The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990

This anthology is a great collection of short stories from some of the greatest Science Fiction writers of from 1960-1990. This collection was gathered by one of the premier Science Fiction writers of our lifetime, Ursula K. Le Guin. Each story takes you places you have never dreamed of, and truly makes you think about the world around you.

In this anthology, the wide-ranging editors dared to choose the stories they personally thought were important, rather than accepting consensus reality of everyone else's favorites. I like what they chose. Every story is worth reading.

This is a fine and thoughtful anthology of serious science fiction, compiled mainly by Ursula Le Guin, one of science fiction's finest and most thoughtful voices. As a Brit, I was slightly disappointed by the North American bias -- but the canvas of science fiction is vast, and there must be limitations. That having been said, the book contains more than sixty cracking stories -- and the bulk of science fiction, good and bad, comes from the United States anyway. However, the anthology is flawed by a hang-up about political correctness, which leads to a certain lack of humor. To be sure, it's nice to see a good representation of female authors here, but the emphasis should be on good SF, irrespective of the gender of the author. Happily, the anthology remains just this side of feminist hectoring: after all, I suspect that the publishers would not want to alienate what is probably an overwhelmingly male readership.