Robert Silverberg. Hawksbill Station.
Originally in : Galaxy.
Opponents of a global 21st century reactionary regime are transported to a prison camp in the Cambrian period.
C. C. Shackleton. Ultimate Construction.
Originally in Titbits
Why would the Last Man on Earth be playing with a bucket and spade?
John T. Sladek. 1937 A.D.!
Originally in :New Worlds.
Inventor Emil Hart uses his bicycle-powered time machine to travel forward to 1973 a.d. He finds that events in the future can actually have an impact of events in the past.
Ben Bova. Fifteen miles.
Originally in :
Three explorers on Moon, one of whom finds water in the form of ice, but has to be rescued by one of his colleagues, who redeems himself after a previous fatality.
Kit Reed. The Vine.
Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
A family tends a humongous vine generation after generation, until the vine begins to….
A. Bertram Chandler. The Left Hand Way.
Originally in : Australian Science Fiction Review
The gaussjammer Lode Trader crashes onto a planet, leaving only the priest Lee Chang alive. He is kept company by the cargo of robots.
Frank M. Robinson. The Wreck of the Ship John B.
Originally in : Playboy
Long-haul freighter Cassiopeia, en route to a distant colony planet, and manned by several increasingly insular men, finds the drifting body of a crew member of a previous freighter, and shortly after the empty freighter and similarly drifting corpses of the rest of the crew. They are able to identify the reason behind the loss of this and other freighters.
Kris Neville. The Forest of Zil.
Originally in :
On a distant planet covered by trees, the forest moves in the warm sunlight to the motion of the gentle breeze, making their soft sounds, zil, zil, zil.
J.G. Ballard. The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy considered as a downhill motor race.
Originally in :
Argues that a less conventional view of the events leading to the assassination of JFK may provide a more satisfactory explanation. Uses Alfred Jarry’s The Cruxifiction Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race as a model.
James Thurber. Interview with a Lemming.
Originally in : My World – and welcome to it.
A scientist and a lemming have a conversation about their species respective failings. Why do lemmings run en masse over cliffs? ponders the scientist. The lemming replies : we have wondered why humans do not.
Fritz Leiber. Answering service.
Originally in : Galaxy
An old Lady torments a doctor’s receptionist on the other end of her phone.
Keith Laumer. The Last Command.
Originally in :
A Mark XVIII Combat Unit (bolo) long-buried in a concrete tomb, is reawakened by construction work. Reynolds, an old soldier who fought alongside the unit in his youth, saves the day.
Gary Wright. Mirror of Ice.
Originally in : Galaxy
The Stuka is a 20km bobsleigh run, in which the sleds are powered, and the risks are high.
Harlan Ellison. Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.
Originally in : Knight Magazine
Kostner, down on his luck, plays the silver-dollar slot-machine. The slot that Maggie has played previously. Maggie is now part of the slot, and her blue eyes peer out at him. His luck changes. Classy.
I’ve got this book, but it’s called “The Year’s Best Science Fiction No 1”. Has all the same stories in with the exception of Ultimate Construction.
Think it was the first SciFi book I read, still fantastic today.