Weekly Short Stories: 1952 Science Fiction, Part 4

I conclude my look back at the year in quality science fiction short stories with my reactions to the final five entries from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SG Stories 14 (1952). Here they are...

THE MARTIAN WAY by Isaac Asimov
Mars in in the early years of becoming settled and a demagogic politician on Earth uses its consumption of water to scapegoat it and rise in political prominence...Asimov meant the story as an analogy to Senator McCarthy's then-red baiting tactics against others to enhance his own national political stature.  The settlers come up with their own solution to Earth's embargo on water, and it involves a bold adventure...

THE IMPACTED MAN by Robert Sheckley
Super-entities are responsible...by working on awarded contracts...for designing the various elements of the cosmos, including our own galaxy.  Its designer accidentally leaves a glitch on one of its planets...naturally Earth...in which a man finds himself slipping into the past or future depending on whether he walks down or up.  This is a satirical look at how our government does its own business handing out contracts to various companies..

WHAT'S IT LIKE OUT THERE? by Edmond Hamilton
Whereas the first story in this group painted an optimistic picture of settling Mars, this one goes in the other direction describing the various horrors inflicted on the second expedition there, as a survivor finds himself back on Earth wearily visiting the bereaved families of his buddies who didn't make it and trying to comfort them without fully explaining what really happened there...

SAIL ON! SAIL ON! by Philip José Farmer
It seems like the 1492 Columbus expedition to the Americas, but the priest on board communicates by radio in code to his counterpart on the Canaries...and soon it becomes clear that this is an alternate universe where certain historical events went different ways than in our own, creating interesting scenarios.  And, it seems, there are a few other significant differences as evidenced by the story's ending...

COST OF LIVING by Robert Sheckley
The notion of endless and effortless credit, to be passed on from one generation to another, is the theme of this prescient tale as a man and woman at some time in the not-so-distant future cannot bring themselves to say "enough" and stop buying their costly and often unused labor-saving devices on credit. It's all in how one defines a "need" vs. a "want"...and if something is deemed a need, then is it really necessarily to always buy the more luxurious and expensive model?  This story accurately illustrates how easily-available credit can distort people from making realistic economic choices in their lives based on their priorities and ability to pay for them.  Both editors expressed a analogy between Cost of Living and how our government runs up its own debt, to be paid back with interest by future generations...

Next week I'll begin a look at the year 1953 in science fiction short stories...