American literature doesn't have an official "Canon." There's no equivalent of the Academie Francaise to decide what is and what is not Literature with a capital L. But we do have some approximations: high-school or first-year college course reading lists, better-late-than-never Pulitzers, adaptations in Classics Illustrated Comics or Oscar-bait films . . . And of course, enshrinement in the Modern Library imprint from Random House.
Science fiction in America had a bad reputation in the days when most of it was printed in the pulp magazines. Sure, it sold well and was popular, but authors could never quite shake the stigma of writing trash. Talk to any science fiction fan or author over the age of 60 or so and you're bound to hear stories of parents and teachers throwing away science fiction magazines or paperbacks.
The birth of the Atomic Age in 1945 did a lot to erase that stigma. Suddenly atom bombs, rockets, satellites, nuclear submarines, and electronic computers were no longer wild science fictional fantasies but the subjects of serious news and popular science articles. One can only imagine how many triumphant nerds waved copies of Collier's Magazine featuring Wernher Von Braun's articles about the Conquest of Space in the faces of those parents and teacher mentioned above. "SEE?"
And in 1946 the doors of the Temple of Literature were opened: Modern Library published an anthology of short fiction and a couple of nonfiction articles called Famous Science Fiction Stories: Adventures in Time and Space, edited by Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas. Both editors were established publishing-industry pros at the time, but McComas went on to write several science fiction stories of his own.
This is science fiction's first stab at the big time, at literary respectability. One would expect this to be the greatest all-star anthology ever. So what's inside? Here's the table of contents:
Requiem, by Robert A. Heinlein
Forgetfulness, by Don A. Stuart (actually John W. Campbell)
Nerves, by Lester Del Rey
The Sands of Time, by P. Schuyler Miller
The Proud Robot, by Lewis Padgett (secretly Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore)
Black Destroyer, by A.E. Van Vogt
Symbiotica, by Eric Frank Russell
Seeds of the Dusk, by Raymond Z. Gallun
Heavy Planet, by Lee Gregor (a.k.a. Milton Rothman)
Time Locker, by Lewis Padgett (really C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner)
The Link, by Cleve Cartmill
Mechanical Mice, by Maurice A. Hugi
V-2: Rocket Cargo Ship, by Willy Ley (nonfiction)
Adam and No Eve, by Alfred Bester
Nightfall, by Isaac Asimov
A Matter of Size, by Harry Bates
As Never Was, by P. Schuyler Miller
Q.U.R., by Anthony Boucher
Who Goes There?, by Don A. Stuart (Campbell again)
The Roads Must Roll, by Robert A. Heinlein
Asylum, by A.E. Van Vogt
Quietus, by Ross Rocklynne
The Twonky, by Lewis Padgett (Kuttner and Moore yet again)
Time-Travel Happens!, by A.M. Phillips (nonfiction, sort of)
Robot's Return, by Robert Moore Williams
The Blue Giraffe, by L. Sprague De Camp
Flight Into Darkness, by Webb Marlowe (J. Francis McComas, one of the editors)
The Weapons Shop, by A.E. Van Vogt
Farewell to the Master, by Harry Bates
Within the Pyramid, by R. DeWitt Miller
He Who Shrank, by Henry Hasse
By His Bootstraps, by Anson MacDonald (Robert Heinlein)
The Star Mouse, by Fredric Brown
Correspondence Course, by Raymond F. Jones
Brain, by S. Fowler Wright
That's a pretty impressive list of contributors! I am a little surprised at some names which are missing; it appears the editors limited themselves to living and American writers (for fiction, anyway; Willy Ley had come over from Germany before the war). Still, it's surprising not to see Earl and Otto Binder, Leigh Brackett, Edmond Hamilton, Neil R. Jones, Murray Leinster, Jack Williamson, or Philip Wylie — but editorial taste is a mysterious thing. It's worth noting that all but three of the stories in this volume are from Campbell's Astounding; I don't know if there was a business relationship between the editors or Random House and Astounding, or whether John W. Campbell had made his magazine such a leader in the field that it was simply inevitable that Astounding would dominate an "all star" collection.
Let's look at the stories. (Warning: I'm not going to give all of them equal attention, and some of the best ones may get the most cursory treatment because there isn't much to say about something great.)
"Requiem," by Robert A. Heinlein: This is a classic even today. A strong starter. The notion of an eccentric millionaire becoming the father of the space age seemed plausible in 1946, absurd in 1966, and nowadays seems very . . . topical. I have a feeling Elon Musk has read this story many times. Four stars.
"Forgetfulness," by Don A. Stuart/John W. Campbell: Touches on two themes Campbell returned to again and again — dying civilizations and psychic powers. A good story, but not the best by Campbell/Stuart. Two stars.
"Nerves," by Lester Del Rey: A medical drama set in a ridiculously dangerous atomic research facility. Something about atomic power, even before Hiroshima, seems to have opened the floodgates of metaphor in science fiction writers. The story, and the characters in it, treat atomic power as something supernatural. The combination of near-superstitious dread and (by modern standards) maniacal recklessness makes the story fail the suspension-of-disbelief test, and the medical drama based entirely on technobabble just isn't especially interesting. Two stars, and that's generous.
"The Sands of Time," by P. Schuyler Miller: This is an absolutely gonzo story, and Miller pulls it off wonderfully. Time travel! Dinosaurs! A Space Princess! Thrills! Romance! And a reasonably well-done depiction of field paleontology! Four stars.
"The Proud Robot," by Lewis Padgett/Kuttner and Moore: There was once a whole subgenre of science fiction which I have to say I'm very glad has died out. It was the "wacky inventor" story, and I think every SF writer working before about 1970 tried it at least once. This particular wacky inventor is a comical alcoholic, which isn't actually very funny. The plot involves some speculation about how television would change the way people consume entertainment, including some very prescient ideas about what we now call "intellectual piracy." That's pretty nifty, but it's offset by the fact that the story is about a man who invents a functional human-level artificial intelligence and nobody at all seems to think it's very important. Three stars.
"Black Destroyer," by A. E. Van Vogt: This one is a classic, it's great, it's got a great alien viewpoint character, it's a space-monster story that actually makes sense, and I can ignore Van Vogt's crackpot historical-psychological determinism because everyone was doing it back then anyway. This story demonstrates why I vastly prefer Van Vogt's short stories to his novels. Four stars.
"Symbiotica," by Eric Frank Russell: An exploration story with an interesting alien environment. But to a modern reader this story is weird. The space explorers are, more or less, the crew from the original 1931 version of King Kong, but with a spaceship instead of a tramp steamer. Everyone's very tough and hard-boiled, even the Martian and robot members of the crew. Fifty years after H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, the idea of biological contamination is a foreign concept. It's not even clear to me what the explorers are supposed to do on this alien world. I know, I shouldn't judge a story written eighty years ago by contemporary standards — but compare Russell's space explorers to the men in Van Vogt's story immediately preceding. The men of the Space Beagle act like astronauts; Russell's characters act like sailors on shore leave. Three stars.
If you want to compare my science fiction stories to the masters, you can buy my ebook Outlaws and Aliens!
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