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The Best SF Short Stories of 1956

Beginning, Tuesday November 28th, I’ll be moderating Group Read 67 “The Best SF Short Stories of 1956” on the Facebook group Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction. We’ll start reading and discussing one story every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. People leave comments whenever they want after the start date, sometimes that day, sometimes a day later, a week, or even a year later. Here’s the schedule:

I chose the stories based on the number of citations each 1956 short received in the Classics of Science Fiction database. I started by selecting all stories from 1956 that received at least three citations using the list builder function.

For our Classics of Science Fiction Short Stories v. 2 list, we use a cutoff of eight citations, which meant only two stories got on that list: “The Country of the Kind” by Damon Knight and “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov. Stories with 3-7 citations are somewhat remembered, but I also wondered about possibly good stories that never got much recognition. It’s always a thrill to rediscover a forgotten great story.

I then looked at the stories with just one or two citations to see if any stood out for consideration. I picked any story that had been reprinted in two best-of-the-year anthologies, or one best-of-the-year and significant retrospective anthology or was a Hugo award finalist that year. I also included a famous Philip K. Dick story, “The Minority Report” and one of Rich Horton’s recommended stories that had only gotten one citation each. I figured the following stories might contain a forgotten gem that the group should consider.

  • “And Now the News …” by Theodore Sturgeon [Rich Horton favorite]
  • “Clerical Error” by Mark Clifton [Dikty, Asimov/Greenberg]
  • “Compound Interest” by Mack Reynolds [Merril, Asimov/Greenberg]
  • “The Doorstop” by Reginald Bretnor [Merril, Asimov/Greenberg]
  • “Horrer Howce” by Margaret St. Clair [Galaxy 30 Years, Asimov/Greenberg]
  • “Silent Brother” by Algis Budrys (Merril, Asimov/Greenberg]
  • “The Assistant Self” by F. L. Wallace [Hugo finalist]
  • “The Dragon” by Ray Bradbury [Hugo finalist]
  • “Legwork’ by Eric Frank Russell [Hugo finalist]
  • “The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick [ISFDB Most Viewed Short Stories]

So, join us on Facebook. I’m going to try and review each of the stories individually on this blog, so if you don’t like Facebook, you can comment here. I also plan to talk about science fiction and 1956 in general.

James Wallace Harris, 11/22/23

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“The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot” by John Alfred Taylor

[I was excited when I discovered that John Alfred Taylor was ninety-one when he wrote “The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot.” Since I’m seventy-two I have an afinity for old science ficton readers and writers. Sadly, I just learned John Alfred Taylor died on October 7, 2023, before the November 2023 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction was published.]

When I was about to give up reading new science fiction magazines, I discover a story that brought tears to my eyes. I had to wipe them several times while reading “The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot” by John Alfred Taylor. In the editor’s blurb Taylor is quoted as being eight years old when the 1939 World’s Fair opened. That 1939 World’s Fair is at the heart of this story.

I was born in 1951 and have often wished I could time travel to that fabulous event. And that’s part of this story too. “The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot” is also set during the 1964 World’s Fair. I was living out in the country in South Carolina at the time, and wanted to go to that fair so bad. I never did. I was just twelve, but then twelve is the real Golden Age of Science Fiction, isn’t it. I’ve never been to any World’s Fair. About the closest I’ve come is going to Epcot. I’ve been to the 1939 World’s Fair several times in fiction and memoirs. I don’t know if John Alfred Taylor got to visit the 1939 World’s Fair when he was eight, but his character does.

Taylor uses science fiction for a personal fantasy and that’s why I identify so strongly with this story. Science fiction has always been my fantasy portal.

Reading “The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot” for me was like playing a pinball machine as a teen, when you’re in the zone, keeping the ball in play forever, feeling one with the machine, not even aware of activating the flippers, mesmerized by the flashing lights, dings, bells, buzzers, and mechanical music. This story pushed all the buttons that make science fiction zing for me.

This is the kind of story I’m forever seeking — science fiction that I resonate with personally. I can’t say it’s a great story, but it was an exceptional story for me on this Wednesday afternoon in November. I read it while I played my “TOP 1000 4 Jim” playlist at full volume, waiting for my wife to come back from her lunch with a friend. You never know when a story is going to work or why. Read on another day, “The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot” could have crashed and burned. It didn’t today. It soared.

The story is about a young man, Isaac, meeting a young woman, Judith, a time traveler back in 1939, while waiting in line to ride through the Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair. This reminded me of John W. Campbell’s “Twilight,” a story from the 1930s about a person meeting a hitch-hiker who is a time traveler. Time travel is a hard theme to pull off. However, I think time travel is the most powerful of all science fiction themes, even more powerful than space travel and aliens. That is if its sense of wonder hits you just right. I’ve always thought The Time Machine was more epic than The War of the Worlds. And time travel is at its most powerful when dealing with the future. This story uses the past to talk about the future.

My guess is this story will be a minor, sentimental story to young readers. I think you need to be old to appreciate it. What will future science fiction fans in the nineties who are eight today remember about now? What will make them sentimental and weepy eyed?

“The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot” conjures nalstagia for old science fiction and the old memories of the future. I’m twenty years younger than Taylor when he wrote this story, but I know where he’s coming from. Like they say, the future was so bright when we were adolescents, we had to wear shades. I now know that Taylor was a dying man looking backwards. At seventy-two I still look forward sometimes, but I do a lot of looking over my shoulder.

I’m sad I missed reading John Alfred Taylor while he was alive. I’ll need to go back and try some of his other stories. ISFDB only lists one book by him, Hell is Murky, a collection of twenty stories. The flap has the only photo I can find for him. ISFDB lists over sixty stories published from 1971-2023. “The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot” might be his last, but maybe not. I’ll keep looking.

James Wallace Harris, 11/15/23

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“Embot’s Lament” by James Patrick Kelly and “Berb by Berb” by Ray Nayler

“Embot’s Lament” by James Patrick Kelly and “Berb by Berb” by Ray Nayler have several elements in common, including my disappointments. They were readable enough, and had some entertaining aspects, but both ended before they could reach critical storytelling mass.

As a reader, especially one who has been reading science fiction for decades, I come to every short story hoping to discover a classic. But the reality, at least in the SF magazines, is classic stories are rare discoveries. James Patrick Kelly isn’t going to write “Think Like a Dinosaur” every time at bat. It’s even unfair of me to expect another “Mr. Boy” or “10¹⁶ to 1.” Ray Nayler hasn’t written his classic yet, but he’s starting to write standout stories like “A Rocket for Dimitrios” and “The Ocean Between the Leaves.”

No writer can sit down and intentionally write a classic science fiction story. Unfortunately, if you’ve read enough classic stories, their impact stays with you, and you compare everything you read to those past favorites. This is one of the disadvantages of getting old.

In the blurb to “Embot’s Lament” Kelly says Embot came to him in a dream, and Jane showed up the next morning. Embot is a neat idea. I assume it’s short for empathy robot (or I could be way off and it could be for embedded robot or some other such thing). Embot is a conscious entity sent from the future that lodged in Jane Bell Lewis’ mind. Jane doesn’t know the Embot is there. The Embot is not supposed to interfere, but merely report back to the future how people of the past live and think. The senders of such time-traveling probes have no control over who and where the Embot will land in the past. Jane is an uneducated lower-class housewife with an abusive husband. The Embot is disappointed it didn’t land in someone like “The Rock, Taylor Swift, or one of the Kardashians.”

I’m disappointed too. Combining a neat science fiction idea with a quite common literary plotline seemed like a poor choice for a science fiction magazine audience. And the obstacles that Embot watch Jane overcome seem cliche and far too mundane. She gets beaten up by her drunk husband, takes an Uber to the bus station, and leaves town. If you compare this to “Fondly Fahrenheit” where a psychotic robot psychologically corrupts Alfred Bester’s character, you’ll see what I mean. Even if we stay with the wife abuse plot, the story would have been far more powerful, unique, and challenging to write if Embot had gotten embedded in the husband’s mind.

But I can think of many more character types I’d like to see Embot haunt. A truly fun person would have been a science fiction writer. Think of the recursive SF possibilities. But the obvious type of character would be a Donald Trump like politician, an Elon Musk type billionaire, or terrorist or mass shooter. It’s too easy to empathize with Jane, or a victim like her. A somewhat challenging storyline would be to embed an empathy robot in a repugnant character and change them. A writing challenge equal to climbing Mt. Everest would embed the empathy robot in a repugnant character and have it find something to empathize with.

“Embot’s Lament” ends when I think it’s just getting started. I wondered if Kelly plans to make it into a novel. The same thing is true for “Berb by Berb.” Nayler ends his story just when we want to know more. Nayler has written other stories set in the same alternate reality as “Berb by Berb.” ISFDB called the series “Disintegration Loops.” The history of this timeline involves the United States finding a crashed UFO during WWII and reverse engineering its technology to win the war and dominate the world afterwards with super science. Berbs are creatures that assemble themselves out of spare parts due to some alien pixie dust escaping the lab.

“Berb by Berb” barely introduces us to the berbs and then the story is over. It’s very slight, and there’s not enough science fictional razzamatazz to rationalize why the berbs form as they do. Nayler needed to give us some anti-entropic theories.

When I read “A Rocket for Dimitrios” I was amused that Eleanor Roosevelt and Hedy Lamarr had become action heroes in this alternate reality. Nayler name drops Hedy Lamarr name again in this story. When I was younger, it excited me when a science fiction writer would use a famous person from history as a character in their story. For example, Philip José Farmer’s Riverworld series, which featured Mark Twain and Sir Richard Burton.

Now, it disappoints me when a writer does this. I feel it’s a cheap cheat for making a story more appealing. A kind of pop cultural appropriation. And not just when science fiction writers do it. There have been many fictional bestsellers that capitalized on famous people in recent years. History is hard enough to get right in history books, so I hate seeing famous people being exploited in fiction. Still, Hedy Lamarr was one of the most beautiful women ever, and it was delightful to discover she was an inventor. I think Nayler just wanted to pass on that info. People do need to read Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Richard Rhodes if they want to know something closer to fact.

I like Nayler’s idea of using a crashed UFO to create an alternative history. But so far, he’s only played around with the idea in simple ways. It’s a slight-of-hand excuse for his stories, and “Berb on Berb” is very slight. He needs to do a Pavane, Bring the Jubilee, or The Man in the High Castle.

Both stories involve creating a science fictional being and then pairing it with an ordinary human. That’s a common story idea in science fiction. However, I think the authors of both stories should have set them aside for a while until they produced better reasons for their beings to exist and encounters with humans. Both stories needed a second stage, and even a third stage to lift them into orbit.

Embot is a neat idea. But why put such an artificial mind into a human mind if you didn’t want it to change the person? Especially a person who needed to change every aspect of her life. What if the future were seeding the past with insight, empathy, and intelligence? I think the idea of embots needs to be worked on, it has real possibilities. Like a cross between Brainwave and Timescape.

Embot also reminds me of The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. Jaynes theorized humans heard voices that guided them in prehistoric times to explain tales about people hearing gods talk to them.

A berb is a much harder creature to rationalize. Its creation feels more like something L. Frank Baum would have imagined. Why did the aliens invent that magic dust? Are they seeding worlds with it? Reality is entropic, and life is anti-entropic. That offers some germs of ideas to work with. Nayler should have given us more speculation on why berb creatures would form.

I know it’s unfair of me to compare current science fiction to my all-time favorite science fiction, but I do. If book and magazine editors only published classic level stories, there would only be three SF novels and one issue of a SF magazine coming out every year. Even when I read best-of-the-year anthologies, I’m usually disappointed with over half the stories. Luckily for writers and publishers, readers don’t all pick the same stories to love.

These two stories made nice fillers for this issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. But I wonder what Asimov’s Science Fiction would be like if it was quarterly paperback, or twice yearly hardback and published less filler? This is just me thinking aloud. I’m going to try and finish the Nov/Dec issues of Asimov’s and Analog, but I’m not sure I’ll want to continue to read them. Magazines might not be the right delivery system for short science fiction for me anymore.

I was inspired by Robert Silverberg’s column this month, “Homo Superior–Us?” It makes me want to chase down some classic science fiction about Neanderthals I haven’t read before and reread some that I have.

James Wallace Harris, 11/14/23

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“The Ghosts of Mars” by Dominica Phetteplace

I was in the mood to read some science fiction. I was in the mood to read some new science fiction. And I wanted to sample what was in one of the latest issues of a science fiction magazine. Basically, I wanted to see where science fiction was at this moment. The first magazine I tried was the November 2023 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction and the first story I read was “The Ghosts of Mars,” a novella by Dominica Phetteplace. The spiritually minded say, “Seek and ye shall find.” That I did.

I love science fiction about Mars, and I love stories about robots, and since “The Ghost of Mars” has both, it might be one of the reasons why I loved this story. But it also might be because “The Ghost of Mars” is quirky, charming, and different. It vibrates with science fictional excitement, the kind I used to find as a teen — but that was an exceedingly long time ago. However, it is also different from the kind of science fiction I used to read. It represents the sensibilities and desires of today’s young people. Plus, it throws in more science fictional ideas per paragraph than anything I’ve read in a long time.

It takes a while to learn this first-person story is told by Paz, a sixteen-year-old girl who has been left on Mars by herself. Most of the other colonists have died or left, but Paz can’t leave because to travel back to Earth would kill her. She was born on Mars, and with deformities that make her fragile. Her mother, and the few remaining colonists who have raised Paz, have cancer and are rushing back to Earth for treatment. They all hope to return, so they haven’t completely abandoned Paz. And besides, she has a horde of robots at her command.

Phetteplace begins with a mystery and embeds several more into “The Ghost of Mars” as the story unfolds. Unexplainable events occur which some of the colonists have jokingly explained with spooky ghost stories. Paz was raised by astronaut scientists and is very logical and intelligent. But along the way, she’s heard about religion and other supernatural explanations that taint her thinking.

Mars appears to be jinxed, which inspired paranoia in all the colonists, but each colonist had their own flavor of irrational thinking depending on their upbringing on Earth. Back on Earth, the news gets constantly worse. We live in terrible times, and I’ve often wondered how young science fiction writers will deal with them fictionally. Phetteplace showed me.

There’s a lot of things about life on Earth that suck now, and it comes through in “The Ghost of Mars.” Phetteplace’s story is both satire and political commentary, as well as aspirational of the old dreams of science fiction. She knows that colonizing Mars is a bad idea but like most science fiction fans want to do it anyway.

“The Ghosts of Mars” reflects Heinlein’s save yourself by-your-bootstraps philosophy, but also Clarke’s appeal to higher alien power, and good old mysticism, transcendence, and even religion. “The Ghosts of Mars” really is everything but a kitchen sink story when it comes to ideas. Being all over the place should have been a negative, but since the protagonist is a sixteen-year-old it’s realistic, and a plus.

There are so many ideas being thrown out in “The Ghost of Mars” that I thought about making a scorecard. I don’t want to mention them all because it’s part of the fun, but “The Ghost of Mars” is the kind of story Galaxy Magazine ran back in the 1950s that tried to explain everything with science fictional crapology. And that’s not a ding, but a praise. This story is the kind of story that Jack Isidore would have loved in Philip K. Dick’s Confession of a Crap Artist, my favorite PKD novel.

James Wallace Harris, 11/13/23

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Another Kind of Science Fiction

There are other ways to combine fiction and science than what we commonly call science fiction. I just finished Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. It’s a great novel about science and scientists, but most people wouldn’t call it science fiction. However, it’s a shame that more science fiction fans don’t read this kind of science fiction. I was late discovering this novel. Whenever I told one of my reading friends, that I was reading Lessons in Chemistry, all the women said they’d already read it. I didn’t discover it until it showed up as a series on Apple TV+. It’s a very popular novel, and quite a page turner.

Lessons in Chemistry is set in the 1950s and early 1960s and is about Elizabeth Zott’s quest to become a chemist. She’s a brilliant young woman, but in the 1950s men don’t want women in science labs. Elizabeth Zott is emotionally like Sheldon Cooper and can’t understand why everyone isn’t logical like herself. She forges ahead but often gets knocked down, however, she never gives up, taking an alternative path to her goal. Lessons in Chemistry would be completely hilarious if it weren’t for all the tragedies. Lessons in Chemistry is something Flannery O’Conner and Kurt Vonnegut could have written if they could have read Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique ten years before it was published.

Elizabeth Zott reminds me of Alma Whittaker in The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. Alma is a 19th century woman who wants to be a scientist and Gilbert gives her a fictional life that parallels Charles Darwin’s discoveries. The Signature of All Things is a gorgeous novel about the love of science too.

While thinking about novels about scientists I also recall two novels by Richard Powers. Bewilderment is about astrobiologist Theo Byrne and his hard to manage nine-year-old son Robin, who is diagnosed with the then called Asperger syndrome. And The Overstory, which follows several characters, including scientists who love trees. And now that I think about it, Powers wrote one of my very favorite books about artificial intelligence, Galatea 2.2.

I mention all these books on a blog about science fiction because these novels are better written than 99% of the traditional science fiction I’ve read. Science fiction as we know it, is usually about the future. These novels are about the present or the past. Now sometimes science fiction is about the present or past, but their stories aren’t handled in the same way. I doubt many people will call the four novels pictured above science fiction.

When I was a kid I rationalized my love of science fiction by claiming reading SF gave me a love of science even though older folks were telling me that science fiction was no better than comic books. I remember reading memoirs by science fiction writers back in the 1960s where those writers made the same claims to their parents in the 1930s. I’ve also read many claims by scientists who said reading science fiction got them to become scientists. But let’s be honest, science fiction seldom deals with science or real scientists. Even these literary works that combine fiction and science have very little science in them. But they do offer more science than traditional science fiction. And I think more inspiration.

Science fiction has never been realistic about science. Science fiction has mostly been the far out stuff that science hinted at and us gullible readers hoped would come true. I think the difference between these two types of science fiction novels is traditional science fiction caters to our desire to escape reality and literary science fiction is about the reality where we have to stay and live.

I am reminded by a famous talk given by C. P. Snow called “The Two Cultures.” Snow claims there is an intellectual divide between those who understand science and intellectuals from the humanities. Growing up, I thought science fiction bridged those two cultures, but I no longer believe that. We live in an Age of Unreason. I think the four books pictured above do try to cross the divide of Snow’s two cultures. That’s why they are worth reading. I think most of traditional science fiction only contributes to our Age of Unreason.

That doesn’t mean I’m giving up on reading old fashion science fiction. Even though I know better, I can’t give up on those old dreams and desires. My reality is I wanted to be a scientist but could only become a science fiction fan.

James Wallace Harris, 11/2/23

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When Did Movies and Television First Portray a Science Fiction Fan?

For years I thought Back to the Future was the first film to portray a science fiction fan. That 1985 movie featured Crispin Glover as George McFly, a nerdy kid who grows up to become a science fiction writer. Most of the action was set in 1955. Well, the other night I watched Artists and Models that came out in 1955. It features Jerry Lewis as Eugene, a nerdy guy who loves Bat Lady comics and talks about a lot of crazy science fiction stuff.

In neither role, does the science fiction fan come across as competent. They are goofy space cadets. Is this how the world thinks of us? Life Magazine introduced science fiction fandom to the world in a May 21, 1951, issue. (See my essay that reprints those pages.)

In the late 1950s, Philip K. Dick wrote a mainstream novel about a science fiction fan, Confessions of a Crap Artist. It’s my favorite PKD novel. The book was made into a 1992 French movie I’ve never seen.

Science fiction movies go back to the early days of film making, but readers and writers of science fiction have seldom been portrayed. Can you think of any other examples?

The most loving and positive example of science fiction I can think of is from television, the 1998 episode of Deep Space Nine called “Far Beyond the Stars.” In it, Captain Sisko is shown as a struggling African American science fiction writer working at a Galaxy-like SF magazine in 1953. There’s also a wonderful paperback novelization of the episode by Steven Barnes.

Let me know of any movies or television shows you know about that featured a science fiction reader or writer as a character, or even discussed the subject of science fiction?

James Wallace Harris, 11/1/23

Artists and Models is quite silly, but very colorful. It’s Shirley MacLaine’s second film, and she’s the model for the Bat Lady.

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Has Science Fiction Left Me Behind?

The above books were the finalists for the 2023 Hugo Awards. I have not read any of them. Nor do they look interesting to me. Each year the Hugo and Nebula award finalists seem further and further away from what I want to read.

The other day I went into a new bookstore for the first time in many months. I went up and down the aisles of the science fiction section and I was shocked by how many books were by authors that were unknown to me.

I turn seventy-two next month and I wonder if I’ve gotten too old for science fiction. Or, has the genre left me in the dust? I can accept that I might be too old to keep up. Could the genre have changed, and I’ve just lost interest? Who knows?

In the 20th century I’m sure I read at least a thousand science fiction books, probably many more. Here’s a list of the 69 SF&F books I’ve read in the 21st century:

  • 2000 – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling (Hugo winner)
  • 2000 – Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer (Hugo finalist)
  • 2001 – American Gods by Neil Gaiman (Hugo winner)
  • 2001 – Perdido Street Station by China Miéville (Hugo finalist)
  • 2002 – Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
  • 2003 – The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  • 2004 – Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
  • 2004 – Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Hugo winner)
  • 2004 – The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
  • 2005 – Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (Hugo winner)
  • 2005 – Old Man’s War by John Scalzi (Hugo finalist)
  • 2005 – Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • 2006 – The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  • 2006 – Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
  • 2007 – The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon (Hugo winner)
  • 2008 – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
  • 2008 – Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Hugo finalist)
  • 2008 – Flood by Stephen Baxter
  • 2008 – Marsbound by Joe Haldeman
  • 2009 – The City & The City by China Miéville (Hugo winner)
  • 2009 – The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Hugo finalist)
  • 2009 – Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (Hugo finalist)
  • 2009 – Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson (Hugo finalist)
  • 2009 – Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
  • 2009 – Wake by Robert J. Sawyer
  • 2010 – Feed by Mira Grant (Hugo finalist)
  • 2010 – Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
  • 2010 – Watch by Robert J. Sawyer
  • 2010 – Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
  • 2011 – Among Others by Jo Walton (Hugo winner)
  • 2011 – Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (Hugo finalist)
  • 2011 – The Martian by Andy Weir
  • 2011 – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
  • 2011 – Wonder by Robert J. Sawyer
  • 2012 – Redshirts by John Scalzi (Hugo winner)
  • 2012 – 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Hugo finalist)
  • 2012 – The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
  • 2012 – The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
  • 2012 – vN by Madeline Ashby
  • 2014 – The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (Hugo winner)
  • 2014 – Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
  • 2014 – Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
  • 2014 – The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
  • 2014 – The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison
  • 2014 – Yesterday’s Kin by Nancy Kress
  • 2015 – Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (Hugo finalist)
  • 2015 – Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
  • 2015 – Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
  • 2015 – Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
  • 2015 – The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
  • 2016 – All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (Hugo finalist)
  • 2017 – New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Hugo finalist)
  • 2017 – All Systems Red by Martha Wells
  • 2017 – Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
  • 2017 – Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeanette Ng
  • 2017 – Noumenon – Marina J. Lostetter
  • 2018 – The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal (Hugo winner)
  • 2018 – Semiosis by Sue Burke
  • 2018 – The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
  • 2018 – The Feed by Nick Clark Windo
  • 2019 – Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky
  • 2019 – Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
  • 2020 – The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
  • 2020 – The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
  • 2021 – Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Hugo finalist)
  • 2021 – Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • 2022 – Babel by R. F. Kuang
  • 2022 – The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
  • 2022 – Sea of Tranquility

That’s an average of 2.8 SF&F books a year. Assuming I read a thousand SF books from 1963-1999, means I averaged 27.78 SF books a year. I think I could have easily read 1,500 SF books, or 41.67 SF books a year. In other words, I don’t read SF like I used to. And my 21st century list includes quite a few fantasies. I rarely read fantasy in the 20th century. I really don’t like fantasy books. I only read them when they reach a certain pop culture status.

One reason for the shift is I read more literary works and nonfiction books. Another reason is after reading thousands of science fiction books, I seldom read reviews of new science fiction books that sound different enough to be appealing.

I used to keep up with the genre by belonging to the Science Fiction Book Club, which offered two new titles a month. I subscribed to several science fiction magazines and fanzines that reviewed new books. And I would visit one or two new bookstores a week.

Fanzines disappeared, and I stopped having time for the prozines even though I still subscribed. After Amazon and Audible, I stopped shopping in new bookstores, and they eventually disappeared. Back in the 1970s I went to conventions and even published fanzines. In the 1980s I ran a BBS devoted to science fiction. Since the 1990s I’ve run websites and databases devoted to SF. Once upon a time all my friends were SF readers. But active participation in fandom ended when I got married and settled down to work in 1978. I became a different person socially.

Since 2002, I’ve been rereading the science fiction I first read in the 20th century by listening to audiobook editions from Audible.com. It’s a kind of nostalgic trip. I also caught up on a lot of 20th century science fiction I missed. That also kept me from reading many new SF books.

But in all honesty, I prefer old science fiction to new science fiction. There’s been some great exceptions, but I think that’s the real reason I’ve let the genre pass me by.

I wish the Science Fiction Writers of America never embraced fantasy. I wish the Hugo Awards had focused exclusively on science fiction. Fantasy should have their own fan-based award. I can’t help but wonder if the science fiction genre would be more vibrant today if it hadn’t been married to the fantasy genre. Even books marketed as science fiction often feel like fantasies. Looking back, I would have preferred a smaller, focused SF genre, one I could have kept up with.

Science fiction used to have some realism, or at least some speculative integrity. Now, any old wild idea works. Science fiction used to be inspired from reality, now new writers are inspired mostly by science fiction movies. It’s as if all science fiction is recursive science fiction.

Who knows, maybe I left science fiction behind.

James Wallace Harris, 10/22/23

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What Do You Want from a Great Science Fiction Robot Story?

For me, great science fiction is about certain concepts: space travel, aliens, the future, time travel, human evolution, alternate history, artificial intelligence, and robots. As I’ve gotten older, I crave tradition in new stories. I’ve gotten rather fussy about how these cherished fictional topics are handled. I don’t like too much innovation. I want to see evolution in these ideas, but not radical new-fangled reinventions. I don’t mind reimagining or rebooting of the concepts, but it depresses me to read stories that have lost the original intent of science fiction.

I started reading “Perfection” by Seanan McGuire and was hugely disappointed. It’s the first story in Robots Through the Ages, a new anthology edited by Robert Silverberg and Bryan Thomas Schmidt. (Currently, $1.99 for the Kindle.) I love a good robot story, and was excited to start reading this anthology, but unfortunately, “Perfection” wasn’t the kind of robot story I was anxious to read. I’m not saying “Perfection” is a bad story, but it’s not about my kind of robot, or what I would call a science fiction story. It’s told in an allegorical style that suggests the story has a message like a modern-day Aesop’s fable. It could be a little postmodern fantasy commenting on science fiction, or just a nice old-fashioned fantasy fable for the contemporary reader. (Luckily, the editors jump back to classic SF stories about robots after “Perfection.”)

Science fiction is a byproduct of modernism. Religion/mythology is the worldview before enlightenment and modernism and the territory of fantasy, not science fiction. I don’t believe science fiction belongs in the postmodern territory either. “Perfection” blends fantasy and postmodernism and appears to see perfection in a robot — although its message is probably satirized, at which point it’s really rejecting robots. Is the transformed wife and husband perfect? Or are we supposed to be horrified by what the modernistic SF world has sought?

This made me think – what are my kind of robots? Science fiction claims certain themes for the genre, and robots have always been one of its major themes. Science fiction writers haven’t portrayed robots consistently though. What we often call robots vary tremendously, from mechanical beings, to androids, replicants, cyborgs, sexbots, and synthetic humans.

More importantly, the kind of robots I like best are science fictional, and truly modernistic. I dislike fantasy and postmodern robots. Often, it’s difficult to tell what kind of philosophy a robot story is set, especially when the robots look indistinguishable from humans. Sometimes a sexbot is really a robot, and sometimes it stands in for something allegorical, metaphorical, or symbolic.

Me, I like robots to be robots. I want them to be sentient, but not slaves. I don’t like robots that pass as humans. I don’t mind robots to be somewhat humanoid in shape, but I don’t want them to be substitutes for humans. And if they’re sentient, they must be free, and not things we own. Asimov’s robots were not supposed to be sentient, and thus we owned them, and they had to do our work. I liked Simak’s robots better, but they were more like P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves. Simak’s robots were faithful servants, but were they paid? Or were they property? Asimov’s R. Daneel Olivaw was a co-worker. I want science fiction to be about robots that are independent. I expect robots to be the intelligent species that either co-exist with humans or are our descendants. Of course, sometimes that means a story like The Humanoids by Jack Williamson.

I really dislike the concept of sexbots and human brains downloaded into robot bodies that look perfectly human. We have plenty of humans, we don’t need ersatz copies.

Overall, I’ve been disappointed with how science fiction has presented robots. The stories I’ve like best were sentimental stories about robots like “Rust” by Joseph K. Kelleam.

Is Data from Star Trek a robot by your definition? Is he closer to C-3PO than Roy Batty? I don’t consider the replicants from the film Blade Runner to be robots. But I do for the androids in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Androids that pass perfectly for humans in appearance aren’t robots to me, but Data still acts mechanical enough to consider “him” a robot.

The first robots I remember from my earliest memories are those from the film Target Earth. They were clunky killers and supposed to be scary – they were scary when I was a little kid back in the 1950s, but now they’re laughable looking. The robots in Forbidden Planet and Lost in Space were way cool, but they had lousy hands. Data from Star Trek is probably among the best robots in science fiction, but ST’s producers and writers kept wanting to make him human. I just don’t see humanity as an ideal to model from.

My favorite robots in science fiction were stationary AI computers. Mike from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Galatea from Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers, HARLIE from When HARLIE Was One, and Webmind from the Wake, Watch, Wonder trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer.

I’m reading Robot Through the Ages and We Robots edited by Simon Ings hoping to find more science fictional robots I like. I’m surprised by how many I don’t like. Rucky Rucker had some wild robots. Lots of people love the Murderbot series, but he’s too human for me, but still fun. Lately, there’s been a lot of little stories about droids that are fun and cute.

I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of great robots from science fiction. What were your favorites? What do you look for in a great robot?

James Wallace Harris, 10/16/23

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When Writing “An Appearance of Life” How Many SF Concepts Did Brian Aldiss Consider?

I’ve written about “An Appearance of Life” twice before. See “‘An Appearance of Life’ by Brian W. Aldiss” and “Who Were the Korlevalulaw?” I’ve read this story four times before, and for this fifth reading I’m looking deeper into what Aldiss was hoping to communicate. I don’t think we get everything with one reading of a story, or even two or three. This essay is about the value of rereading.

You can read “An Appearance of Life” at Archive.org if you have a free account.

For this reading I wanted to observe as many science-fictional concepts Aldiss was presenting in the story as I could spot. I’m doing this for several reasons. First, I want to show how science fiction builds on past science fiction. Second, I want to show how a reader’s previous reading experience can add to the current reading experience. Third, I want to show just how many new situations a science fiction writer must imagine building a new story. Fourth, I want to see if there are things I missed from earlier readings.

  1. Lost ancient alien civilization. I first encountered this theme with After Worlds Collide, but it also made famous with the film The Forbidden Planet. One of my favorite SF themes. The first part of “An Appearance of Life” uses this old theme and Aldiss calls that lost alien civilization the Korlevalulaw.
  2. On the planet Norma, less than a thousand light-years from Earth, a giant museum is being created to house artifacts from countless alien and human civilizations. The planet was once part of the Korlevalulaw galactic civilization. The museum is put inside a giant building that circles the entire planet, dividing it from land area to the north, and ammonia ocean to the south. This idea is new to me, so I’ll credit it to Aldiss’ imagination. However, megastructures are common in science fiction. This one reminds me of a smaller version of Ringworld.
  3. Aliens as demons. Little is known of the Korlevalulaw. Sometimes they are pictured as demons. That reminded me of Childhood’s End. But I’ve read several SF stories over the years that suggested ancient demons were aliens.
  4. Aliens as gods. Sometimes the Korlevalulaw are pictured as gods. This reminds me of Lovecraft’s ancient elder gods, and other SF stories, as well as Chariots of the Gods.
  5. Aliens in SF come from our deepest subconscious thoughts. And like God and gods, we expect them to return, to judge and punish us.
  6. Ultimate evolution. We imagine all the reasons why the Korlevalulaw disappeared. They gave up written language and evolved beyond physical bodies into pure mind, they left this universe, they committed species suicide. All these speculations are common in science fiction stories.
  7. The narrator, called The Seeker, comes from a planet where people seldom see each other, except for when they meet to breed. This reminds me of The Naked Sun.
  8. The Seeker stands next to his spaceship looking up at the giant museum building lying under a purple sun. Such immense vistas are often shown in SF paintings.
  9. An android greets the Seeker. Androids work tirelessly building the museum’s collections. Twenty human women supervise them. The androids provide the Seeker with a vehicle to ride inside the museum. The giant building is made of a single piece of imperviable metal, forming a 16,000-kilometer band around the planet. Such indestructible alloy and super-science architecture is common in SF stories. I’m especially reminded me of The Day the Earth Stood Still.
  10. The building feels immense on the inside, and it’s mostly empty though the humans have been piling up exhibits for ten centuries. The Seeker feels a sense of infinity inside the building. SF writers in the 1930s and 1940s liked to imagine giant awe-inspiring scenes. Even though this story was published in 1976, after Aldiss had gone through his New Wave period, it harkens back to the 1930s and Thrilling Wonder Stories. In some ways he’s following in the footsteps of Stanley Weinbaum.
  11. The Korlevalulaw building gives the Seeker a sense of infinity, causing him to feel insignificant and “clausagoraphobia.” Interesting made-up word by Aldiss.
  12. The Seeker has specialized training in concepts we don’t understand, but it gives him the power to see connections that others don’t. Humanity has created countless subdivisions in every discipline, and the Seeker can envision relationships across boundary lines. Heinlein often created generalists in the age of specialists.
  13. The Seeker came to the museum with several research assignments from institutions, universities, and individuals. For example, one assignment was to study whether the human voice was getting quieter over the centuries.
  14. The Seeker spends days studying the museum, living out of his car. At one point, he talks to a female android who is setting up an exhibit of extinct micro-organisms. I wonder why the android is female. Are there male androids. And why are the supervisors human females? Does Aldiss picture this place like many old science fiction movies from the 1950s where human males discover societies run by females. Does Aldiss visualize his scenes or expect his readers to visualize them? Is the Seeker male? Is Aldiss suggesting all posthumans are female?
  15. The Seeker contemplates the umwelt of androids. He assumes their sense of reality is much larger than ours. He also assumes their activities make them happy. This is the first time I can remember a SF writer considering the umwelt of anything.
  16. On the fifth day the Seeker studies ships and experiences nosthedony. This is a word Aldiss coined to mean “the pleasure of studying old objects.” See this blog post.
  17. The Seeker talks about the First Galactic Era, where men and their wives explored the galaxy in primitive machines. The Seeker notes this was also the time that human pair-bonding broke down and humanity began to mature.
  18. While exploring a five-person spaceship where all the occupants had died of a malfunction of the oxygen producing system, he finds a small gold band with a crude inscription. He wonders if it was a contraceptive device. Of course, we assume it’s a wedding band.
  19. The Seeker asks an eye about the ring. The eye appears to be something like security camera/Alexa/AI able to answer questions about things in the museum. He is told the band is a wedding ring, and what wedding rituals were.
  20. The story shifts from the Korlevalulaw to ancient humans. We assume the Seeker is a posthuman. This is a neat trick. I’ve always loved reading science fiction about extinct alien civilizations, and now I’m reading about extinct humans.
  21. The Seeker thinks of the ring as a form of communication. It signals a relationship status. He also wonders if the pair bonding broke when the occupants of the ship died.
  22. The Seeker finds a photograph of a couple, we assume connected to the ring. The Seeker notes the photograph is flat, suggesting they have higher tech photographs. He also notes their appearance wasn’t bad looking, as if ancient humans looked different from posthumans. This reminds me of “The Time Machine.” Was Wells the first writer to deal with posthumans?
  23. The Seeker remembers being told by another Seeker, a woman, that the secret of the universe might be locked away in the museum. Our Seeker told the woman Seeker the secret would be more likely found after the museum is complete. She argues that it would be better to find it now, when there is less to look through. He argues back the idea that there is a secret to the universe is a human construct. She replied, human or from the mind that created humans. I don’t remember contemplating this short bit of conversation before. Humans do believe that there is a secret to the universe, and some humans believe it comes from God. It’s interesting that Aldiss suggests that posthumans will no longer believe in such secrets. It’s also interesting to think posthumans will be two degrees from God or the concept of God.
  24. On the sixth day the Seeker explores the ships of the Second Galactic Era. They are up to five kilometers long. Reading the words “on the sixth day” reminds me of The Book of Genesis. I wonder if Aldiss intended that.
  25. The Seeker talks about how in the Second Era humans tried and failed to create galactic civilizations but failed because distance and relativity wouldn’t allow it. He said it was then that humans became comfortable being who they were. It was a time when the species put away its childish things. Aldiss is very philosophical and speculative here. He’s also taking a swipe at science fiction, but it infers a lot of cherish science fictional fantasies are childish.
  26. The Seeker surveys shelves of possessions these people had. He noted that during the childish period humans were overwhelmed by possessions. The Seeker thinks: “These long-dead people had seemingly thought of little else but possession in one form or another; yet, like androids in similar circumstances, they could not have recognized the limitations of their own umwelt.” This is fascinating. I did not notice this in my earlier readings. Last year I read An Immense World by Ed Yong, and it was all about the umwelt in people and animals. That book made me think a lot about the concept of umwelt, which I had heard of before, but never studied. It’s fascinating that Aldiss was focused on the concept back in 1976.
  27. The Seeker finds a cube with a button. When pressed, the cube says, “You are not my husband, Chris Mailer. I talk only to my husband. Switch off and set me right way up.” The Seeker tells the cube her husband died 65,000 years ago.
  28. The Seeker asks the museum about the cube and is told it is a “holocap.” That a copy of the woman’s brain has been embedded into the cube. Downloading brains has become quite a common theme in science fiction over the last several decades. It’s been around at least since the Professor Jameson stories from the 1930s.
  29. The Seeker is told the cube was taken from a small armed scout ship orbiting the planet Scundra. It had been to the planet and was returning to its mother ship when it blew up. Scundran extremists had planted a bomb on it. In retaliation, the planet was sterilized by a virus from the mother ship. The virus got loose on the mother ship, and everyone died. The planet, scout ship, and mother ship had been ignored for centuries. The cube had come from the scout ship.
  30. The museum gives him a history of the planet. At one time the Soviet India had settled it, but there had been a war. The planet was currently unhabituated and was an automated farming planet.
  31. The Seeker contemplates the destruction of Scundra and eventually wonders if something similar could have happened to the Korlevalulaw. That Scundra had died over fighting for possessions.
  32. The Seeker also wonders about the relationship between the organic and the inorganic of the universe.
  33. The androids are unpacking objects taken from Scundra and the Seeker unwraps one from the apartment of a married couple, Jean, and Lan Gopal. It was another holocap, but a much more sophisticated one. It lit up when the Seeker accidentally pressed a small button. It gave the impression of a man’s head. It said, “This holocap is intended only for my ex-wife, Jean Gopal. I have no business with you. Switch off and be good enough to return me to Jean. This is Chris Mailer.” This holocap projected the appearance of Chris Mailer.
  34. The Seeker contemplated the coincidence. Noted that Jean had been young, and Chris much older. He decides to reunite them. Jean’s cube had been found on the planet and Chris’s cube was found on the scout ship. They had been on opposing sides of a war.
  35. After 650 centuries he put the two cubes together on a shelf about a meter apart. Aldiss dismissed the unbelievable coincidence because the androids were unpacking crates from the same locations.
  36. We are told of the conversation. We’re also told the Seeker did not understand the dynamics of the relationship because they are primitive beings. Jean’s cube was older, and her holographic head wasn’t as well defined as Chris’s holographic image. But Jean appeared younger. She apologized for breaking up the marriage but claimed to have been young and foolish.
  37. For Jean, it’s been 12 years. Chris talks about regret and Jean’s affair with Gopal. Chris speaks of receiving her holocap fifteen years ago. So, it’s been at least twenty-seven years since they broke up. Jean appears to want to get back together. Chris hopes that Gopal made her forget him. Chris admits they are enemies in the conflict. Then we learn that Jean sent her holocap from Earth. Evidently, in the subsequent years she and Gopal moved to Scundra.
  38. Eventually, the Seeker comprehends the two holocaps were not conversing, but merely repeating their messages. Jean’s message had been recorded before the divorce, while Chris’s message was recorded long afterwards. Chris had been traveling with Jean’s holocap for years. He had joined space mercenaries after the divorce.
  39. The Seeker saw that they could not get beyond their limited roles in life. And understanding those roles might be beyond him. And understanding the Korlevalulaw might be the same too.
  40. This revelation makes the Seeker say he had found the secret of the universe. That humans were just a projection of the Korlevalulaw, without free will. That humans are like the two holocaps. They really can’t communicate with each other, only say what they’ve been programmed to say. This was a powerful insight for Aldiss, but not for me. I still not sure I “got” the story as he intended.
  41. The Seeker starts doubting this insight. Then Aldiss says something absolutely true. We contain an umwelt but not a universe. This is an interesting distinction about our senses. We don’t look out onto reality, but instead model reality inside our head with limited sensory input. Basically, our sense of reality is biological VR. Is that what Aldiss was getting at in 1976?
  42. In the end, the Seeker leaves Norma but does not go home. He finds a planet without people to exile himself. He’s afraid his insight is a virus that could infect all of humanity and destroy it. It’s damn strange that I’m ending on #42, after the Seeker has found the meaning of the universe. Did the Seeker leave humanity on the seventh day?

“An Appearance of Life” is one of my all-time favorite science fiction stories. However, you probably won’t be able to find a copy. It’s rarely been reprinted. I considered violating copyright law and making a pdf for you all, but I’m afraid the estate of Brain W. Aldiss would sue me.

I hope I have shown that this story requires a deep experience of science fiction to appreciate. I also hope I have convinced you of the value of rereading. If you’ve only read “An Appearance of Life” once, did you get all of this?

James Wallace Harris, 10/13/23

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Do You Buy the Best-of-the-Year Science Fiction Anthologies?

Back in 2018 I wrote an essay for Book Riot about all the best-of-the-year annual anthologies covering science fiction. The title claimed nine, but I added two more in an update that brought the total to eleven. In 2023 that number had dwindled considerably.

Gardner Dozois died in 2018 after publishing thirty-five giant best-of-the-year science fiction anthologies. Dozois set the pace for decades. Now, it seems the market for these best of the year anthologies has been breaking up. All 35-volumes of Dozois’ annual anthologies are still on sale.

Jonathan Strahan’s last annual anthology was The Year’s Best Science Fiction Vol. 2: The Saga Anthology of Science Fiction 2021 covering the best stories from 2020. (The year in these anthology titles are generally the year following the year the stories were first published.) I’ve been told that Strahan has said online that that series is finished.

Rich Horton’s last annual anthology was The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021 Edition covering 2020. It came out as an ebook online, and it will be the last of Horton’s series.

Neil Clarke’s latest annual anthology is The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume Seven published 9/5/23 in trade paper and hardcover. It’s late, covering 2021. Volume 8 is scheduled for next month, covering 2022. Online, Clarke has said he hopes to do an ebook and audiobook edition. It sounds like Clarke’s annual is still ongoing. Volume 7 is discussed at Black Gate and lists the table of contents.

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 edited by John Joseph Adams and guest editor R. F. Kuang covers 2022, meaning it’s on time. It comes out October 17th in trade paper, ebook, and audiobook editions.

The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 7 edited by Allan Kaster came out in June and seems to be going strong since it collects stories from 2022. Available as an ebook and trade paperback. I don’t know if Kaster will do a fourth edition of his other series, The Year’s Top Robot and AI Stories. The third edition came out in November 2022, so maybe it will.

This is sad, at least to me. Awhile back I wrote about what anthologies collected the best science fiction short stories and listed all the annuals from 1939-1999. I started a reading project to read them all, starting with 1939. I’m currently stuck on 1957. This has shown me their value in remembering short science fiction. If stories aren’t reprinted by the annuals or other anthologies, they are generally forgotten — unless the author gains enough fans to have a collection published.

I wonder what the demise of so many best-of-the-year science fiction anthologies implies? Did the market just get saturated and is now shaking out? Or, has interest in short fiction fallen off? Print magazines have had dwindling subscribers for decades. The big three of Analog, Asimov’s and F&SF are around ten thousand or fewer. At one time they had over a hundred thousand subscribers. Amazon killing off their Kindle subscriptions for these magazines is going to hurt. I hope it’s not fatal for these magazines.

Do you buy these best-of-the-year science fiction anthologies? I collect them, and own most of them in paper, ebook, and/or audiobook. And I belong to a Facebook group that discusses science fiction short stories. Even though we have 815 members, probably less than a dozen post regularly.

Long ago I wrote an essay about what was the best way to discover the greatest science fiction short stories of all time. I decided there were three approaches. Read a handful of retrospective anthologies, read all the best-of-the-year anthologies, or read all the SF magazines. I’ve taken the middle path.

I’ve wondered if best-of-the-year anthologies are dying if it’s a sign the science fiction genre is fading? Or is it a sign that science fiction publishers have been producing way too much science fiction? Are readers getting overwhelmed by all the authors and just pulling back to a few favorites?

Has our culture been oversaturated with science fiction? I’m a lifelong fan, but even I’m getting a little worn out with the genre. When I was growing up in the 1950s, westerns dominated the television screen and movie theater. Then for many decades science fiction has been extremely popular. Has interest in science fiction starting to fade?

I have a couple of other theories. Maybe short science fiction is fading because most readers prefer the novel? Or maybe many fans have lost interest in new science fiction and have turned to reading mostly old science fiction? That’s happening with me.

James Wallace Harris, 10/8/23