Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Great Novellas (Science Fiction Hall of Fame #2B) ★★★★☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Great Novellas
Series: Science Fiction Hall of Fame #2B
Editor: Ben Bova
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 743
Words: 202K

Synopsis:

Book includes:

The Martian Way - Isaac Asimov
Earthman, Come Home - James Blish
Rogue Moon - Algis Budrys
The Specter General - Theodore R. Cogswell
The Machine Stops - E. M. Forster
The Midas Plague - Frederik Pohl
The Witches of Karres - James H. Schmitz
E for Effort - T. L. Sherred
In Hiding - Wilmar H. Shiras
The Big Front Yard - Clifford D. Simak
The Moon Moth - Jack Vance

My Thoughts:

After the complete stinker that was the set of Novellas (Vol. 2A), I went into this read very trepidatiously. Thankfully, the first novella by Asimov set me at my ease, as I'd read the short story it was based on in one of his collections. Familiarity not only can breed contempt but it can also breed contentedness. I'd also read the full novel of Budry's Rogue Moon and Pohl's The Midas Plague.

With that, I experienced none of the “can we get this over this, please?!?!?” that I experienced in the previous volume. These novellas I found interesting and engaging and I kept on wanting to read them. I don't know why I enjoyed ALL of the novellas in this volume and none of the ones in 2A. Honestly, it baffles me.

If you want to experience SF in all its glory and all its stigma, read this series. The first volume of short stories is just sublime, Vol 2A is shamefully boring and this 2B volume brings things back to a more balanced view. I believe there are two more volumes (Volumes 3 and 4) but I think I'm going to pass since I doubt they're all on the level of Vol 1.

★★★★☆

• SF Hall of Fame Vol. 1
• SF Hall of Fame #2A

Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Great Novellas (Science Fiction Hall of Fame #2A) ★★☆☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Great Novellas
Series: Science Fiction Hall of Fame #2A
Editor : Ben Bova
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 790
Words: 216K

Synopsis:

Consists of the following novellas by these authors:

• Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson
• Who Goes There? By John Campbell Jr
• Nerves by Lester Del Rey
• Universe by Robert Heinlein
• The Marching Morons by C.M Kornbluth
• Vintage Season by Kuttner and Moore
• ...And Then There Were None by Eric Russell
• The Ballad of Lost C'Mell by Cordwainer Smith
• Baby is Three by Theodore Sturgeon
• The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
• With Folded Hands by Jack Williamson

My Thoughts:

The only reason this volume is getting 2stars instead of 1 is because of the story “Who Goes There?”, which has been turned into the various movies “The Thing” and is the basis for one of the X-Files episodes in Season One.

Part of my disappointment with this book was just how good Volume 1 was, which I read back in '18. That collection of short stories was everything I expected from the Golden Age of SF. These novellas on the other hand are boring, plain and simple.

Take “Nerves” for instance. It is about a Doctor working at an Atomic Plant because he used to be a brain surgeon but an operation went wrong years ago. It wasn't his fault and there was nothing he could do about it, but he couldn't face the fact that he wasn't perfect, so he ran away from his profession to become a “simple” general practitioner. Only something goes terribly wrong at the Plant and the only way to save the whole world is for him to do brain surgery on a wounded engineer. The lead up was too long and the tension just wasn't there. Most of these stories I simply found too long. I kept asking myself “when will this story be over already?!?”

On the other hand, you had some horrific ideas. “The Marching Morons” was about a salesman revived hundreds of years later. The world has become populated by morons because all the smart people stopped having kids a long time ago and the remaining thousand or so people with IQ's above X all live in the North Pole at a secret base. They secretly run the world but are tired of it, as the morons keep on multiplying and nothing the Clever People can do stops them. The Clever People tried to take a hands off approach but the war started by the Morons was too much for them to accept and so they stepped back in and began directing things again. The Salesman tells the Clever People to start a rumor of colonies on Mars or Venus or wherever and to hold a lottery for an entire city to go on rocket ships to this new colony. Then another city would be picked, etc, etc. The salesman puts together the ads and campaign and has the Morons clamoring to go to Venus. Of course, the rockets just go into the Sun and kill all the morons. The Salesman became Dictator of the World (that was what he wanted to give the Clever People his help) and the story ends with all the Morons gone and the Clever People throwing the Salesman into the last rocketship and sending it off. Now, whatever the author was trying to say went over my head, because this was just horrible. The Salesman was horrible, the Morons were horrible and the Clever People were horrible.

There is one more volume, Volume 2B (why they simply didn't call them Vol. 1, 2 and 3 is beyond me) and I'm going to read it. I am desperately hoping it is better than this. It is another collection of novellas though, so I am keeping my DNF gun handy and my finger on the trigger. I won't wade through another crapfest like this.

★★☆☆☆

• Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1