As we usher in the New Year of 2020, today I'll be continuing my look back 65 years at some standout science fiction short stories as they appeared in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories #17 (1955). Here are my reactions to the next five as they appear in the book...
GRANDPA by James H. Schmitz
Ecology...the concept of symbiosis in particular...is the theme of this tale set in the future after humanity has settled several different star systems. The planet here has just recently been staked out, and the indigenous life is peculiar...especially the boat-like creatures that the new settlers use as locomotion on this water-dominated world. Like in a Michael Crichton novel, though, the normality of the pioneers' lives is thrown into a crisis when the fauna around them rise up...an exciting story that predates our environmental movement by several years...
WHO? by Theodore Sturgeon
It is known that long-distance space flights take their toll on the astronauts, especially the protracted periods of isolation from community with others. The protagonist, telling the story in the first person, is on a test flight to determine his suitability to command a ship. He takes off on his mission, physically separated in the ship's cabin from the single other passenger by a bulkhead...they can talk back and forth but cannot see each other. This is a psychological story, one of Sturgeon's areas of expertise, that delves into people's motivations, jealousies, and fears. It has a surprise ending, of course...
THE SHORT ONES by Raymond E. Banks
Within the walls of the Pentagon exists a created society of artificial, protoplasm-based miniature "people". Its purpose is to test suitable nominees and applicants for important government posts according to their temperament...can they strike an almost impossible-to-attain balance between exerting too much or too little power over others in their line of duty? It's Ralph Hiller's turn to be tested and he will be the "god" of this miniature society for the next six hours...these very difficult "short ones" will frustrate him but will he be able to make the right decisions? This story is a clever examination of the role of religion without getting itself hung up on theology...
CAPTIVE MARKET by Philip K. Dick
Back in 2017 I reviewed this story in greater length...here's a link to that article: [link]. It's based on the notion that the future is full of alternative possibilities...the elderly woman here has the ability to discern them around her and decide which one will come true. Unfortunately, her talent is wasted because of her petty and prejudiced narrowmindedness. On one hand you have something totally brilliant with so many possible positive implications. And on the other you have an abject squandering of it all...kind of reminds me of how some people are using the amazing Internet these days to promote their own prejudices and indulge in their own shortcomings...
ALLAMAGOOSA by Eric Frank Russell
In the interstellar space fleet of the future, a captain docked on "shore" leave at Sirius has to contend with an upcoming inspection, including a minute inventory of everything on the ship, carefully listed down to the last issued pair of suspenders. Only one problem: the inventory list has one item, an "offog", supposedly issued four years earlier but no one on board has a clue as to what it is: the solution? Invent an "offog" and present it for inspection! This is a funny satire of the entrenched bureaucracy, in which people use it to create a secure buffer around themselves while employing a certain "logic" of reasoning that can drastically stray from reality...
Next week: more about short science fiction from 1955...
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