Worlds to Come. edited by Damon Knight. 1967
WORLDS TO COME
RATED 100% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE 4.6 OF 5
9 STORIES : 5 GREAT / 4 GOOD / 0 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF
They don’t make ‘em like this anymore! I don’t know if I’m talking about the style of the science fiction. Focused on cool ideas, a sense of wonder, and written by people who seem to have spent more hours in a science lab than inside a writer’s retreat. Or maybe I’m talking about a tight anthology in which every story is Good or better. This is a rare 100% anthology. Some many of these stories are all-time classics.
It isn’t a suprise. Damon Knight is an exceptional anthologist - and pretty darn good writer as well. He also has a high view of the role of science fiction in scientific discovery and the advancement of mankind. It is an idea without a name, but one that I share. What is the science fiction equivalent of having a “high Christology?”
“Forty years ago and more, science-fiction writers seemed to be saying “Man will reach the moon,” and today this looks like dazzling prophecy. What they really were saying, however, was something slightly different and much more significant: “Man can reach the moon if he wants to badly enough.”
… No one will ever know for sure how much effect these stories have had, but it is almost impossible to believe they have had none.
…The stories in this anthology, some written as long as twenty five years ago, may seem startlingly prophetic. But remember that these are the kind that help bring something about by persuading others to believe in and desire it. Clarke and Fyfe in particular write as if they have been to the moon, but the haven’t. No man has. That adventure, like all the others in this book, is still to come.”
—-Damon Knight, 1967
Once again, we find an anthology with more than half the stories worthy of the All-Time Great List and therefore not re-listed here.
WORLDS TO COME
9 STORIES : 5 GREAT / 4 GOOD / 0 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF
The Sentinel • [A Space Odyssey] • (1951) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke
Great. The story that inspired the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Explorers on the moon discover a strange alien object that has been there for an extremely long time. Full of vivid scientific detail and a chillingly hopeful final moment.
Moonwalk • (1952) • novelette by H. B. Fyfe
Good. There are many stories of an astronaut trekking alone after a disaster on a distant world. There is a visceral realism to all of them. If that was all this was, it would be rated Great. Unfortunately, the interludes with his crew members who don’t know what has happened to him, aren’t nearly as compelling. Still very readable.
Mars Is Heaven! • [The Martian Chronicles] • (1948) • short story by Ray Bradbury
Great. One of the greatest science fiction tales ever written! A third mission to Mars discovers a preserved Ohio town populated with the astronauts deceased loved ones. Is this small town utopia God’s paradise … or something darker and more alien?
The Edge of the Sea • (1958) • short story by Algis Budrys
Great. Thrilling and intense tale of a strong and simple man who discovers a strange craft or beacon in the sea. To salvage it, he braves a hurricane, the local police, and governmental agencies.
The Martian Way • (1952) • novelette by Isaac Asimov
Great. One of Asimov’s most epic and most human stories. The humans on Mars scrape out a living capturing Earth’s space junk using water propelled spaceships. Changing politics on Earth scapegoats the Spacers and threatens to remove their access to water, dooming Martian civilization. So a small team head to the rings of Saturn on a beautiful and dangerous mission to drag huge blocks of ice back to Mars.
The Big Contest • (1950) • short story by John D. MacDonald
Good. A bunch of old men hang around outside the Fire Station and talk about UFO sightings. One of them has a crazy explanation …. and it all started with a spitting content in 1909.
Ordeal in Space • (1948) • short story by Robert A. Heinlein
Good. A spaceman has returned to earth with crippling agoraphobia which challenges his ability to work and make friends. One night, he hears a cat stranded on a ledge.
That Share of Glory • (1952) • novelette by C. M. Kornbluth
Good. A interstellar empire knitted together by a monastic guild of translators, anthropologists, and ambassadors. Our story is a few vignettes of interesting quirky planets with a single quirk pushed to its logical extremes.
Sunken Universe • (1942) • novelette by James Blish
Great. Tiny humans live in a puddle of water on an alien planet. There are only hints as to why in this story. You’ll have to wait until the magnificent “Surface Tension” story for information. But the ‘sense-of-wonder’ abounds here. Men living underwater alongside a myriad of miniscule life forms. Survival, war, conflict! Thrilling and strange in the best way of science fiction.
