Weekly Short Stories: 1964 Science Fiction, Part 4

Here are my reactions to three more science fiction short stories from the anthology Robert Silverberg Presents The Great SF Stories (1964).  These three are the kinds of tales that motivate me to read more in this genre, all of a reasonable length with each one written in a different style and expressing a different mood.  And the authors are all pretty well known as well.  With the first story below, references I find online to it refer to it as The Dowry of the Angyar, but Silverberg's anthology omits the second "the"... 

THE DOWRY OF ANGYAR by Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin, who passed away two years ago, was best known for her Earthsea fantasy children's books...this story is an early sci-fi effort that she incorporated into a novel two years later.  On a distant planet whose humanoid life forms have developed into three distinct species, a noblewoman of one of them goes on a journey to recover the valuable lost necklace she had inherited in order to bestow upon her husband a dowry.  The quest draws her into contact with the planet's other human types as well as the mysterious Strangers.  For a brief story this was full of action, emotion and mystery: very well done... 

WHEN THE CHANGE-WINDS BLOW by Fritz Leiber

A visitor to Mars following a devastating nuclear war on Earth that killed his fiancée is traveling in his hovering craft over the desert when he encounters a famous cathedral he recognizes from Earth, in splendid minute detail.  Thinking that the native insect-like intelligent Martians are manipulating his thoughts, he nonetheless lands, disembarks, and explores his finding.  This tale is a mood-piece of grief and regret as the protagonist struggles with a past forever gone...

THE FIEND by Frederik Pohl

This is one of those clever stories that drastically change the reader's perspective with the revealing final paragraph.  A spaceship transporting 700 colonists in suspended animation across the vast gulfs of space is piloted by one individual who has decided...for his own nefarious purposes...to resuscitate one young female passenger and observe her reactions.  It all sounds pretty fiendish, doesn't it...hence the story's title.  The narrative is presented from the deviant pilot's perspective, giving it a sinister mood as well.  The "punch line" at the end turns out scarier than what's happening on the ship... 

Next week I finish my look at short science fiction from the year 1964...