This week I begin looking at science fiction short stories from 1978, as presented in the following year's anthology Donald A. Wollheim Presents The 1979 Annual World's Best SF. I spent almost all of '78 at the University of Florida and, probably more than any other time, formulated much of the philosophy of life and worldview that I have held up to today. Besides drinking a copious volume of coffee then, I also walked an incredible number of miles, especially at night...which partially explains why my "song of the year" was The Sweet's Love is Like Oxygen, with the line, "I walk the streets at night, to be hidden by the city light". But back to this article's topic: here are my reactions to the book's first two stories...
COME TO THE PARTY by Frank Herbert and F.M. Busby
The folly of humanity with its supposed highly advanced technology and insights into what's best for life forms it is far from comprehending gets the spotlight in this often funny story set on a distant planet, dominated by one species (the Alexii) which preys upon another (the Delfans with their four sexes and peculiar mating ritual). Treating the former as savage beasts that must be stockaded to protect what they perceive as the more civilized and intelligent Delfans, the humans leave a system in place that they think will control the Alexii while keeping the Delfan population steady, governed by a single robot they leave behind. But all goes askew, with much greater consequences than anticipated. I liked how the story mushroomed at the end...
CREATOR by David Lake
This is another one of those banal stories that reframe religion as something imposed on humanity by external alien beings and technology...ho-hum. On a planet named Olympus, a citizen named Jay Crystal has just had his new creation machine...called a creatron...installed and he's gung-ho about creating his own personal universe on it. Advised by his friend Sam Harriman, Jay realizes that the only species that survive to develop and evolve intelligence and civilization are the cruelest and most violent...he makes sure that the special humanoids he's most interested in have plenty of that. Our ancient history gets progressively referenced as Jay observes it...and then he decides to press a forbidden button on his machine that allows himself to fully participate in it as one of them. Look closely at his name and see what I mean about this story being banal...
Next week: more sci-fi short stories reviews from the year 1978...
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