The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Anthology

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book through the kind offices of the Publicist of the publisher, Tachyon Publications. The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Gordon Van Gelder, is an anthology of stories across the eponymous magazine's 60 year history. Although I am not a heavy reader of SF magazines (when I read SF stories, its usually in anthologies or collections), it is clear to me, immediately, that F & SF has had a wonderful history of publishing some of the best stories in SF history. And a swath of those stories are ably collected by Mr. Van Gelder in this collection. The stories range in publication date from 1951 (Alfred Bester's Time and Third Avenue) to 2007 (Ted Chiang's story The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate). Arranged in chronological order, the stories show the changes and evolution of the SF story with a high quality of selected stories throughout. Its not just a "most famous" story group either. While there are genre-famous stories like Flowers for Algernon, the Deathbird, and Harrison Bergeron, there are stories that are in that class, but much well less known. (Zelazny's This Moment of the Storm, for instance, or Peter Beagle's story sequel to the Last Unicorn, Two Hearts come to mind) With that in mind, I devoured this book quickly and gleefully. I enjoyed the touchstones to the classics and old favorites, and discovering new (to me) stories as well. Gelder has done an top notch job. Genres that forget their history are condemned to fail by that forgetting. Collections like this help the genre of SF keep in mind its roots and history. Any serious fan of science fiction would do well to dip their oars into this volume. The lineup: Of Time and Third Avenue, Alfred Bester All Summer in a Day, Ray Bradbury One Ordinary Day with Peanuts, Shirley Jackson A touch of Strange, Theodore Sturgeon Eastward, Ho!, William Tenn Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes Harrison Bergeron, Kurt Vonnegut This Moment of the Storm, Roger Zelazny The Electric Ant, Philip K Dick The Deathbird, Harlan Ellison The Women Men Don't See, James Tiptree Jr (Alice Sheldon) I see You, Damon Knight The Gunslinger, Stephen King The Dark, Karen Joy Fowler Buffalo, John Kessel Solitude, Ursula K Le Guin Mother Grasshopper, Michael Swanwick macs, Terry Bisson Creation, Jeffrey Ford Other People, Neil Gaiman Two Hearts, Peter S Beagle Journey into the Kingdom, M Rickert The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate, Ted Chiang