Best Science Fiction for 1972

by Frederik Pohl (editor), Doris Piserchia (Contributor), Harlan Ellison (Contributor)

Stories by Larry Niven, James Tiptree Jr., Harlan Ellison, John Brunner & others.

Genres: Science Fiction

315 pages, paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Frederik George Pohl, Jr. was an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy magazine and its sister magazine IF winning the Hugo for IF three years in a row. His writing also won him three Hugos and multiple Nebula Awards. He became a Nebula Grand Master in 1993.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

There used to be quite a few series of annual anthologies collecting various editors' choices of the best stories of the year- Carr, Wollheim, Dozois, del Rey, Merril, and so on- but I believe this volume is the only one that Pohl produced. It collects stories from 1971, and the inclusions (as well as the exclusions, but that's a different topic) show some interesting choices. There's a fine story from the under-appreciated Doris Piserchia, and a good one by James Tiptree, Jr. He included two stories by Harlan Ellison, Silent in Gehenna and the enigmatic At the Mouse Circus, and broke one of the unwritten rules of Best-Of editing (quite deservedly!) by including one of his own stories, The Gold at the Starbow's End. My favorite is the classic Larry Niven story, Inconstant Moon.

[Smokey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Often, science fiction points the way to future technologies, societies, and ways of thinking. How cool it is to be able to look back 35 years and see what some of Sci-Fi's best writers were contemplating for our current reality! My favorite stories were "Inconstant Moon," "The Sunset, 2217 AD," and "The Gold at the Starbow's End," but all are most definitely worth reading.