Weekly Short Stories: 1965 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here are my reactions to four more short stories from the year 1965 as they appeared in the retrospective anthology The World's Best Science Fiction: 1966, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr.  Within the sci-fi genre, these tales span a range of topics from time travel to interstellar war and espionage to a repressive dystopian future to the rules for respectful engagement with extraterrestrials.  I found each one significant in its own way...although I admit to being tired of time travel stories...

OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS by Clifford Simak

In 1896 an elderly couple live on their remote farm as two children, seemingly from nowhere, come up the lane and introduce themselves.  It's the identity of the children and their mission to these kindly people that may determine the world's fate.  Another one of those frustrating (to me) time travel stories that tend to handcuff people living in the past to a set fate, as opposed to them being allowed to exert their own free will in determining the future.  Still, I always love reading the tender way that Simak treated his characters...

PLANET OF FORGETTING by James H. Schmitz

There's another one of those interstellar wars going on with this story as the protagonist is sent on a mission to recover and send home to Earth a secret file detailing the enemy's strengths, weakness, and intentions.  Along the way he finds himself wandering around in an amnesiac haze on an unknown world where strange beasts are around him...gradually he recovers his memory as the pursuers from the other side close in on him.  And then he solves the mystery of his memory loss.  Reminds me of the the Gregory Peck movies Spellbound and Mirage...

"REPENT, HARLEQUIN!" SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN by Harlan Ellison

In a dystopian future when rigid punctuality is enforced with a shortened life span being the punishment, there is a free spirit, the "Harlequin", who deliberately goes about with his pranks designed to upset the extremely delicate and elaborate schedules that run the society.  The chief enforcer of the time rules, the "Ticktockman", is none too happy as he searches down his adversary.  I remember first reading this tale seated on a jet plane taking off down the runway...I think it was at Atlanta or Asheville in 2006...

THE DECISION MAKERS by Joseph Green

As humanity explores other star systems and settles their habitable planets in the future, there is a need for someone with the title of Practical Philosopher...having the ability to discern whether different new lifeforms encountered are intelligent.  If they are, the planet is to be left alone for them to develop for themselves without human interference.  On one planet, such an individual finds himself up against the established human economic interests there as he discovers that intelligence may transcend a certain indigenous otter-like animal's individual abilities.  I liked how this story presented a future in which humanity demonstrated respect for other life as they reached out into the cosmos while also acknowledging how economic expedience can cause some to compromise their values...

Next week: more about science fiction short stories from 1965...