I have to say that these four 1958 science fiction short stories I'm discussing today from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 20 (1958) are all among the better ones ever written...especially that last one below which I regard as a masterpiece of the genre. Here's what I thought about each of them...
THE PRIZE OF PERIL by Robert Sheckley
The idea of placing people in dangerous situations, even possibly fatal, for the entertainment of the masses has become more commonplace in literature, television and movies...The Running Man and The Hunger Games stand out in this subgenre of science fiction. But it all may have started with this short story by Robert Sheckley in which, also in a dystopian future, contestants in a no-holds-barred game show try to buck the odds and survive a set number of hours out in the world while assassins close in for the kill. I felt this was a pretty exciting story, and sadly on target as to the direction we're heading in...the vicarious attraction of watching violence and others' suffering has become an epidemic in our culture...
OR ALL THE SEAS WITH OYSTERS by Avram Davidson
This brief tale mixes together our mass production technology, the tendency for things like paperclips and clothes hangers to either be mysteriously misplaced or suddenly seem to be in too great a quantity, and the biological concept of mimicry as a survival form of camouflage. Sounds strange? That's because it is strange, a quirky story that reminded me of Donald Wollheim's 1942 brilliant Mimic. The notion of some kind of malevolent sentience being behind everyday items suddenly missing is probably more commonplace than many would like to admit...I sometimes even joke that the "elves" must be at work when I keep coming up short of socks...
TWO DOOMS by Cyril Kornbluth
This is one of the better alternative history stories out there. An American scientist during World War II working in the Manhattan Project has just received the results of his assignment: an atomic bomb is scientifically possible. But before he decides to relay this crucial information to his superior...knowing in advance all the lives that will probably be lost because of it...he goes out and visits an old Navaho friend who introduces him to a special mushroom concoction. The resulting "trip" sends him 150 years into a future America dominated by the warlord Japanese and Nazi Germans...
THE BIG FRONT YARD by Clifford Simak
One of my all-time favorite short stories...close to novella length...I first read it as a kid going through some of my father's old paperback anthologies. A practical, honest rural handyman discovers one day that his basement ceiling has been changed to an impermeable, glass-like barrier...and his dog seems to think there's something out the woods that needs scrutiny. The upshot to all this is soon revealed when he opens his front door to another world. To me as a kid...and still to this day...the notion of traveling vast distances by simply stepping through a door greatly intrigued me. I was also totally sold on protagonist Hiram Taine's pragmatic and contented personality in the face of the commotion going on around him...
Next week I conclude my look at science fiction short stories from 1958...
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