci-fi combos that works pretty well. I'm going to butcher it terribly to save space as the mystery playing out is really well done and simply saying it doesnt do much justice.
Principal Warbeck is trying to track down one of his students (Stuart Buchanan) that has gone completely missing and gets caught up in a racket put together by two other men looking for the Buchanan family as well. The racket has something to do with inheritance but it doesnt matter - what matters is an essay Stuart wrote about his vacation that details himself and other children doing fantastical feats: teleportation, changing matter, seeing the stars on rainy days, seeing the surface of planets using self-made telescopes, and making small robots that create other robots. The Principal believes this discovery would be world shaking and he intends to find the boy and see if it's all real, quickly dragging the two conmen into his beliefs. However, quite literally all trace of the family has been erased as if it never existed - that is, until they track down and ask a moving company about where they moved them to. As the three men get closer to this location they each go missing. We see each man get transported to a starry sky where a road of light stretches into the infinite horizon, their only option being to walk its path and hope. Ahead and behind them are more people in the distance sharing their fate. We learn this is because Stuart's power is to make his wish come true - and he wished to never be found.
the book was a fun time! a neat look into 1950s short story scene and what was deemed as good enough to get into the book. I'm grateful it seemed to be frontloaded with the terrible racism and/or sexism as the stories shed that before the halfway point. not every story was a winner but the range of ideas and creativity on display was a lot of fun to read through.

[Francisco · Rating 3 out of 5]

An anthology from 1954 collecting some of the best stories from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) and edited by the editors of the magazine this is an interesting collection that reflects that magazine's editorial inclinations in the mid-50s.

The idea behind F&SF was to be more inclusive than other more "nuts and bolts" oriented SF magazines (looking at you Astounding (later Analog)) . As such there's more of an emphasis on science fiction which is more about ideas than brass tacks, and that's something I enjoy. Still this is a bit of a hit and miss anthology.

There's quite a lot of emphasis on humorous stories which very often fall flat both as parodies and as stories, however some stories are worth reading here. There's a couple of stories of what might be called "ethnographic" SF which are particularly interesting. These are The Star Gypsies by William L. Gersham in which Roma people become valued members of society in a post-apocalyptic alien world due to their survival skills and the fantastic Vandy, Vandy by Weird Tales alum Manly Wade Wellman about a balladeer looking for new songs and meeting with an immortal evil wizard in deepest Appalachia. Anthony Boucher as a friend of Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard and an occultist himself brings us a tale of humoristic demon summoning in Snulbug.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been going through bookscans.com and finding covers recalled from childhood. This is one of them--probably the first Boucher F&SF collection I ever read. Presumably, it was good as the ones I recall were. The cover, like most others, was instantly recognizable as I retained all of the paperbacks purchased in childhood until going to college. The implied threat to the blonde woman was, of course, compelling.

[Lew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of F&SF stories from 1953. If you are a fan of 50's science fiction, I would recommend this collection. Some of these stories are just fun as a reflection of life in the 50s as opposed to the overall story. Examples of a family piling into their station wagon to escape a nuclear blast or a bartender opening a can of beer with can opener (no flip tops back then).

[Wherefore Art Thou · Rating 1 out of 5]

I guess I technically read more of this than I didn’t but quite a few of these stories I read a little bit of and then skipped.

A subpar collection with few proficient writers here, and fewer enjoyable stories. Some aged very poorly.

The only one I could say stood out from the rest was the one by Ward Moore, Lot, though it’s very boomer-I-hate-my-nagging-wife-esque. I’d read that one separately and skip the rest, even if maybe two or three more were alright.

Makes you think about what stories were not chosen! Sheesh.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great vacation reading. The opening essay in this volume is especially strong. In 1953 SF took off in the public's mind as a genre. In the 5 prior years, the editors write they read EVERY SF book that as published. They offer their own definition of SF, and it's a good one.

The stories are above average, with only one that I'd call below average. Probably more lighthearted stories than is typical for this series.

Recommended.

[William Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting anthology sprinkled with some gems about time travel, alien zoos, teleportation, mind control, along with some whimsical fantasies. Makes for an enjoyable read and the content stays positive and upbeat. Some excellent writing styles!

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting short stories from the 50s.