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).
― dow, Sunday, 18 March 2018 21:20 (six years ago) link
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---?
― dow, Sunday, 18 March 2018 21:24 (six years ago) link
How do they do the bit on audio where he goes punctuation berserk? That's my favourite bit.
― Whiney On The Moog (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 18 March 2018 22:00 (six years ago) link
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.
― Whiney On The Moog (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 18 March 2018 22:06 (six years ago) link
Okay, the narrator pauses for every comma in the first and last sentence of that Progress Report.
― Whiney On The Moog (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 18 March 2018 22:28 (six years ago) link
xpost yeah was thinking along those lines and others re someone with cognitive struggles---duh everybody in some way-
― dow, Sunday, 18 March 2018 22:48 (six years ago) link
Yeah, I probably should have said I was agreeing with what you were saying.
― Whiney On The Moog (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 18 March 2018 22:54 (six years ago) link
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.)
― dow, Sunday, 18 March 2018 23:02 (six years ago) link
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.
― Whiney On The Moog (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 18 March 2018 23:24 (six years ago) link
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
― startled macropod (MatthewK), Sunday, 18 March 2018 23:25 (six years ago) link
Yeah that book is great. I have an ebook of it under an alternate title, Science Fiction 101: The Craft of Science Fiction.
― Whiney On The Moog (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 18 March 2018 23:31 (six years ago) link
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)
― Whiney On The Moog (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 19 March 2018 00:11 (six years ago) link
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
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 19 March 2018 08:53 (six years ago) link
"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.
― dow, Monday, 19 March 2018 15:55 (six years ago) link
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.
― Whiney On The Moog (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 19 March 2018 23:52 (six years ago) link
Someone with musical skills should sample that to make the next Avalanches single.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Tuesday, 20 March 2018 05:27 (six years ago) link
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/
― Whiney On The Moog (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 20 March 2018 10:52 (six years ago) link
How do you think that punctuation hiccuping Charlie does compares with the chanting of the Scientific People in The Stars My Destination, James?
― Whiney On The Moog (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 21 March 2018 01:36 (six years ago) link
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.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 21 March 2018 04:17 (six years ago) link
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.
― Dub (Webster’s Dictionary) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 29 April 2018 14:14 (six years ago) link
Not the screenwriter, James Gunn, but the sf writer and academic.
― Dub (Webster’s Dictionary) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 29 April 2018 14:15 (six years ago) link
Curious about his anthology series, The Road To Science Fiction, but seems hard to get a hold of.
― Dub (Webster’s Dictionary) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 29 April 2018 14:19 (six years ago) link
It seems like at least half of these have been adapted into TV/movies. Weird that Mimsy would be the most recent one.
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 30 April 2018 23:04 (six years ago) link
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 6/10Allamagoosa - Eric Frank Russell 7/10Exploration 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 8/10Or All the Seas With Oysters - Avram Davidson 6/10The Big Front Yard - Clifford D Simak 7/10The Hell-Bound Train - Robert Bloch 5/10Flowers 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 5/10The Dragon Masters - Jack Vance 7/10No 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)
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 1 May 2018 11:33 (six years ago) link
The Big Front Yard - Clifford D Simak
this is the one where the hoverbike riding aliens are impressed by paint, yeah?
― lana del boy (ledge), Tuesday, 1 May 2018 11:59 (six years ago) link
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
― lana del boy (ledge), Tuesday, 1 May 2018 12:04 (six years ago) link
LOL yep, that's a fantastically literal cover painting that gives away the ending. There's a lot of folksy yarn-spinning before that.
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 1 May 2018 12:06 (six years ago) link
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novelette, 1959
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 1 May 2018 12:07 (six years ago) link
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
― Abbatari Teenage Riot (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 2 May 2018 00:10 (six years ago) link
Simak? Folksy yarn-spinning? No way.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 2 May 2018 02:38 (six years ago) link
Never happened
― Abbatari Teenage Riot (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 2 May 2018 10:31 (six years ago) link
This anthology series I have never seen or heard of until today, edited by guess-who, looks pretty interesting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_(anthology_series)?wprov=sfti1
― And Nobody POLLS Like Me (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 17 June 2018 23:26 (six years ago) link
Amazing looking stuff.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Sunday, 17 June 2018 23:43 (six years ago) link
For real! A bunch of great stuff i know plus a bunch of stuff I’ve been looking for, like Wilhelm’s “Baby, You Were Great”
― Οὖτις, Monday, 18 June 2018 05:07 (five years ago) link
'Baby, You Were Great' also included in Pamela Sargent's first Women of Wonder anthology.
At the same time as the Alpha series, Silverbob was also editing the all-original New Dimensions series too. Dude was just insanely productive in the late 60s/early 70s.
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 18 June 2018 08:21 (five years ago) link
Yeah, edited a lot of one-off anthologies as well, I think
― And Nobody POLLS Like Me (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 18 June 2018 10:38 (five years ago) link
Of course, those Alphas are not originals, like the New Dimensions were, I think, but still. “Baby, You Were Great” is from Orbit, for instance.
― And Nobody POLLS Like Me (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 18 June 2018 10:46 (five years ago) link
And can also be found in The Best From Orbit.
― And Nobody POLLS Like Me (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 18 June 2018 10:56 (five years ago) link
I have this nice UK paperback edition of Orbit 2, where the Wilhelm made its first appearance:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/413FfkCenfL.SX316.SY316.jpg
I only have a battered copy of the UK Orbit 1 paperback, but I love the cover:
https://pictures.abebooks.com/ELLEPOTTER/md/md20882515571.jpg
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 18 June 2018 11:02 (five years ago) link