This week I completed reading (again) the science fiction anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 2 (1940), which features short stories that editors Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg deemed that year's best. There was one, though, near the book's end that I didn't exactly think stood up to the high standard of being "great"...more on that later. Here are my reactions to the four final entries...
FAREWELL TO THE MASTER by Harry Bates
If you've ever seen the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (I only saw the 1951 masterpiece), with Klaatu the alien emissary and the terrifying giant robot Gort his "enforcer", you might be interested that it derived from this short story, one with a completely different plot sequence, its robot Gnut not anywhere as destructive, and the final message a complete surprise. In Farewell to the Master, the Earth is not being warned from beyond...no, Klaatu and Gnut's mission is one of friendly initial contact gone horribly wrong when the former is accidentally shot to death upon arrival by an undisciplined trigger-happy soldier (this happens at the beginning, no plot spoiling here). How Gnut reacts to this is revealed by the story's human protagonist, an unstoppable reporter named Cliff Sutherland. The memorable closing line in the story notwithstanding, I still prefer the movie, which probably frightened me more as a child than any other I've seen, then or since...and I have no plans to watch the more recent version as it almost certainly will be a big disappointment in comparison...
BUTYL AND THE BREATHER by Theodore Sturgeon
This is a follow-up sequel to Sturgeon's humorous tale Ether Breather from the previous year, with the attempts to be funny still there but without the innovation the earlier story introduced. Since the compelling mystery of who was playing the practical jokes on color TV broadcasts is already solved, I found myself looking to the story's last page to see how many more I would need to endure reading before it was all over. I like Theodore Sturgeon's writing a lot...his It in the same anthology, which I discussed a couple of weeks ago, is a far better story...
THE EXALTED by L. Sprague de Camp
The author had an ongoing series of stories around this time centering on Johnny Black, a talking bear that has been made intelligent by eccentric scientist Ira Methuen through special treatments. In this story, Methuen has given himself the same treatments in hope of enhancing his own intelligence. It works, but the resulting "genius" thinks he has figured everything out and has decided that nothing really matters, and spends his time devising machines to play practical jokes on those around him. Can they reverse the process and bring Dr. Methuen back to his old, reasonable self? Johnny has the solution, which is utterly hilarious. This story and the series it belongs to would probably fit well as a late night series on the Cartoon Network...
OLD MAN MULLIGAN by P. Schuyler Miller
In the 1939 sci-fi anthology there were two stories about Neanderthals, one of them about such a man who had survived the eons to this day (incidentally authored by the previous story's L. Sprague de Camp). Old Man Mulligan is another of these, with Mulligan the Neanderthal who seems to have participated in just about every historical event and who is continually referring back to them, challenging to fights anyone accusing him of being a liar. The setting is novel: Venus of the future, in its early stages of exploration and settlement. The warm, humid planet of mid-twentieth century imagination, dominated by vast seas and steaming jungles...unlike what we know about it now...is a fertile location drawing pioneers from Earth. Unfortunately, our worldly corruption has followed us there as well, and a seedy character named Hanlon has kidnapped the daughter of the planet's ruling Regent and deposited our cast of heroes out on a rock in the middle of the monster-infested sea, all naked...including old Mulligan. Leave it to our experienced Neanderthal to make like MacGyver and
deftly bring everyone to safety and redemption. One of my favorite tales from this book, and quite funny, too...
Well, that's it for the year 1940...next week I'll start with stories from Asimov's "1941" anthology...
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