Donald A. WollheimAnmeldelser

F/SF

F/SF

ISFDB 34902. OCLC 6621308.

ISFDB 50538. OCLC 28933417.

ISFDB 55366.

ISFDB 205017. OCLC 13567721.

A blast from the past! Sci-fi all the way back to the beginning of the Space Age!

In The Secret of the Ninth Planet, I felt like I was reading a Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon story from the 1930s. Set in the far future (sometime around now, I expect) but written when there was very little information available on the outer planets (Martian canals anyone?). Donald A Wollheim's young adult story of high schooler Burl Denning and how he gets roped into saving the planet is a fun, but scientifically inaccurate page turner.

Part of Wollheim's "Secret" series for younger readers, the novel brilliantly captures the era's optimism and curiosity about space exploration (albeit with a somewhat military and xenophobic bent). It's a decent blend of science fiction and youthful adventure, capturing the spirit of exploration and the boundless possibilities of the universe. While the scientific inaccuracies are blatant by today's standards, they add a retro feel to the narrative, reminiscent of classic pulp science fiction.

The "Secret" series, a staple in young adult science fiction when I was growing up, also includes titles like The Secret of Saturn's Rings and The Secret of the Martian Moons, each one taking the young protagonists on fantastic journeys across the solar system. This series, much like his renowned "Mike Mars" series, showcases Wollheim's talent for engaging young readers with a mix of adventure and science, albeit with a fanciful twist.

Beyond his work as an author, Wollheim was instrumental in shaping the science fiction community as we know it today. Often referred to as the father of the modern science fiction convention, he played a pivotal role in organizing the first of these gatherings, setting the stage for what would eventually evolve into massive events like Worldcon. His influence extended beyond literature into the very fabric of sci-fi culture, fostering a community where enthusiasts and creators could come together to innovate in the genre.

If you come across a copy of The Secret of the Ninth Planet, it's a nostalgic gem worth picking up. The book is a delightful snapshot of a bygone era of science fiction, brimming with adventure and wonder. It's a good read for those who appreciate simple sci-fi and enjoy fantastical stories as imagined through the lens of the Sputnik era.

De regreso a Marte tras cuatro años de estudios en la Tierra, Nelson Parr viaja a bordo de la astronave Congreve rumbo a su hogar. Corre el año 2120. La Tierra ha establecido una colonia en el planeta rojo, dedicada fundamentalmente a explorar aquel mundo habitado originalmente por una raza de extraordinaria civilización que ha desaparecido sin dejar rastros. Es entonces cuando Nelson, adolescente de dieciséis años, descubre en el espejo de su camarote la impresión de una extraña mano, en la que hay tan sólo tres dedos … ¿Acaso los marcianos no eran una raza extinguida? ¿Quién, en todo el Sistema Solar puede tener una mano como aquélla?.
De inmediato el jovencito se sumerge en un tráfago vertiginoso de aventuras y acción, pasando desde las entrañas de Marte hasta la fría superficie de sus dos lunas, Fobos y Deimos, para entrar en contacto con una extraordinaria raza llegada de otro universo, con una misteriosa cultura y enfrentar solo, perdido en el espacio, a una flota de invasores extraterrestres que llegan asolando todos los mundos que se cruzan en el paso de sus colosales astronaves interestelares y se dirigen a la Tierra para aniquilar a la raza humana …

I had this as a teenager: a hardback I'd gotten from the Science Fiction Book Club, back when 'book club editions' were these fake-you-out things shoddily constructed from poor paper and too-little glue, intended to fool you into thinking "wow! I'm getting hardback books at SUCH a bargain!" ... before they fell apart on you.

I recall the paper had a very distinctive smell, too.

The star in this collection was -- for me anyway -- Michael Bishop's "Death and Designation Among the Asadi," from which I can still recall a few scenes with some vividness.

review of
E.C.Tubb's / David Grinnell's The Jester at Scar / To Venus! To Venus!
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 14-16, 2019

I've only read one other Grinnell bk, The Edge of Time (my review's here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2606946933 ). Here's an excerpt from that review:

"As for the Grinnell? I liked it. His name seemed vaguely familiar so I did a little online research & learned from Wikipedia that:

""Donald Allen Wollheim (October 1, 1914 – November 2, 1990) was an American science fiction editor, publisher, writer, and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell.

""A founding member of the Futurians, he was a leading influence on science fiction development and fandom in the 20th-century United States.

""Ursula K. Le Guin called Wollheim "the tough, reliable editor of Ace Books, in the Late Pulpalignean Era, 1966 and ’67, " which is when he published her first two novels, in an Ace Double."

"- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_A._Wollheim

"I'm impressed. I tend to think of the Futurians as the founders of 'zines, even tho that's probably not historically accurate. I reckon he used a pen-name to avoid criticism that he was publishing his own work. Dunno. I have plenty of bks published by Ace & by DAW Books, another press I take for granted was his given the 'coincidence' of the initials. Now I'll remember him & look for more of his work."

As w/ The Edge of Time I'd say Grinnell/Wollheim leans toward the Hard Science end of the SF spectrum. But before I get into that, I'll start w/ the E.C.Tubb side of this Ace Double. I think this is probably the 1st Tubb I've read.

The main character, Dumarest, was born on Earth but moved away as a child. Now, the people he encounters on other planets think that Earth is just a myth.

"Dumarest looked down at his hand where it was clenched around the glass. "Earth is no legend," he said flatly. "The planet is real and, one day, I shall find it."" - p 15

The "Jester" of the title is the ruler of the planet Jest who's recently married. As, I suppose, has always been typical of marriages between royalties, the marriage is one of financial benefit or alliance rather than one based around, say, a shared affection for cross-breeding Virmillion hot-dogs w/ Poontangian fruit-waterers.

"He glanced at her, noting the thin arrogance of her profile, the imperious tilt of her head. Strange how those with the least reason adapted the greater dignity, stranger still how the bare facts could be transmuted by pompous phraseology. He, the ruler of Jest, had married the daughter of Elgone, the Elder of Eldfane. If the people thought of it as a love-match, they were more stupid than he guessed. As a dowry she had brought him one hundred thousand tons of basic staples, the revenues from her estate on Eldfane, a million units of trading credit to be used on her home world, the services of an engineering corps for three years; and the promise of an obsolete space vessel when one should be available." - p 20

& all I got was this lousy t-shirt. Given that, I probably wdn't've been able to resist the suit.

""I see," said Dumarest. He frowned at the mechanism riding between the shoulders. "What would happen if I fell and buried my shoulders deep in mud?"

""The air-cell would continue to work under all conditions, sir."

""And suppose, at the same time, a fungi exploded and coated me with dangerous spores?"

""The filters would take care of that. Spores down to microscopic dimensions would be caught in one or the other of the treble filters. I am perfectly willing to deonstrate the suit under any conditions you may select, sir."

""Do that," suggested Dumarest. "Wear one and follow an expedition; test it as they order. If you remain alive and well you may possibly sell them—next year."" - p 28

When I went shopping for a suit & I duplicated Dumarest's apparently wise consumer savvy I was thrown out of the store, & none too gently. It was obvious that they weren't mycologists. But what about Tubb?

"Dumarest took a small folder from his pocket. It was filled with colored depictions of various types of fungi both in their early stage of growth and at maturity. He riffled the pages and found what he wanted. Holding the page beside the hemispheres at his side he checked each of fifteen confirming details.

"Slowly he put the book away.

"It was the dream of every prospector on Scar. It was the jackpot, the big find, the one thing which could make them what they wanted to be. There were the rare and fabulously valuable motes which could live within the human metabolism, acting as a symbiote and giving longevity, heightened awareness, enhanced sensory appreciation and increased endurance.

"There was golden spore all around him, in a place which he had almost died to find." - p 42

Any story in wch flipping a coin is featured can't be all bad. Instead of organizing my bks on shelves by color, I organize them by whether they have coin tosses or not. That's my only criteria of differentiation.

"A coin rested beside the bottle."

[Yes, coins, too, get tired. Esp coins in Money Against Capitalism ( https://youtu.be/-yi9PTR99xE ).]

"He picked it up and tossed it to Heldar. "Look at it," he invited. "It will decide your fate."

""My lord?"

"On one side you will see the head of a man. I have scratched a line across his cheek, a scar. The other side bears the arms of Jest. Spin the coin. Should it fall with that side uppermost you will receive your needed treatment, but if the other side whould be uppermost, the scar, then you belong to this world and I will not help you."" - p 49

Instead, Heldar shoved the coin in Jocelyn's nose slot, pulled his leg, & collected the harvest from his mouth.

"This batch was for testing and disposal. The rest would be for slicing and dehydrating by a quick-freeze process which kept the flavor intact. It would be packed for the markets of a hundred worlds. Gourmets light years apart would relish the soups and ragouts made from the fungi harvested on Scar." - p 62

All that just from one sovereign's mouth. What if he'd pulled on his cock-ring?

"Verification of anticipated movement of quarry received. Obtain ring and destroy Dumarest. - p 81

****************************************

I really got this bk for David Grinnell's To Venus! To Venus! & that's mainly b/c

"His left earphone was tuned in to the wavelength of Jim Holmes, who was his target. Jim had been fulfilling his assignment of cruising the surface in the ungainly looking but very efficient moonwalker when the machine had suddenly stopped operating. Chet hoped to get it restarted.

"His right earphone received the wavelength of the mother ship, which would eventually take everybody back to Earth. It took a bit of getting used to, this business of receiving two channels simultaneously, but it had been covered in the intensive training he had received, and now he could listen to two conversations at the same time and make sense of both." - p 6

Some people are bipolar, others are binaural, others write about the space race between the USA & the USSR. Pierre Boulle, e.g..

"["]Operation Immediate is the name which covers the three volunteers, their back-up and support unit and all the equipment necessary to achieve a manned landing on the southern hemisphere of Venus."" - p 32

Next thing ya know it was like a wormhole had opened up between p 32 & p 57 & the astronauts were THERE.

"Particularly, although the changeover from the dull routine of the many weeks into the bustle of the final days had caused a stir of excitement and a loss of sleep, on the eve of their arrival all three had settled down to the task which they had in hand. They all slept blissfully when their turn came, and when the orbital countdown began they were at their places, alert, relaxed and ready. The rockets roared, slowing their approach, and orbit was achieved perfectly. The fellows looked at each other and smiled broadly. They were about to embark on the most dangerous part of their mission. But the successful voyage which had covered twenty-five million miles had been capped by a beautifully simple functioning of all systems. So they forgot the dangers and were buoyed by confidence in their equipment and the scientists of the Agency who had engineered their exploration." - p 57

"Outside the fierce storm caused the clouds to boil heavily; dust, pebbles, stones and small rocks were caught by the hurricane winds and hurled like buckshot indiscriminately in every direction. The landing vehicle swayed in the strong gusts. But Chet's attention was riveted on the thremometer. The temperature outside was close to five hundred degrees! The auxiliary thermometer registered the same." - p 60

Heating up those frozen pizzas w/o burning them is going to be tricky.

"Then he continued: "A report from Venera, Lieutenant-colonel Yarmonkine commanding, whose point of origin was verified by Jodrell, says that the Russian crew have effected a soft landing in the southern hemisphere of Venus. The report describes tropical jungle scenery, breathable air and habitable land. They say they are comfortable without life-support systems of any kind and are currently conducting tests. Please advise when possible. End of message."" - p 65

Then everyone died in every bk & all the readers discovered themselves to be in excellent health, very happy, inspired, & immortal. THE END.

review of
David Grinnell's / John Brunner's The Edge of Time / The 100th Millenium
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 26, 2018

I got this for the Brunner only to realize, as has happened many times w/ Brunners published by Ace Doubles, that I'd already read the novel in an expanded form under a different title. The 100th Millenium (110 pp) = an early version of Catch a Falling Star (213 pp). I didn't bother to read The 100th Millenium to compare them. My review of Catch a Falling Star is here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11294192-catch-a-falling-star .

As for the Grinnell? I liked it. His name seemed vaguely familiar so I did a little online research & learned from Wikipedia that:

"Donald Allen Wollheim (October 1, 1914 – November 2, 1990) was an American science fiction editor, publisher, writer, and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell.

"A founding member of the Futurians, he was a leading influence on science fiction development and fandom in the 20th-century United States.

"Ursula K. Le Guin called Wollheim "the tough, reliable editor of Ace Books, in the Late Pulpalignean Era, 1966 and ’67, " which is when he published her first two novels, in an Ace Double."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_A._Wollheim

I'm impressed. I tend to think of the Futurians as the founders of 'zines, even tho that's probably not historically accurate. I reckon he used a pen-name to avoid criticism that he was publishing his own work. Dunno. I have plenty of bks published by Ace & by DAW Books, another press I take for granted was his given the 'coincidence' of the initials. Now I'll remember him & look for more of his work. I thought this had a nice beginning:

"William Bassett had just returned to his tractor when the dinosaurs appeared. Properly speaking, it was not the saurians he saw first, it was the jungle. He had just climbed onto the seat of his machine, preparatory to resuming his early spring plowing, when the entire back forty of his fields just up and vanished.

"In its place was a wall of jungle, a belt of giant green growth that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was thick, lush as the most primitive primeval jungle could be. Bassett had an impression of thick greenery, not trees, but the raw violent green of tropical grass and fern grown to the height of mighty pines." - p 5

That got me interested. The main character is a reporter sent out to investigate this & various other mysterious sightings:

"Seated at a desk on the seventy-fourth floor of the Carlyle Publications Building, Warren Alton stared thoughtfully at a sheaf of news clipping before him. What he wondered, was all this leading to? All around him the huge room hummed as the staff of the national picture weekly, People, worked feverishly at desks stacked high with papers and pictures to get out the next issue." - p 7

Now, this bk was published in 1958. The People magazine that exists in the non-fictional world began in March, 1974. According to Wikipedia, "The concept for People has been attributed to Andrew Heiskell, Time Inc.'s chief executive officer at the time and the former publisher of the weekly Life magazine." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_(magazine) ) It looks like 'David Grinnell' deserves some of that credit.

"C. B. Carlyle had built up his key magazine, People. until it was a rival to Luce's life and Cowles' Look." - p 10

The reporter & the photographer assigned to the same case stumble into a scientific experiment to wch they get reassigned in some skullduggery meant to keep them from spreading the news prematurely. The photographer's female.

"Marge stood up and looked around. "I hope I'm not the only girl at the party."

"Enderby laughed. "Oh no, Miss McElroy. We have at least two ladies on our staff—our capable cook and our housekeeper. So, you'll not be entirely on your own . . ." - p 39

As Warren & Marge are let in on the secrets their minds boggle at what seems paradoxical:

"Warren stared at him. "Impossible. You are contradicting yourself. First you say it is not a projection or delusion, and is here. Then you say it is millions of times larger than this whole room—or maybe our whole world. It cannot be both."

""It cannot, and yet it is," said Steiner firmly. "This is a genuine universe we have here. It occupies a space of its own. It is not part of our own space. Within its own being, its size is as great as that of our entire galaxy; it stretches many hundreds of light years, yet to us, who are outside its space-time continuum, it seems small." - p 44

In other words,

""The result of the experiment, the achievement of bringing a particle of matter to infinite mass and infinite length at absolute zero was the creation of a thing which could not exist in our universe.["]" - p 48

I wish I'd been picked up hitchhiking by someone who told me about these sorts of things.

"["]It is about a hundred thousand light years in diameter. We know this is so, for that is the true measure of the speed of light within this microcosm. Its light, which travels at the same speed as our own light and has the same proerties, would take a ray one hundred thousand revolutions of one of its Earth-type planets around its primary sun to cross from one edge of this micro-universe to the other.["]" - p 49

But, wait, it gets even better. As usual, I'm trying to not spoil the plot for you but to still give you highlights in such a way as to perk yr interest. The experimenters & the beings in the galaxy they created can interface. Warren enters the body of an astronaut on one of the experiment-encapsulated planets:

"As Warren's voice began to reply, he sensed a part of his mind was sitting back astounded. The transferal had been a success. The mind of Warren Alton was now that of some being calling himself Dan Wool-house—this last name was in the native language, of course, but this language was entirely familiar to the brain Warren occupied. This Commander was a rocket pilot—was, in fact, the man selected by the military forces of his country, the Councilary Democracy of Souva on the planet Komar, to be the Columbus of Space for that world." - p 75

"To Lo the speech was only another dread milestone before the day of departure. He was willing; he had been selected by test—a spaceman of great experience. His family had acquiesced. As a matter of fact, Lo's wife would go into special suspended animation at a local hospital and be kept under until his return. He would not lose his mate. As for his sons, they would go on, they would be fully matured men by his return." - p 91

I asked one of my girlfriends to go into suspended animation for me when I had to go out of town for a job that might take a while. She sd I was asking too much. But she told me she loved me! Was I being unreasonable?

What do you call a cliff-hanger in space where there's no gravity?

"Neith matched his great ship's pace to that of the stranger and the two ran on, heading, he determined, for a star glowing ahead of them, whose rays could be seen lighting a family of seven planets. A tiny globe detached itself from the stranger and worked its way across space to the side of the Formidable. There was a knock at the particular hull-port where the space-boat came to rest. Neith himself got up to go and meet the strangers, and he felt himself in a curious state of mental exaltation and alarm. This was a moment in history of great significance. He felt drained as he walked to the port, and as he walked he seemed to get dizzy; he felt a moment of vertigo. . . .

"Warren, at that instant, recovered consciousness in the transferal chamber at Thunderhook Mountain." - p 110

In this created galaxy, the observers get to witness progress over many thousands of yrs rather than at the time-speed that they experienced in their own reality.

"In essence, the solution had been found in quite the same way as the men of Thunderhook had transfered their minds. Not in mind-power, but in the deliberate creation of blocks of matter so exactly balanced that they vibrated in precise sympathy with each other. For such a block would vibrate simultaneously with its phased companion, regardless of whether a galaxy separated the two units. As a result of this, it had been possible to set up whole communication systems for the exchange of messages and vision across a hundred thousand worlds simultaneously." - p 115

You expect me to believe that?

""It is limited by the encysting forces of our space-time continuum, a segment of which has been torn apart to allow it to exist, but which is also governed by space-time resistance. It is further checked by the application of atomic power generated here at our own plant. This augments the natural resistance of our own universe and which, working together, is capable of equaling the total energy of the micro-universe itself." - p 121

Now, an attentive reader might ask: 'What if?' & I'll go no further. This was a well-thought-thru story that I throughly enjoyed. Thank you, DAW>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

In my mind I think of the 80's as a really good time for science fiction so I found myself pretty disappointed with the ten stories chosen by the editor to represent the best of 1983 (The collection is assembled in 1984 with 1983 stories). There were only two stories to have my attention: "Homefaring" by Robert Silverberg and "The Harvest of Wolves" by Mary Gentle. I'd read Gentle's story a long time ago - short but well done, and memorable. The Silverberg story answers that timeless question of the far future: What if giant lobsters inherited the earth? Much better than it sounds! Greg Bear's short story "Blood Music" opens the collection. I had read it when it was new, but my memory of it was better than the story strikes me now. It was innovative for the time it was written. A couple stories in here are pretty poor. I'd avoid this collection, except that the novella "Homefaring" is such a good story and it was Nebula nominated as well. A 4-5 star gem amongst the dreck. sigh.

This collection differs significantly from the overwhelming majority of the tête-bêche Ace Doubles publications. Whereas most of them contain two novels, this one consists of a novel and a quartet of short stories. Eric Frank Russell looms large in it, as not only is he the author of the novel Sentinels in Space, but his is the first story of the four in the reverse-ended collection of tales.

Unfortunately this isn't to Russell's advantage. Every one of his works that I have encountered are centered around superbeings who step in and deal with some powerful foe that threatens peace or freedom or whatnot, and the combination here brings the repetition into sharp relief. In the case of Sentinels of Space Russell spins an entertaining tale in which the nature of the superbeings in his tale is itself a mystery that Russell develops as they set themselves to head off the threat of war between the Earth and factions on the human colonies on Mars and Venus. It's fairly suspenseful and engaging enough to propel the reader right through to the end. By contrast, the premise in the namesake novella in the short-story collection possesses none of the narrative tension, as the protagonist never seems in danger or even at risk of failing in his mission. In that case, Russell's formula failed to produce a decent story.

Fortunately the reading effort is redeemed by the other stories. My favorite of the four was Malcolm Jameson's "The Alien Envoy," in which extraterrestrials who have occupied the gas giants in the solar system reach out to humans to establish peace. It's an effective antidote to Russell's tepid tale in a lot of respects, and has an ending that I found touching. I found Murray Leinster's "The Malignant Marauder" to be just as enjoyable, as it's a refreshing time travel story that works pretty well. The same cannot be said for Frank Belknap Long's "The Temporal Transgressor," which I thought was under-plotted and over-written. It's the first of his stories that I can recall encountering, and it didn't leave me with much of a desire to seek out his others.

Where did the original Martians go? And who is interfering with our explorations of Mars? This is the one of the "Secret of" stories that holds together the best and presents a more cohesive, and believable, plot.

The plot is perfect for an young teenager--albeit a bit lame for a full adult. My teenage-self gives it a 5-star. We fly to Saturn to see if we can find proof that nuclear weapons destroyed the world that became Saturn's rings--all this as an abject lesson for current world governments. The danger comes from certain groups trying to sabotage the effort.

The plot line is hokey: aliens are sucking the energy from the sun and beaming it back to heat up their far away planet, and the teen-age hero has to fly all over the solar system to prevent Sol going nova. But suspending disbelief, as if I were a young teenager again, allows me to enjoy the thrills of the adventure and learn a few things about the Solar System (a la 1959).

Lo spazio, i missili, la conquista dei pianeti, hanno sempre esercitato un grande fascino sul giovane Robin Carew. Così, la sua passione lo porta a faccia a faccia con la più spaventevole delle avventure nella più disperata solitudine, involontaria cavia umana. Finito per circostanze che hanno del miracoloso in una serie di profonde caverne poste a grande profondità sotto la superficie della Luna, Robin Carew ha ben poche probabilità di salvezza. Tuttavia il sottosuolo lunare conserva gran parte della primitiva atmosfera del nostro satellite, ricca di ossigeno, il suolo delle caverne è percorso da misteriosi corsi d'acqua, ricoperto da bizzarra vegetazione, illuminato da strane creature fosforescenti come gli abissali abitatori degli oceani terrestri. E finalmente, un giorno, la straordinaria scoperta: un essere misterioso, incomprensibile, ma dai caratteri profondamente umani, apre al giovane Robin le porte di un più grande mistero. Mistero che sottintende le più mirabolanti avventure che un personaggio di fantascienza abbia mai incontrato tanto sulla pallida Selene quanto su altri corpi del Sistema Solare. Robin Carew scopre di non essere solo sull'enigmatico satellite, e l'arrivo di un secondo razzo terrestre corona questo avvincente romanzo. Donald Wollheim è già noto ai lettori di "Urania". Un suo romanzo è pertanto un nuovo piacere per la fantasia e una nuova gioia per gli appassionati di ricerche scientifiche. In questo Nelle viscere della Luna il lettore potrà apprezzare scene ed episodi che forse saranno vissuti dagli uomini che per primi - e in un avvenire non più tanto lontano - porranno il piede sulla polverosa superficie lunare.

INDICE
LE ACQUE DI SATURNO - 3° puntata - Storie di pianeti
The Martian Way and other stories

ISAAC ASIMOV
IL MISTERO DELLA MITICA GONDWANA - Curiosità scientifiche

Forse, una spedizione come quella di Bruce Rhodes e di suo padre si verificherà nei secoli futuri. Anche se proprio non avrà bisogno di usare come astronave l'eccentrico Hidalgo e altri stravaganti pianetini ... Ad ogni modo la scienza non è aliena dal ritenere che la triplice fascia di corpuscoli che costituiscono gli 'anelli' di Saturno sia il prodotto di una esplosione di un antico satellite, quello che era più vicino al colossale pianeta. Del resto, coi nove satelliti che restano a fargli corteggio, Saturno non può lamentarsi, dato che il sesto, in ordine di distanza, Titano, coi suoi 4200 km di diametro, è una luna dalla massa doppia della nostra Luna e con tanto anche di atmosfera (se pur prevalentemente a base di metano e ammoniaca)...Quanto al minuscolo Mimas, il più vicino a Saturno, dal quale dista soltanto 185000 km, non è, coi suoi 450 km di diametro, che un ciottolo del cielo. Ma la fantasia scientifica dell'A. ha saputo vedere in Mimas cose straordinarie! Inoltre, un enigma appassionante si cela negli anelli di Saturno: lo stesso racchiuso nelle viscere di Mimas. quale dramma di epoche inconcepibilmente remote si rivela agli intrepidi astronauti? ma non vogliamo dire di più: non sarebbe giusto sciupare al lettore il piacere della scoperta e della sorpresa ... "Il segreto di Saturno" segna una tappa luminosa nella narrativa di fantascienza!

As is usual for his annual World's Best collections, Wollheim selects 10 of the best stories of the preceding year, 1980 in this case. This series ran for 26 years (1965-1990) until the editor's death.

The included stories are:
vii • Introduction • essay by Donald A. Wollheim
1 • Variation on a Theme from Beethoven • novelette by Sharon Webb
30 • Beatnik Bayou • novelette by John Varley
64 • Elbow Room • novelette by Marion Zimmer Bradley
81 • The Ugly Chickens • novelette by Howard Waldrop
105 • Prime Time • short story by Norman Spinrad
119 • Nightflyers • novella by George R. R. Martin
181 • A Spaceship Built of Stone • short story by Lisa Tuttle
199 • Window • short story by Bob Leman
217 • The Summer Sweet, the Winter Wild • short story by Michael G. Coney
230 • Achronos • short story by Lee Killough

Waldrop's 'The Ugly Chickens' is a "cute' story I have read before. Zoological science fiction. It won the 1981 Nebula award for novelette. I wouldn't call this a strong year for science fiction of science fantasy stories based on this collection. I did like the first story pretty well. Sharon Webb speculates on the death of the arts and artists when immortality is achieved for humans in the future. The solution that humanity came up with is presented here. A young boy needs to choose between music or immortality. I don't think this story has appeared anywhere else but this anthology since the early magazine publication in 1980. Varley's 'Beatnik Bayou was a flop for me. I didn't even bother to read the last couple pages of that story. I skipped the Marion Zimmer Bradley story. The other stories were OK and I think my two favorites were 'A Spaceship Built of Stone' by Lisa Tuttle which was an old-fashioned romance science fiction story with a subtly creepy edge about the Anasazi people in modern times and what looks to be a silent invasion. Then, Bob Leman's 'Window' was odd but good also. It completely twists and turns into a nightmare at the end. This story was adapted into an episode of a TV series in 2001 and starred Bill Pullman! Although not exactly the written story, you can watch it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aAY57plRYQ The actual story is better than the television adaptation, but I think it is kinda cool that it exists at all.

Overall for 40 year old stories I can't complain. There are some good and interesting ideas in here, although most of this is quite forgettable.

Neat collection that covers the entire spectrum of "fantasy" as it was defined in the world of pulp literature, from horror to science fiction to sword-and-sorcery. The horror stories alone span a pretty wide range, from the detached paranormal investigative style of Algernon Blackwood's "A Victim of Higher Space" to "The Voice in the Night," William Hope Hodgson's classic tale of fungal terror at sea. Science fiction (in the old-fashioned space opera style) is represented by C.L. Moore's oft-anthologized novella "Black Thirst," while Robert E. Howard introduces a proto-Conan swordsman in "The Witch from Hell's Kitchen." (That horrible title was affixed to the story after Howard's death; the author called it, much more appropriately, "The House of Arabu.") The best of the bunch is Thorp McClusky's "The Crawling Horror," a Lovecraft-style terror yarn originally published in Weird Tales.

Good stuff, for the most part. Three and a half stars.

liked this better than I expected. does sci fi still exist? fantasy seems to have taken over.

Nostalgia has its limits.

This was very possibly the first science fiction book I ever read, probably around 1970. I found it in my elementary school library, and presumably through that something about the ninth planet would be interesting. So I read it -- and remembered it enough to identify it half a century later and find a copy. Having read it again, I find myself wondering what made it so interesting.

The book is, of course, highly inaccurate about the solar system; it was written before any interplanetary probes had been launched. I can accept that; I have no problems, e.g., with Robert A. Heinlein's "Future History" books, which feature a human-habitable Mars, or James Blish's "Cities in Flight," which give us a tenth planet that isn't there. An author can't be expected to know what no one knows.

But an author can be expected to know what everyone knows. Proper science fiction obeys the laws of physics except where it justifies an exception. The justification may be hand-waving ("hyperspace"), but there is one, and the number of exceptions is kept as small as possible. Here, we have anti-gravity, "sun-tapping" (capturing solar energy at a distance and redirecting it), an energy weapon that produces a visible beam in a vacuum, mind control of aliens at a distance, and an orbital entanglement of Neptune and Pluto that was known to be impossible even in 1959. And life on Neptune. How? Life needs energy. Where does it come from? And how can a pressure suit that works in Venus conditions also work on Pluto? It's too many new laws and gadgets.

And there are logical flaws. Assume that "sun-tapping" is possible -- maybe, since anti-gravity is possible, you can generate special gravity to pull in the energy. Sure, the laws of thermodynamics would make this more costly, energy-wise, than it's worth, but assume it for the sake of the argument. What sort of idiot builds the "sun-tap" stations on planets, two of which have inhabitants and three of which have atmospheres and all of which have geology (earthquakes) which might interfere. Don't build them on planets; build them in a random orbit and keep them safe! The sun-tappers are simply too stupid to have developed their technology.

And what sane person shoots at aliens on sight? Sure, the sun-tappers had been tapping the sun, but for all we know, that's an attempt to communicate: "Here's our base; come visit us." Eventually it appears this is not so (though the sun-tappers still seem too socially primitive for their technology), but the earth people don't even try. Exactly who are the uncivilized brutes here?

The whole thing reads like the worst of 1930s "science fiction" -- gadget fantasy with no science and no sociology. It's pre-John Campbell (who revolutionized science fiction in 1938), and there was a reason why Campbell's coming was such a revolution: he swept away stuff like this.

Admittedly all that might be accepted if the story were good. But 80% of the book is spent traveling between worlds and blowing up alien artifacts, and the worlds are not only inaccurate but poorly realized. It's only in the last few chapters that we get some idea of what is going on, and watch Our Heroes win an improbable victory against enemies who are, yet again, too stupid to make any sense. It's not exciting, merely improbable.

Frankly, I feel ashamed that I liked this book enough to remember it. Yes, I was a pre-teen. Even so. I can only be glad that I didn't remember the bad science!½

This story is from the late 1950's written by Donald Wollheim. And though the characters are somewhat dated, the idea that the story presents is marvelously simple and worth pondering.

What if science could create a micro-universe where time moved at a speeded-up pace, where you could observe the Birth and the Death of that Universe and everything therein from Beginning to End.

And what if the denizens of that Universe attempted to break out?

This is Classic SF that touches on the Morality of Science. The SF science is on par what what the author knew of back in the late 1950's not not too outlandish. The idea itself would be translated today under the rubric of "What if your Universe was a Simulation?"

An enjoyable light read.

Recently while shopping at a used bookstore I found a battered collection of Ace Double science fiction novels from the 1950s in their giveaway bin. While they were published before my time, seeing them brought back fond memories of the cheap mass-market paperback novels I enjoyed as a youth, some of which were reprints of these Ace Doubles split into in single-book format. The combination of availability and nostalgia proved too irresistible to pass up, so I decided to pick them up and indulge in a trip down into the past's future.

I started with this pair of novels. The first one I read was Across Time, which was written by Donald A. Wollheim using his pen name "David Grinnell." It was an appropriate place start for reasons I didn't appreciate until afterward, as Wollheim is the editor who invented the Ace Doubles series. He is regarded as one of the most important, perhaps even the most important, figure in the history of science fiction publishing, and has been recognized for all he did in that area (his daughter credits him as well with kick-starting the modern fantasy field by publishing the first edition of the Lord of the RIngs trilogy in paperback, so there's that, too). Wollheim was modest about his skills as an author, though, and (to borrow from Churchill) he has much to be modest about, as his novel is a rather pedestrian tale involving flying saucers and a love triangle between two brothers and a woman. While there are some nifty elements in the book — including a sentient warship that is probably the first of its type in science fiction — overall the outcome was so predictable as to rob the book of narrative tension.

After finishing Wollheim's novel I flipped the book over and started Robert Silverberg's Invaders from Earth. And once I began it, I found myself drawn into a fantastic story in which a 21st century expedition to Ganymede finds both an inhabited world and one with valuable minerals, and an advertising firm is hired to pave the way for exploitation. The plot revolved around one of the men spearheading the campaign, whom the firm sends to Ganymede to give his ideas added verisimilitude, only for him to have a crisis of conscience when he realizes just what he's done. There's a nice Mad Men vibe to the tale (unsurprising for a novel written in 1957 that's set in an ad firm), as well as an anti-imperialist commentary that is unusual for science fiction novels of the time. It was definitely the highlight of the pair, and it left me eager to see what other gems I might find in my newly-acquired trove.

Interesting collection, although rather dated (if it's older than me, I can say that).