Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 4 (1942) may be the best book in this retrospective anthology series looking back on the best in short science fiction. Having said that, it's also true that many of the stories within tend to be rather long, approaching novella-length. Of the three I'm discussing today, the first two take up a lot of pages and demand more of a commitment from the reader...but they are worth it...
THE PUSH OF A FINGER by Alfred Bester
It's early in the thirtieth century and society on Earth is in a state of balance, with scientists and statisticians secretly determining...in the Prog Building in Manhattan...what works and what doesn't. They're biggest secret, which Carmichael, a hotshot newspaper reporter, manages to discover after infiltrating the organization, is the ability to predict distant future events with excruciatingly high levels of accuracy. A crisis has occurred with a somber discovery: at a set time a thousand years later the universe will suddenly end...and the cause seems to be man-made and traceable back to the present. A brilliant sci-fi mystery with a ridiculously silly ending...
ASYLUM by A.E. van Vogt
My favorite tale of the book, Asylum would more appropriately be deemed a science fiction horror story which involves extraterrestrial vampires and a super race of Galactic overseers. Earth has not yet developed the credentials to join with the Galactics and their federation of worlds (sound familiar?), but they're keeping an observer around to keep an eye on things, his identity a secret. Meanwhile the Dreeghs also have their sights set on Earth, but their motives are different: to harvest the blood and life energies of its inhabitants. Two of them comprise the advance team...real bad-ass villains...and they hatch a plot to use another one of those hotshot newspaper reporters...this one named Leigh...to discover the Galactic Observer's identity so that they can eliminate him. They suspect a scientist/inventor named Ungarn who lives on a meteorite near Jupiter to be their target and manipulate Leigh into leading them to their prize. But there are plenty of plot twists and surprises awaiting everyone, especially the reader. One of the best...and least expected...endings I've encountered in a short story...
PROOF by Hal Clement
There is a sub-genre of science fiction called "hard" science fiction in which the author, usually highly trained in the intricacies of science and/or technology, uses his or her knowledge to make the story more realistically plausible. Proof is one such example: the author, using details of subatomic and high-energy physics, paints a picture of life...including intelligent beings...existing IN the sun...and in other stars as well. And yes, they have spaceships, too. But what about the planets...and how would such entities perceive these accreted masses of heavier elements so foreign to the physics and chemistry of their native sun? Another superb ending...did I not say that this may be the best book in the series?
Next week: more from 1942 in the world of short science fiction...
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