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Science Fiction Omnibus
Science Fiction Groff Science Fiction Berkley Publishing FIRST First Edition Thus, First Printing. Not price-clipped. Published by Berkley Publishing Co., 1963. 12mo. Paperback. Code of F851 on cover and spine. Book is very good with some light toning to the page ends. Covers have some light shelf wear with light creasing to the spine. Book is placed in a custom acetate protector. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.Seller 323208 Pulp Paperbacks We Buy Books! Collections - Libraries - Estates - Individual Titles. Message us if you have books to sell!
- GenresScience Fiction
199 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1963
1 person is currently reading
2 people want to read
About the author
Groff Conklin
116 books25 followersEdward Groff Conklin (September 6, 1904, Glen Ridge, New Jersey - July 19, 1968, Pawling, New York) was a leading science fiction anthologist. Conklin edited 41 anthologies of science fiction, wrote books on home improvement and was a freelance writer on scientific subjects. From 1950 to 1955, he was the book critic for Galaxy Science Fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
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July 9, 2021MST (university) sure has an interesting MM PB SF collection, including many bound volumes of several classic pulp magazines. Some of the stacks have reopened, so I browsed a bit and spotted this.
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Conklin and I have similar taste. (Add Wollheim to the shortlist.)
I enjoyed most of these, even the ones that aren't valuable or brilliant or influential.
Deutsch - A Subway Named Mobius - Yes, clever, but a little long. "He pushed panic back on its stiff, quivering spring...."
Lovecraft - The Color Out of Space - Skipped, read elsewhere & learned I'm not a fan of the author.
Boucher - The Star Dummy - A little sentimental, a little funny, sort of first contact.
Asimov - Homo Sol - Should humans join the Federation? Asimov fancies himself a psychologist, but he's really not. Still, I did like the aliens.
Bradbury - Kaleidoscope - Haunting classic, v. short... if you've not read it before, go do so.
Leinster - Plague - fits in w/ the Med Ship series... precursor?
Russell - Test Piece - But, what were those two words? Interesting, but I'm missing the punchline.
John D. MacDonald - Spectator Sport - Very short, like a certain other spec. fic. written by an author not primarily of SF.... (EMF, "TMS")
Fredric Brown - The Weapon - I'm a big fan of Brown, but not sure what this short-short is suggesting. Maybe you can read it, and comment?
Clarke - History Lesson - Fun What If
del Rey - Instinct - Not quite sure of this rise of the robots story. Provocative What If, though.
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Conklin and I have similar taste. (Add Wollheim to the shortlist.)
I enjoyed most of these, even the ones that aren't valuable or brilliant or influential.
Deutsch - A Subway Named Mobius - Yes, clever, but a little long. "He pushed panic back on its stiff, quivering spring...."
Lovecraft - The Color Out of Space - Skipped, read elsewhere & learned I'm not a fan of the author.
Boucher - The Star Dummy - A little sentimental, a little funny, sort of first contact.
Asimov - Homo Sol - Should humans join the Federation? Asimov fancies himself a psychologist, but he's really not. Still, I did like the aliens.
Bradbury - Kaleidoscope - Haunting classic, v. short... if you've not read it before, go do so.
Leinster - Plague - fits in w/ the Med Ship series... precursor?
Russell - Test Piece - But, what were those two words? Interesting, but I'm missing the punchline.
John D. MacDonald - Spectator Sport - Very short, like a certain other spec. fic. written by an author not primarily of SF.... (EMF, "TMS")
Fredric Brown - The Weapon - I'm a big fan of Brown, but not sure what this short-short is suggesting. Maybe you can read it, and comment?
Clarke - History Lesson - Fun What If
del Rey - Instinct - Not quite sure of this rise of the robots story. Provocative What If, though.
December 18, 2023
Quick read; not worthy of staying in my collection but a nice diversion from the longer fare I’ve been reading.
“The Star Dummy” by Anthony Boucher
“The pause was a long one – long enough for Paul, to think of all the vile weaknesses of his humanity, and know his infinite unworthiness of trust. He could hear the words pouring forth from the wood – and then the creature said, simply, “Yes.”
And the wood was silent even in memory.” P.60
“Homo Sol” by Isaac Asimov
“Defeat them now – probably. It wouldn’t be any overwhelming, though, and I wouldn’t bet on it too heavily. Certainly wouldn’t invite it. The trouble is that in a military way, this collection of gadget maniacs invent things at a horrible rate. Technologically, there is unstable as a wave of water; our civilization is more like a sand dune. I’ve seen their ground – car plants, install a complete plant of machine tools for production of a new model of automobile – and rip it out in six months because it’s completely obsolete!” P.87
“Kaleidoscope” by Ray Bradbury
“They fell. They fell as pebbles fall in the long autumns of childhood, silver, and thin. They were scattered as jackstones or scattered from a gigantic throw. And now, instead of men, there were only voices – all kinds of voices, disembodied and impassioned, and varied degrees of terror and resignation.” P.91
“That isn’t important,” said Hollis. And it was not. It was gone. When life is over it is like a flicker of bright film, and instant on the screen, all of its prejudices and passions condensed illumined for an instant on space, and before you could cry out. There was a happy day, there was a bad one, there an evil face, there are a good one, the film burned to a cinder, the screen went dark.
From this outer edge of of his life, looking back, there was only one remorse, and that was only that he wished to go on living. Did all dying people feel this way, as if they had never lived? does life seem that short, indeed, over and down before you took a breath? Did it seem this abrupt and impossible to everyone, or only to himself, here, now, with a few hours, left to him for thought, and deliberation?” P.95
“So it was with Lisp and himself; Lepere had lived a good full life, and it made him a different man now, and he, Hollis, had been As Good as Dead for many years. They came to death by separate pass, and, and all likelihood, if there were kinds of deaths, their kinds would be as different as night from day. The quality of death, like that of life, must be of infinite variety, and if one has already died once, then what is there to look for and dying for once and all, as he was now?” P.97
“And I? thought Hollis. What can I do? Is there anything I can do now to make up for the terrible and empty life? If I could do one thing to make up for the meanness, I collected all these years and didn’t even know was in me? But there’s no one here, but myself, and how can you do good all alone? You can’t. Tomorrow night I’ll hit the earths atmosphere.
I’ll burn, he thought, and be scattered ashes all over the continental lands. I’ll be put to use. Just a little bit, but ashes are ashes, and they’ll add to the land.” P.100
“Sally smiled at Ben. They were bound to each other, not only by feeling, but by the fact that they stood together, literally against the universe. All the power of all the nations upon all the planets of all the sons of the Galaxy was opposed to them. They defied the pomposity of the brass hats of the universe simply by remaining alive. All of authority demanded their death. Thousands of ships, with third number, constantly increasing, and hundreds of thousands of men were devoting their every effort to the discovery of a 60 foot space cruiser designed for sport, in which Ben Sholto and Sally Hale carried a plague which had wiped out 10 million people. And fat men in swivel chairs group purple with rage as stinging rebukes from higher to lower officialdom.” P.126-127
“Instinct” by Lester Del Ray
“Instinct! That’s a built-in reaction, and unlearned thought. Man had it. If a man heard a rattlesnake, he left the place in a hurry, even though he never heard it before. Response to that sound was built into him. No tape and press it, and no experience was needed. We know the instincts of some of the animals, too – and one of them is to struggle and kill – like the ants who kill each other off. I think man did just that. He couldn’t get rid of his instincts when they were no longer needed, and they killed him. He should have changed – and we can change. But I can’t tell that from animals. I need intelligent life, to see whether instinct or intelligence will dominate. And robots don’t have instincts – I’ve looked for even one sign of something, not learned individually, and can’t find it. It’s the one basic difference between us. Don’t you see, man is the whole key to our problem of whether we can change or not without risking extermination?” P.182-183
“The Star Dummy” by Anthony Boucher
“The pause was a long one – long enough for Paul, to think of all the vile weaknesses of his humanity, and know his infinite unworthiness of trust. He could hear the words pouring forth from the wood – and then the creature said, simply, “Yes.”
And the wood was silent even in memory.” P.60
“Homo Sol” by Isaac Asimov
“Defeat them now – probably. It wouldn’t be any overwhelming, though, and I wouldn’t bet on it too heavily. Certainly wouldn’t invite it. The trouble is that in a military way, this collection of gadget maniacs invent things at a horrible rate. Technologically, there is unstable as a wave of water; our civilization is more like a sand dune. I’ve seen their ground – car plants, install a complete plant of machine tools for production of a new model of automobile – and rip it out in six months because it’s completely obsolete!” P.87
“Kaleidoscope” by Ray Bradbury
“They fell. They fell as pebbles fall in the long autumns of childhood, silver, and thin. They were scattered as jackstones or scattered from a gigantic throw. And now, instead of men, there were only voices – all kinds of voices, disembodied and impassioned, and varied degrees of terror and resignation.” P.91
“That isn’t important,” said Hollis. And it was not. It was gone. When life is over it is like a flicker of bright film, and instant on the screen, all of its prejudices and passions condensed illumined for an instant on space, and before you could cry out. There was a happy day, there was a bad one, there an evil face, there are a good one, the film burned to a cinder, the screen went dark.
From this outer edge of of his life, looking back, there was only one remorse, and that was only that he wished to go on living. Did all dying people feel this way, as if they had never lived? does life seem that short, indeed, over and down before you took a breath? Did it seem this abrupt and impossible to everyone, or only to himself, here, now, with a few hours, left to him for thought, and deliberation?” P.95
“So it was with Lisp and himself; Lepere had lived a good full life, and it made him a different man now, and he, Hollis, had been As Good as Dead for many years. They came to death by separate pass, and, and all likelihood, if there were kinds of deaths, their kinds would be as different as night from day. The quality of death, like that of life, must be of infinite variety, and if one has already died once, then what is there to look for and dying for once and all, as he was now?” P.97
“And I? thought Hollis. What can I do? Is there anything I can do now to make up for the terrible and empty life? If I could do one thing to make up for the meanness, I collected all these years and didn’t even know was in me? But there’s no one here, but myself, and how can you do good all alone? You can’t. Tomorrow night I’ll hit the earths atmosphere.
I’ll burn, he thought, and be scattered ashes all over the continental lands. I’ll be put to use. Just a little bit, but ashes are ashes, and they’ll add to the land.” P.100
“Sally smiled at Ben. They were bound to each other, not only by feeling, but by the fact that they stood together, literally against the universe. All the power of all the nations upon all the planets of all the sons of the Galaxy was opposed to them. They defied the pomposity of the brass hats of the universe simply by remaining alive. All of authority demanded their death. Thousands of ships, with third number, constantly increasing, and hundreds of thousands of men were devoting their every effort to the discovery of a 60 foot space cruiser designed for sport, in which Ben Sholto and Sally Hale carried a plague which had wiped out 10 million people. And fat men in swivel chairs group purple with rage as stinging rebukes from higher to lower officialdom.” P.126-127
“Instinct” by Lester Del Ray
“Instinct! That’s a built-in reaction, and unlearned thought. Man had it. If a man heard a rattlesnake, he left the place in a hurry, even though he never heard it before. Response to that sound was built into him. No tape and press it, and no experience was needed. We know the instincts of some of the animals, too – and one of them is to struggle and kill – like the ants who kill each other off. I think man did just that. He couldn’t get rid of his instincts when they were no longer needed, and they killed him. He should have changed – and we can change. But I can’t tell that from animals. I need intelligent life, to see whether instinct or intelligence will dominate. And robots don’t have instincts – I’ve looked for even one sign of something, not learned individually, and can’t find it. It’s the one basic difference between us. Don’t you see, man is the whole key to our problem of whether we can change or not without risking extermination?” P.182-183
February 18, 2024
Not the edition I have (Berkley Books, August 1956) but an excellent assortment of short stories. Best being H.P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space (avoid the Nic Cage movie at all cost).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews