Showing posts sorted by relevance for query thrilling wonder stories. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query thrilling wonder stories. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, July 27, 2015

BEST FROM STARTLING STORIES, THE SHAPE OF THINGS, WONDER STORIES 1957 and other reprints from the Thrilling Group science fiction titles

After Standard Magazines/Better Publications shut down their Thrilling Group pulp magazines in 1955, they concentrated their activities mostly in the Paperback Library division of the Ned Pines organization...but James Hendryx, Jr. was given the task over the next decade to edit reprint magazines (with a couple of stories reprinted from the slicks rather than pulp back issues): two almost identical issues of Wonder Stories (the first in digest format, the second in pulp size) and eventually three issues of Treasury of Great Science Fiction Stories (with the last cutting the title down), also in pulp format.  (Treasury also had a western fiction companion.)
Cover painting by Richard Powers
Contents:
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Contents:
And the anthologies drawn from the Thrilling Group magazines:
cover painting by Alex Schomberg







































The Best from Startling Stories ed. Samuel Mines (Henry Holt LCC# 53-8980, 1953, $3.50, 301pp, hc) Also as Startling Stories and Moment Without Time
    • vii · Foreword: Blueprint for Tomorrow · Samuel Mines · in
    • ix · Introduction · Robert A. Heinlein · in
    • 1 · The Wages of Synergy · Theodore Sturgeon · nv Startling Stories Aug 1953
    • 61 · The Perfect Gentleman · R. J. McGregor · ss Startling Stories Sep 1952
    • 81 · Moment Without Time · Joel Townsley Rogers · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr 1952
    • 113 · The Naming of Names · Ray Bradbury · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Aug 1949
    • 135 · No Land of Nod · Sherwood Springer · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec 1952
    • 163 · Who’s Cribbing? · Jack Lewis · ss Startling Stories Jan 1953
    • 173 · Thirty Seconds — Thirty Days · Arthur C. Clarke · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec 1949
    • 207 · Noise · Jack Vance · ss Startling Stories Aug 1952
    • 225 · What’s It Like Out There? · Edmond Hamilton · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec 1952
    • 255 · Dormant · A. E. van Vogt · ss Startling Stories Nov 1948
    • 279 · Dark Nuptial · Robert Donald Locke · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb 1953
Cover painting by Eugene Berman





































    • Introduction · Damon Knight · in
    • Don’t Look Now · Henry Kuttner · ss Startling Stories Mar 1948
    • The Box · James Blish · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr 1949
    • The New Reality · Charles L. Harness · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec 1950
    • The Eternal Now · Murray Leinster · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Fll 1944
    • The Sky Was Full of Ships · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Jun 1947
    • The Shape of Things · Ray Bradbury · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb 1948
    • The Only Thing We Learn · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Startling Stories Jul 1949
    • The Hibited Man · L. Sprague de Camp · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct 1949
    • Dormant · A. E. van Vogt · ss Startling Stories Nov 1948
    • The Ambassadors · Anthony Boucher · ss Startling Stories Jun 1952
    • A Child Is Crying · John D. MacDonald · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec 1948
My review of The Shape of Things
Indices and images from ISFDB and Homeville.
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Friday, December 17, 2010

FFB: THE SHAPE OF THINGS, edited by Damon Knight (Popular Library, 1967)



from the Contento indices:
The Shape of Things ed. Damon Knight (Popular Library SP352, 1967, 50¢, 206pp, pb)
· Introduction · Damon Knight · in
· Don’t Look Now · Henry Kuttner · ss Startling Stories Mar ’48
· The Box · James Blish · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’49
· The New Reality · Charles L. Harness · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec ’50
· The Eternal Now · Murray Leinster · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Fll ’44
· The Sky Was Full of Ships · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Jun ’47· The Shape of Things · Ray Bradbury · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb ’48
· The Only Thing We Learn · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Startling Stories Jul ’49
· The Hibited Man · L. Sprague de Camp · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct ’49
· Dormant · A. E. van Vogt · ss Startling Stories Nov ’48
· The Ambassadors · Anthony Boucher · ss Startling Stories Jun ’52
· A Child Is Crying · John D. MacDonald · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec ’48

This thin volume, without making much of a fuss about it, was the first (and [I incorrectly wrote back in 2010] perhaps still is the only) Best-of the Samuel Merwin and Sam Mines years of Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories, the Other Good sf magazines of the late '40s and early '50s [Mines had actually published a The Best from Startling Stories that included fiction from TWS, during his run with the pulp titles]...magazines with not as distinct personalities as Astounding Science Fiction, John W. Campbell's revolutionary magazine being challenged finally, in part by writers and editors developed and inspired by Campbell but also by (as, for example, Bradbury) writers who were never too compatible with the ASF ethos, or Planet Stories, by the end of the 1940s not only the home of elegant space opera and a regular market for Leigh Brackett and others, but by those years fully as good and about as diverse as ASF...and such magazines stressing sophistication and good prose as Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and briefly also such others as Knight's own Worlds Beyond and Howard Browne's mixed bag of the early Fantastic and the upgraded Amazing.

But, for a while, Startling and Thrilling Wonder, as burdened by their pulp-era titles as was Astounding or Amazing (at least Fantastic, and its predecessor Fantastic Adventures, and Weird Tales had descriptive titles that had some specific relevance to their content), were publishing a range of often fascinating and innovative material, including the likes of Philip Jose Farmer's The Lovers, which dealt directly with tragic interspecies romance and helped establish Farmer's reputation, and the contents of this volume...ranging from James Blish's elegant technological "problem" story (how do you rescue a city encased in an impenetrable force-field?) to Ray Bradbury's whimsical notion of a woman who gives birth to an apparently healthy blue pyramid, to Charles Harness's typical blend of space-opera and mind-blowing philosophical and cosmological speculation...Harness is yet another underappreciated writer in the field, except among those who really love and know This Kind of Thing...his influence on his younger contemporaries Jack Vance and Poul Anderson, particularly, seems pretty clear to me.

I've read that on the strength of this kind of material, Startling managed to become for a while the best-selling of sf magazines, presumably outselling Astounding, just starting to drift due to Campbell's fascination with Dianetics, psi powers, and other matters from the fringes of science, and Amazing, just after Howard Browne dumped the lunatic-fringe-stroking Shaver Mystery material (akin to Ancient Astronauts and the more irresponsible UFOlogy coverage then just coming into vogue, with, as with Dianetics and other pop mysticism, some past-life regression elements) that Browne's predecssor Ray Palmer had used to put that magazine into the circulation stratosphere...and before the insurgence in late 1950/early 1951 of Galaxy.

And yet, these magazines from the Thrilling Group pulp chain, which had been morphed (essentially) into the paperback publisher Popular Library, had been so thoroughly eclipsed, a dozen years after the titles were merged and folded, so that the packaging for this book didn't even bother to mention them...as opposed to highlighting the kinds of writers and fiction they were publishing. (Popular Library had published several Wonder Story Annuals in the '50s and '60s, to test the waters, apparently, for the old title.) That legacy stands...even if this volume is now as obscure, certainly to the average reader, as the magazines it draws from.

For more "forgotten" books this week, please see, as usual, Patti Abbott's blog.
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Friday, September 14, 2018

FFB: THE SHAPE OF THINGS edited by Damon Knight (Popular Library 1965); THE UNKNOWN 5 edited by D. R. Bensen (Pyramid 1964)

I've been ill for much of the week, so reduxing...with apologies...but these were among my less popular reviews of years past...


Friday, December 17, 2010

FFB: THE SHAPE OF THINGS, edited by Damon Knight (Popular Library, 1965)

from the Contento indices:
The Shape of Things ed. Damon Knight (Popular Library SP352, 1965, 50¢, 206pp, pb)
· Introduction · Damon Knight · in
· Don’t Look Now · Henry Kuttner · ss Startling Stories Mar ’48
· The Box · James Blish · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’49
· The New Reality · Charles L. Harness · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec ’50
· The Eternal Now · Murray Leinster · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Fll ’44
· The Sky Was Full of Ships · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Jun ’47
· The Shape of Things · Ray Bradbury · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb ’48
· The Only Thing We Learn · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Startling Stories Jul ’49
· The Hibited Man · L. Sprague de Camp · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct ’49
· Dormant · A. E. van Vogt · ss Startling Stories Nov ’48
· The Ambassadors · Anthony Boucher · ss Startling Stories Jun ’52
· A Child Is Crying · John D. MacDonald · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec ’48

This thin volume, without making much of a fuss about it, was the first (and [I incorrectly wrote back in 2010] perhaps still is the only) Best-of the Samuel Merwin and Sam Mines years of Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories, the Other Good sf magazines of the late '40s and early '50s [Mines had actually published a The Best from Startling Stories that included fiction from TWS, during his run with the pulp titles]...magazines with not as distinct personalities as Astounding Science Fiction, John W. Campbell's revolutionary magazine being challenged finally, in part by writers and editors developed and inspired by Campbell but also by (as, for example, Bradbury) writers who were never too compatible with the ASF ethos, or Planet Stories, by the end of the 1940s not only the home of elegant space opera and a regular market for Leigh Brackett and others, but by those years fully as good and about as diverse as ASF...and such magazines stressing sophistication and good prose as Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and briefly also such others as Knight's own Worlds Beyond and Howard Browne's mixed bag of the early Fantastic and the upgraded Amazing.

But, for a while, Startling and Thrilling Wonder, as burdened by their pulp-era titles as was Astounding or Amazing (at least Fantastic, and its predecessor Fantastic Adventures, and Weird Tales had descriptive titles that had some specific relevance to their content), were publishing a range of often fascinating and innovative material, including the likes of Philip Jose Farmer's The Lovers, which dealt directly with tragic interspecies romance and helped establish Farmer's reputation, and the contents of this volume...ranging from James Blish's elegant technological "problem" story (how do you rescue a city encased in an impenetrable force-field?) to Ray Bradbury's whimsical notion of a woman who gives birth to an apparently healthy blue pyramid, to Charles Harness's typical blend of space-opera and mind-blowing philosophical and cosmological speculation...Harness is yet another underappreciated writer in the field, except among those who really love and know This Kind of Thing...his influence on his younger contemporaries Jack Vance and Poul Anderson, particularly, seems pretty clear to me.

I've read that on the strength of this kind of material, Startling managed to become for a while the best-selling of sf magazines, presumably outselling Astounding, just starting to drift due to Campbell's fascination with Dianetics, psi powers, and other matters from the fringes of science, and Amazing, just after Howard Browne dumped the lunatic-fringe-stroking Shaver Mystery material (akin to Ancient Astronauts and the more irresponsible UFOlogy coverage then just coming into vogue, with, as with Dianetics and other pop mysticism, some past-life regression elements) that Browne's predecessor Ray Palmer had used to put that magazine into the circulation stratosphere...and before the insurgence in late 1950/early 1951 of Galaxy.

And yet, these magazines from the Thrilling Group pulp chain, which had been morphed (essentially) into the paperback publisher Popular Library, had been so thoroughly eclipsed, a dozen years after the titles were merged and folded, so that the packaging for this book didn't even bother to mention them...as opposed to highlighting the kinds of writers and fiction they were publishing. (Popular Library had published several Wonder Story Annuals in the '50s and '60s, to test the waters, apparently, for the old title.) That legacy stands...even if this volume is now as obscure, certainly to the average reader, as the magazines it draws from.

 Also about Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and the Thrilling Group
Also about Damon Knight

Friday, January 30, 2009

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: THE UNKNOWN 5 edited by D. R. Bensen (Pyramid 1964)


This fine and somewhat influential collection is for several reasons newly, sadly relevant...it has a cover and a new (in 1964) illustration by John Schoenherr for the previously-unpublished story in the collection, the Asimov...but the other illustrations were from the pages of the original story appearances in Unknown and (its later title) Unknown Worlds, by the recently late (in 2009) Ed Cartier. (In fact, Schoenherr, best known for his Dune and other Analog and also wild-animal/landscape painting, is the [in 2009] only living contributor to the book.) (When Pyramid was bought in the latest ‘70s by HBJ, this anthology was re-issued with an absolutely hideous, by intention, Rowena Morrill cover.)

Also, it was published 45 years ago this month…in its turn 21 years after the folding of Unknown Worlds, in it's turn founded 70 years ago, with much nostalgic and not so nostalgic reminiscence in editor D.R. Bensen’s introduction, who notes that in the US-still-neutral WW2 years, the ads in Unknown and other fiction magazines lent themselves to suggesting ways to keep that $30/week job, rather than such late 1963 concerns as nuclear war (the introduction was clearly written before the Kennedy assassination). Today, of course, we’re much further along, and often most concerned with keeping that $600-900/week job.

Unknown, of course, was the fantasy-fiction companion to the hugely influential sf magazine Astounding, as mentioned in previous posts, and during its 3.5-year run it was the other major pole in fantasy-fiction publishing in the pulps and pulp-like magazines to the similarly legendary Weird Tales (in Unknown Worlds's later years, it was published in a larger size and with better paper than the pulps, with a fairly staid cover format that looked more like The Atlantic Monthly at the time than like the pulps…all factors which might’ve led to its folding in 1943, when paper supplies were getting tight and publisher Street and Smith cut back on several fronts.) Actually, 1939, when Unknown was founded, was a good year for fantasy magazines, with Ziff-Davis first offering Fantastic Adventures (though it was originally primarily a science fiction magazine), the Thrilling Group/Standard Magazines launching the shortlived Strange Stories, and the Munsey magazine group beginnin Famous Fantastic Mysteries, primarily a reprint magazine but publishing some notable original fiction. But in the early ‘40s, the post-Lovecraft/Robert Howard/Clark Ashton Smith Weird Tales and Unknown were the most prominent titles devoted exclusively to fantasy. It’s often been thus since—when Unknown folded, both WT and eventually Fantastic Adventures gained new, good contributions and contributors…even if the latter never completely shed hack adventure fiction cheek by jowl with the better work. When WT folded for the first time in 1954, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction had arisen beginning in 1949 and continuing to the present, while FA was folded into the more ambitious new Fantastic in 1954…though, unfortunately, the tendency toward hack was simply transferred over to Fantastic for the next several years (the notable Beyond Fantasy Fiction sprung up for its run from 1953-1955 as a companion to Galaxy Science Fiction). However, F&SF and Fantastic remained the most visible and consistent markets for new fantasy till Fantastic’s first run ended in 1980 (it was merged with its sf stablemate Amazing Stories, and has been revived spottily since).

Which is a long way ‘round to get to the news that F&SF, now in its 60th year, is dropping frequency to bimonthly status for the first time since the early ‘50s, and that Realms of Fantasy, which has held that “other fantasy magazine" status for 15 years, has been rather abruptly folded by its publisher (April’s will be the last issue); the revived Weird Tales, probably the next most visible US fantasy magazine, seems to be continuing, even as Fantastic will supposedly be relaunched again.

In his headnote for one of the stories within, Bensen notes that the axolotl in the Cartier illustration included with the Sturgeon story is the adult form of the “mud puppy,” apparently the then fairly recent subject of a running joke in Mad magazine…which, coincidentally, is dropping its frequency this year from monthly to quarterly, as Time Warner cuts back at its DC/Mad comics division…

So, finally, to the book’s literary content, an attempt to, even more than with its predecessor The Unknown, concentrate on stories that had not been reprinted from the magazine…including a previously unpublished lead-off story by Isaac Asimov, “Author! Author!” This had been in inventory at Unknown Worlds when the magazine folded, and Asimov had never placed it elsewhere, and it's an amiable if slightly stiff tale of a writer literally haunted by his insufferable detective character, who attempts to steal his creator’s life.

Cleve Cartmill, busy over several decades as a ghost-writer for the likes of Leslie Charteris and possibly Henry Kuttner, as well as under his own name (and famously at the center of a WW2 investigation of his atomic bomb story for Astounding, “Deadline”), has a clever if perhaps excessively folksy deal with the devil story with “The Bargain”…Stephen Vincent Benet or Manly Wade Wellman might well’ve done a bit better with this story…perhaps this kind of thing requires a three-name byline.

Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Hag Seleen” follows (originally published, with some justice, as by Sturgeon and James Beard [not the chef]), a good example of Sturgeon’s work for the magazine, but not among the greatest (such as “It,” considered here previously as part of Knight’s The Dark Half, or “Shottle Bop”). Sturgeon’s child characters could sometimes be a bit cute, and this is an example.

Alfred Bester’s novella “Hell is Forever” might be the earliest published example of Bester’s devotion to “dazzlement” as a technique…keeping this, and such later work as The Demolished Man and “5,271,009,” moving at a breakneck pace with sudden flashes of invention and deft turns of plot. He hasn’t mastered it yet, in this tale of a Hellfire Club-like group who find themselves damned to customized private hells after they wade into deeper water than they expected…but the work is both rewarding fun and promising for what he would go on to do…including a number of other novels, the last and most purely criminous reconstructed by Charles Platt for posthumous publication, Tender Loving Rage.

And "The Crest of the Wave," Jane Rice’s tale of a murdered thug’s posthumous retribution for his murder, is a good, if unextraordinary, example of that kind of borderline crime-story horror, with fine detail.

In short, this gives a good sense of what a good issue of Unknown was like, if not (nor could it quite be) an example of the absolute best the magazine published.

It should probably be mentioned that Bensen’s one sf novel was named for the letter column in Unknown, And Having Writ…

    The Unknown 5 ed. D. R. Bensen (Pyramid R-962, Jan ’64, 50¢, 190pp, pb)

For newer reviews of rather older books, 
please see Patti Abbott's blog...
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Monday, April 6, 2015

supplement to the context-setting for WHO KILLED SCIENCE FICTION?--short sf in the 1950s.

Among the anthologies that have mined the increasing post-WW2 sophistication in sf and fantasy magazines (and related media the magazine writers would publish with), one of the most impressive series has been the Great SF Stories: [year] retro-annuals Isaac Asimov and M. H. Greenberg edited (with input from Barry Malzberg and others) beginning in the latest 1970s...which give a good sense of how much good work was being spread to a wide variety of magazines and original anthologies over the decade--contemporary Year's Best annuals from the 1950s follow, and another latest-1970s retro-anthology, with some overlap between the various volumes, but this rather lengthy data-gather does give some sense of the ferment of the decade:

 Indices courtesy the Locus Indices; "CNB" is Locus cofounder/editor Charles N. Brown):

 Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 11 (1949) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-87997-918-6, Mar ’84 [Feb ’84], $3.50, 317pp, pb) Anthology of 15 stories from 1949 with notes Asimov. This series offers an excellent historical survey of the sf field. Recommended. (CNB)


Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 12 (1950) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-87997-953-4, Sep ’84 [Aug ’84], $3.50, 319pp, pb) Anthology of 18 classic stories.
  • 9 · 1950 Introduction · Martin H. Greenberg · in
  • 13 · Not with a Bang · Damon Knight · ss F&SF Win/Spr ’50
  • 19 · Spectator Sport · John D. MacDonald · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb ’50
  • 26 · There Will Come Soft Rains · Ray Bradbury · ss Colliers May 6 ’50
  • 34 · Dear Devil · Eric Frank Russell · nv Other Worlds Science Stories May ’50
  • 70 · Scanners Live in Vain · Cordwainer Smith · nv Fantasy Book #6 ’50
  • 105 · Born of Man and Woman · Richard Matheson · vi F&SF Sum ’50
  • 109 · The Little Black Bag · C. M. Kornbluth · nv Astounding Jul ’50
  • 138 · Enchanted Village · A. E. van Vogt · ss Other Worlds Science Stories Jul ’50
  • 154 · Oddy and Id [“The Devil’s Invention”] · Alfred Bester · ss Astounding Aug ’50
  • 170 · The Sack · William Morrison · ss Astounding Sep ’50
  • 190 · The Silly Season · C. M. Kornbluth · ss F&SF Fll ’50
  • 205 · Misbegotten Missionary · Isaac Asimov · ss Galaxy Nov ’50
  • 221 · To Serve Man · Damon Knight · ss Galaxy Nov ’50
  • 230 · Coming Attraction · Fritz Leiber · ss Galaxy Nov ’50
  • 244 · A Subway Named Mobius · A. J. Deutsch · ss Astounding Dec ’50
  • 260 · Process · A. E. van Vogt · ss F&SF Dec ’50
  • 267 · The Mindworm · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Worlds Beyond Dec ’50
  • 281 · The New Reality · Charles L. Harness · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec ’50
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 13 (1951) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-88677-058-0, Jul ’85 [Jun ’85], $3.50, 337pp, pb) Anthology of the best of 1951 plus an introduction about the year in the world and in sf. An excellent anthology. The whole series is highly recommended. (CNB)
  • ix · Introduction · Martin H. Greenberg · in
  • 1 · Null-P · William Tenn · ss Worlds Beyond Jan ’51
  • 15 · The Sentinel [“Sentinel of Eternity”] · Arthur C. Clarke · ss Ten Story Fantasy Spr ’51
  • 27 · The Fire Balloons [“‘In This Sign...’”] · Ray Bradbury · ss Imagination Apr ’51
  • 48 · The Marching Morons · C. M. Kornbluth · nv Galaxy Apr ’51
  • 83 · The Weapon · Fredric Brown · ss Astounding Apr ’51
  • 88 · Angel’s Egg · Edgar Pangborn · nv Galaxy Jun ’51
  • 130 · Breeds There a Man...? · Isaac Asimov · nv Astounding Jun ’51
  • 171 · Pictures Don’t Lie · Katherine MacLean · ss Galaxy Aug ’51
  • 193 · Superiority · Arthur C. Clarke · ss F&SF Aug ’51
  • 206 · I’m Scared · Jack Finney · ss Colliers Sep 15 ’51
  • 222 · The Quest for Saint Aquin · Anthony Boucher · ss New Tales of Space and Time, ed. Raymond J. Healy, Holt, 1951; F&SF Jan ’59
  • 244 · Tiger by the Tail · Alan E. Nourse · ss Galaxy Nov ’51
  • 253 · With These Hands · C. M. Kornbluth · nv Galaxy Dec ’51
  • 274 · A Pail of Air · Fritz Leiber · ss Galaxy Dec ’51
  • 291 · Dune Roller · Julian May · nv Astounding Dec ’51
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 14 (1952) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-88677-106-4, Jan ’86 [Dec ’85], $3.50, 352pp, pb) Anthology of stories from 1952. Recommended. (CNB)

Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 15 (1953) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-88677-171-4, Dec ’86 [Nov ’86], $3.50, 352pp, pb) Anthology of 17 stories first published in 1953 plus a summary of the year in and out of sf plus remarks on the various writers. Recommended (CNB).
  • 9 · Introduction · Martin H. Greenberg · in
  • 13 · The Big Holiday · Fritz Leiber · ss F&SF Jan ’53
  • 24 · Crucifixus Etiam · Walter M. Miller, Jr. · ss Astounding Feb ’53
  • 48 · Four in One · Damon Knight · nv Galaxy Feb ’53
  • 86 · Saucer of Loneliness · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Galaxy Feb ’53
  • 102 · The Liberation of Earth · William Tenn · ss Future May ’53
  • 123 · Lot [David Jimmon] · Ward Moore · nv F&SF May ’53
  • 155 · The Nine Billion Names of God · Arthur C. Clarke · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #1, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953
  • 164 · Warm · Robert Sheckley · ss Galaxy Jun ’53
  • 176 · Impostor · Philip K. Dick · ss Astounding Jun ’53
  • 194 · The World Well Lost · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Universe Jun ’53
  • 216 · A Bad Day for Sales · Fritz Leiber · ss Galaxy Jul ’53
  • 224 · Common Time · James Blish · ss Science Fiction Quarterly Aug ’53
  • 250 · Time Is the Traitor · Alfred Bester · nv F&SF Sep ’53
  • 277 · The Wall Around the World · Theodore R. Cogswell · nv Beyond Fantasy Fiction Sep ’53
  • 308 · The Model of a Judge · William Morrison · ss Galaxy Oct ’53
  • 322 · Hall of Mirrors · Fredric Brown · ss Galaxy Dec ’53
  • 331 · It’s a Good Life · Jerome Bixby · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #2, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953

Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 16 (1954) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-88677-200-1, May ’87, $3.50, 350pp, pb) Anthology of 17 stories from 1954.
  • 9 · 1954 Introduction · Martin H. Greenberg · in
  • 13 · The Test · Richard Matheson · ss F&SF Nov ’54
  • 34 · Anachron · Damon Knight · ss If Jan ’54
  • 54 · Black Charlie · Gordon R. Dickson · ss Galaxy Apr ’54
  • 72 · Down Among the Dead Men · William Tenn · nv Galaxy Jun ’54
  • 100 · The Hunting Lodge · Randall Garrett · nv Astounding Jul ’54
  • 138 · The Lysenko Maze · Donald A. Wollheim · ss F&SF Jul ’54
  • 151 · Fondly Fahrenheit · Alfred Bester · nv F&SF Aug ’54
  • 174 · The Cold Equations · Tom Godwin · nv Astounding Aug ’54
  • 203 · Letters from Laura · Mildred Clingerman · ss F&SF Oct ’54
  • 211 · Transformer · Chad Oliver · ss F&SF Nov ’54
  • 227 · The Music Master of Babylon · Edgar Pangborn · nv Galaxy Nov ’54
  • 258 · The End of Summer · Algis Budrys · nv Astounding Nov ’54
  • 289 · The Father-Thing · Philip K. Dick · ss F&SF Dec ’54
  • 304 · The Deep Range · Arthur C. Clarke · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #3, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1954
  • 315 · Balaam · Anthony Boucher · ss 9 Tales of Space and Time, ed. Raymond J. Healey, Holt, 1954
  • 332 · Man of Parts · Horace L. Gold · ss 9 Tales of Space and Time, ed. Raymond J. Healey, Holt, 1954
  • 349 · Answer · Fredric Brown · vi Angels and Spaceships, Dutton, 1954
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 17 (1955) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-88677-256-7, Jan ’88 [Dec ’87], $3.95, 349pp, pb) Anthology of 14 sf stories.
  • 333 · Dreaming Is a Private Thing · Isaac Asimov · ss F&SF Dec ’55
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 18 (1956) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-88677-289-3, Aug ’88 [Jul ’88], $4.50, 366pp, pb) Anthology of 15 sf stories from 1956.
  • 9 · Introduction · Martin H. Greenberg · in
  • 13 · Brightside Crossing · Alan E. Nourse · nv Galaxy Jan ’56
  • 35 · Clerical Error · Mark Clifton · nv Astounding Feb ’56
  • 75 · Silent Brother · Algis Budrys · ss Astounding Feb ’56
  • 96 · The Country of the Kind · Damon Knight · ss F&SF Feb ’56
  • 111 · Exploration Team [Colonial Survey] · Murray Leinster · nv Astounding Mar ’56
  • 161 · Rite of Passage · Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore · nv F&SF May ’56
  • 203 · The Man Who Came Early · Poul Anderson · nv F&SF Jun ’56
  • 230 · A Work of Art [“Art-Work”] · James Blish · nv Science Fiction Stories Jul ’56
  • 248 · Horrer Howce · Margaret St. Clair · ss Galaxy Jul ’56
  • 261 · Compounded Interest · Mack Reynolds · ss F&SF Aug ’56
  • 276 · The Doorstop · Reginald Bretnor · ss Astounding Nov ’56
  • 286 · The Last Question · Isaac Asimov · ss Science Fiction Quarterly Nov ’56
  • 300 · Stranger Station · Damon Knight · nv F&SF Dec ’56
  • 327 · 2066: Election Day · Michael Shaara · ss Astounding Dec ’56
  • 344 · And Now the News... · Theodore Sturgeon · ss F&SF Dec ’56
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 19 (1957) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-88677-326-1, Feb ’89, $4.50, 350pp, pb) Anthology of 15 stories from 1957 plus commentary. This long-running anthology series is an excellent way to look at the sf field year by year. Recommended. (CNB)
  • 9 · Introduction · Martin H. Greenberg · in
  • 15 · Strikebreaker [“Male Strikebreaker”] · Isaac Asimov · ss Science Fiction Stories Jan ’57
  • 33 · Omnilingual · H. Beam Piper · nv Astounding Feb ’57
  • 89 · The Mile-Long Spaceship · Kate Wilhelm · ss Astounding Apr ’57
  • 103 · Call Me Joe · Poul Anderson · nv Astounding Apr ’57
  • 149 · You Know Willie · Theodore R. Cogswell · ss F&SF May ’57
  • 157 · Hunting Machine · Carol Emshwiller · ss Science Fiction Stories May ’57
  • 167 · World of a Thousand Colors · Robert Silverberg · ss Super Science Fiction Jun ’57
  • 187 · Let’s Be Frank · Brian W. Aldiss · ss Science-Fantasy #23 ’57
  • 199 · The Cage · A. Bertram Chandler · ss F&SF Jun ’57
  • 215 · The Education of Tigress McCardle · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Venture Jul ’57
  • 229 · The Tunesmith · Lloyd Biggle, Jr. · nv If Aug ’57
  • 281 · A Loint of Paw · Isaac Asimov · vi F&SF Aug ’57
  • 285 · Game Preserve · Rog Phillips · ss If Oct ’57
  • 305 · Soldier [“Soldier from Tomorrow”] · Harlan Ellison · nv Fantastic Universe Oct ’57
  • 335 · The Last Man Left in the Bar · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Infinity Science Fiction Oct ’57
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 20 (1958) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-88677-405-5, Feb ’90 [Jan ’90], $4.95, 351pp, pb, cover by Robin Hidden) Anthology of 12 stories from 1958 plus commentary. This series is one of the best surveys of the modern sf short story. Recommended (CNB).
  • 9 · Introduction · Martin H. Greenberg · in
  • 13 · The Last of the Deliverers · Poul Anderson · ss F&SF Feb ’58
  • 29 · The Feeling of Power · Isaac Asimov · ss If Feb ’58
  • 41 · Poor Little Warrior! · Brian W. Aldiss · ss F&SF Apr ’58
  • 49 · The Iron Chancellor · Robert Silverberg · nv Galaxy May ’58
  • 77 · The Prize of Peril · Robert Sheckley · ss F&SF May ’58
  • 99 · Or All the Seas with Oysters · Avram Davidson · ss Galaxy May ’58
  • 111 · Two Dooms · C. M. Kornbluth · na Venture Jul ’58
  • 167 · The Big Front Yard · Clifford D. Simak · na Astounding Oct ’58
  • 229 · The Burning of the Brain · Cordwainer Smith · ss If Oct ’58
  • 243 · The Yellow Pill · Rog Phillips · ss Astounding Oct ’58
  • 259 · Unhuman Sacrifice · Katherine MacLean · nv Astounding Nov ’58
  • 297 · The Immortals [Dr. Russell Pearce] · James E. Gunn · nv Star Science Fiction Stories #4, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1958
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories: 21 (1959) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-88677-428-4, Jun ’90 [May ’90], $4.95, 347pp, pb, cover by Robin Hidden) Anthology of 14 stories from 1959.
...and one sees how relatively restricted the markets for good fiction were by the end of the decade...and even Asimov could find no first-rate short fiction from 1959 in Astounding, which was about to become Analog...Sturgeon's "The Man Who Lost the Sea" was in Foley's Best American Short Stories for its year.

Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories #22 (1960) ed. Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (DAW 0-88677-465-9, Feb ’91 [Jan ’91], $4.50, 351pp, pb, cover by Angus McKie) Anthology of 11 stories from 1960 plus commentary.

--Meanwhile Everett Bleiler and Ted Ditky, eventually with ever greater input from Earl Kemp, produced the first best-of annual in sf:
    The Best Science-Fiction Stories: 1952 ed. Everett F. Bleiler & T. E. Dikty (Fredrick Fell, Aug ’52, $2.95, 284pp, hc)
    In England as The Best Science Fiction Stories: Third Series.
    Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels: 9th Series ed. T. E. Dikty (Advent:Publishers, 1958, hc)
And here's Judith Merril's annual, which from the start promised to offer both sf and fantasy:
    SF:’57: The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy ed. Judith Merril (Gnome Press LCC# 56-8938, 1957, $3.95, 320pp, hc)
    • 9 · The Man Who Liked Lions · John Bernard Daley · ss Infinity Science Fiction Oct 1956
    • 25 · The Cosmic Expense Account · C. M. Kornbluth · nv F&SF Jan 1956, as “The Cosmic Charge Account”
    • 51 · The Far Look · Theodore L. Thomas · nv Astounding Aug 1956
    • 81 · When Grandfather Flew to the Moon · E. L. Malpass · ss The Observer Jan 2 1955, as “Return of the Moon Man” by Samson Darley
    • 88 · The Doorstop · Reginald Bretnor · ss Astounding Nov 1956
    • 98 · Silent Brother · Algis Budrys · ss Astounding Feb 1956
    • 119 · Stranger Station · Damon Knight · nv F&SF Dec 1956
    • 146 · Each an Explorer · Isaac Asimov · ss Future #30 1956
    • 161 · All About “The Thing” · Randall Garrett · pm Science Fiction Stories May 1956, as “Parodies Tossed”
    • 164 · Put Them All Together, They Spell Monster · Ray Russell · ss Playboy Oct 1956
    • 173 · Digging the Weans · Robert Nathan · ss Harper’s Nov 1956
    • 181 · Take a Deep Breath · Roger Thorne · ss Tiger 1956
    • 187 · Grandma’s Lie Soap · Robert Abernathy · ss Fantastic Universe Feb 1956
    • 206 · Compounded Interest · Mack Reynolds · ss F&SF Aug 1956
    • 220 · Prima Belladonna [Vermilion Sands] · J. G. Ballard · ss Science-Fantasy #20 1956
    • 235 · The Other Man · Theodore Sturgeon · na Galaxy Sep 1956
    • 290 · The Damnedest Thing · Garson Kanin · ss Esquire Feb 1956
    • 298 · Anything Box · Zenna Henderson · ss F&SF Oct 1956
    • 313 · The Year’s S-F, Summation and Honorable Mentions · Judith Merril · ms
--and here's Barry Malzberg and Bill Pronzini's 1979 take on some of the then-overlooked work from the 1950s:
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