Weekly Short Stories: 1967 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here my reactions to the next four entries from the retroactive anthology World's Best Science Fiction 1968, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr and covering what they selected from the previous year's works.  One of the attractions to these kinds of year-to-year anthologies is the introduction section, both to the book and to each individual story.  By reading them you get a better sense of the authors' writing approaches, as well as some suggestions leading to other recommended stories of theirs.  Looking back on 1967 in my life, I spent a good part of my time that summer climbing trees...behind my old elementary school near my house they had some Australian pines tailor-made for that activity.  Now whenever I walk past a tree in my own neighborhood...or anywhere else for that matter...I feel compelled to appraise it for its possibilities and how high up I could go (at least if I were still ten years old like I was in '67)... 

BILLIARD BALL by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov went through a few years in the 1960s when he was focusing on nonfiction writing...here's one of his science fiction stories of that time.  A theoretical physicist and an entrepreneurial engineer capitalizing on the former's discoveries have had an ongoing association for years in which the competition between them has become heated and bitter.  It culminates when the businessman sets up a public demonstration of imparting zero mass to objects...something the theoretician claimed not feasible in spite of his own theory...in order to humiliate him.  The story transforms into a murder mystery...a genre of fiction that Asimov was also good at...

HAWKSBILL STATION by Robert Silverberg

The setting is the Cambrian Period of Earth's geologic past when no land-based life existed but invertebrate animal life proliferated in the oceans.  It's the setting where political prisoners from early in the 21st century (remember this was written in 1967) are sent back in time to live out the rest of their lives in forced exile...trilobites in all their varieties are the main dish. Barrett, an old-time exile resident of Hawksbill Station as it is called...and their de facto leader...has a new challenge as a new inmate is transmitting back in time to his era through the time portal they call "The Hammer".  Just who is this Lew Hahn and what is he up to?"  Although a time travel story, Hawksbill Station was more a look at what conditions were like during this fascinating period in our planet's distant prehistory. Silverberg later expanded it into a full-length novel...

THE NUMBER YOU HAVE REACHED by Thomas M. Disch

An astronaut is returning from an exploratory mission to Mars in which his two partners accidentally died...alone he lands on Earth to discover that nuclear war has wiped out all humanity, save himself.  Living on the top floor of a tall city building, he sets up his daily routine...which is rudely interrupted when he gets a phone call, an angry, accusing woman on the other end.  His reactions to her...and her attitude toward him...are the intriguing elements of this very brief tale..

THE MAN WHO LOVED THE FAIOLI by Roger Zelazny

In the cosmos there is an angelic type of female entity call the Faioli that comfort men who are on the cusp of death...and then mercifully end their suffering while consuming them.  A man with a special condition that allows him to enter and leave life is the perpetual caretaker of an interstellar graveyard.  A Faioli visits him but cannot detect his presence until he turns his own life back on...what an incredibly interesting and unique premise for a story.  This one's my favorite of the tales I reviewed today, although I was partial to Hawksbill Station as well...

Next week I continue discussing some of the best in short science fiction from the year 1967...