The Science Fiction Hall of Fame (Volume 2A)

This was an excellent set of science fiction short stories from the past. I came back to science fiction after a 40+ year hiatus, and the stories were as wonderful and full of enchantment as I remembered. I recommend the book for the thought provoking ideas and for the link to the present day world. The themes of the stories and the problems of the world do not change.

I came to this site looking for this book *specifically* to find "The Cold Equations" short story that another reviewer mentions above. I haven't read these stories since the first time when the book was new. This book is a MUST READ for people interested in quality science fiction

Galactic spanning civilizations that distribute news on bulky, printed papers! Moral quandaries about inflexible physical rules as they apply somehow differently to Women (capital W!). The 1940's and 1950's were a different time. Unbounded optimism about man's (maybe not Women's) place in the universe coupled with oddly anachronistic views of technology (let's 'go find a phone' in this space station!) is just plain fun. Time to grab my fedora and fly to Mars!

This is my all time favorite book and inspired years of reading by many authors. It was amazing what these writers were able to project at the time and it would be very interesting to see what they'd be up to today.

One of the best collection of short stories of science fiction!Each of the 26 stories is a gem.

It contains stories of most of the masters of science fiction of that time -- Asimov, Clarke, del Rey, Simak, and so on.

A must have for any SF fan.

This series of Novellas is old school SF (no cyber, no political statements, nor any "green" themes). Could not help smiling a bit at the plots which were by any description light fun, best described as "Camp SF". As a SF reader for 50 years+, the collection was a bit nostalgic, easy reading, and pure amusement.

0 Stars Bad
1 Star * Not Bad
2 Stars ** OK
3 Stars *** Good
4 Stars **** Very Good
5 Stars ***** Great

Any Star is worth a read. The more Stars, the more enjoyment you will have.

Disappointing. The majority of the stories are so dated that they are no no longer classics - they are simply relics. The writing styles and content are so mired in their era that they don't have the 'timeless' quality I was expecting. It has been a chore sifting through these to find the gems. There are a few in here. I purchased it for Tim Matheson's "Born of Man and Woman". That one stands the test of time. The rest.....not so much. If you are into retro Buck Rogers type stuff you might enjoy it.

Some great stories here... but collections like these should strive to bring obscure writers who deserve to be read to our attention and this book earns a "D" as one third of its pages are wasted in that respect.

Included are some real gems like And Then There Were None, a superb story demonstrating the fallacy of our supposed "freedom." It should be read in every high school.

Who Goes There by Campbell is as good as it gets. Carpenter's The Thing was made from this single most terrifying story ever written. Some great collections of Campbell out there: A New Dawn: The Complete Don A. Stuart Stories (Nesfa's Choice Series, Volume 22).

Vintage Season is the story upon which the film: Grand Tour was based, and also very good and brings an obscure writer to much deserved attention. Now THAT is what collections like this should be about.

Baby Is Three is also great. (Don't give up while slogging through the first few pages...it's worth it) This was later expanded into More Than Human. This story led me to buy many of his collected stories in 11 volumes like this one: Slow Sculpture: Volume XII: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon. Mostly out of print but good used copies are available here.

But... really now, The Time Machine??? Why? because it was free? Sure it's great, but everyone over twelve has read it.

And Nerves by del Rey? Wordy, outdated, static and boring... never has a story so deserved obscurity.

There's 150 pages gone that might have held 5 other superb stories deserving inclusion.

I'd advise skipping this mediocre compilation and going straight to the source to glean what is best as with the above links.

This book is truly a collection of great stories from between the years of 1929 and 1964. I am glad they reprinted this book because my older version is yellowing. I hope one day they will reprint a new hardback copy and I will buy it also.

Even though this book is packed from cover to cover with intriguing stories, I bought it for one story in particular "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett. First published in 1943 ("Lewis Padgett" was a pseudonym employed by Henry Kuttner and his wife, C. L. Moore)

My first encounter with this story was a vinyl record recording with William Shatner later it is replaces with a cassette tape. I believe this book is the only surviving form of the story.

Unthahorsten is experimenting with time travel and sends two black boxes back into the past. He had to put something in them so as a last minute thought places his old toys in them. They do not return so he forgets them. It is too late the mischief is done. One is found by children in 1942. The other well look at the title for a clue.

Clocking in at over 28 hours, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame was an incredibly easy listen that seem to fly by over the course of a few days. Offering a wider range of stories accompanied by varying narrators, I quite enjoyed my time with this collection.

While it is always difficult to review anthologies (particularly of this size) I did want to share a few thoughts on this one, as many have been such a miss for me lately. When I discover a collection that feels well-balanced and overall rewarding, I want to hand it the spotlight for a few.

With that stated, I do feel it is important to mention that Volume 1 is not without flaws. As to be expected, there are times the narration missed the mark or the true age of the material was inevitably felt. Also, I received an MP3 file from the publisher, so there was a lot of information that was not accessible in terms of biographies. Several stories that were multiple files in length, actually downloaded out of order. This was a frustration to work through and I fear I missed some titles. But none of this was enough to take away from the enjoyment of a fantastic collection of sci-fi classics.

Supplied in easily digestible chunks, this anthology takes the reader on a journey that begins in 1929 and end in 1964. There are the notorious tales of androids and psychic abilities gone bad to space craft stowaways that challenge our moral obligations and stories where protagonists face situations with universal ramifications. Each story feels unique and challenges the reader (listener) on some varying emotional level. And as good science fiction does, there are many subtle and not so subtle messages contained throughout that explore humanity on a multifaceted spectrum.

A few of my favorites included:

A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum
Helen O’Loy by Lester del Rey
The Quest for Saint Aquin by Anthony Boucher
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
It’s a Good Life by Jerome Bixby
The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin
Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester

Even with the obstacles I encountered, I can easily say that this a collection of great value for all fans of science fiction! I will definitely be picking up a physical copy of this anthology for my shelves at first opportunity and look forward to exploring later volumes.

*I would like to thank audiojukebox and the publisher for my copy. The above review is my own, unbiased and honest opinion.

I have been burned by anthologies and collections that promote one or two high end come-ons and then are padded out with uninspired but easily secured second choices. That is not the case here. Apart from a little fine tuning and rearranging, (explained in a foreword by Silverberg), these are the top stories as voted for by the Science Fiction Writers of America. This, (1968), was well before the voting for awards became political and dubious, and represents the honest opinions of the 300 top professional writers in the field at the time. The ballot included 132 stories written between 1929 and 1964, the work of 76 different writers. If you want a sampler of the best of the best, this is it.

Essential science fiction short story collection of the decades 1920s thru 1960s. An incredible collection of some of the most famous, ground-breaking and influential sci-fi stories ever written, most of which were originally published in magazines and/or short story collections. Robert Silverberg explains the culling process in the brief introduction. The only deficiency is a lack of blurb before each story explaining who/what/when about the author (and thanks to the internet, that is no longer a problem). Quintessential collection, highly recommended.
The stories are as follows:
A Martian Odyssey - Stanley G. Weinbaum
Twilight - John W. Campbell
Helen O'Loy - Lester Del Rey
The Roads Must Roll - Robert A. Heinlein
Microcosm God - Theodore Sturgeon
Nightfall - Isaac Asimov
The Weapon Shop - A. E. van Vogt
Mimsy Were the Borogoves - Lewis Padgett
Huddling Place - Clifford D. Simak
Arena - Frederic Brown
First Contact - Murray Leinster
That Only a Mother - Judith Merril
Scanners Live in Vain - Cordwainer Smith
Mars is Heaven! - Ray Bradbury
The Little Black Bag - C. M. Kornbluth
Born of Man and Woman - Richard Matheson
Coming Attraction - Fritz Leiber
The Quest for Saint Aquin - Anthony Boucher
Surface Tension - James Blish
The Nine Billion Names of God - Arthur C. Clarke
It's a "Good" Life - Jerome Bixby
The Cold Equations - Tom Godwin
Fondly Fahrenheit - Afred Bester
The Country of the Kind - Damon Knight
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
A Rose for Ecclesiastes - Roger Zelazny

I bought the Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume 1 for one reason, to read “It’s a Good Life” by Jerome Bixby. “It’s a Good Life” was the basis for an amazing and horrifying Twilight Zone episode of the same name. It’s regarded as one of the best if not THE best episode ever and having now read the short story I can say I wasn’t disappointed. The story is even creepier and scarier than the television episode which was an excellent and very faithful adaptation. This collection also features the well-known “Flowers for Algernon” along with stories by Isacc Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke. The stories were published between 1934 and 1963 but I have to admit that I’m partial to the later stories. Some of the early stories seem a little dated, for instance “The Roads Must Roll” by Robert A. Heinlein where future transportation is dominated by enormous moving roads like conveyor belts.

Although the stories are all unique they do share the quality that each is intelligently and thoughtfully written which is probably exactly why they were chosen for inclusion. The stories were chosen by Science Fiction writers so there is probably a focus on stories with some intelligence. “The Country of the Kind” asks the simple question, what would happen on a world where violence was simply inconceivable if one person learned to kill. Two stories, “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” and “The Little Black Box” deal with common objects from the future travelling back in time and the effect they have on people from the present time (circa when these stories were written). Stories like “Microcosmic God”, about a scientist who creates a miniature society that evolves at hyper speed, and “The Weapon Shop” are incredibly inventive and like nothing I’ve ever read before. In fact “The Weapon Shop” is so out there I won’t even attempt to describe it but it’s still a great read. “Scanners Live in Vain” is perhaps the weirdest of all the stories but tremendously enjoyable.

A lot of these stories feel like they would be perfect for a half hour Twilight Zone episode and as mentioned above one was. “Mars Is Heaven!” by Ray Bradbury was made into an episode of Ray Bradbury Theater. There was an episode of Star Trek called “Arena” that was similar enough to the story of the same name that Fredric Brown got writing credit to avoid legal problems. Some stories like “Helen O’Ley” and “Huddling Place” made very little impact on me and I had to skim them a second time to even remember what they were about. “First Contact” and “The Cold Equations” were great concepts that the writers somewhat beat to death but even the weakest stories in this collection tend to be decent. Regardless of the few forgettable stories there were no stories that I actively disliked and overall this collection is well worth the time and money. I heartily recommend this to science fiction readers if for nothing else than its two most well known stories.

The "Science Fiction Hall of Fame" (Volume IIA), edited by Ben Bova, is another volume of science fiction, similar but yet different than the first volume. This volume was published in 1973, and as with the previous volume, there were a set of criteria for which stories were selected. In this case the stories that were voted on had to be published prior to 1966, and there could be no more than one entry per author, although this limitation did not include authors who were published in Volume I. Both volumes IIA and IIB are for works which are longer novelettes and novellas.

Not surprisingly, with the longer stories, there is a shorter table of contents than for Volume I, with just 11 stories in Volume IIA. Nevertheless, there are some all-time classics here:

* Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson - novelette
* Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr. - novella
* Nerves by Lester del Rey - novella
* Universe by Robert A. Heinlein - novella
* The Marching Morons by C. M. Kornbluth - novelette
* Vintage Season by Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore - novella
* ...And Then There Were None by Eric Frank Russell - novella
* The Ballad of Lost C'Mell by Cordwainer Smith - novelette
* Baby Is Three by Theodore Sturgeon - novella
* The Time Machine by H. G. Wells - novella
* With Folded Hands... by Jack Williamson - novelette

This volume does a little better job of balancing out the different eras of Science Fiction than Volume I did. At the same time, the quality of the collection remains at the highest level, with classic stories from start to finish. In addition to the stories themselves, there is an introduction by Ben Bova, who goes into more detail on how the stories were chosen for Volume IIA and IIB. This is definitely one to pick up if you have the chance, especially if you don't have these stories in another collection.

This is a treasure trove of older science fiction classic novellas. Authors here include such worthies as Poul Anderson, John Campbell, Jr., Lester del Rey, Robert Heinlein, C. M. Kornbluth, Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, Eric Frank Russell, Cordwainer Smith, Theodore Sturgeon (progenitor of Sturgeon's Law, "90% of everything is crud," if I recall accurately), H. G. Wells, and Jack Williamson. This volume was published originally in 1973 (the version, in fact, that I have).

Let's look at a couple examples. Kornbluth's work is a lugubrious application of eugenics to humans. With the reduction in accidents, war, illness, fewer ungifted people were "weeded out." The end result? As a character says, "The average IQ is now 45." Why not just let the ungifted die out through stupidity? One of the "gifted" who were around to keep the world going on mentioned that they had--but the "marching morons" were too dense to know that anything was wrong, as they began to die by large numbers. So, the gifted continue to keep the species alive. When I read this, I have mixed emotions indeed! I am not a fan of eugenics, but the novella lays out an interesting scenario.

Another favorite is Russell's "And Then There Were None." A sort of libertarian work, in which residents of a planet had seen their society evolve in a very different path from a galactic state. The central government decided to reassert authority over "The Gands" (residents of the planet, followers of the ideas of Gandhi). The society of the Gands is libertarian, with people having no right to define the duties of another. The ship's crew, when interacting with the Gands, decide they like their way of life better. Many desertions follow, before the officers and some crewmen lift off, to escape the society.

H. G. Wells' "The T8ime Machine" is here. So, too, Campbell's "Who Goes There?", the source for two different versions of a movie known to us as "The Thing." As other reviewers note, the novella is appropriately creepy.

Anyhow, if you don't like the style of classic science fiction, this may be unsatisfying. But for those of us who grew up with these authors, the book is a glorious reminder of our experiencing sci-fi in our younger days!

This collection of the best science fiction stories between 1929 and 1964 was assembled by the Science Fiction Writers of America and has the high quality that results from an expert-driven selection process. The twenty-six stories are all good and all by name authors, although they weren't all "names" when they wrote them.

My favorite six--and this wasn't easy--are:

Frederic Brown's "Arena" was made into a Star Trek episode which pitted William Shatner against an unknown stunt man in a rubber reptile suit. This original story of a human versus a well-rounded alien in a fight to the death is better.

Murray Leinster's "First Contact" named an entire SF sub-genre. The aliens and humans meet, learn to communicate, and then need to figure out a way to get home without endangering both of their worlds.

C. M. Kornbluth's "The Little Black Bag" hints at a future where many people aren't too bright. One of them loses a bag of medical instruments all the way into the past. And somebody finds it.

Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" illustrates the danger of taking along just enough of everything--air, fuel, mass--on a space trip. There is always the unexpected.

Damon Knight's "The Country of the Kind" examines the life of a lonely man who keeps reaching out for others. Something always gets in the way. This story may have influenced Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange.

Daniel Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon" introduces Charlie Gordon, a mentally handicapped man whose life changes when he participates in a surgical experiment designed to improve intelligence. The experiment succeeds, and Charlie quickly develops first ordinary, and then extraordinary intelligence. This short story was later expanded into the novel Flowers for Algernon.

Some of the science in these stories is dated, but that doesn't make them harder to read than stories set in unfamiliar cultures or in the past. Some plots have become cliché, but it is still worthwhile to read the originals. Whether your reading voyage is one of discovery or rediscovery, it is worth taking. Highly recommended.

I first picked up the original printing of this anthology when I was a small child, around ten years old, and the first story in it ("A Martian Oddyssey") was so good that I put the book back down and didn't read the rest of it for another year because I was afraid none of the other stories in there could possibly be as good.

Almost all of them were. That's not the only reason you should read this collection, though. Beyond the stunning quality of the stories in this collection, many of these stories have, by now, what amounts to historical importance within the sci-fi field; these are the best of the best first stories, the bones that the modern great SF writers gnawed on in their childhoods, the building-block stories of the genre. You really haven't read science fiction if you haven't read Asimov's "Nightfall," if you haven't read "The Cold Equations" or "Arena" or "Twilight" or "Flowers for Algernon." Understanding modern sci-fi without a knowledge of these stories would be like trying to understand modern fantasy without having read Tolkien.

I am unaware of a better or even a comparable science fiction anthology (apart, perhaps, from the subsequent volumes in this same series). There couldn't be. These are the stories that built the genre. Any collection that was comparable would have to collect all the same tales.

Edit: I figured it would be good to add a list of all the stories in this anthology.

Stanley G. Weinbaum "A Martian Odyssey" 1934
John W. Campbell "Twilight" 1934
Lester del Rey "Helen O'Loy" 1938
Robert A. Heinlein "The Roads Must Roll" 1940
Theodore Sturgeon "Microcosmic God" 1941
Isaac Asimov "Nightfall" 1941
A. E. van Vogt "The Weapon Shop" 1942
Lewis Padgett "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" 1943
Clifford D. Simak "Huddling Place" 1944
Fredric Brown "Arena" 1944
Murray Leinster "First Contact" 1945
Judith Merril "That Only a Mother" 1948
Cordwainer Smith "Scanners Live in Vain" 1948
Ray Bradbury "Mars is Heaven!" 1948
Cyril M. Kornbluth "The Little Black Bag" 1950
Richard Matheson "Born of Man and Woman" 1950
Fritz Leiber "Coming Attraction" 1950
Anthony Boucher "The Quest for Saint Aquin" 1951
James Blish "Surface Tension" 1952
Arthur C. Clarke "The Nine Billion Names of God" 1953
Jerome Bixby "It's a Good Life" 1953
Tom Godwin "The Cold Equations" 1954
Alfred Bester "Fondly Fahrenheit" 1954
Damon Knight "The Country of the Kind" 1955
Daniel Keyes "Flowers for Algernon" 1959
Roger Zelazny "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" 1963

The "Science Fiction Hall of Fame" (Volume I), edited by Robert Silverberg, was first published in 1970. The stories were selected by the Science Fiction Writers of America through a system which Robert Silverberg describes in his introduction, which includes some limiting factors such as the stories had to be published prior to 1965, no more than one entry per author, and the stories had to be 15,000 words or fewer. The result was an amazing collection of 26 short fiction stories all of which are extraordinary works in their own right.

The table of contents is a wonder in and of itself:

* A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum - Novelette
* Twilight by John W. Campbell, Jr. - Short Story
* Helen O'Loy by Lester del Rey - Short Story
* The Roads Must Roll by Robert A. Heinlein - Novelette
* Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon - Novelette
* Nightfall by Isaac Asimov - Novelette
* The Weapon Shop A. E. van Vogt - Novelette
* Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Lewis Padgett - Novelette
* Huddling Place by Clifford D. Simak - Short Story
* Arena by Fredric Brown - Novelette
* First Contact by Murray Leinster - Novelette
* That Only a Mother by Judith Merril - Short Story
* Scanners Live in Vain by Cordwainer Smith - Novelette
* Mars Is Heaven! by Ray Bradbury - Short Story
* The Little Black Bag by C. M. Kornbluth - Novelette
* Born of Man and Woman by Richard Matheson - Vignette
* Coming Attraction by Fritz Leiber - Short Story
* The Quest for Saint Aquin by Anthony Boucher - Short Story
* Surface Tension by James Blish - Novelette
* The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke - Short Story
* It's a Good Life by Jerome Bixby - Short Story
* The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin - Novelette
* Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester - Novelette
* The Country of the Kind by Damon Knight - Short Story
* Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - Novelette
* A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny - Novelette

If one wants to search for weaknesses, then perhaps one could say that only 6 of the 26 stories were written outside of the years 1940 - 1954, with nothing before 1934 and only one story in the 60's, but despite this, clearly every story included is one of the great stories from the history of the genre. Another very modest criticism is that some of these stories have been reprinted numerous times, but this collection was never intended to be one of lost treasures, although some of the stories probably fit that description. Instead, it was to be a collection of those works which are the best the genre has to offer, and in that, it clearly succeeds.

This single volume contains more of the very best, outstanding science fiction stories of the 20th century than any other anthology I've seen. Included are The Roads Must Roll by Robert A. Heinlein; A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum; Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon; Nightfall by Isaac Asimov; The Weapon Shop by A.E. Van Vogt; Mimsy Were The Borogoves by Lewis Padgett (basis for The Last Mimzy (Widescreen Infinifilm Edition); Arena by Fredric Brown (basis for one of the most popular classic Star Trek episodes of the same title, Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 10, Episodes 19 & 20: Arena/ The Alternative Factor); Mars Is Heaven! by Ray Bradbury (part of The Martian Chronicles); Surface Tension by James Blish (one of my favorites, really amazing!); The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, which has been adapted several times for TV and radio!; Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (basis for the Oscar winning Charly); and many more by such great authors as the late Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Matheson, Murray Leinster, John W. Campbell, Lester Del Rey, C. M. Kornbluth, Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, Alfred Bester, and even several more! This is truly the best of the best and most highly recommended for anyone wanting to sample the best SF reading available.

This book takes you on a journey through the Golden Age of science fiction, and into the first steps of the New Age. It isn't true that this contains the "greatest science fiction stories of all time," because it only contains work prior to 1963 (this anthology was first published in 1970).
A few of the stories will seem campy by today's standards. "Martian Odyssey," by Stanley Weinbaum (1934) will show you just how far today's authors have come in terms of storytelling and prose styling. From those humble beginnings, the genre takes off like a rocket.
John Campbell's "Twighlight" (1934) show many of the themes and ideas--alienation, wonder, potential misuse of science--that would often define the Golden Age. "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov (1941) is probably the best of the early stories, showing perfect plotting and construction, combined with scientific ideas and thinking. As time marches on, we encounter such stories as "Scanners Live in Vain," by Cordwainer Smith (1948) which shows us a future society without burying us under the type of exposition that previously weighed-down other work; by 1954, we have "Fondly Fahrenheit," by Alfred Bester, a head-spinning, poetic, tour de force of a tale. "Flowers for Algernon" (1959) is one of the best-plotted, most poignant tales of the Golden Age. The book ends with "A Rose for Ecclesiastes," rife with the poetic, experimental style that would become a theme for much of the science fiction literature of the New Wave.
Unfortunately, a few of the stories don't age that well--and it is necessary for readers to realize that science fiction has continued to evolve in the decades since this book's publication. Nevertheless, it contains a large number of wonderful stories and--and serves as a schematic for the genre's development over four decades.

I first discovered this book in a Junior High School library about 1975. I was thirteen. I had already discovered science fiction, but this book I believe cemented my love for the form. It had everything: "hard" SF, adventure, horror, humor, wonderment, morality tales, etc. I've read it over and over. It was out of print for a long time. I was forced to buy it from a used book dealer. I'm very glad to see it is back in print. My favorite stories list from this book is quite long: First Contact; Microcosmic God; Arena; Mimsy were the Borogoves; The Little Black Bag; The Cold Equations; Flowers for Algernon. There's not a BAD story in it.

Yes, we've come a long way, and some of these stories show their age, but these works are what today's authors stand atop. This is a must-read if you love SF.

An amazing collection. Ben Bova really showed some class here. Beyond the popular Who Goes There?, and Call Me Joe, this volume contains 3 "stealth" novellas: Baby Is Three (by Sturgeon: you should read the whole thing: More Than Human, but Baby Is Three will knock your socks off); With Folded Hands(have robots made humans obsolete?) and the creepy little "period piece" Vintage Season, worth the price of admission almost by itself.

This book collects short story masterpieces from the genre's first four decades. All of the major sci-fi writers are represented, and quite of few of the stories are simply unforgetable. Never has one volume collected more thoughtful meditations on humanity's relationship to technology. Devotees of more modern science fiction (i.e., cyberpunk, etc...) may not be impressed, but for fans of Old School sci-fi, it doesn't get any better than this.

Of course many devoted fans will already have many of these stories in their collections - how could it be otherwise? The cream always rises to the top. So some might wish to forgo purchasing this volume, and use the table of contents as a reading list instead.

As is typical of the genre during this period, there's little here that will shock the youngsters, and the reading is pretty easy overall. So this is an excellent book for those just discovering the genre, or trying to understand what all the excitement is about. Be forewarned, however, that the volume begins with some of the older and consequently weaker entries, so those for whom this book represents an exploration into unknown territory might be better served by skipping the first 3 to 5 stories and starting with either Heinlein's exciting "The Roads Must Roll" which features next week's travel technology, or Theodore Sturgeon's amazing "Microcosmic God" which looks at creating life, or if you're very picky about what you read, going straight for Isaac Asimov's famed "Nightfall". Another alternative is to start at the back and read forward. There are some very powerful pieces loaded into the back end, including a couple of tear-jerkers, Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" and Daniel Knight's "Flowers for Algernon".

Regardless of how you read it, these stories, more than any other work, represent what science fiction is really about: the human condition remains the same, even as the world around us changes. Watch and learn. And enjoy!

An anthology of stories chosing by the SFWA, from the sixties and earlier. A pretty good bunch, but given the age of some may not appeal as much now, with the stories set in closer to the present time, like the del Rey example, or Williamson. Even includes Wells' Time Machine, which most people will think of as a novel. The standouts are Campbell's Who Goes there and the ageless Cordwainer Smith's The Ballad of Lost C'Mell.

Still, another book worth having for the SF story fan's collection.

Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2A : CALL ME JOE - Poul Anderson
Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2A : WHO GOES THERE? - John W. CampbellJr.
Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2A : NERVES - Lester delRey
Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2A : UNIVERSE - Robert A. Heinlein
Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2A : THE MARCHING MORONS - C. M. Kornbluth
Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2A : VINTAGE SEASON - Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore
Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2A : AND THEN THERE WERE NONE - Eric Frank Russell
Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2A : THE BALLAD OF LOST C'MELL - Cordwainer Smith
Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2A : BABY IS THREE - Theodore Sturgeon
Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2A : THE TIME MACHINE - H. G. Wells
Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2A : WITH FOLDED HANDS - Jack Williamson

"Psibeams are persnickety"

3 out of 5

A discovery of a lifeform buried in the Antarctic ice causes serious problems for an isolated research team.

5 out of 5

Atomic accident surgery improvisation.

3.5 out of 5

Outside discovery ship mutiny conflict.

3.5 out of 5

Unfrozen average bloke's lemming solution lack of life lesson.

4 out of 5

Past holiday.

4 out of 5

Antigand-a be any authority around here, you crazy people.

4 out of 5

Underpeople Lord assisted deadly punishment escapage.

4.5 out of 5

Gestalt growth.

3.5 out of 5

It will come as no surprise that the protagonist in this story, the traveller, invents a time machine and uses it to venture into the future.

The society that he ends up in seems amazing for a brief time, then he realises that all is not as it seems. There is a large underclass that is terribly exploited to produce all this for the eloi, as they are called.

The underclass are named Morlocks, and it is here that the Time Traveler's sympathies reside.

3.5 out of 5

Robot home help useless.

2.5 out of 5

4.5 out of 5

Long out of print, these 26 stories include classics from the big names of the second third of the 20th century - Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Roger Zelazny. Playful, speculative or cautionary, they home in on the futuristic preoccupations of their day. Robert Heinlein?s ?The Roads Must Roll? explores the flaws inherent in a perfectly mechanized society, Theodore Sturgeon?s ?Microcosmic God,? posits a scientist who creates a new life form for his own edification and the only woman represented, Judith Merrill, has a cautionary tale about radiation, ?That Only A Mother.?
Isaac Asimov?s ?Nightfall,? imagines a dire fate for a planet that plunges into night only once every 2,500 years, Ray Bradbury?s ?Mars Is Heaven!? describes a fateful first contact for hapless Americans, and Roger Bixby?s ?It?s a GOOD Life? gives us the mortal fear of powerful children.
The earliest stories are mostly of historical interest ? their encounters with aliens and thinking robots are a bit heavy handed in the prose department ? but most are still fresh and timeless. These are stories that inspired a generation of writers and readers, spawning imitations and movies and Twilight Zone episodes. A must for genuine sci-fi fans.

Here are four good reasons for picking up this collection: Clifford Simak's "The Big Front Yard" (Hugo winner, Best Novelette, 1959); Algis Budrys' "Rogue Moon" (Hugo nominee, Best Novel, 1961); the 1949 version of James Schmitz's "The Witches of Karres" (expanded to novel length in 1966, and nominated for a Best Novel Hugo in '67); and James Blish's "Earthman, Come Home" (winner of the 2004 Retro Hugo, Best Novelette).

My personal favorite here, Isaac Asimov's "The Martian Way," may not have garnered any awards, but it's a perfect example of what hard sf does best: it confronts its characters with a seemingly insoluble problem, and then allows them to solve it, with both elegance and tough-minded determination.

The old purple and blue version of this book - the purple was on the edge of the pages, the way some older books have velvety green sides - was my first introduction to the Golden Age of science fiction. The inventiveness and the creative audacity of these stories was always enough to overcome what I felt would have been a cripplingly antiquated "Gee golly" 1950s vernacular... except that the writing almost never has that black and white Leave it to Beaver sitcomish feel that, for some reason, was always attached to the Golden Age in my mind. Stylistically the collection is all over the place. The Connecticut Yankee anachronism of Roger Zelazny in "Lord of Light" is nowhere to be found in "A Rose for Ecclesiastices". Clarke's famous "The Nine Billion Names of God" isn't even a science fiction story until, basically, the last sentence. And describing anything written by Cordwainer Smith with "genre", "usual" or even "describable" is not applicable. I love this collection and, impossibly, every story in it - though some more than others.

I won't dwell on the weakest. Instead I'll highlight what I consider to be the best:

Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God" has the creepy, jealousy tinged atmosphere of nerds watching another nerd who is better at being a nerd than anyone else. This is what I would've been doing with my adolescent years if only mind and matter would've allowed, so reading it brings the distinct pleasure of reliving childhood fantasies. I'm also pretty sure it's the inspiration for a Simpsons Halloween episode involving Lisa and her tooth, which became a South Park nod to both the story and the Simpsons.

Asimov's "Nightfall" is rightly considered one of the best science fiction short stories ever. I've read the longer form and this is superior in pretty much every way: it's already one of the longer stories in this collection but it still benefits from the shorter form with its building stress and, yes, horror during the final pages. Many would disagree but I think "Nightfall" is one of the least creative stories in the collection in terms of sheer inventiveness. Despite that it's still incredible.

Cordwainer Smith is just amazing. As prosaic as that sounds it's about all I can say. "Scanners Live in Vain" is one of the weirdest stories in the collection and it might arguably be one of Smith's most "mundane". Reading a Smith story is like opening the pages of the Book of Revelations as interpreted by the grandson of cartoonist Gary Larson, the painter Francis Bacon, a very wise female clown and Joan of Arc - and you're on acid. This is all an endorsement, by the way.

James Blish's "Surface Tension" is as good an "adventure" story as you'll find here. It's got a fairly linear plot and isn't hard to follow. It isn't simplistic, per se, but it hasn't got the style of some of the other pieces in this collection. It's one of my sentimental favorites, though, for its ability to impart - at least somewhat - a finer sense of proportion than pretty much any description of the vastness of the universe, including Doug Adams'.

And, finally, my absolutely favorite: "Mimsy Were the Borogroves". I'm not doing to describe it. I'm going to simply agree with another commentator that purchasing this book is worth it if only for this one story.

This is the book that started me reading science fiction. I remember my father reaching up way over my head to a library shelf and pulling down an orange and yellow book that I needed both hands to hold. "I think you'll like these," he said to me. And indeed I did. These stories stayed with me, laying a great foundation for a typically nerdy adolescence spent reading SF. If you want to see the where the genre came from, in the short form where it's best, you must read this collection.
Consider these titles:
Stanley G. Weinbaum, "A Martian odyssey." Frederic Brown, "Arena." Asimov, "Nightfall." John W. Campbell, "Who goes there?" Alfred Bester, "Fondly Fahrenheit." Murray Leinster, "First Contact." Lewis Padgett, "Mimsy were the borogoves." Jerome Bixby, "It's a *good* life." James Blish, "Surface tension." And (unfortunately) Tom Godwin's "The cold equations," but there's no such thing as perfection.
I am overjoyed to learn this book has been reissued. Buy it, read it yourself, give it to your kids the way my father gave it to me. Help a new generation of readers learn to love SF.

I borrowed this book from a friend in college (1977), and regretted ever giving it back. Of course, I still had the friend (thanks, Howard), but I had been looking for SFHF VOL1 ever since. This book contains many of the most familiar and influential SF stories of the 1st half of the 20th century. You've seen lot of them in the movies and on TV. For example, "Arena" became a Star Trek episode, "Flowers for Algernon" (BTW, one of the best short stories I have ever read, only incidentally a SF story) became the movie "Charlie" in the '60s, and "Mimsy were the Borogroves" was a recent movie featuring Rainn Wilson. And who could forget the "It's a Good Life" episode of the Twilght Zone, featuring creepy Billy Mumy as the Boy who is God? There may be more such adaptations, but these are the ones I can come up with from the top of my head.
So why read the book if you have seen it before? Well, as the cliche' goes, the book is better. Way better. And there are many, many other stories that are as good or better that these. My favorites (in no particular order):

The Nine Billion Names of God, by Arthur C. Clarke. -Talk about a Purpose Driven Life!
Nightfall, by Isaac Asimov. -The stars have pretty much this effect on me anyway.
Born of Man and Woman, by Richard Matheson. -THE. CREEPIEST. STORY. EVER. Fantastic!
First Contact, by Murray Leinster. -What WOULD you talk about with an alien, after all?
The Search for St. Aquin, by Anthony Boucher. -Machines as both Accuser and Evangelist. Gotta love it.

Not to slight any of the other stories in this collection, either. Any one of them is worth a read, so having them together in one volume is a treat. But I warn you, the stories are all thought provoking, if for no other reason, than that they open up a doorway on the psyche of the 20th century and its obsession with space travel (especially life on Mars, which seems like such a barren rock now), its dealing with global warfare (have we reached any conclusion? I don't think so), and its reflection upon the dehumanizing aspects of technology (before widespread application of robotics or even computers had taken place).
Some reviewers have commented that this book isn't the best compilation. Not what they could come up with. I guess that means not THEIR personal favorites. Whatever. The book is a great introduction to Science Fiction literature, and proof that SF is GREAT Literature, not just one dimensional fluff.
Read, Ponder, and Enjoy!

The Greatest Science Fiction Novellas of All Time: Titles as follows for Vol. 2A: Anthology Titles SF Hall of Fame, The: Vol Two A

Anderson, Poul Call Me Joe

Campbell, John W. Jr. Who Goes There? *** Movie "The Thing"

del Rey, Lester Nerves ** Nuclear power disaster 1956

Heinlein, Robert A. Universe

Kornbluth, C.M. Marching Morons, The

Kuttner, Henry & Moore, C.L. Vintage Season

Russell, Eric Frank ...And Then There Were None

Smith, Cordwainer Ballad of Lost C'Mell, The

Sturgeon, Theodore Baby Is Three

Wells, H.G. Time Machine, The **** Supreme masterpiece

Williamson, Jack With Folded Hands

This book is BY DEFINITION the best of the best. The stories were chosen by a vote of the Science Fiction Writers of America. The only way someone could give this anthology less than five stars is if he/she did not read it. I bought my copy over 40 years ago and I pull it out from time to time to savor it again. Nightfall... Microcosmic God... The Little Black Bag... Weapon Shops of Isher... what a treasure chest!!

I was about seven years old when this collection was first published. I had the paperback edition and I kept it so long it was battered into oblivion; it's that good.

Now it's available in a hardcover reprint that will presumably stand up under much greater battering. That's good, because this one is absolutely a keeper.

This volume collects the absolute cream of short SF from 1929 to 1964 and it is, to this day, still THE single finest such collection extant. There's still nothing to touch, e.g., the bone-chilling mojo of Tom Godwin's 'The Cold Equations' or the majestic hubris of the title character in Ted Sturgeon's 'Microcosmic God'.

If you have any interest in classic SF, this book undoubtedly deserves a prominent place on your shelf. Consider the hardcover an investment; it will pay off.

If you ever had an interest in science fiction, you simply must go out and find these books. Classic, defining stories from the days of science fiction when giants walked the earth and there were no special effects, just ideas and the need to tell a story in less then 5000 words.
Read classics like "Flowers for Algernon" and "The Cold Equations" and see what visionaries some of these authors were. Read "Nightfall" and see Isaac Asimov in his prime, or "Mimsy Were The Borogroves" and muse on the time when sci-fi wasn't written to fit on a Taco Bell cup.

Any one of these stories is worth the price of the book. Nothing else to say. Find it, buy it, read it, keep it.