What If? Vol. 2

There's a whole subgenre of science fiction (SF) that consider `what if' scenarios in history, alternate histories such as if Hitler won World War II, etc, that has been very popular for at least the past 15 years and have around for much longer than that. The What If? in the title does NOT represent that. Instead it means what if some circumstances in real history were different, politics in SF etc, thus the stories enclosed could have won the Hugo award. There are seven stories, one published in each year from 1952 to 1958. The most interesting part of the collection is the introduction by Richard Lupoff that gives a brief history of science fiction from the first SF pulp magazine in 1923 (and some references earlier), to 1958. Since there's now so much that has been written in SF, growing up I was one of probably many other readers that tried to get a sense of earlier SF by looking up the Hugo and Nebula award winners and reading only those stories, which is still quite of wealth of material. That meant nothing was read that was written before the presentation of the first Hugo award for the year 1952. Quite a bit of very good SF was written before then. However, Lupoff considers only stories from the start of the award period for the Hugos. Within this he describes the state of SF as having started mainly as a pulp magazine genre and the ups and downs and the start and failure of multitudes of SF magazines on through to 1952. He also gives some background on the magazine Astounding Tales and particularly of its editor John Campbell. I have heard from other sources that Campbell was strict in his requirements (some more colorful language had been used), but that he required quality. Thus he was one facet, amongst other political factors, that influenced what got published where and thus indirectly what got awarded the Hugo. Thus Lupoff selects stories that may have won the Hugo if circumstances were somehow different. A breakdown on the stories are: * * Earned Glory * Richard A. Lupoff * in * * Firewater * William Tenn * na Astounding Feb '52 * * Four in One * Damon Knight * nv Galaxy Feb '53 * * The Golden Helix * Theodore Sturgeon * na Thrilling Wonder Stories Sum '54 * * One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts * Shirley Jackson * ss F & SF Jan '55 * * The Man Who Came Early * Poul Anderson * nv F & SF Jun '56 * * The Mile-Long Spaceship * Kate Wilhelm * ss Astounding Apr '57 * * Two Dooms * Cyril M. Kornbluth * na Venture Jul '58 Firewater has a visiting alien species that of all things mostly ignores the human race. There is a surrogate group that acts as a medium for any contact between the aliens and humans. Analogies are made between contact with these surrogates and firewater in the contact between early European settlers and American Indians. Four in One is a somewhat creepy science fiction tale by famed horror writer Damon Knight. It's somewhat of a cross between Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Hum