When you read an anthology you take your chances. Some of the stories are always a pleasure to read, whereas others are just okay. But, if you've picked the wrong anthology, some are really bad. My opinion of this anthology is that it has all three types of stories. When I was much younger, if I read for pleasure, I thrived on science fiction. Somewhere in the decades since then, I lost my taste for most sci-fi, but still enjoy good military space opera. Jack Campbell's "Lost Fleet" series is a good example.
This collection has two stories I read in my teens and still often thought about over the decades, they were that good. The first is "Rescue Party" by Arthur C. Clarke, the first story here; and the other is "A Pail of Air" by Fritz Leiber. I also remembered reading "Omnilingual" by H. Beam Piper, one of my favorite sci-fi authors, and some others which I enjoyed.
However, most of the stories in this anthology I don't remember ever reading, and some I wish I hadn't read now. I think the worst presented here is "Black Destroyer." I read the first few pages and then scanned the rest of the story simply to get the point of the story. Actually, I ended up scanning several of the stories and some of them seemed to have no point to them at all.
The editors mention in the preface that some authors' estates refused permission for the editors to include stories by those authors. So I guess the editors had to use stories other copyright holders were happy to give as the stories were so bad they weren't being published anymore. Maybe that's not the case, but that's my opinion.
This collection has two stories I read in my teens and still often thought about over the decades, they were that good. The first is "Rescue Party" by Arthur C. Clarke, the first story here; and the other is "A Pail of Air" by Fritz Leiber. I also remembered reading "Omnilingual" by H. Beam Piper, one of my favorite sci-fi authors, and some others which I enjoyed.
However, most of the stories in this anthology I don't remember ever reading, and some I wish I hadn't read now. I think the worst presented here is "Black Destroyer." I read the first few pages and then scanned the rest of the story simply to get the point of the story. Actually, I ended up scanning several of the stories and some of them seemed to have no point to them at all.
The editors mention in the preface that some authors' estates refused permission for the editors to include stories by those authors. So I guess the editors had to use stories other copyright holders were happy to give as the stories were so bad they weren't being published anymore. Maybe that's not the case, but that's my opinion.
