Isaac Asimov, A. Bertram Chandler et al - Mammoth Book of Golden Age Science Fiction, The - 8

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Mammoth Book of Golden Age Science Fiction, The (Mammoth Anthologies)

I picked this up at the used book store expecting a healthy dose of dated, sexist, adolescent fantasy-fullfillment tales, which would likely be more of historical interest than particularly compelling. I am happy to report that a majority of the ten novella and novelette length stories proved much better than that.

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.

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