Best Story in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 (Unabridged Version)

Malzberg was such a Kuttner/Moore fan that he took their initials and one of their pseudonyms and created the pen name K. M. O'Donnell for himself.

How many times I use form of "interesting" in that one paragraph. It's like that one Bugs Bunny cartoon.

It's a *good* life

just finished that one, immediately recognized it from the TZ episode but man that is some bleak shit

Always think that phrase at certain times of year.

Anyway, been reading some of the Galaxy Project ebooks and there are these really informative introductions, which is in-line with the tradition noted by Delany of sf history being buried in anthology intros. In one of the Kornbluths, which Horace Gold tacked a happy ending onto, we learn that he wanted to do the same for "Flowers For Algernon"!

Sorry, maybe I should have put *SPOILER* there.

Cherry-picking my way through The Hugo WInners for stuff not easily available elsewhere before I have to return it. Lots of corny stuff from Asimov in the intro but some of it is actually interesting or funny. LIke this:

My winged words cleft the air impassionedly as I delivered an impromptu encomium on the manifold excellence of Daniel Keyes. "How did he do it?" I demanded of the Muses. "How did he do it?"
....
And, from the round and gentle face of Daniel Keyes, issued the immortal words: "Listen, when you find out how I did it, let me know, will you? I want to do it again."

Or, from the intro to Fritz Leiber's "Gonna Roll the Bones"

But what Fritz said to me was, "You have no villains."
I objected at once. "Yes, I do, Fritz," I said. "Every story I write has a villain."
"Oh, you have someone who opposes your hero," he said, "but he's never a villain

Second villain should be in italics - villain

From intro to "Riders of the Purple Wage"

One of the questions was "Tell me, Mr. Farmer, how do you keep up to date in science so that you can write your science fiction stories?"
That was a stunner for me. I had never heard of such a thing. At the time, I was teaching biochemistry at a medical school full time and a textbook I had helped write was going into its second edition, so I had to keep up in biochemistry. But keeping up in science in general? And for science fiction?
Phil took it calmly. He said, "For one thing, I subscribe to Scientific American."
I was staggered. If Phil, who is a lot less "heavy science" than I am, feels it necessary to keep up with science what am I doing just lounging around?
I could hardly wait to get home to send in my subscription to Scientific American, (a subscription I still have) and to begin to work at keeping up. I don't know that it ever affected my science fiction much, but I'll tell you this: since 1954 I have written dozens of non-fiction books covering just about every field of science, and one of the reasons I can do so dates back to that one remark of Phil Farmer.
Thanks, Phil!

OK, read all three Poul Anderson stories in this book of which two were grebt but one was terrible, and it's reasonably clear why.

Feel like this thread should be moved to I Love Books or retired in favor of the other rolling thread, but I still kind of like this thread and feel it has a purpose.

haha i dimly remember reading that asimov anecdote in one of his other books. that guy must have been the most lovable bad public speaker ever.

He basically brags about it in I, Asimov. Well, he describes it differently. How he was a highly paid, much in-demand public speaker who could get the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand in no time flat and was uncannily able to stop on a dime at exactly the appointed hour within reference to a watch or clock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU-QExgydz0

Just reread - okay listened to the audiobook of - the novel version of Flowers of Algernon, and gotta say it still packs a punch, extremely well thought through and executed.

Aargh, sleepy fat fingers onto small screen, I really pulled a Charlie Gordon that time, Flowers for Algernon

How do they do the bit on audio where he goes punctuation berserk? That's my favourite bit.

This poll result surprises and confuses me.

Like is “Flowers for Algernon” something other than an exploitative bit of premise?

It's a well-done tearjerker at least, the more poignant for sure if you know or are someone with cognitive struggles---duh everybody in some way---guess it got some points for novelty when first published (not many stories about "slow" people then) but the deeper or more lingering (than novelty) impression, via unusual aspect of subject (also in there: experimental treatments which work, but only for a while---and it was published after and amid all these well-publicized treatments for "curable" conditions).

So exploitation is also part of its subject---is he in some way better off for this experience, at least in terms of a few, increasingly and perhaps mercifully dimming memories---?

How do they do the bit on audio where he goes punctuation berserk? That's my favourite bit.

There is one plausible interpretation in which one could think of it as a story that is relevant to anyone who has not necessarily been surgically altered but whose intellectual development has outstripped their emotional -and also, Keyes/smart Charlie states, spiritual- development.

Okay, the narrator pauses for every comma in the first and last sentence of that Progress Report.

xpost yeah was thinking along those lines and others re someone with cognitive struggles---duh everybody in some way-

Yeah, I probably should have said I was agreeing with what you were saying.

The movie was okay, wasn't it? Been a long tyme since I've seen it, but Cliff Robertson was prob okay, and it had Charlie going to a go-go, strobe lights, girls in white boots---tryin' to get those crazy kids back in the seats, but then why wouldn't he, go Charlie go! (Soundtrack by Ravi Shankar, for Charlie's messed-with karma.)

Dunno, haven't seen since we watched in ninth grade English class, although I did just read Daniel Keyes impression of it in his memoir Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer's Journey. But hey, I see that somebody put Charly on youtube for the nonce.

Robert Silverberg edited a collection including several of these, with essays of analysis and appreciation for each - a book I loved, and thoroughly recommend.
https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Silverbergs-Worlds-Wonder-Exploring/dp/0446513695

Yeah that book is great. I have an ebook of it under an alternate title, Science Fiction 101: The Craft of Science Fiction.

Which reminds me that another audiobook I recently enjoyed was Brian Aldiss’s Non-Stop. (The first chapter of “Hothouse” is in that Silverberg collection)

Prior to World of Wonder, Silverberg also edited the Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthologies that this poll is based on. IIRC, Silverbob massaged the poll results a bit to get a good overall spread of authors, types of story, eras, etc. His choices are generally excellent, tho' I can't quite understand his enthusiasm for Blish's 'Surface Tension', which I find pretty dull (might well have been more remarkable in 1952 of course).

I have these British editions:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51uqgQy-FPL._SX303_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51o%2BZk-ARSL._SX296_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

"Surface Tension" amazes me now, or not too long ago when I finally read it in the VanderMeers' accurately titled The Big Book of Science Fiction. Entirely possible that I'm at 1952 levels of appreciation, not to mention comprehension (I was an All-American tot then, bred on U-235-fortified mother's milk). Great cover pix, thanks! Also thanks to yall for mention and endorsements of those Silverb essays.

You know, James M, it seems that there is also a recent audiobook of the very book that is the subject of this poll, and in that case the reader of the shorter version of “Flowers for Algernon” really goes to town delivering each and every inflection in the section in which Charlie is infected with punctuation intoxication.

Someone with musical skills should sample that to make the next Avalanches single.

Indeed.

Linking this for the images, which you need to scroll down to see:
https://auxiliarymemory.com/2017/12/19/science-fiction-hall-of-fame-volume-one/

How do you think that punctuation hiccuping Charlie does compares with the chanting of the Scientific People in The Stars My Destination, James?

The mind boggles.

I know there's at least one UK edition of 'The Stars My Destination' that helpfully deformatted all the weird typography, putting it into regular paragraphs and ruining the effect.

Recently there have also been audiobooks of Volume IIA and now Volume IIB. Also found this review by Theodore Sturgeon:
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/22/archives/if.html

Finally, came across some interesting comments out there by James Gunn, in which he references Volume II, about why the novelette is the ideal length for sf, but they are buried in google books links so am not going to link.

Not the screenwriter, James Gunn, but the sf writer and academic.

Curious about his anthology series, The Road To Science Fiction, but seems hard to get a hold of.

It seems like at least half of these have been adapted into TV/movies. Weird that Mimsy would be the most recent one.

I only have volume three of the Gunn series, 'From Heinlein to Here', covering the period 1940 to 1977. Good selection of stories, lots of crossover with other the Hall of Fame anthologies as you might expect; don't remember the surrounding editorial matter being that compelling, but would need to revisit to confirm.

Have recently worked my way through a couple of volumes of Hugo Award winning stories edited by Asimov, covering the periods 1955 to 1967. Again, some crossover with these anthologies. With your indulgence (or without), here are my rankings:

The Darfstellar - Walter M Miller 6/10
Allamagoosa - Eric Frank Russell 7/10
Exploration Team - Murray Leinster 7/10 (not the best story in these collections, but the one that most seemed like it would most make a great movie - giant mutated bears! hordes of horrible alien creatures!)
The Star - Arthur C Clarke 8/10
Or All the Seas With Oysters - Avram Davidson 6/10
The Big Front Yard - Clifford D Simak 7/10
The Hell-Bound Train - Robert Bloch 5/10
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes 8/10 (the ideas about intelligence and stupidity expressed here are obviously much more problematic nowadays, but as a piece of storytelling this is still pretty fine)
The Longest Voyage - Poul Anderson 5/10
The Dragon Masters - Jack Vance 7/10
No Truce With Kings - Poul Anderson 2/10 (an unbelievably tedious sci-fi retelling of the American Civil War. Kinda hate Poul Anderson now.)
Soldier, Ask Not - Gordon R Dickson 6/10
'Repent Harlequin', said the Ticktockman - Harlan Ellison 7/10 (yes the author is a terrible arse, and the hepcat writing style has dated badly, but after the stodge of Anderson this definitely felt like a leap into modernity and you can still see why it had such an impact at the time)
The Last Castle - Jack Vance 9/10 (Vance at his best - a baroque melding of fantasy, historical and classic SF ficion tropes)
Neutron Star - Larry Niven 6/10 (reminded me a little of Delany's Nova, which is less hard science than the Niven, and therefore much more to my taste)

The Big Front Yard - Clifford D Simak

this is the one where the hoverbike riding aliens are impressed by paint, yeah?

oh look there they are:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3c/The_Big_Front_Yard.jpg/220px-The_Big_Front_Yard.jpg

LOL yep, that's a fantastically literal cover painting that gives away the ending. There's a lot of folksy yarn-spinning before that.

Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novelette, 1959

Thanks, Ward. I remember reading those two Poul Anderson stories in that book, liking the first one well enough and hating the other one, so much I did not finish it

Simak? Folksy yarn-spinning? No way.