SF: The Best of the Best

by Judith Merril (Editor), Walter M. Miller Jr. (Contributor), Theodore Sturgeon (Contributor)

Contents:
Introduction --
The hoofer / Walter M. Miller Jr. --
Bulkhead / Theodore Sturgeon --
The anything box / Zenna Henderson --
Prima belladona / J.G. Ballard --
Casey Agonistes / Richard M. McKenna --
A death in the house / Clifford D. Simak --
Space-time for springers / Fritz Leiber --
Pelt / Carol Emshwiller --
Stranger station / Damon Knight --
Satellite passage / Theodore L. Thomas --
No, no, no Rogov! / Cordwainer Smith --
Compounded interest / Mack Reynolds --
Junior / Robert Abernathy --
Sense from though divide / Mark Clifton --
Mariana / Fritz Leiber --
Plentitude / Will Worthington --
Day at the beach / Carol Emshwiller --
Let's be frank / Brian W. Aldiss --
The wonder hourse / George Byram --
Nobody bothers Gus / Algis Budrys --
The prize of peril / Robert Sheckley --
The handler / Damon Knight
The golem / Avram Davidson --
The sound sweep / J.G. Ballard --
Hickory, dickory, Kerouac / Richard Gehman --
Dreaming is a private thing / Isaac Asimov --
The public hating / Steve Allen --
You know Willie / Theodore R. Cogswell --
One ordinary day, with peanuts / Shirley Jackson.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction

438 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Josephine Juliet Grossman

aka Cyril Judd (with C.M. Kornbluth)

Judith Josephine Grossman (Boston, Massachusetts, January 21, 1923 - Toronto, Ontario, September 12, 1997), who took the pen-name Judith Merril about 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist.

Although Judith Merril's first paid writing was in other genres, in her first few years of writing published science fiction she wrote her three novels (all but the first in collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth) and some stories. Her roughly four decades in that genre also included writing 26 published short stories, and editing a similar number of anthologies.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Judith Merril edited an annual anthology for twelve years that were comprised of her selections of the best science fiction short stories of the previous year. In this book, she picked her favorites from the first five, so it's billed as Best of the Best. (Obviously, the book would just be a duplicate for anyone who had read the the series.) As always with such books, part of the fun is comparing her picks with your own and seeing how close they were. Mine weren't that terribly close, but there are some very good entries here nonetheless, by the likes of Theodore Sturgeon, Zenna Henderson, Cordwainer Smith, Richard McKenna, Carol Emshwiller, Damon Knight, Isaac Asimov, etc. My two favorites are Fritz Leiber's Space-Time For Springers and One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts by Shirley Jackson.

[Mae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorites: "Bulkhead", "The Anything Box", "Space-Time for Springers", "Mariana", "The Wonder Horse"

[Shoshana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spacetime for Springers!

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up from a canal side free book exchange, and I will pass it on in a similar fashion. These short stories were collected in 1967, and it shows. By far the best story in the collection was "The Sound Sweep", by J. G. Ballard, about someone who sweeps up old sounds and falls in love with a faded opera singer. Beautiful.
This story is cited as the inspiration for Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles.

[Dustin Reade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.