Before the Golden Age

Someone once facetitiously said that "The Golden Age of science fiction is twelve." The era today called the Golden Age began, by most reckonings, in 1938, with John Campbell's entrance as editor of "Astounding Stories"; but a lot of ground had been laid in prior years (aside from the "literary" science works--there was no term "science fiction" yet--of folk like Verne and Wells) and this anthology edited by Isaac Asimov attempts to convey the flavor of the better, or least bad, of that earlier work. In brutal honestly, this is not a book one can read for the usual sorts of literary enjoyment: the quality of the prose is, on the whole, risible, and it all calls to mind the apothegm with which this review began. But the stories show more definitely have a historical interest, as showing how quickly and from what beginnings the contemporary genre has evolved. These things, recall, were published literally within living memory. Moreover, many of them have the sort of quality once called "camp", or "so bad they're good". There's no doubt that carefully rationed skimming in this book can be not merely enlightening but entertaining. show less

This is a great collection of science fiction stories from the 1930s, with wonderful introductions by Asimov. None of this is heavy stuff. I first read it as a teenager and it is probably best suited for that age group, before our sense of wonder has been hammered repeatedly by reality. Asimov read these stories himself at that age, but as he was always able to do, he was still able to convey his youthful enthusiasm in selecting and introducing this collection.

The introductions are arguably more fun than the stories.

A terrific collection of early SF, with informative introductions to the stories/authors

Many familiar stories here from anthologies galore!

essential volume for the eclectic short story collection of science fiction