Friday, March 09, 2012

Forgotten Books: The Mammoth Book of New World Science Fiction: Short Novels of the 1960s -- Presented by Isaac Asimov

Although the cover says that Isaac Asimov "presents" the contents, there's no evidence of it inside: no to the book itself, no introductions to the stories and no afterwords. Maybe some other edition has them. The copyright page also lists the ubiquitous Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh.

If you're looking for a solid collection of famous novellas from the '60s, here it is. The Zelazny story forms part of My Name is Legion," in which a man who's kept evidence of his existence from being put into the worldwide computer network that tracks everyone. He's sort of a p.i. of the future who can adopt many guises. I'm a Zelazny fan, and I liked this one. But then I'm a fan of all the writers here, and of all the stories. The Farmer tale became part of the first Riverworld novel, and the Laumer is a BOLO story, one of the first, if not the very first. McCaffery's Weyr Search became part of the first Dragonriders book. Silverberg has a good one about a guy who dumps lethe-like drugs in the L. A. water system and about what happens when people begin to forget their pasts. I could go on, but why bother? If you haven't read these and the others before, they're all highly recommended. And they're highly recommended for re-reading, too.

The little snowman on the back cover is a sticker someone put on this used copy that I bought a good while ago, in case you were wondering.

4 comments:

George said...

I love the MAMMOTH series. This looks like a winner. I just picked up THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF ROMAN MYSTERIES.

John D. said...

I totally own that.

Anonymous said...

I've read them all at various times and agree they are good. I think I like the Farmer the least, but then I'm just not much of a Farmer fan.

Todd Mason said...

Asimov was already suffering the ravages of AIDS by the time this book was being prepped, I suspect, as a 1991 release...if he wasn't busy finishing up material more important to him by that time in '90 or '91, he was feeling the progress of the disease, which had reduced him to very limited activity by '92, the year of his death.

I haven't read all of these, but some in the contexts you've cited, or in the likes of the HUGO WINNERS volumes Asimov annotated...