Today I begin looking at the 1958 science fiction short stories appearing in the "year's best" anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 20 (1958). I have to admit up front that none of the book's first four stories that I'm discussing today remotely qualify as favorites of mine...then again, they weren't bad, either, and most contained a strong element of humor that gave them some added appeal. Here they are...
THE LAST OF THE DELIVERERS by Poul Anderson
Like Clifford Simak's novel City from a few years earlier, this story delves into the notion that society will progressively become more ruralized and decentralized with the big cities eventually abandoned in favor of a more small-town and traditional lifestyle. Anderson doesn't take it as far as Simak, who foresaw people isolating themselves from each other on large estates, served by robots. No, this is more like a Ray Bradbury small town as Jim, an elderly citizen who bemoans the retreat from large-scale capitalism, bitterly argues with Miller, another old-timer equally convinced that communism was the way for society's advancement. Meanwhile, the townspeople confound and anger both men with their contentment and what seems like a lack of motivation. Here is a clever argument for our future...that is, until you read the last paragraph...
THE FEELING OF POWER by Isaac Asimov
Off in the distant future an extensive space war using advanced computers...designed and built by other computers... is being carried out to a stalemate. A low-level engineer discovers a breakthrough around the computers when he demonstrates how to multiply numbers on paper...a long forgotten art. You know, it might seem preposterous to see people completely floored by somebody's ability to mentally multiply 9 times 7 and come up with 63...at least it would back in 1958 when this story was first published. Nowadays, though...with our so-called "smart" phones and advanced computing it seems that Asimov was able to look ahead to society's dumbing-down as digital technology increasingly supplanted people's formerly required thinking and education. A little scary, although this story was very funny...
POOR LITTLE WARRIOR! by Brian Aldiss
A loser from the future signs up with a company that offers hunting expeditions into the distant past...you know this story is going to end badly when the inept and insecure "hunter" decides to take on a brontosaurus. Then again, I thought the protagonist was such a jerk that maybe the ending wasn't so bad...it would be good as a Twilight Zone episode, albeit with some editing to make it a little less gruesome on broadcast TV. Another time-travel yarn...or should I say "yawn" as I'm tired of reading about this common sci-fi theme...
THE IRON CHANCELLOR by Robert Silverberg
Robot servants are featured in many futuristic twentieth century sci-fi stories...the idea of responsive, interactive and mobile labor-saving devices had a great appeal back then as the idea of the "good life" to many meant just sitting back and letting somebody (or something) else do all the work for them...with many this hasn't changed even today ("Alexa, turn on the lights"). In this story a man buys for his family's household the latest model of food-preparation robots, one that calculates the different family members' optimum weights and prepares their diets accordingly...very soon all of them, overweight to begin with, regret the change and want back Jemima, their old robot cook. Unfortunately, the new addition to the family has different ideas...
Next week I'll continue looking at old science fiction short stories from 1958...
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