What do you think?
Rate this book
The Hugo Winners #2B
The Hugo Winners 1968–1970
The Hugo Award is to science fiction what the Oscar is to Hollywood and each year at the World Science Fiction Convention the coveted statuette – modelled after a space ship – is presented to the author of the best short story of that year.
In this anthology Isaac Asimov has compiled the prize-winning stories from the 26th to the 28th Conventions. They are:
Weyr Search – Anne McCaffrey
Riders of the Purple Wage – Philip Jose Farmer
Gonna Roll the Bones – Fritz Leiber
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream – Harlan Ellison
Nightwings – Robert Silverberg
The Sharing of Flesh – Poul Anderson
The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World – Harlan Ellison
Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones – Samuel R. Delany
In this anthology Isaac Asimov has compiled the prize-winning stories from the 26th to the 28th Conventions. They are:
Weyr Search – Anne McCaffrey
Riders of the Purple Wage – Philip Jose Farmer
Gonna Roll the Bones – Fritz Leiber
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream – Harlan Ellison
Nightwings – Robert Silverberg
The Sharing of Flesh – Poul Anderson
The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World – Harlan Ellison
Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones – Samuel R. Delany
365 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
1 person is currently reading
59 people want to read
About the author
Isaac Asimov
4,337 books27.7k followersWorks of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles,
The Foundation Trilogy
(1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.
Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.
Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).
People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.
Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.
Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...
Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.
Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).
People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.
Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.
Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 10, 2018
Well here is my final (for now at least) foray in to the world and works of Isaac Asimov and I must admit this was not the triumphant celebration I was hoping for - maybe it was the fact this is another anthology of works by other authors Asimov has been asked to comment on - after all he had not influence in the choices since they were the winners after all.
Or the fact that this was a book that high hopes but due to constraints was left lacking - after all the original book was a single volume not this cut down paperback (although considering when it was printed I can imagine some of the limitations were due to the printing and binding abilities.
But what of the stories- okay so you have some famous works here, both in popular fiction and in the science fiction community - do not get me wrong the Hugo is seen as one of the top accomplishments an author can aspire to (I have seen it likened to the Oscars) however that does not mean they have to be easy to read, in fact there are times I wonder if to be truly considered for a literary award you have to prove (as in the author) that they are smarted than the reader.
Anyway this book IS however a slice of Science Fiction history and as such rightful deserves to be recognised and respected - I am just not sure its for me.
Or the fact that this was a book that high hopes but due to constraints was left lacking - after all the original book was a single volume not this cut down paperback (although considering when it was printed I can imagine some of the limitations were due to the printing and binding abilities.
But what of the stories- okay so you have some famous works here, both in popular fiction and in the science fiction community - do not get me wrong the Hugo is seen as one of the top accomplishments an author can aspire to (I have seen it likened to the Oscars) however that does not mean they have to be easy to read, in fact there are times I wonder if to be truly considered for a literary award you have to prove (as in the author) that they are smarted than the reader.
Anyway this book IS however a slice of Science Fiction history and as such rightful deserves to be recognised and respected - I am just not sure its for me.
August 16, 2017
A re-read after many years of this collection of most of the Hugo winning short fiction from the years 1968-70 (according to the list at the back, there should also have been the winning novella for 1970 by Fritz Leiber).
The contents are:
1968
Novella - tied between 'Weyr Search' by Anne McCaffrey and 'Riders of the Purple Wage' by Philip Jose Farmer
Novelette - 'Gonna Roll the Bones' by Fritz Leiber
Short story - 'I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream' by Harlan Ellison
1969
Novella - 'Nightwings' by Robert Silverberg
Novelette - 'The Sharing of Flesh' by Poul Anderson
Short story - 'The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World' by Harlan Ellison
1970
Short story - 'Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones' by Samuel R Delaney
Some of these have a lasting fame/impact on the field of science fiction/fantasy - both 'Weyr Search' and 'Nightwings' went on to become the first part of novels, Dragonflight and Nightwings respectively. McCaffrey's in particular is seminal, in that it spawned a massive series of follow-up novels set on the planet Pern. I'm afraid I was a little disappointed. When I first read this novella years ago, I enjoyed it so much I immediately bought Dragonflight. This time around, certain things jumped out, such as the patronising attitude of F'lar, the apparent hero, towards Lessa. He eventually realises she has spent ten years undercover in her own home, having to live as a slave, beaten and malnourished, and yet has absolutely no sympathy let alone empathy for her subsequent feelings or behaviour. The story doesn't allow any real exploration of the trauma she has undergone, and how she might realistically have a meltdown after achieving what has been the goal of her life , but instead rushes off into her attempt to impress the new queen dragon. So it came across as a mite superficial, and the villain's name was unfortunate, especially as in those days everyone would have known what a fax machine was.
The title 'Riders of the Purple Wage', the novella which tied with McCaffrey's for that year's award, is a skit on the influential Zane Grey Western, 'Riders of the Purple Sage' but otherwise has nothing in common with it. It concerns the situation in a densely populated Earth, where people are organised into small communities to avoid alientation, but live in a totally artificial environment, where everyone receives a basic dole from the state, referred to as the purple wage. They spend a lot of time staring at a live video feed which is called fido or sitting around gambling with each other, and most of them are clinically obese as a result. The alternative for anyone who doesn't want to live like this is to become a pseudo Native American on a wildlife reserve. An artist called Chib lives with his mother, with whom he has a troubled relationship, and his great-grandfather who earlier faked his own death because the internal revenue service was pursuing him. Chib's continuing success depends upon the televised opinions of art critics, and if he doesn't win a grant, he will be forced to emigrate to a similar community elsewhere. Unfortunately, the chief art critic wants sexual favours as the price of a favourable opinion. There are various alusion in the story to Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce. No doubt at the time of publication, the liberal use of four letter words was shocking, and the style especially at the start of the story very experimental, but I'm afraid it comes across as pretentious twaddle.
By contrast, I still enjoyed 'Nightwings' and found in it a prefiguring of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun series, which came over ten years later. Set in the far future on an Earth which is old, having seen many cycles of civilisation, it is told in the first person viewpoint of an old man who is one of the Watcher guild, his duty being to 'watch the skies' with an instrumentation cart, to look for a long forecast alien invasion. After centuries without an invasion, his guild is looked on as a joke, and even he is starting to wonder if he has wasted his whole life. He travels with a Flyer, a modified human female with gossamer wings which can only support her weight after sundown, and an apparent Changeling, an odd-looking character who is guideless, to Roum, which is clearly Rome. Similarly, other famous cities have changed name after aeons, and we eventually learn that he originates from what is left of the Americas, which have been mainly covered by the sea and are now a series of islands. An atmospheric and interesting story.
To turn to the novelettes, 'Gonna Roll the Bones' is a lyrical tale of what happens when a miner who is an inveterate gambler goes up against a bigwheel from out of town, where the stakes are raised to the ultimate. 'The Sharing of Flesh' is a rather gruesome story, though well-written, concerning the murder of a botanist on an ex-colony planet, and the revenge which his wife sets out to take, uncovering in the process the hideous truth of the degenerate colonists' puberty rituals.
The short stories appear to have been holding their own unofficial contest for the longest title. Ellison's are the most well-known, although the first which I'll shorten to IHNMAIMS, is the most accessible of the two. It concerns the appalling and unending experience of a handful of humans who have been preserved by the all-controlling artificial intelligence which has taken over Earth and exterminated all other life. The second story, TBTSLatHotW, defies classification. I don't remember what I made of it first time around, but this time I found it pretty opaque as to what was really going on. Events in a central 'crosswhen' affect history through an essence of madness being sent outside that area to affect other parts of space/time, but why the madness drained from the 'dragon' (and others before it/him previously, I presume) had to be sent off rather than contained safely is not apparent. And if that was the normal process, then why was a character sentenced to death for doing the same thing? So I'm afraid I found it confusing and the last scene seems a non sequitur.
For me, Delaney's short story was a lot more successful. It concerns a character who operates on the shady side of things, but has connections with more respectable citizens such as the Singers who in every city provide a reality check, extemporising songs about immediate events. This man who constantly changes name and appearance while retaining his original three initials, HCE, gradually makes his way towards becoming wealthier and semi-legitimate, in effect a crime boss, and consequently less of interest to the Special Services police force. One of the characters is an early portrayal of someone who commits self harm, and also induces others to harm him, HCE having once been one of them though he feels guilty about it. The title is explained early in the story: at set intervals, the 'password' of the criminal fraternity changes, but it is always a semi-precious stone.
On the whole, I rate this at 3 stars because of the slight disappointment of the McCaffrey and the issues with Farmer's contribution and one of Ellison's. But the other stories were enjoyable.
The contents are:
1968
Novella - tied between 'Weyr Search' by Anne McCaffrey and 'Riders of the Purple Wage' by Philip Jose Farmer
Novelette - 'Gonna Roll the Bones' by Fritz Leiber
Short story - 'I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream' by Harlan Ellison
1969
Novella - 'Nightwings' by Robert Silverberg
Novelette - 'The Sharing of Flesh' by Poul Anderson
Short story - 'The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World' by Harlan Ellison
1970
Short story - 'Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones' by Samuel R Delaney
Some of these have a lasting fame/impact on the field of science fiction/fantasy - both 'Weyr Search' and 'Nightwings' went on to become the first part of novels, Dragonflight and Nightwings respectively. McCaffrey's in particular is seminal, in that it spawned a massive series of follow-up novels set on the planet Pern. I'm afraid I was a little disappointed. When I first read this novella years ago, I enjoyed it so much I immediately bought Dragonflight. This time around, certain things jumped out, such as the patronising attitude of F'lar, the apparent hero, towards Lessa. He eventually realises she has spent ten years undercover in her own home, having to live as a slave, beaten and malnourished, and yet has absolutely no sympathy let alone empathy for her subsequent feelings or behaviour. The story doesn't allow any real exploration of the trauma she has undergone, and how she might realistically have a meltdown after achieving what has been the goal of her life , but instead rushes off into her attempt to impress the new queen dragon. So it came across as a mite superficial, and the villain's name was unfortunate, especially as in those days everyone would have known what a fax machine was.
The title 'Riders of the Purple Wage', the novella which tied with McCaffrey's for that year's award, is a skit on the influential Zane Grey Western, 'Riders of the Purple Sage' but otherwise has nothing in common with it. It concerns the situation in a densely populated Earth, where people are organised into small communities to avoid alientation, but live in a totally artificial environment, where everyone receives a basic dole from the state, referred to as the purple wage. They spend a lot of time staring at a live video feed which is called fido or sitting around gambling with each other, and most of them are clinically obese as a result. The alternative for anyone who doesn't want to live like this is to become a pseudo Native American on a wildlife reserve. An artist called Chib lives with his mother, with whom he has a troubled relationship, and his great-grandfather who earlier faked his own death because the internal revenue service was pursuing him. Chib's continuing success depends upon the televised opinions of art critics, and if he doesn't win a grant, he will be forced to emigrate to a similar community elsewhere. Unfortunately, the chief art critic wants sexual favours as the price of a favourable opinion. There are various alusion in the story to Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce. No doubt at the time of publication, the liberal use of four letter words was shocking, and the style especially at the start of the story very experimental, but I'm afraid it comes across as pretentious twaddle.
By contrast, I still enjoyed 'Nightwings' and found in it a prefiguring of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun series, which came over ten years later. Set in the far future on an Earth which is old, having seen many cycles of civilisation, it is told in the first person viewpoint of an old man who is one of the Watcher guild, his duty being to 'watch the skies' with an instrumentation cart, to look for a long forecast alien invasion. After centuries without an invasion, his guild is looked on as a joke, and even he is starting to wonder if he has wasted his whole life. He travels with a Flyer, a modified human female with gossamer wings which can only support her weight after sundown, and an apparent Changeling, an odd-looking character who is guideless, to Roum, which is clearly Rome. Similarly, other famous cities have changed name after aeons, and we eventually learn that he originates from what is left of the Americas, which have been mainly covered by the sea and are now a series of islands. An atmospheric and interesting story.
To turn to the novelettes, 'Gonna Roll the Bones' is a lyrical tale of what happens when a miner who is an inveterate gambler goes up against a bigwheel from out of town, where the stakes are raised to the ultimate. 'The Sharing of Flesh' is a rather gruesome story, though well-written, concerning the murder of a botanist on an ex-colony planet, and the revenge which his wife sets out to take, uncovering in the process the hideous truth of the degenerate colonists' puberty rituals.
The short stories appear to have been holding their own unofficial contest for the longest title. Ellison's are the most well-known, although the first which I'll shorten to IHNMAIMS, is the most accessible of the two. It concerns the appalling and unending experience of a handful of humans who have been preserved by the all-controlling artificial intelligence which has taken over Earth and exterminated all other life. The second story, TBTSLatHotW, defies classification. I don't remember what I made of it first time around, but this time I found it pretty opaque as to what was really going on. Events in a central 'crosswhen' affect history through an essence of madness being sent outside that area to affect other parts of space/time, but why the madness drained from the 'dragon' (and others before it/him previously, I presume) had to be sent off rather than contained safely is not apparent. And if that was the normal process, then why was a character sentenced to death for doing the same thing? So I'm afraid I found it confusing and the last scene seems a non sequitur.
For me, Delaney's short story was a lot more successful. It concerns a character who operates on the shady side of things, but has connections with more respectable citizens such as the Singers who in every city provide a reality check, extemporising songs about immediate events. This man who constantly changes name and appearance while retaining his original three initials, HCE, gradually makes his way towards becoming wealthier and semi-legitimate, in effect a crime boss, and consequently less of interest to the Special Services police force. One of the characters is an early portrayal of someone who commits self harm, and also induces others to harm him, HCE having once been one of them though he feels guilty about it. The title is explained early in the story: at set intervals, the 'password' of the criminal fraternity changes, but it is always a semi-precious stone.
On the whole, I rate this at 3 stars because of the slight disappointment of the McCaffrey and the issues with Farmer's contribution and one of Ellison's. But the other stories were enjoyable.
June 16, 2021
I’ve not been having much luck with these Hugo Winners books to be honest, which is a bit of a shame because I feel like I should have enjoyed them both more than I did. The first one was kind of fair enough, but this one had some cracking authors in it as well as some pretty famous pieces.
For example, I made my first visit to the land of Pern with Anne McCaffrey, and while I would go for another visit, it wasn’t quite as mindblowing as I’d hoped for. It also included I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison, a super famous short story that was pretty good but which I think was mostly noteworthy because the concept was so good, rather than because the story itself was great. It was good, but that’s about it.
There was also a cracking piece called Riders of the Purple Wage by Philip Jose Farmer, and in fact I think that was probably my favourite of the lot. It played with language a lot and also featured the private ejaculations of an old granddad, which sounds a lot more perverted than it actually was. For the most part, it was a clever look at capitalist society and the future that we might end up with if we’re not careful.
I think that the stories in this collection were a lot more thought-provoking than they were in the first one of these collections, but there were still a few that left quite a lot to be desired. The first one just wasn’t really worth reading at all, whereas this one is probably better if you dip in and out of it.
And of course, then there’s the fact that Asimov’s introductions to the stories were arguably more interesting than the stories themselves. I mean, I guess it could be worse, but it was still only so-so and my lasting sensation upon completion was just a sensation of relief. That’s not the kind of thing I’m used to from Isaac Asimov, so yeah.
For example, I made my first visit to the land of Pern with Anne McCaffrey, and while I would go for another visit, it wasn’t quite as mindblowing as I’d hoped for. It also included I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison, a super famous short story that was pretty good but which I think was mostly noteworthy because the concept was so good, rather than because the story itself was great. It was good, but that’s about it.
There was also a cracking piece called Riders of the Purple Wage by Philip Jose Farmer, and in fact I think that was probably my favourite of the lot. It played with language a lot and also featured the private ejaculations of an old granddad, which sounds a lot more perverted than it actually was. For the most part, it was a clever look at capitalist society and the future that we might end up with if we’re not careful.
I think that the stories in this collection were a lot more thought-provoking than they were in the first one of these collections, but there were still a few that left quite a lot to be desired. The first one just wasn’t really worth reading at all, whereas this one is probably better if you dip in and out of it.
And of course, then there’s the fact that Asimov’s introductions to the stories were arguably more interesting than the stories themselves. I mean, I guess it could be worse, but it was still only so-so and my lasting sensation upon completion was just a sensation of relief. That’s not the kind of thing I’m used to from Isaac Asimov, so yeah.
July 21, 2018
Bought this at a school jumble sale, Summerhill, summer of 1976 (No, not THAT Summerhill - the Wonderstuff/Pop WILL Eat Itself/Ned's Atomic Dustbin Summerhill) when I was what is now known as a 'Year 8'. And what a vile boy I must have been! (I have recently come to the conclusion that all Year 8s must be unutterably vile.) However, since being bought, the thing's been lying on my shelves for a length of time even I have come to regard as pretty weird. So, when I unaccountably noticed it lying there three weeks ago, I decided 'Bugger it, I'd better read the thing.' And I did. Well, after 50 years, some science fiction will have flaked off pretty irretrievably and, indeed, Philip Jose Farmer's 'Riders of the Purple Wage' and Samuel R Delany's 'Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones' are most kindly described as 'of their time'. 'Precious, pretentious and exasperating' would be the reaction to anything similar coming out today. I think Anne McCaffrey's 'Weyr Search' must have been an influence on George RR Martin. But the real gems of the collection are Robert Silverberg's wonderful 'Nightwings' and Poul Anderson's 'The Sharing of the Flesh'. The latter named could have been written by le Guin, who was pretty much Anderson's political antipode. But Anderson was clearly what used to be described as a 'thoughtful conservative' (anybody out there remember those?) who here balances the emotional reactions to a hideously alien society - one in which even the most well-meaning practice ritual cannibalism - with dispassionate humanity. I'll be looking out for more of his stuff.
November 1, 2017
Gender politics in this era of SF were...worse. This is evident in most of these stories and even in Asimov's short introductions to them. Even in the one story written by a woman, the vast majority of female characters are used, abused, or completely ignored.
This huge and distracting problem aside, I'd still call this a mixed bag in terms of enjoyable fiction. The closing story was the best in my opinion, a fun 'catch me if you can' type of romp. Most of the other stories here were pretentious boring twaddle, and yes I'm looking at you Ellison.
This huge and distracting problem aside, I'd still call this a mixed bag in terms of enjoyable fiction. The closing story was the best in my opinion, a fun 'catch me if you can' type of romp. Most of the other stories here were pretentious boring twaddle, and yes I'm looking at you Ellison.
August 16, 2024
8 stories:
**** Weyr Search (1967) • Anne McCaffrey
* Riders of the Purple Wage (1967) • Philip José Farmer
***** Gonna Roll the Bones (1967) • Fritz Leiber
* I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967) • Harlan Ellison
**** Nightwings (1968) • Robert Silverberg
*** The Sharing of Flesh (1968) • Poul Anderson
* The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (1969) • Harlan Ellison
**** Time Considered As a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones (1968) • Samuel R. Delany
**** Weyr Search (1967) • Anne McCaffrey
* Riders of the Purple Wage (1967) • Philip José Farmer
***** Gonna Roll the Bones (1967) • Fritz Leiber
* I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967) • Harlan Ellison
**** Nightwings (1968) • Robert Silverberg
*** The Sharing of Flesh (1968) • Poul Anderson
* The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (1969) • Harlan Ellison
**** Time Considered As a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones (1968) • Samuel R. Delany
August 4, 2017
Weyr Search, Riders of the purple wage and IHNMAIMS being the best.
August 7, 2018
Couldn't face Phillip Jose Farmer's Science Fictional James Joyce pastiche
May 19, 2025
More than half the stories are not worth the time and effort
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews