Reviews for The Oxford book of science fiction stories

The average rating for The Oxford book of science fiction stories based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-11-18 00:00:00 Timothy Cardoso Oxford Univ. Press continues to justify its well-earned reputation for absolutely top-quality fiction anthologies with this outstanding collection. The 30 selections are chronologically arranged and span most of the 20th-century, starting with H. G. Wells' "The Land Ironclads," thus providing an excellent historical sampler of developments and trends in the genre over that time. I read it at a time when I was looking for a textbook for a possible college-level science fiction course; and although that project fell through, given the very limited number of chronologically broad collections out there, this wouldn't be a bad choice for such a class (though of course it would have to be supplemented for pre-1900 material). Both British and American authors are included, and two female writers are represented. A number of the selections included are genre classics (I'd read a few of them before, but most of the stories in the book were new to me), and many of the authors represented are well known. While several of the later authors were associated with the "New Wave" movement, the selections of their work chosen here don't generally embody the worst negative features of the movement; and in fact the great majority of the stories here are of very high quality. Almost all of them are at least well-written and entertaining, though there were a handful I didn't personally get into, notably the one by "Raccoona Sheldon," which was another pen name of Alice B. Sheldon (who usually wrote as James Tiptree, Jr.). Among the many masterpieces here, it's impossible to pick a single favorite. Some of the most outstanding are Arthur C. Clarke's "Second Dawn" (which is my personal favorite among his short stories that I've actually read), James H. Schmitz's "Second Night of Summer," "Crucifixus Etiam" by Walter M. Miller Jr., "Ballad of Lost C'Mell," by Cordwainer Smith, "Problems of Creativeness" by Thomas M. Disch, "How the Whip Came Back," by Gene Wolfe, "Cloak of Anarchy," by Larry Niven, "Thing of Beauty" by Norman Spinrad, and Ursula K. Le Guin's "Semley's Necklace," which well illustrates why some critics, early in her career, thought that she might be the genre's "next Leigh Brackett." Also deserving of special mention are Frederik Pohl's "Tunnel Under the World," which is a powerful expression of some of his most characteristic themes; Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey," which was ground-breaking in its imagining of genuinely alien life (and which was included in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame); William Gibson's "Burning Chrome," the story with which he singlehandedly created the whole "cyber-punk" sub-genre; and Bruce Sterling's absolutely unforgettable "Swarm." Both "hard" and "soft" SF is included, along with strictly sociological science fiction (such as the stories by Disch and Wolfe), which don't posit any particular changes in physical technology as such at all. (Interestingly, while Wells was his era's preeminent exponent of soft SF, the story he's represented with here is actually a solid exercise in predictive extrapolation from actually existing technology, of the sort that Verne was famous for --Wells predicted the invention of the tank here, well before World War I.) The century's existential pessimism, born of atheistic Darwinism and other ideological currents, is reflected in stories like "Night" by John W. Campbell Jr. and Frank L. Pollack's early 20th-century "Finis," which is scientifically wildly implausible but still manages to be enormously emotionally evocative and haunting; and George R. R. Martin's "Way of Cross and Dragon" proclaims the later 20th century's postmodernist credo. But even the stories with messages I disagreed with are usually, like these, well crafted and worth reading as serious stories. And the hard SF selections here focus on the effects of technology on human beings, not simply on exposition of what technology can potentially do and how it might do it. In the interests of time, I've forborne to mention a number of writers and works here that might well deserve comment! All in all, this is a highly recommended collection.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-07-10 00:00:00 Bryan Colegate The Land Ironclads (1903) by H. G. Wells 3/5 Finis (1906) by Frank Lillie Pollock 3/5 As Easy as ABC (1912) by Rudyard Kipling 3/5 The Metal Man (1928) by Jack Williamson 4/5 A Martian Odyssey (1934) by Stanley G. Weinbaum 5/5 Night (1935) by John W. Campbell 5/5 Desertion (1944) by Clifford D. Simak 5/5 The Piper's Son (1945) by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore 3/5 The Monster (1948) by A.E. van Vogt 5/5 The Second Night of Summer (1950) by James H. Schmitz 5/5 Second Dawn (1951) by Arthur C. Clarke 3/5 Crucifixus Etiam (1953) by Walter M. Miller, Jr. 3/5 The Tunnel Under the World (1955) by Frederik Pohl 5/5 Who Can Replace a Man? (1958) by Brian W. Aldiss 5/5 Billennium (1961) by J.G. Ballard 3/5 The Ballad of Lost C'Mell (1962) by Cordwainer Smith 4/5 Semley's Necklace (1964) by Ursula K. Le Guin 2/5 How Beautiful With Banners (1966) by James Blish 3/5 A Criminal Act (1966) by Harry Harrison 2/5 Problems of Creativeness (1967) by Thomas M. Disch 3/5 How the Whip Came Back (1970) by Gene Wolfe 3/5 Cloak of Anarchy (1972) by Larry Niven 4/5 A Thing of Beauty (1973) by Norman Spinrad 4/5 The Screwfly Solution (1977) by James Tiptree, Jr. 4/5 The Way of Cross and Dragon (1979) by George R.R. Martin 3/5 Swarm (1982) by Bruce Sterling 4/5 Burning Chrome (1982) by William Gibson 3/5 Silicon Muse (1984) by Hilbert Schenck 2/5 Karl and the Ogre (1988) by Paul J. McAuley 4/5 Piecework (1990) by David Brin 1/5 Editor's Introduction 3/5 (contains a spoiler!)