The Year's Best Science Fiction 10

We got Singer’s Short Friday (Farrar, 1964) and McConnell’s The Worm Returns (Prentice-Hall, 1965), but not Gironella’s Phantoms and Fugitives (Sheed and Ward, 1964), or Gary’s Hissing Tales, although Harper & Row did send Fred Hoyle and John Elliot’s Andromeda Breakthrough.

(#4, by the way, is from McConnell’s “Compulsory Preface” in The Worm Re-Turns.)

Holt sent Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (a non-SF novel, full of references to science fiction, by an author associated with the genre—and God bless Holt for publishing it!) but New Directions did not send their enlarged 1965 reissue of Jorge Luis Borges’ remarkable Labyrinths, nor did Viking send R. K. Narayan’s fine collection of Indian legends, Gods, Demons, and Others (1964).

Snobbishness or confusion? It is hard to say; but easy enough to see that someone, somewhere, needs to take a long, fresh look at this mixed-up business of literary “categories.”

In some ways, the nonfiction submissions are even more curious: we got Sullivan’s superb We Are Not Alone (McGraw-Hill, 1964), and Bonestell-Ley’s Beyond the Solar System (Viking, 1964), but not Arthur C. Clarke’s Man in Space (Life Library, 1964); we were sent Rosalind Heywood’s ESP: A Personal Memoir (Dutton, 1964)—one of the most sensible, as well as best-written, books on the subject I’ve ever seen— but not David Solomon’s fascinating anthology of articles, LSD, The Consciousness-Expanding Drug (Putnam, 1964).

(Alan Watts’ selection in LSD was the source for #8.)

If I seem to be saying that the situation is just as confused one place as another—why, it’s only because that is what I mean to say. With the final criterion of authorship slipping out from under them, publishers, general reviewers, and the poor book salesmen have no way to tell their friends from SF.

(And how much better did you do? The last three mix-matches: #6 is by Frederik Pohl, from “Intimations of Immortality,” in Playboy, June, 1964. #7 is by Philip Abelson, quoted in an article, “$30,000,-000,000 Trip to the Moon,” in Cosmopolitan, October, 1964. #9 is from Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Meddlers,” in Playboy, March, 1964.)

There is, however, still some small area of solid ground, and within its limits, some items of interest to mention; for instance—

SF Horizons, a new British periodical devoted to criticism, edited by Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss. The first issue contained a particularly interesting taped discussion between C. S. Lewis, Kingsley Amis, and Aldiss.

Extrapolation, a science-fiction newsletter published by the Conference on Science-Fiction of the Modern Language Association—a fine, scholarly critical journal.

And Double : Bill. Those of you who saw the Ninth Annual will recall my discussion at some length of the survey conducted for this fan publication by Lloyd Biggie. I based my comments, and the list of participants, on two installments of the survey—and discovered too late that there was a third I had not yet received. There is little to add to the conclusions, but I should like to include now the names of the remainder of participating authors: Charles Beaumont, James Blish, Anthony Boucher, Leigh Brackett, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Reginald Bretnor, Terry Carr, Arthur C. Clarke, Hal Clement, Avram Davidson, Lester Del Rey, August Derleth, Horace Gold, Edmond Hamilton, Joe Hensley, Robert W. Lowndes, Richard Lupoff, Mack Reynolds, Eric Frank Russell, James H. Schmitz, Robert Silverberg, E. E. “Doc” Smith, George 0. Smith, William Temple, Theodore Thomas, Ted White, Kate Wilhelm, Jack Williamson and Robert F. Young.

Finally, I should like to express my thanks to some of the many people whose interest and assistance is necessary to make a volume of this sort at all possible. For suggestions of inclusions, and assistance in obtaining material, much thanks to Barbara Norville, Eva Mo-Kenna, Margaret Scoggins, Francesca van der Ling, Anthony Boucher, Ed Ferman, Dick Wilson, and the infinitely patient librarians at the Port Jervis, N.Y., Public Library. For clerical help, messenger service, and an assortment of literary bottle-washing jobs, my sincere gratitude to Karen Emden, Ann Pohl, Rick Raphael, and John Walter. For critical reactions, my thanks to Virginia Kidd Blish, Seymour Krim, Fritz Leiber, and the panel of Teen-Age Book Reviewers introduced to me by Miss Scoggins, who heads the Young Adult Services at the New York Public Library. And my most earnest appreciation to Bob Silverstein, for some of all the foregoing, but even more for a rare and admirable editorial restraint

Judith Merril

April, 1965

Amz: Amazing Stories

Anal: Analog Science Fact & Fiction

Fant: Fantastic

F&.SF: Fantasy and Science Fiction

Gal: Galaxy

Gam: Gamma

Harp: Harper’s Magazine

If: If

KR: Kenyon Review

Knt: Knight

MQV: Michigan’s Quarterly Voices

NW: New Worlds (British)

Nug: Nugget

Plby: Playboy

Rog: Rogue

SMM: Saint Mystery Magazine

SEP: Saturday Evening Post

SciF: Science Fantasy (British)

Sm: Smith

WoT: Worlds of Tomorrow

“BF&SF: 14”: Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Avram

Davidson (Doubleday, 1964)

DSE: The Dark Side of the Earth, Alfred Bester (Signet, 1964)

HT: Hissing Tales, Romain Gary (Harper and Row, 1964)

Mo J: The Machineries of Joy, Ray Bradbury (Simon and

Schuster, 1964)

SiO: Sturgeon in Orbit, Theodore Sturgeon (Pyramid, 1964)

WBSF:65: World’s Best Science Fiction: 1965, ed. Donald A.

Wollheim and Terry Carr (Ace, 1965)

* * * *

BRIAN W. ALDISS: “The Dark Light-Years,” WoT, Apr.

----------, “Pink Plastic Gods,” SciF, June-July.

POUL ANDERSON: “Mustn’t Touch,” Anal, June.

----------, The Master Key,” Anal, July.

ANONYMOUS: “Blast Off,” SciF, June-July.

CHRISTOPHER ANVIL: “Hunger,” Anal, May.

J. G. BALLARD: “The Illuminated Man,” BF&SF:14

RAYMOND E. BANKS: “The Seawater Papers,” Anal, July.

JANE BEAUCLERK: “We Serve the Star of Freedom,” F&SF, July.

ALFRED BESTER: “Out of this World,” DSE

JEROME BIXBY: “Natural History of the Kley,” WoT, Nov.

WILBUR G. BIGGS: “Daughter of the Clan,” Font, Nov.

BEN BOVA AND MYRNA R. LEWIS: “Men of Good Will,” Gal, June; and WBSF.-65

LEIGH BRACKETT: “Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon,” F&SF, Oct

RAY BRADBURY: “Almost the End of the World,” MoJ

R. BRETNOR: “Demigod,” Amz, Oct.

NEAL BROOKS: “Abraham Awoke,” Rog, Mar.

ROSEL GEORGE BROWN: “The Artist,” Amz, May.

JOHN BRUNNER: “See What I Meant” Anal. Jan.

DAVID R. BUNCH: “Keeping It Simple,” Sm#3

TERRY CARR: “Touchstone,” BF&SF.-14

CURT CLARK: “Nackles,” F&SF, Jan.

JAMES COLVIN: “The Deep Fix,” SciF, Apr.

MIRIAM ALLEN DEFORD: “The Apprentice God,” WoT, Apr.

LESTER DEL REY: “TO Avenge Man,” Gal, Dec.

PHILIP K. DICK: “Little Black Box,” WoT, Aug.

----------, “Precious Artifact,” Gal, Oct.

----------, “What the Dead Men Say,” WoT, June.

GORDON R. DICKSON: “The Man from Earth,” Gal, June.

THOMAS M. DISCH: “A Thesis on Social Forms and Social Controls in the U.S.A.,” Font,