Today I begin to examine some of the selected science fiction short stories from 1967 as they appeared in the following year's anthology World's Best Science Fiction 1968, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr. In 1967, still living with my family in west Hollywood, I was finishing the fifth grade and transitioning into the sixth at Nova Elementary in Davie. Summertime in between was full of tree climbing and outdoor games, highlighted by Slam, a tamer variant of basketball more suited to klutzes like myself. I was a Monkees fan back then...at least early on in the year, and pretty much was ignoring the Beatles except for their releases of All You Need is Love (which they recorded live on a June special TV show called Our World) and Hello/Goodbye. At the start of the school year in late summer I became ill with a high fever for several days: then, upon returning, the teachers went on strike statewide, my home room teacher never coming back. In the news, the Vietnam War was raging and escalating with no end in sight...although I began to hear the cliché "light at the end of the tunnel" this year. But we're discussing sci-fi of the time, aren't we, so without further ado here are my reactions to the first four stories in the book...
SEE ME NOT by Richard Wilson
Avery, a suburbanite living in the present time (c. 1967) with his wife, and two kids, wakes up one morning to discover that he has become completely invisible. The story develops as he stumbles around with his affliction, shocking his wife and daughter while delighting his bold little son...then his secret leaks out and you get the different, predictable varieties of reaction among the surrounding people. I thought it was a cute, funny story...it actually has an explanation and a reasonable resolution, which helps to firmly place it square in the science fiction genre instead of fantasy...
DRIFTGLASS by Samuel R. Delany
In an overpopulated Earth of the future, the option has been developed whereby some people can be genetically transformed to have gills, webbed feet and hands, and scales that allow them to freely exist both in the sea and on land. One such person is a man disabled from burns from a terrible underseas volcanic eruption while trying to lay down cable on the ocean floor. The project that injured him is now going to be attempted again, and he naturally has mixed feelings on it all. This is more or less a piece whose value lies in creating a plausible future scenario: genetic adaptation to underwater living, and I found it very intriguing...
AMBASSADOR TO VERDAMMT by Colin Kapp
On a newly explored planet humans encounter what is most definitely an intelligent life form there, but it is so strange that it cannot be contacted directly...they call for a special ambassador from Earth to serve as translator. A skeptical technician ignores others' warnings and sets out to investigate these elusive beings...what a mind trip! This story...especially its ending...reminded me of one of my all-time favorite science fiction short stories: the 1942 classic Mimsy Were the Borogroves by Lewis Padgett...
THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS by R.A. Lafferty
A "man of the future" makes a wager with other skeptical residents of a rural small town that he has the power to make a man disappear...and goes about causing it with all looking on. But it looks like he bit off a little more than he could chew when the wager's results become evident. This story is an example of someone with great talent, yet behaving in a completely foolish manner with it...no telling what he could have done with it if his own mindset hadn't been so petty. The ending shows, in mirror effect, another way to make a man disappear...
Next week I continue with my look at 1967 in short science fiction...
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