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The Best of C. M. Kornbluth.
A collection of 19 stories.
"The Rocket of 1955" (Stirring Science Stories 1941)
"The Words of Guru" (Stirring Science Stories 1941)
"The Only Thing We Learn" (Startling Stories 1949)
"The Adventurer" (Space Science Fiction 1953)
"The Little Black Bag" (Astounding 1950)
"The Luckiest Man in Denv" (Galaxy 1952)
"The Silly Season" (F&SF 1950)
"The Remorseful" (Ballantine Books 1953)
"Gomez" (New Worlds 1955)
"The Advent on Channel 12" (Ballantine Books 1958)
"The Marching Morons" (Galaxy 1951)
"The Last Man Left in the Bar" (Infinity 1947)
"The Mindworm" (Worlds Beyond 1950)
"With These Hands" (Galaxy 1951)
"Shark Ship" (Vanguard 1958)
"Friend to Man" (10 Story Fantasy 1951)
"The Altar at Midnight" (Galaxy 1952)
"Dominoes" (Ballantine Books 1953)
"The Rocket of 1955" (Stirring Science Stories 1941)
"The Words of Guru" (Stirring Science Stories 1941)
"The Only Thing We Learn" (Startling Stories 1949)
"The Adventurer" (Space Science Fiction 1953)
"The Little Black Bag" (Astounding 1950)
"The Luckiest Man in Denv" (Galaxy 1952)
"The Silly Season" (F&SF 1950)
"The Remorseful" (Ballantine Books 1953)
"Gomez" (New Worlds 1955)
"The Advent on Channel 12" (Ballantine Books 1958)
"The Marching Morons" (Galaxy 1951)
"The Last Man Left in the Bar" (Infinity 1947)
"The Mindworm" (Worlds Beyond 1950)
"With These Hands" (Galaxy 1951)
"Shark Ship" (Vanguard 1958)
"Friend to Man" (10 Story Fantasy 1951)
"The Altar at Midnight" (Galaxy 1952)
"Dominoes" (Ballantine Books 1953)
325 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 1976
60 people are currently reading
657 people want to read
About the author
C.M. Kornbluth
359 books85 followers
Cyril M. Kornbluth
grew up in Inwood in New York City. As a teenager, he became a member of the Futurians, the influential group of science fiction fans and writers. While a member of the Futurians, he met and became friends with Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, Donald A. Wollheim, Robert A. W. Lowndes, and his future wife Mary Byers. He also participated in the Fantasy Amateur Press Association.
Kornbluth served in the US Army during World War II (European Theatre). He received a Bronze Star for his service in the Battle of the Bulge, where he served as a member of a heavy machine gun crew. Upon his discharge, he returned to finish his education, which had been interrupted by the war, at the University of Chicago. While living in Chicago he also worked at Trans-Radio Press, a news wire service. In 1951 he started writing full time, returning to the East Coast where he collaborated on a number of novels with his old Futurian friends Frederik Pohl and Judith Merril (as Cyril Judd).
He used a variety of pen-names: Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner, Jordan Park, Arthur Cooke, Paul Dennis Lavond and Scott Mariner.
Kornbluth served in the US Army during World War II (European Theatre). He received a Bronze Star for his service in the Battle of the Bulge, where he served as a member of a heavy machine gun crew. Upon his discharge, he returned to finish his education, which had been interrupted by the war, at the University of Chicago. While living in Chicago he also worked at Trans-Radio Press, a news wire service. In 1951 he started writing full time, returning to the East Coast where he collaborated on a number of novels with his old Futurian friends Frederik Pohl and Judith Merril (as Cyril Judd).
He used a variety of pen-names: Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner, Jordan Park, Arthur Cooke, Paul Dennis Lavond and Scott Mariner.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
December 27, 2024
Sehr durchwachsen. Manches ist einfach nicht gut gealtert. Interessant fand ich die letzte Story Two Dooms das parallelen zu The Man in the High Castle hat, aber 4 Jahre vor diesem erschienen ist.
January 10, 2016
I had never heard of C.M. Kornbluth, but found this in one of the "Little Free Libraries" around town and noted the introduction by Frederik Pohl. The stories were all decidedly science fiction, but in that way that doesn't require aliens or interstellar travel. Stories set in bars and dirty apartments. Gritty stuff. What really resonated with me was this voice, from the 50s, sounding the alarm on societal concerns that seem so modern and urgent today, especially our ability to amuse ourselves to death.
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November 11, 20232.5 stars
This rating and review is specifically for the story Reap the Dark Tide. I'm not going to rate the whole book based on just this one story so I'll keep my rating here within my review and leave the book without one.
For our book club this month we are reading four classic short stories and Reap the Dark Tide is one of them. I found this story at first to be pretty boring, but it did get better as it went on. A whole section of humanity has taken to the seas on a fleet of ships and hasn't seen or set foot on land for many years. It has been rumored that no one is left on land and it is against the laws set up for the ships for them to set foot on land. Parts are scarce, and everything on the ship is recycled, so when these ships break or something is lost there is little that can be done to save them, and the crew and everyone on board is at risk of dying. The ship featured in the story ends up going through a squall and losing it's net. There is no way to replace the net and that means no way to obtain food so the crew decides to break the rule of never setting foot on land.
The story features death worshippers who in some ways reminded me of a mashup of radical Islam, radical Christians, a satanic cult, and secular humanism. I know that sounds very contradictory, but there were elements of all those in there. The founder of this religion was anti sex, anti-reproduction, fanatical about population control and pro Planned Parenthood, which he contributed to religiously along with the Hysterectomy Clinic for the purpose of controlling the population.
In general I did not really enjoy this story. I'm not a fan of the dark, dismal view of humanity that it portrayed, and I have a hard time believing that after centuries there would be little change in the structure of society and what was considered important. I do think that the story is probably meant as a warning, in the same vein as Animal Farm and 1984, but I just do not enjoy reading these types of stories.
Review also posted at Writings of a Reader
This rating and review is specifically for the story Reap the Dark Tide. I'm not going to rate the whole book based on just this one story so I'll keep my rating here within my review and leave the book without one.
For our book club this month we are reading four classic short stories and Reap the Dark Tide is one of them. I found this story at first to be pretty boring, but it did get better as it went on. A whole section of humanity has taken to the seas on a fleet of ships and hasn't seen or set foot on land for many years. It has been rumored that no one is left on land and it is against the laws set up for the ships for them to set foot on land. Parts are scarce, and everything on the ship is recycled, so when these ships break or something is lost there is little that can be done to save them, and the crew and everyone on board is at risk of dying. The ship featured in the story ends up going through a squall and losing it's net. There is no way to replace the net and that means no way to obtain food so the crew decides to break the rule of never setting foot on land.
The story features death worshippers who in some ways reminded me of a mashup of radical Islam, radical Christians, a satanic cult, and secular humanism. I know that sounds very contradictory, but there were elements of all those in there. The founder of this religion was anti sex, anti-reproduction, fanatical about population control and pro Planned Parenthood, which he contributed to religiously along with the Hysterectomy Clinic for the purpose of controlling the population.
In general I did not really enjoy this story. I'm not a fan of the dark, dismal view of humanity that it portrayed, and I have a hard time believing that after centuries there would be little change in the structure of society and what was considered important. I do think that the story is probably meant as a warning, in the same vein as Animal Farm and 1984, but I just do not enjoy reading these types of stories.
Review also posted at Writings of a Reader
May 30, 2025
Check out a discussion on this collection of short stories with Matt and Richard HERE.
This is a fantastic “Ballantine Best of” collection of short stories, one of my favorites. Kornbluth wrote an incredible range of stories, with so many different ideas, themes, genres and styles. He also had a great economy of prose with some of these stories only being a few pages long, yet they felt fulfilling. Kornbluth died way too young, but at least we still got a good number of stories to read. Highly recommended.
Some of my favorites are:
The Little Black Bag
The Marching Morons
Gomez
Two Dooms
The Mindworm
Dominoes
The Luckiest Man in Denv
The Words of Guru
This is a fantastic “Ballantine Best of” collection of short stories, one of my favorites. Kornbluth wrote an incredible range of stories, with so many different ideas, themes, genres and styles. He also had a great economy of prose with some of these stories only being a few pages long, yet they felt fulfilling. Kornbluth died way too young, but at least we still got a good number of stories to read. Highly recommended.
Some of my favorites are:
The Little Black Bag
The Marching Morons
Gomez
Two Dooms
The Mindworm
Dominoes
The Luckiest Man in Denv
The Words of Guru
December 24, 2015
I had previously rated this 4 stars, have now raised it to 5. The reason? Not only the best-known stories like "The Little Black Bag" and "The Marching Morons", or even the Irving Klaw-inspired world of "Shark Ship", but the way that these stories have stuck with me over the years. I first read this when it came out in the '70s, have re-read it once or twice since, and many of these stories are ones that come to mind regularly.
September 30, 2020
A month ago I read a short story collection of collaborations between Kornbluth and Frederick Pohl, billed as/titled Our Best. While many of those collaborations were pretty good, Kornbluth’s solo efforts in The Best of CM Kornbluth (edited by Frederick Pohl!) were superior. In Kornbluth’s short life (he died at age 34 of heart failure, in part due to an injury suffered while a soldier in WWII), he wrote/co-wrote eight novels and a plethora of short stories for science fiction pulp magazines (Galaxy, Astounding, Venture, et al.).
He and his frequent collaborator Frederick Pohl had been friends beginning in the 30s when both were high school science fiction fans. After the war, in the early 50s, both would work together to write a string of novels, the most successful a dystopian adventure/satire on consumerism and capitalism from the perspective of marketing and advertising called The Space Merchants (published in magazine form first as The Gravy Planet). When I was a young teen, this novel, then the subsequent encounter with Kornbluth’s “The Marching Morons” in some SF anthology, impressed me with the author’s underlying sardonic savvy.
Something in the climate of the moment spurred an interest in “The Marching Morons”, and I’ve begun a bit of a Kornbluth reconnaissance, since at this stage I know too little to do a retrospective. (This has included reading the forementioned Our Best, Presidential Year, and this best-of anthology; on tap is another solo novel, Not This August, a contemporary—ie, Cold War era—Russia-defeats-US scenario.)
The stories in this collection are consistently good—solid commercial efforts, well crafted, clever, and sardonic. One trait that Kornbluth seems unable to disguise/banish is a scorn/disdain for humanity in general. Kornbluth comes across as a misanthrope, but the opprobrium is aimed more at the masses or the individuals who too easily adopt blindly the banalities, falsehoods, and pablum they’re fed by media, politicians, and advertising. A corollary conception inherent in his work is the idea that it is the stupid and paranoid individual—always on guard that he/she might be hornswoggled—who resorts to cunning and connivance.
Two of the short stories in this volume were published in 1941, before Kornbluth joined the military. Both display the same canny awareness/disdain for the common man’s vaunted meanness (where “mean” denotes mediocrity, crudeness of thought, and wary incivility). “The Rocket of 1955” is narrated by a conman whose scheme has failed (several people died) and is about to be lynched. “The Words of Guru” is a disturbing first-person self-portrait of a schizophrenic psychopath who believes himself capable of destroying the world.
Kornbluth doesn’t hit his full stride as a writer until the 50s, after a few semesters at the University of Chicago, then a short run as a newspaper journalist. These stories span less than a decade, so are very uniform in quality and theme. The best of them are “The Little Black Bag”, “The Silly Season”, “Gomez”, and “Two Dooms”. “The Little Black Bag” was adapted as an episode on the late 50s/early 60s tv show The Twilight Zone, its nasty-but-fitting twist ending in perfect sync with Rod Serling’s crepuscular, shades-of-grey perception of man and society. In this story, a washed-up alcoholic ex-doctor stumbles on a GP’s medical kit, but this kit is from the future and includes instructions and tools that allow even a moron to be a great physician and surgeon. The doctor initially wants to pawn the kit, then discovers how easily he can mend the ill, and after winning back his self-esteem (and earning some good money), he is ready to give over the bag to medical experts. His greedy assistant/nurse thinks otherwise, kills him with a scalpel from the bag, and then—in a demonstration of another instrument’s safety to a potential patient—kills herself (the reason being that though the bag has traveled in time, it’s still being monitored, and when it’s perceived that the bag is misused, its functionality is terminated). With a newspaperman’s perspective over a five-year period, “The Silly Season” uses the boy-who-cried-wolf theme to show how an alien invasion on earth is made successful by being ignored as just another crazy news story. “Gomez” is an interesting departure into a sympathetic portrayal of a good, intelligent individual, a 17-year-old Puerto Rican dishwasher who’s a self-taught math and physics prodigy. When the military sequester and demand of him nothing but work and loyalty, Gomez initially is mentally stimulated and feverishly arrives at the grail of modern physics, the unified field theory. After a weekend leave to see his girlfriend, Gomez rethinks his relation with the military. After an accident appears to make him neuro-typical, the military releases him. The narrator recounts a final incident several months later that slyly shows Gomez had lost nothing of mental acumen. “Two Dooms” does some magic realism, alternate reality/history through a Hopi mescaline trip, and the protagonist—a functionary in the development of the A-bomb at Los Alamos in the early 40s—lives through a timeline when the A-bomb had not been developed and the United States is divided and controlled geographically by German and Japanese forces.
Kornbluth’s most famous story, “The Marching Morons”, is a fuller development of the background behind “The Little Black Bag.” In the future, the world is overrun with morons, and it is an intellectual minority that must keep the world running smoothly so that the populace doesn’t self destruct. This story is uneven in tone, and it begins with some very good realistic background, then shifts into a more conventional pulp-fiction narrative, with minimal detail and stock characterization. The story ends with an invocation of the lemmings myth, that when over-populated, they (or a large majority of them) will willingly fling themselves into the sea. This story’s premise—that the average intelligence of the general population will decrease over time because it is the less intelligent who breed most—is, as Kornbluth suggests, Malthusian in its negative implications.
This collection is entertaining and reveals at the back of these commercially-crafted stories an intelligent skeptic of modernity and mass man. The entire 20th century, when for the first time a country’s entire populace is educated and given a voice in its governance, serves as evidence that large populations are not driven by rational, intelligent concerns, hence the fascistic totalitarian demagogue. We would do well to heed Kornbluth’s intimations that mass education is not a sufficient bulwark against the disaffection, the low cunning, and the irrationality of the masses.
He and his frequent collaborator Frederick Pohl had been friends beginning in the 30s when both were high school science fiction fans. After the war, in the early 50s, both would work together to write a string of novels, the most successful a dystopian adventure/satire on consumerism and capitalism from the perspective of marketing and advertising called The Space Merchants (published in magazine form first as The Gravy Planet). When I was a young teen, this novel, then the subsequent encounter with Kornbluth’s “The Marching Morons” in some SF anthology, impressed me with the author’s underlying sardonic savvy.
Something in the climate of the moment spurred an interest in “The Marching Morons”, and I’ve begun a bit of a Kornbluth reconnaissance, since at this stage I know too little to do a retrospective. (This has included reading the forementioned Our Best, Presidential Year, and this best-of anthology; on tap is another solo novel, Not This August, a contemporary—ie, Cold War era—Russia-defeats-US scenario.)
The stories in this collection are consistently good—solid commercial efforts, well crafted, clever, and sardonic. One trait that Kornbluth seems unable to disguise/banish is a scorn/disdain for humanity in general. Kornbluth comes across as a misanthrope, but the opprobrium is aimed more at the masses or the individuals who too easily adopt blindly the banalities, falsehoods, and pablum they’re fed by media, politicians, and advertising. A corollary conception inherent in his work is the idea that it is the stupid and paranoid individual—always on guard that he/she might be hornswoggled—who resorts to cunning and connivance.
Two of the short stories in this volume were published in 1941, before Kornbluth joined the military. Both display the same canny awareness/disdain for the common man’s vaunted meanness (where “mean” denotes mediocrity, crudeness of thought, and wary incivility). “The Rocket of 1955” is narrated by a conman whose scheme has failed (several people died) and is about to be lynched. “The Words of Guru” is a disturbing first-person self-portrait of a schizophrenic psychopath who believes himself capable of destroying the world.
Kornbluth doesn’t hit his full stride as a writer until the 50s, after a few semesters at the University of Chicago, then a short run as a newspaper journalist. These stories span less than a decade, so are very uniform in quality and theme. The best of them are “The Little Black Bag”, “The Silly Season”, “Gomez”, and “Two Dooms”. “The Little Black Bag” was adapted as an episode on the late 50s/early 60s tv show The Twilight Zone, its nasty-but-fitting twist ending in perfect sync with Rod Serling’s crepuscular, shades-of-grey perception of man and society. In this story, a washed-up alcoholic ex-doctor stumbles on a GP’s medical kit, but this kit is from the future and includes instructions and tools that allow even a moron to be a great physician and surgeon. The doctor initially wants to pawn the kit, then discovers how easily he can mend the ill, and after winning back his self-esteem (and earning some good money), he is ready to give over the bag to medical experts. His greedy assistant/nurse thinks otherwise, kills him with a scalpel from the bag, and then—in a demonstration of another instrument’s safety to a potential patient—kills herself (the reason being that though the bag has traveled in time, it’s still being monitored, and when it’s perceived that the bag is misused, its functionality is terminated). With a newspaperman’s perspective over a five-year period, “The Silly Season” uses the boy-who-cried-wolf theme to show how an alien invasion on earth is made successful by being ignored as just another crazy news story. “Gomez” is an interesting departure into a sympathetic portrayal of a good, intelligent individual, a 17-year-old Puerto Rican dishwasher who’s a self-taught math and physics prodigy. When the military sequester and demand of him nothing but work and loyalty, Gomez initially is mentally stimulated and feverishly arrives at the grail of modern physics, the unified field theory. After a weekend leave to see his girlfriend, Gomez rethinks his relation with the military. After an accident appears to make him neuro-typical, the military releases him. The narrator recounts a final incident several months later that slyly shows Gomez had lost nothing of mental acumen. “Two Dooms” does some magic realism, alternate reality/history through a Hopi mescaline trip, and the protagonist—a functionary in the development of the A-bomb at Los Alamos in the early 40s—lives through a timeline when the A-bomb had not been developed and the United States is divided and controlled geographically by German and Japanese forces.
Kornbluth’s most famous story, “The Marching Morons”, is a fuller development of the background behind “The Little Black Bag.” In the future, the world is overrun with morons, and it is an intellectual minority that must keep the world running smoothly so that the populace doesn’t self destruct. This story is uneven in tone, and it begins with some very good realistic background, then shifts into a more conventional pulp-fiction narrative, with minimal detail and stock characterization. The story ends with an invocation of the lemmings myth, that when over-populated, they (or a large majority of them) will willingly fling themselves into the sea. This story’s premise—that the average intelligence of the general population will decrease over time because it is the less intelligent who breed most—is, as Kornbluth suggests, Malthusian in its negative implications.
This collection is entertaining and reveals at the back of these commercially-crafted stories an intelligent skeptic of modernity and mass man. The entire 20th century, when for the first time a country’s entire populace is educated and given a voice in its governance, serves as evidence that large populations are not driven by rational, intelligent concerns, hence the fascistic totalitarian demagogue. We would do well to heed Kornbluth’s intimations that mass education is not a sufficient bulwark against the disaffection, the low cunning, and the irrationality of the masses.
June 22, 2014
I first read The Best of C. M. Kornluth more than 30 years ago and loved it. I haven't been back to it since because I was worried I might not enjoy it as much but I need not have worried. I loved it again.
The book and each story have an introduction from his friend Frederik Pohl. All the stories were written between 1941 and 1958, the year he died. Most, if not all the stories as set on Earth and written in a style that seems a little dated today but you have to take that into account. I think Pohl sums it up in his introduction to The Luckiest Man in Denv, "One of the words most applicable to Kornbluth's work is "economical" ... The Luckiest Man in Denv contains 6 major characters, almost as many plot twists, a working model of a whole new social structure and a germ of a textbook's worth of warning about the waste of scarce resources ... all in five thousand words!"
But what of the stories themselves:
The Rocket of 1955 is a clever little 2 page stories which I loved but can't say anything about as it will ruin it.
The Adventurer is a case of be careful what you wish for where America is a "republic" where the son inherits leadership
of the country from his father and a silent revolution.
The Little Black Bag takes medicine in the future where healing is something anyone can to and sends it into the past to a doctor who means well but doesn't have a good reputation.
The Luckiest Man in Denv looks at a man trying to move up in the world.
The Silly Season is about the crazy days of a slow news summer in a news paper office. A boy who cried wolf story.
Gomez a wonderful story of an ordinary guy who is a self taught genius and how he gets recognition and his fall.
The Advent of Channel 12 may or may not takes a shot at television and how it impacts children.
The Marching Morons goes back to a theme in The Little Black Bag where in the future where most people are uneducated and lived a life of leisure and a small minority do the work and leading. A world I hope we never see, but Kornbluth makes very real.
The Mindworm is a good story about an orphan who has strange powers.
Shark Ship is a tale of the future where people live in fleets of ship surviving of the bounty of the sea, never making land fall. However if you can't fish you are thrown out of the fleet and left to survive on your own.
The Alter At Midnight has a man many consider a hero, but has caused suffering to other and this is about an evening with one he has hurt.
Dominos a time travel story about trying to profit from the future. Read similar, but loved this one.
Two Dooms an alternative history story about if the alies had lost the second world war. Its been done before but I don't think this well.
Yes there were a few duds in the book, there always are but they are far out weighed but the great stories.
Kornbluth died at the age of 34, I wonder how many more gems he could have produce. A talent taken before his time.
The book and each story have an introduction from his friend Frederik Pohl. All the stories were written between 1941 and 1958, the year he died. Most, if not all the stories as set on Earth and written in a style that seems a little dated today but you have to take that into account. I think Pohl sums it up in his introduction to The Luckiest Man in Denv, "One of the words most applicable to Kornbluth's work is "economical" ... The Luckiest Man in Denv contains 6 major characters, almost as many plot twists, a working model of a whole new social structure and a germ of a textbook's worth of warning about the waste of scarce resources ... all in five thousand words!"
But what of the stories themselves:
The Rocket of 1955 is a clever little 2 page stories which I loved but can't say anything about as it will ruin it.
The Adventurer is a case of be careful what you wish for where America is a "republic" where the son inherits leadership
of the country from his father and a silent revolution.
The Little Black Bag takes medicine in the future where healing is something anyone can to and sends it into the past to a doctor who means well but doesn't have a good reputation.
The Luckiest Man in Denv looks at a man trying to move up in the world.
The Silly Season is about the crazy days of a slow news summer in a news paper office. A boy who cried wolf story.
Gomez a wonderful story of an ordinary guy who is a self taught genius and how he gets recognition and his fall.
The Advent of Channel 12 may or may not takes a shot at television and how it impacts children.
The Marching Morons goes back to a theme in The Little Black Bag where in the future where most people are uneducated and lived a life of leisure and a small minority do the work and leading. A world I hope we never see, but Kornbluth makes very real.
The Mindworm is a good story about an orphan who has strange powers.
Shark Ship is a tale of the future where people live in fleets of ship surviving of the bounty of the sea, never making land fall. However if you can't fish you are thrown out of the fleet and left to survive on your own.
The Alter At Midnight has a man many consider a hero, but has caused suffering to other and this is about an evening with one he has hurt.
Dominos a time travel story about trying to profit from the future. Read similar, but loved this one.
Two Dooms an alternative history story about if the alies had lost the second world war. Its been done before but I don't think this well.
Yes there were a few duds in the book, there always are but they are far out weighed but the great stories.
Kornbluth died at the age of 34, I wonder how many more gems he could have produce. A talent taken before his time.
June 11, 2012
Surprisingly, all of the stories were of mediocre quality with the exception of The Little Black Bag. I listened to an old audiobook edition so perhaps it was the poor quality of the recording which was partly blame.
June 12, 2024
The Rocket of 1955 - 4/5 - Very short story that feels ahead of it's time. It was written in 1941 and has a very pleasant surprise within it's 2 pages
The Words of Guru - 3.5/5 - More of a fantasy horror story that I enjoyed. It was a little too vague with what was going on for me to really love it though
The Only Thing We Learn - 4/5 - Far future story where a lecturer is giving a history lesson to some military cadets about a far past engagement that is still our modern far future
The Adventurer - 4/5 - Earth is separated into two distinct government bodies and have extended their territories into space. It's impressive how many concepts he got into this story considering it wasn't too long
The Little Black Bag - 3.5/5 - Decent concept that needed a little more depth. Has a fantastic ending
The Luckiest Man in Denv - 4.5/5 - Fits in incredible amount of story in such a small package. It shares a theme or two from a few others but I found this to be masterfully done
The Silly Season - 5/5 - An extremely clever story that is only really hindered by it feeling dated now that we have cellphones with cameras and the internet
The Remorseful - 4/5 - Very short story about presumably the last man on Earth and how he is basically insane
Gomez - 4/5 - Story about a young kid who is a mathematical genius whom the government tries to use for war purposes. Has the typical Kornbluth cynicism for most of it but the ending is quite pleasant and there is a clever little twist that would later be seen in as a side plot in a Seinfeld episode. I don't know if they "stole" the idea or if it was a very obscure bit of parallel thinking but it wasn't the major point of the episode so I don't think it matters much either way
The Advent on Channel 12 - 4/5 - A tear down of Micky Mouse and all other childhood commercial idols
The Marching Morons - 5/5 - Man finds himself transported to a future where the majority of people are supremely stupid. Funny satire
The Last Man Left in the Bar - 2/5 - One of those stories that feels very of it's time. Add to it that it's fairly vague on what is happening I just could not get into it
The Mindworm - 5/5 - Without spoiling anything I will say this is a horror/SF story that is very much my kind of story
With These Hands - 4/5 - Nice story about art in the future when we have created machines that can make art more cheaply and efficiently than artists of the past. Even though in the story it's not AI that is doing it, it still works very as a commentary our lives today
Shark Ship - 5/5 - Really interesting dystopia about generations of humans who live on gigantic ships but are forced to go back to land
Friend to Man - 4.5/5 - A great short alien story. Takes a turn at the end that pushes it to the next level
The Altar at Midnight - 3/5 - A look at the mentality of the blue-collar worker who has to work in space
Dominoes - 4/5 - A short and clever time travel story around the stock exchange
Two Dooms - 4.5/5 - Interesting alternate history story surrounding WWII and if the Germans and Japanese had won the war
The Words of Guru - 3.5/5 - More of a fantasy horror story that I enjoyed. It was a little too vague with what was going on for me to really love it though
The Only Thing We Learn - 4/5 - Far future story where a lecturer is giving a history lesson to some military cadets about a far past engagement that is still our modern far future
The Adventurer - 4/5 - Earth is separated into two distinct government bodies and have extended their territories into space. It's impressive how many concepts he got into this story considering it wasn't too long
The Little Black Bag - 3.5/5 - Decent concept that needed a little more depth. Has a fantastic ending
The Luckiest Man in Denv - 4.5/5 - Fits in incredible amount of story in such a small package. It shares a theme or two from a few others but I found this to be masterfully done
The Silly Season - 5/5 - An extremely clever story that is only really hindered by it feeling dated now that we have cellphones with cameras and the internet
The Remorseful - 4/5 - Very short story about presumably the last man on Earth and how he is basically insane
Gomez - 4/5 - Story about a young kid who is a mathematical genius whom the government tries to use for war purposes. Has the typical Kornbluth cynicism for most of it but the ending is quite pleasant and there is a clever little twist that would later be seen in as a side plot in a Seinfeld episode. I don't know if they "stole" the idea or if it was a very obscure bit of parallel thinking but it wasn't the major point of the episode so I don't think it matters much either way
The Advent on Channel 12 - 4/5 - A tear down of Micky Mouse and all other childhood commercial idols
The Marching Morons - 5/5 - Man finds himself transported to a future where the majority of people are supremely stupid. Funny satire
The Last Man Left in the Bar - 2/5 - One of those stories that feels very of it's time. Add to it that it's fairly vague on what is happening I just could not get into it
The Mindworm - 5/5 - Without spoiling anything I will say this is a horror/SF story that is very much my kind of story
With These Hands - 4/5 - Nice story about art in the future when we have created machines that can make art more cheaply and efficiently than artists of the past. Even though in the story it's not AI that is doing it, it still works very as a commentary our lives today
Shark Ship - 5/5 - Really interesting dystopia about generations of humans who live on gigantic ships but are forced to go back to land
Friend to Man - 4.5/5 - A great short alien story. Takes a turn at the end that pushes it to the next level
The Altar at Midnight - 3/5 - A look at the mentality of the blue-collar worker who has to work in space
Dominoes - 4/5 - A short and clever time travel story around the stock exchange
Two Dooms - 4.5/5 - Interesting alternate history story surrounding WWII and if the Germans and Japanese had won the war
September 6, 2007
One of several books I've been juggling over the past month, The Best of C.M. Kornbluth is very good, if somewhat depressing science fiction. Think Philip K. Dick with a 50's sensibility and a bit more wry humour. Like Dick, his career was also cut short, but by death, not mental illness.
Kornbluth's best-known works - "The Marching Morons" and "The Little Black Bag" - posit a future where intelligence has been bred out of humanity for the most part, and the super-brains are run ragged caring for society. Robocop's "I'd buy that for a dollar!" is almost certainly a homage to TMM, while TLBB seems ready-made for a Twilight Zone episode *. "The Only Thing We Learn" and "The Luckiest Man in Denv" assume a hierarchical future society, both stories ending with a twist. Speaking of twists, even with my Disney obsession, I found "The Advent on Channel 12" darkly amusing.
The final story in this collection "Two Dooms" was my least favorite, as it is both dated (as are some of the other stories) and disturbingly racist - similar to Heinlein's The Sixth Column. However, I do recommend checking out some of Kornbluth's short stories & am looking forward to finding some of his novels.
* and after a quick Google search, I confirmed that it was an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery (a short-lived TZ spinoff?) I can definitely see Burgess Meredith as the doctor.... (References: http://www.ithaca.edu/library/archive... -- http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/...)
Kornbluth's best-known works - "The Marching Morons" and "The Little Black Bag" - posit a future where intelligence has been bred out of humanity for the most part, and the super-brains are run ragged caring for society. Robocop's "I'd buy that for a dollar!" is almost certainly a homage to TMM, while TLBB seems ready-made for a Twilight Zone episode *. "The Only Thing We Learn" and "The Luckiest Man in Denv" assume a hierarchical future society, both stories ending with a twist. Speaking of twists, even with my Disney obsession, I found "The Advent on Channel 12" darkly amusing.
The final story in this collection "Two Dooms" was my least favorite, as it is both dated (as are some of the other stories) and disturbingly racist - similar to Heinlein's The Sixth Column. However, I do recommend checking out some of Kornbluth's short stories & am looking forward to finding some of his novels.
* and after a quick Google search, I confirmed that it was an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery (a short-lived TZ spinoff?) I can definitely see Burgess Meredith as the doctor.... (References: http://www.ithaca.edu/library/archive... -- http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/...)
January 28, 2021
One more story to go when I get back from this trip. Then I have to fix the blurb, because none of these editions are ebooks and all have more than two stories.
My review is not likely to change:
Apparently I used to have a stronger stomach. Some of these are familiar, but I don't remember disliking them as much as I do now. I guess they're clever and all that, but I can't recommend them as they're not only overly misanthropic but the perspective is also dated. You have too many other wonderful books to read; skip this.
Ok Done. And you know what, I don't want to fix the entry. It's just not worth it. Ugh.
My review is not likely to change:
Apparently I used to have a stronger stomach. Some of these are familiar, but I don't remember disliking them as much as I do now. I guess they're clever and all that, but I can't recommend them as they're not only overly misanthropic but the perspective is also dated. You have too many other wonderful books to read; skip this.
Ok Done. And you know what, I don't want to fix the entry. It's just not worth it. Ugh.
December 31, 2024
Fantastic classic collection of sci-fi short stories by one of the all-timers! Amazing how well these have aged, or not at all! Highly recommended!
May 31, 2020
(tagged this one by accident, read another edition, commented there, repeating comment here)
I'm a fan of Silver and Golden Age science fiction and fantasy. The experimentation blended high literary values, the positing of great themes with vivid imagination, authors not raised on television so their work was sensory without being mind-numbingly visual...
I remember C.M. Kornbluth's work from childhood and some of the stories in here are gems. The Little Black Bag became a classic TZ episode and may have been repeated in other TZ incarnations. The Marching Morons is classic, as is The Mindworm. With These Hands is among the best SF as Literature you'll come across.
But Kornbluth's stories in particular show their age, show they were product, not art (I don't object to product, merely recognize the difference between a velvet Elvis and the Mona Lisa).
Shark Ship is an incredible atmospheric piece. Until you get about seven or so pages from the end. I stopped reading to figure out if there was a printing error, the shift is so abrupt I didn't know what I was reading. Worse, it starts a 2-3 page expository lump that does nothing for the story.
There's a few gems in here, and if this is the best of, I shake my head. I'm sure he produced better than these. The Best of C.M. Kornbluth is a good read for genre historians, a few stories are genuine good reads, but I wouldn't recommend it for the average reader today.
I'm a fan of Silver and Golden Age science fiction and fantasy. The experimentation blended high literary values, the positing of great themes with vivid imagination, authors not raised on television so their work was sensory without being mind-numbingly visual...
I remember C.M. Kornbluth's work from childhood and some of the stories in here are gems. The Little Black Bag became a classic TZ episode and may have been repeated in other TZ incarnations. The Marching Morons is classic, as is The Mindworm. With These Hands is among the best SF as Literature you'll come across.
But Kornbluth's stories in particular show their age, show they were product, not art (I don't object to product, merely recognize the difference between a velvet Elvis and the Mona Lisa).
Shark Ship is an incredible atmospheric piece. Until you get about seven or so pages from the end. I stopped reading to figure out if there was a printing error, the shift is so abrupt I didn't know what I was reading. Worse, it starts a 2-3 page expository lump that does nothing for the story.
There's a few gems in here, and if this is the best of, I shake my head. I'm sure he produced better than these. The Best of C.M. Kornbluth is a good read for genre historians, a few stories are genuine good reads, but I wouldn't recommend it for the average reader today.
November 30, 2019
A collection of C. M. Kornbluth's best short stories as collected and introduced by frequent collaborator, Frederik Pohl.
I like Kornbluth and these are some of his best stories but I find it's difficult to read this many in quick succession. He often expresses a very cynical and depressing outlook that wears after a while. Though, to be fair, there are a few optimistic stories to found here. They are all well-written and make you think, which is all you can ask for from any short story.
This volume includes The Little Black Bag and The Marching Morons, which take place in the literary predecessor to the cinematic universe of Idiocracy. Similar ideas, but these stories are less designed to make you laugh than to make you cringe with horror.
Also included is Kornbluth's very last short story, "Two Dooms" (aka The Doomsman). It tells the story of a physicist reluctantly working on the Manhattan project who is dosed with hallucinogenic mushrooms and transported 100 years into an alternate timeline where Germany and Japan have won WWII.
Overall, recommended for anyone wanting to read an important chunk of science fiction history.
I like Kornbluth and these are some of his best stories but I find it's difficult to read this many in quick succession. He often expresses a very cynical and depressing outlook that wears after a while. Though, to be fair, there are a few optimistic stories to found here. They are all well-written and make you think, which is all you can ask for from any short story.
This volume includes The Little Black Bag and The Marching Morons, which take place in the literary predecessor to the cinematic universe of Idiocracy. Similar ideas, but these stories are less designed to make you laugh than to make you cringe with horror.
Also included is Kornbluth's very last short story, "Two Dooms" (aka The Doomsman). It tells the story of a physicist reluctantly working on the Manhattan project who is dosed with hallucinogenic mushrooms and transported 100 years into an alternate timeline where Germany and Japan have won WWII.
Overall, recommended for anyone wanting to read an important chunk of science fiction history.
August 14, 2010
I've not read very much of Cyril Kornbluth's work but this collection won me over. Kornbluth's writing is humorous, sarcastic and revels in the stupidity of the human species (in one or two stories, the idea that stupid people are outbreeding the intelligentsia are actively explored). Kornbluth collaborated with Fred Pohl extensively in his fairly short life and Pohl's introductions to the stories show a warmth to his friend and offer some interesting notes on the stories themselves. Definitely worth reading.
June 27, 2009
its hard to rate a book of short stories but the best of these stories are as good as any fantasy/science fiction from the 50's. Kornbluth has a very cynical view of mankind but he dramatizes his dramatizes his cyncism he isn't preachy. He's a bit like Ambrose Bierce in that way.
Died to early, worth reading marching morons, little black bag and the mindworm are the best of the bunch.
Died to early, worth reading marching morons, little black bag and the mindworm are the best of the bunch.
January 2, 2018
I had never read Kornbluth before but was highly impressed with stories like "Little Black Bag" and "Gomez." Kornbluth does a great job at characterization. His characters feel like real people. I also enjoyed the not-so-subtle points of many of these stories. Great read! Highly recommend!
October 9, 2012
Here is an overlooked writing talent. I'm obsessed now. Totally my kind of thing.
Read
August 5, 2023Not rating the book; I just read one story tonight and this will go back on my shelf for a while.
Silly Season is a slow building story about a newspaper wire service reporter and some oddball stories that show up every summer for a while. The first one involves shining domes the size of houses that appear in a field outside a little Arkansas town. Lots of people see them, and a marshal dies after touching one, but the local stringer who happens to be blind says there was nothing there - he can tell when he's near something the size of a building, and when he was taken to the domes, he sensed nothing there. It's a big story, and people start spotting the things all over the place before the summer ends and the news fills up with normal stuff about football and crime and politics. Something similar happens the next summer and gets quite a bit of attention but not quite as much, and again the following year with not much attention at all. The blind stringer recognizes the pattern before anyone else. It's deliberate, meant to lull people into not noticing or believing in the real threat when it finally arrives.
It's all told in that classic 1950s science fiction style that's like putting on a comfortable old sweater to me.
I pulled the old paperback off the shelf because of a weird AI chat. I'd been trying to remember a story I read in the 60s, about someone who visited a leper colony and hugged all the lepers, the twist being that he was infecting them with something much worse that would kill them all. I got nowhere with Google so I asked the bot, which instantly replied that it was a 1959 short story called "The Leper" by "Steve Kornbluth," and gave a bit of English class type analysis of the themes. I thought it was odd that the first name was wrong but dug out the book to read the story. Nope. Kornbluth never wrote a story with that title. I went back to the bot and asked where I could read that story, and it apologized, saying it doesn't actually exist. So I'm left with the question about the short story I read 50 years ago, and a reminder to check sources, which seems fitting with the theme of Silly Season.
Silly Season is a slow building story about a newspaper wire service reporter and some oddball stories that show up every summer for a while. The first one involves shining domes the size of houses that appear in a field outside a little Arkansas town. Lots of people see them, and a marshal dies after touching one, but the local stringer who happens to be blind says there was nothing there - he can tell when he's near something the size of a building, and when he was taken to the domes, he sensed nothing there. It's a big story, and people start spotting the things all over the place before the summer ends and the news fills up with normal stuff about football and crime and politics. Something similar happens the next summer and gets quite a bit of attention but not quite as much, and again the following year with not much attention at all. The blind stringer recognizes the pattern before anyone else. It's deliberate, meant to lull people into not noticing or believing in the real threat when it finally arrives.
It's all told in that classic 1950s science fiction style that's like putting on a comfortable old sweater to me.
I pulled the old paperback off the shelf because of a weird AI chat. I'd been trying to remember a story I read in the 60s, about someone who visited a leper colony and hugged all the lepers, the twist being that he was infecting them with something much worse that would kill them all. I got nowhere with Google so I asked the bot, which instantly replied that it was a 1959 short story called "The Leper" by "Steve Kornbluth," and gave a bit of English class type analysis of the themes. I thought it was odd that the first name was wrong but dug out the book to read the story. Nope. Kornbluth never wrote a story with that title. I went back to the bot and asked where I could read that story, and it apologized, saying it doesn't actually exist. So I'm left with the question about the short story I read 50 years ago, and a reminder to check sources, which seems fitting with the theme of Silly Season.
May 31, 2020
I'm a fan of Silver and Golden Age science fiction and fantasy. The experimentation blended high literary values, the positing of great themes with vivid imagination, authors not raised on television so their work was sensory without being mind-numbingly visual...
I remember C.M. Kornbluth's work from childhood and some of the stories in here are gems. The Little Black Bag became a classic TZ episode and may have been repeated in other TZ incarnations. The Marching Morons is classic, as is The Mindworm. With These Hands is among the best SF as Literature you'll come across.
But Kornbluth's stories in particular show their age, show they were product, not art (I don't object to product, merely recognize the difference between a velvet Elvis and the Mona Lisa).
Shark Ship is an incredible atmospheric piece. Until you get about seven or so pages from the end. I stopped reading to figure out if there was a printing error, the shift is so abrupt I didn't know what I was reading. Worse, it starts a 2-3 page expository lump that does nothing for the story.
There's a few gems in here, and if this is the best of, I shake my head. I'm sure he produced better than these. The Best of C.M. Kornbluth is a good read for genre historians, a few stories are genuine good reads, but I wouldn't recommend it for the average reader today.
I remember C.M. Kornbluth's work from childhood and some of the stories in here are gems. The Little Black Bag became a classic TZ episode and may have been repeated in other TZ incarnations. The Marching Morons is classic, as is The Mindworm. With These Hands is among the best SF as Literature you'll come across.
But Kornbluth's stories in particular show their age, show they were product, not art (I don't object to product, merely recognize the difference between a velvet Elvis and the Mona Lisa).
Shark Ship is an incredible atmospheric piece. Until you get about seven or so pages from the end. I stopped reading to figure out if there was a printing error, the shift is so abrupt I didn't know what I was reading. Worse, it starts a 2-3 page expository lump that does nothing for the story.
There's a few gems in here, and if this is the best of, I shake my head. I'm sure he produced better than these. The Best of C.M. Kornbluth is a good read for genre historians, a few stories are genuine good reads, but I wouldn't recommend it for the average reader today.
September 29, 2022
There’s no accounting for taste!
C.M. Kornbluth just isn’t for me I suppose. My favorite thing about this collection is the cover. It’s beautiful and a peak representation of classic science fiction. My second favorite thing about this collection is “The Little Black Bag”, which I had previously read in Dangerous Visions. My third favorite thing about his collection was finishing it. Ouch. Sic burn.
I found the writing to be disjointed and jarring, I never could adjust to the rhythm. Usually with short story collections, almost always, I rate each story. I can’t do that here because I read this book a month or two ago and I have literally forgotten every story. Do I have early onset dementia? Perhaps. Still, it’s not a great sign.
Let’s finish with a positive! Kornbluth died when he was 34? Let’s imagine a world where he lived much longer and continued to improve as a writer.
Story-6, Language-6, Ideas-7, Characters-6, Enjoyment-6, Overall-6.2
C.M. Kornbluth just isn’t for me I suppose. My favorite thing about this collection is the cover. It’s beautiful and a peak representation of classic science fiction. My second favorite thing about this collection is “The Little Black Bag”, which I had previously read in Dangerous Visions. My third favorite thing about his collection was finishing it. Ouch. Sic burn.
I found the writing to be disjointed and jarring, I never could adjust to the rhythm. Usually with short story collections, almost always, I rate each story. I can’t do that here because I read this book a month or two ago and I have literally forgotten every story. Do I have early onset dementia? Perhaps. Still, it’s not a great sign.
Let’s finish with a positive! Kornbluth died when he was 34? Let’s imagine a world where he lived much longer and continued to improve as a writer.
Story-6, Language-6, Ideas-7, Characters-6, Enjoyment-6, Overall-6.2
June 23, 2020
I was pretty close to giving this one 5 stars, but there were a couple of short stories in here that were a little on the weak side for me. However, two or three of these were amazingly well written. The kind of stories that stay with you for a long time. Kornbluth died from a heart attack at a fairly young age. Had he not died so early, I think he would have been included in the science fiction pantheon along with Asimov, Pohl, Clarke and other greats. Some truly brilliant scifi in here.
September 4, 2023
On a sheer technical level, Kornbluth demonstrates a mastery of pros. He is able to pack in so much in such a brief amount of time. On a story telling bases, I found that a majority of his writings were muddled and scatterbrained a bit. My eyes tended to glaze over from time to time. That being said, there were a couple solid gems, and a few thought provoking stories. I would still recommended this collection and this author to anyone.
November 21, 2017
While not all of his stories were hits, many of them still resonate today. In particular, 'The Marching Morons' is clearly a predecessor to the sadly prophetic Idiocracy, and my personal favorite "It happened at 10 on TV (or whatever)" actually made me laugh out loud, with my favorite new mantra: "Poop Poop Poopy."
April 16, 2020
I am finding as I read more of his works, why I much prefer Kornbluth's collaborations with Pohl than his solo outings. Whilst he has some interesting ideas and a better understanding of character than others, his style and structure do not hold up well for me, and often I was left crawling to the end of these pieces to be disappointed.
July 28, 2023
Second short story collection I've read (first one being by Clarke), and I definitely enjoyed Kornbluth more. His characters are more gritty and blunt, occasionally sarcastic even, and I enjoyed the stronger personalities. A lot of these stories were more unique as well. Interesting twists on familiar ideas, rather than a straight vanilla tale.
August 18, 2023
The stories are amusing in that the world building and prose are engaging. However, I often had the same feeling I have when reading Lovecraft. The build-up is let down by an often very abrupt and inconsequential ending, leaving me sometimes with an unfulfilling "moral of the story" feeling. I don't regret reading it, but I also wouldn't recommend it.
January 20, 2025
This book is packed with some of the best sci-fi short stories I’ve ever read! Kornbluth’s biting satires of consumerism, technology, anti-intellectualism, and much more are equal parts humorous and galvanizing. His ability to craft ingenious worlds in so few pages is extraordinary. Truly a hidden gem that more people need to read!
April 18, 2023
I really enjoyed most of these short stories. There was only one that I couldn't get into and had to skip, a really good percentage for me and a collection of short stories. My favorite was probably The Little Black Bag.
May 7, 2024
These short stories are highly readable, often amusing, and always thought provoking. The work as a whole, however, ends up feeling like a bag of candy. One interesting and "delightful" treat after another that provides a short burst of stimulation and then quickly fades from the memory. I enjoyed reading this, but there aren't many take-aways. If you like Saki, Vonnegut, Kafka, Ballard ... you will like these stories, or at least the style in which they are written.
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