The original volume one of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame edited by Robert Silverberg came out in 1970 — 50 years ago. It contained 26 stories that the SFWA members voted on as the best short stories before the Nebula Awards were created in 1964. In 1973 The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volumes 2A and 2B edited by Ben Bova added 22 additional novelettes and novellas.

Times have changed. New generations have replaced older generations. What would the current SFWA members pick as their favorite science fiction stories before 1964? Well, we won’t know unless they conduct a new poll and published the results, but that doesn’t keep me from trying to guess. I can’t help but think that the younger generations of writers discovered different old science fiction stories growing up in the last fifty years. How many old Hall of Fame classics are still considered classics? How many Hall of Fame classics are now problematic for some reason? Are there stories that past generations overlooked that younger generations have rediscovered?

I’ve created a spreadsheet (see images below) that contains the original Science Fiction Hall of Fame stories highlighted in gray. I’ve added stories published before 1964 from our Classics of Science Fiction Short Stories that had eight or more citations (column labeled “CSF”). Our database system collects stories from best-of-year anthologies, retrospective anthologies, teaching anthologies, fan polls, award winners, and expert opinions. We call each source a citation. You can query our database here.

I’ve also added the stories in Sense of Wonder edited by Leigh Ronald Grossman that came out before 1964. This huge 2011 book was designed to be a textbook to teach science fiction (column labeled “Sense”). I also added the stories published before 1964 that were in The Big Book of Science Fiction edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer which came out in 2016 (column labeled “Big”). I felt these two were the latest retrospective anthologies of the genre that might reveal what younger generations are admiring from older times.

Finally, I bolded any story that was listed in at least three of the four columns. Only two stories were in all four columns, “A Martian Odyssey” by Stanley G. Weinbaum and “Surface Tension” by James Blish. This shows an agreement between the past and the present.

If you study the stories from the Grossman and VanderMeer books you can see how they have tried to find stories that haven’t been recognized as a classic before. It also feels like the VanderMeers made an extra effort to identify women and foreign writers that have gone unrecognized. Would modern members of SFWA vote for them in 2020? I don’t know, but I do believe there’s an effort to identify forgotten stories and writers who deserve new attention, or find writers whose creativity wasn’t recognized in their day but we can see with hindsight that should have been.

If you study the spreadsheet reproduced below in images, I think there are stories that were thought classics in 1970 that probably wouldn’t be in 2020. Two examples, “Twilight” by John W. Campbell and “Helen O’Loy” by Lester del Rey. I have to wonder if any story that only has a 1970 or 1973 in the SFWA column and nothing in the CSF, Sense, or Big columns might not be voted into 2020 Hall of Fame volumes.

Are the new stories introduced by the VanderMeers or Grossman worthy of being considered a classic now? Classic literature has always shifted with the times. Usually, it’s much easier to fall out of favor than to be rediscovered, but it happens. To a minor degree the Retro Hugo awards are reconsidering forgotten stories. And I’m surprised that Grossman and the VanderMeers ignored some then classic stories, especially “The Machine Stops” which has become so revelent and brilliant in our internet age.

Finally, Grossman and the VanderMeers were not setting out to pick classics. I believe Grossman was picking stories to show the evolution of the genre, and the VanderMeers were picking stories to show that the genre was wider and more diverse than we thought. The stories the newly formed SFWA members voted on were stories they loved reading growing up during the years 1926-1963. Current generations don’t have that connection with the past, so classics take on a whole new meaning. And there’s a good chance that younger generations of science fiction readers and writers have no reading experience with most of the stories listed here. To them, classic science fiction short stories came out in the 1980s or 1990s. That could mean the three-volume Science Fiction Hall of Fame could be reduced to two or even one volume today.

I got the idea to write this essay because this Facebook group is reading and discussing the stories in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes.

JWH