Here are my reactions to three more 1963 science fiction short stories from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 25 (1963). I have to admit that I am very partial to the first one below...Clifford Simak may well be my favorite science fiction writer. Each tale has its own distinctive flavor and presentation...all worthy of reading...
NEW FOLKS' HOME by Clifford Simak
An elderly, retired legal scholar, renowned in his field, has as a close friend a retired astronomer, who is now terminally ill in a hospital. The two had spent many enjoyable fishing and camping trips together over the years in a special, remote place by a small river several miles from civilization. One day the lawyer decides to take one last trip there...this time necessarily on his own...and finds to his chagrin that a strange white house is suddenly there, built on a hill overlooking the fishing area that they had become so possessive of. What he eventually discovers about it leads to another outcome eerily reminiscent of another great old Simak short story, The Big Front Yard...
THE FACES OUTSIDE by Bruce McAllister
A human man and woman are swimming underwater in what is clearly a vast enclosed aquarium with other aquatic life forms like sharks and porpoises...and there are faces on the outside peering in. The couple, although completely immersed in the water, breathe naturally as if they were in the air. Devoid of memory of their earlier lives, the two have a telepathic link with one another, and the man has an inner voice coaching him as to how evil those "faces outside" are and to regard them as the enemy. We find the true context for this uniquely perplexing setting later on as the story takes a sudden downward turn regarding the fate of humanity...and then turns the tables on it all...
HOT PLANET by Hal Clement
Some science fiction aficionados are very particular about reading only "hard" stories, that is the ones that tend to go into great technical detail to present things as strictly in conformance with scientific principles and technology. I recognize that the writer should try to present the story's science as feasible, but also feel that it's possible to bog everything down with too much detail...but that's just my tastes. Hot Planet, about an exploratory scientific mission to Mercury from Earth composed of scientific and engineering specialists, is one such "hard" science fiction story. Clement wrote of the impending crisis of a newly-formed volcano on the unexpectedly seismically overactive planet and the crew's attempts to escape destruction. The beginning was a bit overwhelming to me on the details side, but as it progressed I appreciated that the author had obviously done quite a bit of research on how gravity can affect a planet or moon's seismic nature. I felt I had learned something after reading it...
Next week: more science fiction short stories from 1963 reviewed...
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