This week I continued reading through the science fiction anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1 (1939), in which he and Martin Greenberg selected...forty years later...what they thought was the best of that year in short fiction. I finished three more stories, and here's my discussions for each of them...
THE ULTIMATE CATALYST by John Taine
Known more for his non-fiction, especially his biographical series on mathematicians, Taine wrote this one with a well-developed sense of biology and chemistry. It is sometime in the future and the last dictator on Earth has been exiled to a confined area in the Amazon jungle...unfortunately he still is a tyrant within that domain. Trapped there is a scientist and his daughter...he reveals to the dictator that he has developed a plant food that tastes like meat, handy in that vegetation is the only viable form of food in this region. But the scientist has ulterior motives, and this tale just might send anyone prone to queasiness right over the edge...probably a good idea not to read The Ultimate Catalyst while eating...
THE GNARLY MAN by L. Sprague de Camp
Anthropologist Matilda Saddler, after studying cultures from all over the world, finds her most interesting subject right in the middle of a Coney Island carnival show: Ungo-Bungo, a supposed ape-man whose skull bone structure seems strange to her, turns out when she meets him to be a well-spoken. amiable Irishman...until he reveals his true identity: he is the last surviving Neanderthal, some 50,000 years old. Interesting this tale is, especially in light of the Lester del Rey story The Day is Done about a different "last Neanderthal", appearing in the same anthology and which I discussed last week...
BLACK DESTROYER by A.E. von Vogt
The "black destroyer" in this tale is a "coeurl", a ferocious but highly intelligent cat-like predator...but with vibration-inducing tentacles emanating from its shoulders...inhabiting a very remote, nearly dead planet. Although essentially immortal, it is running out of food: salvation seems to have arrived with the landing of an exploratory spaceship from Earth. The humans encounter the beast...and the intricate chess game ensues between them, with not only their survival but also the future of space dominance at stake. I liked the way the author presented the coeurl's viewpoint as its remarkable adaptability is progressively revealed. But I didn't like the way that von Vogt explained its origin and even less how the story ultimately resolved itself. Plus, as is often the case with hard science fiction, much of the dialogue...especially toward the end...got too bogged down in esoteric technicalities. Still, as an adventure story it was suspenseful and interesting...it would carry over well to film...
More stories from this book next Wednesday...
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