The Fifth Annual of the Year’s Best SF. Judith Merril. Simon & Schuster 1960

11th January 2025. Well, this volume has been on my shelves for 20 years or more I reckon, time to read it! Merril’s introduction is a single page musing on ‘wonder’, not giving any background to the collection at all.

Damon Knight. The Handler.
Originally in Rogue Magazine

I was going to call the opening piece an ‘hors-d’oeuvre’, but thought I’d get clever on your ass, and be a bit more specific, and call it an ‘amuse bouche’. A single bite appetizer, dontcha know. The story first appeared in Rogue Magazine, evidently a competitor to Playboy, and you could guess as much from the story. It’s not sf or fantasy, and there is a touch of sauciness in it (not by today’s standards, obvs). Just a couple of pages, featuring an after-show party after the wrap of a TV show, and the crew and other team members are getting into the swing of things when the show’s star appears, a tall, handsome guy, Charisma (with a capital C) oozing from every pore, who is lionized upon his entrance. The party is going to kick off with him there!

However, the atmos suddenly becomes as lifeless as that on the moon, when his handler appears. SPOILER ALERT! His handler actually appears from a cavity in his back, for the star of the show is little more than a highly advanced ventriloquist’s dummy, operated from within by the small stature handler. And the brains behind the star gets a much cooler reception, #awkward, until he climbs back into the back of the TV star, and the party resumes. [11th January 2025]

Jack Finney. The Other Wife.
Originally in The Saturday Evening Post

Finney had a story in Merril’s first volume, which I enjoyed, but which a certain Kingsley Amis did not, as Merril mentions in her introduction to this story, referring to the comments on the previous story as coming from a “.. recent volume of considerable arrogance, ill-considered opinion, and unconsidered slovenliness of research” by a “..humorist with pretensions to critical judgment”. Wowzers.

As with the previous story in this volume, a contemporary setting with a tweak of a fantastical rather than sfnal nature, there to provide an entertaining story of married bliss (or not). The protagonist is a self-centred guy who has found the spark has gone from his four-year marriage – he gets home and lends barely half an ear to his wife whilst thinking of other stuff (autos). He muses on what his life might have been if he had made different choices, and, funnily enough, on the walk home the next night he finds himself walking a different route home, with different cars whizzing by, different buildings on the skyline, different newspapers and different soft drinks being advertised. And with quite a different wife to greet him. He realises he is in a much better alternate world – so much so, the tv is even good. He does have the decency however to pause to consider his wife back in his previous world before embracing this new world, and new wife, fully.

Fortunately, he realises how he moved from one world to another, and that he has the means to cross back and forth at will, and so he ends up with the best of both worlds. Oh lucky man! (I’m being ironic here folks, sadly the story eschews the chance for the protagonist to learn a lesson and recognise the errors of his ways and change those ways.)

So, this volume starts with two marginally SF stories, from mainstream, not SF, publications. [13th January 2025]

Avram Davidson. No Fire Burns.
Originally in Playboy, July 1959.

Aww c’mon Judith!! The third story in the collection is the third non-SF story from a non-SF source in a contemporary setting. A businessman hires a psychologist to develop a psychometric test to enable him to screen out employees with psychopathic tendencies. Supposably! For in fact he is wanting to screen in such people for behind the scenes roles in his business empire. There are a couple of twists before the dramatic denouement. Nice enough, and you could show it to the wife to prove you’re buying Playboy for the articles and the fiction, but one of the best SF stories of the year? I THINK NOT! [3rd February 2025]

Cordwainer Smith. No, No, Not Rogov!
Originally in : If, February 1959.

Finally! An SF story originally published in an SF magazine, and from an SF master no less. It starts : “That golden shape on the golden steps shook and fluttered like a bird gone mad—like a bird imbued with an intellect and a soul, and, nevertheless, driven mad by ecstasies and terrors beyond human understanding. A thousand worlds watched. Had the ancient calendar continued, this would have been A.D. 13,582. After defeat, after disappointment, after ruin and reconstruction, mankind had leaped among the stars.”

We then move to the Cold War of the 1950s, and a husband and wife Soviet scientist team, Rogov and Cherpas, both brilliant in their own right, and supporting each other, are able to develop equipment that can read minds at a distance, and potentially damage those minds. We follow their work, with two of Stalin’s people observing them at all times, until Rogov himself finally takes the leap and inserts the needle of the equipment into his skull, and prepares himself to receive the brainwaves from someone. He knows now whom, but he certainly did not envisage his equipment reaching across the universe and across time, to witness the golden dancer…..

The story details the Soviet approach to science, and how even that dour and restricted approach may make achievement, and the writing style is utilitarian, with short sentences, and clarity, and until the final cry of Cherpas, flat an emotional. [4th Feb 2025]

Ray Bradbury. The Shoreline at Sunset.
Originally in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1959

Bradbury raises the quality of the writing in the anthology by a few notches, highlighting that the writing in the previous stories have been, in contrast to his, somewhat workmanlike.

Admittedly, compared to the other stories, there’s much less to his story than theirs, but by golly he makes what he writes worth reading. The story can be summed up succinctly : a man feeling the absence of a woman in this life finds one washed up on a beach near him – but she’s a mermaid, and he has to choose whether to haul her ashore or return her to the water. The description of the mermaid is lyrical, and it’s a good read throughout. [9th Feb 2025]

Gordon R. Dickson. The Dreamsman.
Originally in : Star Science Fiction no 6, 1959

Quite a lightweight story about a young couple with telepathic powers who are a found by a form of talent spotter for such people, who is not of this earth. And that’s all I have to say about this story. [14th Feb 2025]

Jack Sharkey. Multum in Parvo.
Originally in : The Gent, December 1959

Multum parvo is a Latin phrase meaning ‘much in little’. I didn’t study Latin, but a quick translate on the internet would suggest ‘parvum in parvo’, as there is very little to this ‘story’ which consists of a few very short vignettes each concluding with a pun or two. Great if you like that sort of thing, like The Good Doctor Isaac Asimov, but I was left unmoved. [14th Feb 2025]

Daniel Keyes. Flowers for Algernon.
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1959.

Imagine getting your copy of this issue of F&SF through the letterbox or at the bookstore, and sitting down to read this story. Or imagine living in a world where the author acceded to editor Horace Gold’s request when he submitted it to Galaxy first, that he rewrite the story with a happy ending. FFS. Anyhoo, I’ve read this a good few times over the years, although, like rewatching The Shawshank Redemption, you do get less out of it each time due to the familiarity. Do you need me to tell you what the story is about? Well, Charlie Gordon, in his early thirties, is someone who would have been referred to as being low IQ, retarded or developmentally delayed, but who undergoes ground breaking medical treatment which drastically improves his cognitive abilities. However, not everyone is comfortable with the new Charlie. And it isn’t a happy ending, either for Charlie or Algernon the mouse. [14th Feb 2025]

John W. Campbell Jr. “What Do You Mean … Human?”

Editorial piece in which the venerable Campbells ponders the nature of humanity using Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. I’d rather have read an Asimov story. [14th Feb 2025]

Ralph Davidson. Sierra Sam.
Originally in : Associated Press

A very lightweight piece about early crash test dummies and the like. SWTAF? [14th Feb 2025]

Clifford D. Simak. A Death in the House.
Originally in : Galaxy Magazine in October 1959.

A story that stands shoulder by shoulder alongside Keyes’ ‘Flowers for Algernon’ although somewhat less well known. It’s similar to another favourite of mine from this period, viz Zenna Henderson’s ‘Food to all Flesh’ published back in 1953, which I read in 1973 at school, as we had Edmund Crispin’s ‘The Stars and Under’ as a set book.

A rather reclusive widower farmer (who has also lost his dawg) finds an alien something or other in bad shape on his land. He realises it ain’t human, nor of this earth, but he believes it is intelligent, and in pain and resolves to help it. He takes it to the farmhouse, not the stables, and calls the doctor not the vet. But the doctor won’t touch it. And when it dies, others he calls on to give it a proper burial, are equally unhelpful. Upset at their lack of humanity, the farmer is willing to bury the alien on his land. It’s a touching, well wrought story full of emotion and with a believable protagonist. [14th Feb 2025]

Fritz Leiber. Mariana.
Originally in : Fantastic, February 1960

Hmm, a curious one this. Mariana is a housewife living in a nice house, but who isn’t altogether happy. It’s a hi-tech house, nicely kitted out, but her husband is a bit of a douchebag, patronising and close to being coercive (fairly normal for 1950s suburban America??). It turns out though that he has hidden some of the controls from the house from her, and when she finds them she starts on a journey that begins with her removing the pines which surround the house, which she really really dislikes (but which hubby loves). It turns out that the control panel offers other options, which she explores, with some of the earlier options disappearing, so in fact the pines cannot be replaced. And when hubby gets more than a little arsey with her, he gets turned off too. And there is a ‘doctor’ switch, which Mariana really doesn’t like. And we find out why when she finds herself back in a hospital psychiatric or therapeutic ward, and decided that a barren rocky landscape, sans pines, husband and house, is her preferred option. Leiber did write a lot of horror, and this seems more of a horror than an SF story. [22nd February 2025]

Roger Price. An Inquiry Concerning the Curvature of the Earth’s Surface and Divers Investigations of a Metaphysical Nature.
Originally

Lightweight page or two pondering on Flat Earthers. [22nd February 2025]

Carol Emshwiller. Day at the Beach.
Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1959

There are a lot of stories in these early SF anthologies which do show their age, and are very much of their period. This isn’t one of them. It’s one that stands the test of time, and could easily be a contemporary story. It’s a post-apocalyptic story about people struggling to survive in the new reality. There’s been a war (no details of who, why or when) and the couple in the story are living a bizarre pseudo-suburban life, with husband commuting, and the wife looking after their baby. But he is commuting to get feed (and fighting to keep it on the train journey home), and the neighbourhood has gone to hell, their hair has fallen out, and their three-year old is covered in hairy, almost simian, and is bitey and non-communicative (but they aren’t too sure if this is what children should be like). But they carry on, eating their oatmeal, and decide that a trip to the beach would be a good idea, as it could well be a Saturday. The trip starts off well, the beach is initially deserted, the boardwalk gone, but three guys approach them and things go downhill from there. It’s a disturbing story, and weren’t we so lucky that Emshwiller kept on writing standout stories for another sixty years? [22nd February 2025]

Randall Garret. Hot Argument.

A very short ditty. [22nd February 2025]

Darrel T. Langart. What the Left Hand Was Doing.
Originally in Astounding Science Fiction, February 1960.

Interesting to read now mostly for it’s take on a Cold War in which China has come to the table, rather than the russkies being the sole enemy. It starts intriguingly, with a top sekrit US agency that specialises in some form of psychokinesis, that is so secret that even the receptionist has no idea what really goes on there. It gets a bit creaky when we realise just what these psychic powers enable the protagonist to do : fall from the hold of an airplane and by convincing himself he hates the ground, I mean, really, really hates it, he can stop himself falling alls the way down to it, and he is able to float along quite nicely thank you very much. Then he is able to walk through Peiping, the Chinese capital so recently destroyed by an atomic explosion, passing himself off as an honorable Chinese elder. And he is furthermore able to get into the cell in which an American scientist is being held, and get them both out of there in a way which his captors will never figure out. I fear that having been preceded by an Emshwiller, and followed by a Ballard, isn’t going to do this story any favours either. [1st April 2025]

J.G. Ballard. The Sound Sweep.

Ballard’s ‘Primadonna’ in Merril’s take on the years best SF three years earlier, was a standout story, but this one disappoints. Whilst that story felt well ahead of it’s time, this one is just missing that little something and it feels more like a story from an earlier period. The setting is fairly standard, and whilst the idea of technology-led ultrasonic music changing the way we consume music, and sounding the knell for traditional performances and recordings, the drama around a fading prima donna just doesn’t grab. [2nd May 2025]

Will Worthington. Plenitude.
Originally in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November 1959.

Not a name that echoes down the SF Halls of Fame, and the same goes for the author’s real name. He published a few stories and then, that was it. It’s a story that quite a contemporary feel, and doesn’t really feel like a story from the 1950s – he even gets to use the word ‘orgasm’, which wasn’t a word you get to read much from that decade. It starts off with a hint that it’s a post-apocalyptic story, with the protagonist and his wife, and older child, working hard to eke out a subsistence living in the mountains. But rather than a major apocalypse, the family is part of a small percentage of the population who have chosen this way of life over living in a Perpetual Parmenidean Palace. If you’re a scholar of Greek philosophy this will tip you off as to what a Parmenidean life is. However, I’m not and so it came as a bit of a surprise to find out that the majority of people are living like seeds in clusters of grapes, wires and tubes leading into and out of their minds and their bodies (ewww) as they an entirely virtual life. Worthington has a way with words (not just the rude ones), which just occasionally tips over to being a little OTT. [4th May 2025]

Theodore Sturgeon. The Man Who Lost the Sea.
Originally in : the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1959

A clever story. A young boy, playing with his toy helicopter, finds an injured man, and as the narrative progresses we find out more and more about the boy, although nothing about the man, who passively listens to the chatter of the boy. And bit by bit we realise that that there is no boy, and it the man himself, recalling his childhood and his fascination with space, and love of the sea. And that the man has succeeded in reaching Mars, albeit having crawled from the wreckage of his spaceship and now counting down the time he has left. It’s dense at times, cleverly done.[5th May 2025]

Lawrence Block. Make a Prison.
Originally in : Science Fiction Stories, January 1959

Unfortunately for Block, coming after such a strong story does his short, slight piece no favours. Two Altheans ponder whether or not the prison they have created for the strange, violent creature that has killed members of their race, will keep him contained. The reader is tempted to think that the prisoner will be a human, but he’s not, and he does escape, on account of having wings, which his captors had clearly not seen or not been aware of their purpose, and which means he can simply fly away from his prison. [5th May 2025]

Mark Clifton. What Now, Little Man?
Originally in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1959

On the planet Libor the indigenous popular are quite human-like, in fact they are quite beautiful, and so the human settlers on the planet make a point of not mentioning this fact. Especially as they are a major source of food on the planet, and they are also used as beasts of burden. So far so good, as the story looks at the cost to the humans in settling across the universe (infertility) and the consequent impact on life on the planets we settle. The creatures on Libor are nicknamed ‘Goonies’, after the birds back on Earth who similarly made no attempt to flee from predators. That sets up an interesting background for a story, but it then streeeetches the point rather too far by telling us that the creatures are in fact trainable to become much more than beasts of burden, including speaking! but as they are not intelligent according to human tests of intelligence (the story addresses issues with this) the settlers quite happily continue to farm them for food. The setting feels just too much like early settlers in the US, and altogether it’s a rather creaky addressing of an issue that could have been done in a much more sophisticated manner. [13th May 2025]

Hilbert Schenk, Jr. Me.

A pome.

Conclusion

Merril provides a few pages at the end by way of a summary of the year, starting with her agreement with Kingsley Amis that there was a need for different term for the field than ‘science fiction’. (Both quite wrong on that one!)

There is a stone cold SF classic in the volume, and a couple of other good ‘uns, but overall, the volume doesn’t stand up too well to the test of time.