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Fiction. Science Fiction. Ten classic stories from the birth of modern science fiction writing The Golden Age of Science Fiction, from the early 1940s through the 1950s, saw an explosion of talent in SF writing including authors such as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke. Their writing helped science fiction gained wide public attention, and left a lasting impression upon society. The same writers formed the mould for the next three decades of science fiction, and much of their writing remains as fresh today as it was then. Collected in one giant volume, here is the very best of the golden era. The stories include: A.E. van Vogt, 'The Weapons Shop' Isaac Asimov, 'The Big and the Little' Lester del Rey, 'Nerves' Fredric Brown, 'Daymare' Theodore Sturgeon, 'Killdozer!' C.L. Moore, 'No Woman Born' A. Bertram Chandler, 'Giant Killer'.… (more)
User reviews
Some of them show their dating as the expectations of Sci-Fi Writers turned out to not be quite how the world works now - but somehow that just doesn't detract from the stories significantly - fantastic stories - highly recommended!!
Most of these authors were already familiar to me. Of that group, I enjoyed both A.E. van Vogt's "The Weapon Shop" and A. Bertram Chandler's "Giant Killer" quite a bit more than works I read previously from these sources. I thought that, while Isaac Asimov's "The Big and the Little" works reasonably well as a stand alone story, it somehow works better in its more familiar place as a section of Foundation. I can't say that I particularly liked C.L. Moore's "No Woman Born," but it is astonishing to see a story from that era asking such probing questions about gender and identity and how men perceive women; I suspect it is the first feminist science fiction story. While "Killdozer!" may not be among Theodore Sturgeon's most probing stories, I'm not sure that any subsequent entry in the subgenre it spawned has topped it. Of the familiar authors, only Lester Del Rey and Jack Williamson's entries were in line with my fairly low expectations.
Of the Authors that were (more or less) new to me, I thought T.L. Sherred's "E for Effort" was quite good, Ross Rocklynne's "Time Wants a Skeleton" was better than it should have been, and Fredric Brown's "Daymare" was again in line with my low expectations.
So this anthology delivers both as a reminder of where the genre was 70 years ago, and as a source of some pretty darn compelling storytelling. Highly recommended.