Isaac Asimov Presents : The Golden Years of Science Fiction, 4th Series
by Isaac Asimov (Editor), Martin H. Greenberg (Editor)
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Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction (Fourth Series) is part of a larger series edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg featuring a selection of short fiction from the golden age of science fiction. This volume contains stories originally published in 1944, 1945, and 1946. The stories included are:
The Waveries by Fredric Brown
The Piper's Son by Lewis Padgett
Wanted - An Enemy by Fritz Leiber
Blind Alley by Isaac Asimov
Correspondence Course by Raymond F. Jones
First Contact by Murray Leinster
The Vanishing Venusians by Leigh Brackett
Into Thy Hands by Lester del Rey
Camouflage by Henry Kuttner
The Power by Murray Leinster
Giant Killer by A. Bertram Chandler
What You Need by Henry Kuttner
A Logic Named Joe by Will F. show more Jenkins
Memorial by Theodore Sturgeon
Loophole by Arthur C. Clarke
The Nightmare by Chan Davis
Rescue Party by Arthur C. Clarke
Placet is a Crazy Place by Fredric Brown
Conqueror's Isle by Nelson S. Bond
Lorelei of the Red Mist by Ray Bradbury and Leigh Brackett
The Million Year Picnic by Ray Bradbury
The Last Objective by Paul A. Carter
Meihein in ce Klasrum by Dolton Edwards
Vintage Season by Lawrence O'Donnell
Evidence by Isaac Asimov
Technical Error by Arthur C. Clarke
As the stories were culled from a period of three years of time, they are all good. For obvious reasons, some of the stories are based upon science that is now outdated (such as Lorelei of the Red Mist and The Vanishing Venusians, both of which are set on a wet and muggy Venus). Oddly (to me), there are no stories by Heinlein represented in this collection, which I would expect in a collection from this time period.
Some of the stories reflect the fear that technology brought to World War II, such as The Waveries a fantastical escape into a simpler, less threatening period, or The Last Objective, a terrible vision of warfare in a technological age. As one might expect, several of the stories are heavily affected by the news of the use of atomic weapons: The Piper's Son, Memorial, Loophole, The Nightmare, The Million Year Picnic, and even Into Thy Hands and Technical Error.
Despite this, the stories show a wild range of ideas, from the claustrophobic Giant Killer, to an exploration of precognition in What You Need, or a prescient tale about networked personal computers in A Logic Named Joe, the oddness of Placet Is a Crazy Place, and the implications of time traveling tourists in Vintage Season. Clarke's Rescue Party is one of his best works, and Meihein in ce Klasrum is simply one of the best stories about language ever written.
The stories are all framed by a brief bit of text by Asimov and Greenberg, explaining why they chose them, their memories of the stories, and a little bit about each author. Reading the stories, one clearly sees where later writers got their ideas - most of them were building upon or reacting to the ideas formed by the men whose stories are represented in this book. For anyone who seriously loves science fiction, this is a must read. show less
The Waveries by Fredric Brown
The Piper's Son by Lewis Padgett
Wanted - An Enemy by Fritz Leiber
Blind Alley by Isaac Asimov
Correspondence Course by Raymond F. Jones
First Contact by Murray Leinster
The Vanishing Venusians by Leigh Brackett
Into Thy Hands by Lester del Rey
Camouflage by Henry Kuttner
The Power by Murray Leinster
Giant Killer by A. Bertram Chandler
What You Need by Henry Kuttner
A Logic Named Joe by Will F. show more Jenkins
Memorial by Theodore Sturgeon
Loophole by Arthur C. Clarke
The Nightmare by Chan Davis
Rescue Party by Arthur C. Clarke
Placet is a Crazy Place by Fredric Brown
Conqueror's Isle by Nelson S. Bond
Lorelei of the Red Mist by Ray Bradbury and Leigh Brackett
The Million Year Picnic by Ray Bradbury
The Last Objective by Paul A. Carter
Meihein in ce Klasrum by Dolton Edwards
Vintage Season by Lawrence O'Donnell
Evidence by Isaac Asimov
Technical Error by Arthur C. Clarke
As the stories were culled from a period of three years of time, they are all good. For obvious reasons, some of the stories are based upon science that is now outdated (such as Lorelei of the Red Mist and The Vanishing Venusians, both of which are set on a wet and muggy Venus). Oddly (to me), there are no stories by Heinlein represented in this collection, which I would expect in a collection from this time period.
Some of the stories reflect the fear that technology brought to World War II, such as The Waveries a fantastical escape into a simpler, less threatening period, or The Last Objective, a terrible vision of warfare in a technological age. As one might expect, several of the stories are heavily affected by the news of the use of atomic weapons: The Piper's Son, Memorial, Loophole, The Nightmare, The Million Year Picnic, and even Into Thy Hands and Technical Error.
Despite this, the stories show a wild range of ideas, from the claustrophobic Giant Killer, to an exploration of precognition in What You Need, or a prescient tale about networked personal computers in A Logic Named Joe, the oddness of Placet Is a Crazy Place, and the implications of time traveling tourists in Vintage Season. Clarke's Rescue Party is one of his best works, and Meihein in ce Klasrum is simply one of the best stories about language ever written.
The stories are all framed by a brief bit of text by Asimov and Greenberg, explaining why they chose them, their memories of the stories, and a little bit about each author. Reading the stories, one clearly sees where later writers got their ideas - most of them were building upon or reacting to the ideas formed by the men whose stories are represented in this book. For anyone who seriously loves science fiction, this is a must read. show less
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Isaac Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russia, on January 2, 1920. His family emigrated to the United States in 1923 and settled in Brooklyn, New York, where they owned and operated a candy store. Asimov became a naturalized U.S. citizen at the age of eight. As a youngster he discovered his talent for writing, producing his first original fiction at show more the age of eleven. He went on to become one of the world's most prolific writers, publishing nearly 500 books in his lifetime. Asimov was not only a writer; he also was a biochemist and an educator. He studied chemistry at Columbia University, earning a B.S., M.A. and Ph.D. In 1951, Asimov accepted a position as an instructor of biochemistry at Boston University's School of Medicine even though he had no practical experience in the field. His exceptional intelligence enabled him to master new systems rapidly, and he soon became a successful and distinguished professor at Columbia and even co-authored a biochemistry textbook within a few years. Asimov won numerous awards and honors for his books and stories, and he is considered to be a leading writer of the Golden Age of science fiction. While he did not invent science fiction, he helped to legitimize it by adding the narrative structure that had been missing from the traditional science fiction books of the period. He also introduced several innovative concepts, including the thematic concern for technological progress and its impact on humanity. Asimov is probably best known for his Foundation series, which includes Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. In 1966, this trilogy won the Hugo award for best all-time science fiction series. In 1983, Asimov wrote an additional Foundation novel, Foundation's Edge, which won the Hugo for best novel of that year. Asimov also wrote a series of robot books that included I, Robot, and eventually he tied the two series together. He won three additional Hugos, including one awarded posthumously for the best non-fiction book of 1995, I. Asimov. "Nightfall" was chosen the best science fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America. In 1979, Asimov wrote his autobiography, In Memory Yet Green. He continued writing until just a few years before his death from heart and kidney failure on April 6, 1992. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Martin Harry Greenberg (March 1, 1941 - June 25, 2011) was an American academic and speculative fiction anthologist. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books; he was also a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel. Some of his anthologies included: Past Imperfect (2001), Once Upon a Galaxy show more (2002) and Sirius: The Dog Star (2004). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- Isaac Asimov Presents : The Golden Years of Science Fiction, 4th Series
- Original title
- Isaac Asimov Presents : The Golden Years of Science Fiction, 4th Series
- Original publication date
- 1984
- Disambiguation notice
- This is actually an omnibus which reprints -partly- the contents of two previously published anthologies: Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 7 (1945), (omitting ''De Profundis'' by Murray Leinster and ''Pi in the Sky'... (show all)' by Fredric Brown) and Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 8 (1946) (omitting ''Absalom'' from Henry Kuttner and ''Mewhu's Jet'' from Theodore Sturgeon).
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- Fiction and Literature, Science Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 813.087608 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English By type Genre fiction Adventure fiction Speculative fiction Collections
- LCC
- PS648 .S3 .I78 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Collections of American literature Prose (General)
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