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Collected Fantasies
Tells the stories of an intelligent monkey, a dentist kidnapped by extraterrestrials, living bicycles, an Earth ruled by alien invaders, and an old couple's personal golem
- GenresFantasyShort Stories
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published June 1, 1982
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About the author
Avram Davidson
431 books94 followersAvram Davidson was an American Jewish writer of fantasy fiction, science fiction, and crime fiction, as well as the author of many stories that do not fit into a genre niche. He won a Hugo Award and three World Fantasy Awards in the science fiction and fantasy genre, a World Fantasy Life Achievement award, and a Queen's Award and an Edgar Award in the mystery genre. Davidson edited The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1962 to 1964. His last novel The Boss in the Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil was completed by Grania Davis and was a Nebula Award finalist in 1998. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says "he is perhaps sf's most explicitly literary author".
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 12, 2017
Avram Davidson: Selected Fantasies is a collection of Davidson's short stories edited by John Silbersack. What it is not is a collection of Davidson's short fantasy fiction.
There are twelve stories here. "Help! I Am Dr. Morris Goldpepper," "The Certificate," and "The Golem" are all science fiction. "The Cobblestones of Saratoga Street" is a mystery, with no fantasy elements. "Dragon Skin Drum" and "The Man Who Saw the Elephant" are straight, non-genre fiction. "The Lord of Central Park" is a combination of mystery and straight fiction with just a touch of fantasy. "Or All The Seas with Oysters" is science fiction, leaning slightly toward fantasy.
That leaves only four stories which really are fantasies. They are "Sacheverell," "Manatee Gal Won't You Come Out Tonight," "Sources of the Nile," and "Faed-Out."
Silbersack is a well-known editor in the science fiction/fantasy field. He certainly knows that this is largely a collection of non-fantasy stories so I have no idea why he used this title.
Now as for the stories...
The only one of these that I don't like is "The Lord of Central Park," which I think tries much too hard to be funny. In fairness, I know many people do like this story.
The other flat-out comic stories are "Goldpepper" and "The Golem." I think they both work well; "The Golem" has become something of a classic within the field.
"Or All the Seas with Oysters" won the Hugo award for best science fiction short story when it was first published in 1957. I liked it when I was nine (and I thought "out to stud" meant retired); I still like it now.
I also like and admire all the other non-fantasy stories as well.
The fantasies are all very fine. ""Manatee Gal" is one of Davidson's Jack Limekiller stories. These are all set in the fictional country of British Hidalgo. They are written in the somewhat discursive style of much of Davidson's work. If you like that as much as I do, you will like this story. It became a part of his fix-up novel Limekiller.
"Faed-Out" is a ghost story, set in Hollywood. A very good mixture of comedy and sadness.
"Sacheverell" is about a kidnapped talking monkey, with some unusual and very helpful friends.
"Sources of the Nile" is one of my favorite Davidson stories. What could you do if you found a sure-fire way to predict future trends? Not earth-shaking trends, but domestic ones - what people will wear, what they will read, how they will cut their hair.
Davidson was a wonderful writer and this is a very good collection.
There are twelve stories here. "Help! I Am Dr. Morris Goldpepper," "The Certificate," and "The Golem" are all science fiction. "The Cobblestones of Saratoga Street" is a mystery, with no fantasy elements. "Dragon Skin Drum" and "The Man Who Saw the Elephant" are straight, non-genre fiction. "The Lord of Central Park" is a combination of mystery and straight fiction with just a touch of fantasy. "Or All The Seas with Oysters" is science fiction, leaning slightly toward fantasy.
That leaves only four stories which really are fantasies. They are "Sacheverell," "Manatee Gal Won't You Come Out Tonight," "Sources of the Nile," and "Faed-Out."
Silbersack is a well-known editor in the science fiction/fantasy field. He certainly knows that this is largely a collection of non-fantasy stories so I have no idea why he used this title.
Now as for the stories...
The only one of these that I don't like is "The Lord of Central Park," which I think tries much too hard to be funny. In fairness, I know many people do like this story.
The other flat-out comic stories are "Goldpepper" and "The Golem." I think they both work well; "The Golem" has become something of a classic within the field.
"Or All the Seas with Oysters" won the Hugo award for best science fiction short story when it was first published in 1957. I liked it when I was nine (and I thought "out to stud" meant retired); I still like it now.
I also like and admire all the other non-fantasy stories as well.
The fantasies are all very fine. ""Manatee Gal" is one of Davidson's Jack Limekiller stories. These are all set in the fictional country of British Hidalgo. They are written in the somewhat discursive style of much of Davidson's work. If you like that as much as I do, you will like this story. It became a part of his fix-up novel Limekiller.
"Faed-Out" is a ghost story, set in Hollywood. A very good mixture of comedy and sadness.
"Sacheverell" is about a kidnapped talking monkey, with some unusual and very helpful friends.
"Sources of the Nile" is one of my favorite Davidson stories. What could you do if you found a sure-fire way to predict future trends? Not earth-shaking trends, but domestic ones - what people will wear, what they will read, how they will cut their hair.
Davidson was a wonderful writer and this is a very good collection.
March 24, 2009
I read this book because I read somewhere Avram Davidson was similar in style and subject matter to R.A. Lafferty, but I did not find this to be the case. Davidson's writing is whimsical and wacky, true, but it seems to work on only one level- as entertainment. His stories follow a predictable punchline-zing! format. They do not take place on another level, even if it is a level I do not understand, like Lafferty's stories do (don't believe me? Google the story Nine Hundred Grandmothers and see for yourself).
I sped-read through half of this book, but then slogged through "Manatee Gal Won't You Come Out Tonight" and "Sources of the Nile." Davidson has the truly, truly loathsome and obnoxious trait of using "dialect." This is okay and almost cute when the characters say "Om" instead of "I'm," but it becomes the most annoying thing of all space and time when a story like "Manatee" takes place in a fictional Jamaican island. Witness but a sample passage:
"'Een de w'ol' days,' the voice from the back said, 'every good 'oman, she di know which bush yerb good fah wyes, fah kid-ney, which bush yerd good fah heart, which bush yerb good fah fever. But ahl of dem good w'ol' o'men, noew, dey dead, you see. Yes mon. Ahl poss ahway. No-body know bush medicine nowadays. Only bush-doc-tor.And dey very few, sah, very few.'" (107)
I find "dialect" writing to be annoying, unnecessary, ineffective, cheap, and useless. Too bad Davidson doesn't feel the same way: if these stories are any clue, dialect writing is his trademark.
It's too bad a lot of this crap got published. Most of it is annoying, and what isn't annoying is usually just "eh." Davidson must've got grandfathered into The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (?) with two killer stories and opted to send them nothing but turgid sloppy crap thereafter.
Still, I had a hard time deciding what to rate this book. Sometimes the stories were funny and clever, but overall I didn't enjoy reading them and I didn't find the stories all that funny or clever. So I guess I'll settle on a 2.
I sped-read through half of this book, but then slogged through "Manatee Gal Won't You Come Out Tonight" and "Sources of the Nile." Davidson has the truly, truly loathsome and obnoxious trait of using "dialect." This is okay and almost cute when the characters say "Om" instead of "I'm," but it becomes the most annoying thing of all space and time when a story like "Manatee" takes place in a fictional Jamaican island. Witness but a sample passage:
"'Een de w'ol' days,' the voice from the back said, 'every good 'oman, she di know which bush yerb good fah wyes, fah kid-ney, which bush yerd good fah heart, which bush yerb good fah fever. But ahl of dem good w'ol' o'men, noew, dey dead, you see. Yes mon. Ahl poss ahway. No-body know bush medicine nowadays. Only bush-doc-tor.And dey very few, sah, very few.'" (107)
I find "dialect" writing to be annoying, unnecessary, ineffective, cheap, and useless. Too bad Davidson doesn't feel the same way: if these stories are any clue, dialect writing is his trademark.
It's too bad a lot of this crap got published. Most of it is annoying, and what isn't annoying is usually just "eh." Davidson must've got grandfathered into The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (?) with two killer stories and opted to send them nothing but turgid sloppy crap thereafter.
Still, I had a hard time deciding what to rate this book. Sometimes the stories were funny and clever, but overall I didn't enjoy reading them and I didn't find the stories all that funny or clever. So I guess I'll settle on a 2.
August 13, 2025
This collection has twelve stories:
Sacheverell – a story good enough for the Twilight Zone.
Help! I Am Dr. Morris Goldpepper – The only story I know where dentist are the heroes of Earth.
Dragon Skin Drum – Not at all fantasy, but a solid good story of a luncheon set in China just before Mao’s takeover.
The Lord of Central Park – Borderline fantasy but a lot of fun to read, especially if you love old New York.
Or All the Sea with Oysters – The classic Davidson story anthologized by everyone. SciFi/Fantasy
The Man Who Saw the Elephant – Not really a fantasy but a good story with local color.
Manatee Gal Won’t You Come Out Tonight – Borders on horror. Be careful when you sing the song using Manatee for Buffalo.
Sources of the Nile – A hoot of a fantasy story not about rivers.
The Certificate – another Twilight Zone like story with a twist at the end.
The Golem – Often anthologized and a great hoot of a story
The Cobblestones of Saratoga Street – Not fantasy but a well worked out story
Faed-Out – A Hollywood ghost story.
All in all, I had a lot of fun reading these twelve stories. I hope you do too!
Sacheverell – a story good enough for the Twilight Zone.
Help! I Am Dr. Morris Goldpepper – The only story I know where dentist are the heroes of Earth.
Dragon Skin Drum – Not at all fantasy, but a solid good story of a luncheon set in China just before Mao’s takeover.
The Lord of Central Park – Borderline fantasy but a lot of fun to read, especially if you love old New York.
Or All the Sea with Oysters – The classic Davidson story anthologized by everyone. SciFi/Fantasy
The Man Who Saw the Elephant – Not really a fantasy but a good story with local color.
Manatee Gal Won’t You Come Out Tonight – Borders on horror. Be careful when you sing the song using Manatee for Buffalo.
Sources of the Nile – A hoot of a fantasy story not about rivers.
The Certificate – another Twilight Zone like story with a twist at the end.
The Golem – Often anthologized and a great hoot of a story
The Cobblestones of Saratoga Street – Not fantasy but a well worked out story
Faed-Out – A Hollywood ghost story.
All in all, I had a lot of fun reading these twelve stories. I hope you do too!
November 27, 2009
Avram Davidson is an acquired taste, but definitely worth acquiring. His style is completely unique, combining detailed historical knowledge with a lot of whimsy. Like all anthologies this collection is a tad hit and miss, but the strength of the best stories (like "Or All the Sea with Oysters") makes it well worth the read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews