- Hardcover: 560 pages
- Publisher: Tor Books; 1 edition (Feb 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0765305364
- ISBN-13: 978-0765305367
- Product Dimensions: 22.3 x 16.6 x 4.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,240,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No Better Way to Start,
By rtmp (Liverpool England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time Chosen by the Members of the Science Fiction Writers of: 1 (Ay Adult - Silverberg) (Hardcover)
When I was in my early teens, I read 2 books that influenced my reading ever since. I had only ever seen science fiction on television or at the movies. I never thought it would be good to read until I got this book from my local library. With hindsight, most of the stories in this book have been published in so many other anrthologies that any avid sci fi collector will probably have them all already but as an introduction to the genre, you could not buy a better book. The stories are fantastic. The worlds in them are amazing. I love this book and am ever grateful for the way it shaped my reading choices ever since.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.8 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews) 18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The single must-have science fiction anthology.,
By T. Simons - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time Chosen by the Members of the Science Fiction Writers of: 1 (Ay Adult - Silverberg) (Hardcover)
I first picked up the original printing of this anthology when I was a small child, around ten years old, and the first story in it ("A Martian Oddyssey") was so good that I put the book back down and didn't read the rest of it for another year because I was afraid none of the other stories in there could possibly be as good.
Almost all of them were. That's not the only reason you should read this collection, though. Beyond the stunning quality of the stories in this collection, many of these stories have, by now, what amounts to historical importance within the sci-fi field; these are the best of the best first stories, the bones that the modern great SF writers gnawed on in their childhoods, the building-block stories of the genre. You really haven't read science fiction if you haven't read Asimov's "Nightfall," if you haven't read "The Cold Equations" or "Arena" or "Twilight" or "Flowers for Algernon." Understanding modern sci-fi without a knowledge of these stories would be like trying to understand modern fantasy without having read Tolkien. I am unaware of a better or even a comparable science fiction anthology (apart, perhaps, from the subsequent volumes in this same series). There couldn't be. These are the stories that built the genre. Any collection that was comparable would have to collect all the same tales. Edit: I figured it would be good to add a list of all the stories in this anthology. Stanley G. Weinbaum "A Martian Odyssey" 1934 John W. Campbell "Twilight" 1934 Lester del Rey "Helen O'Loy" 1938 Robert A. Heinlein "The Roads Must Roll" 1940 Theodore Sturgeon "Microcosmic God" 1941 Isaac Asimov "Nightfall" 1941 A. E. van Vogt "The Weapon Shop" 1942 Lewis Padgett "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" 1943 Clifford D. Simak "Huddling Place" 1944 Fredric Brown "Arena" 1944 Murray Leinster "First Contact" 1945 Judith Merril "That Only a Mother" 1948 Cordwainer Smith "Scanners Live in Vain" 1948 Ray Bradbury "Mars is Heaven!" 1948 Cyril M. Kornbluth "The Little Black Bag" 1950 Richard Matheson "Born of Man and Woman" 1950 Fritz Leiber "Coming Attraction" 1950 Anthony Boucher "The Quest for Saint Aquin" 1951 James Blish "Surface Tension" 1952 Arthur C. Clarke "The Nine Billion Names of God" 1953 Jerome Bixby "It's a Good Life" 1953 Tom Godwin "The Cold Equations" 1954 Alfred Bester "Fondly Fahrenheit" 1954 Damon Knight "The Country of the Kind" 1955 Daniel Keyes "Flowers for Algernon" 1959 Roger Zelazny "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" 1963 12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Ultimate Introduction to Science Fiction,
By Dave Deubler - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time Chosen by the Members of the Science Fiction Writers of: 1 (Ay Adult - Silverberg) (Hardcover)
This book collects short story masterpieces from the genre's first four decades. All of the major sci-fi writers are represented, and quite of few of the stories are simply unforgetable. Never has one volume collected more thoughtful meditations on humanity's relationship to technology. Devotees of more modern science fiction (i.e., cyberpunk, etc...) may not be impressed, but for fans of Old School sci-fi, it doesn't get any better than this.
Of course many devoted fans will already have many of these stories in their collections - how could it be otherwise? The cream always rises to the top. So some might wish to forgo purchasing this volume, and use the table of contents as a reading list instead. As is typical of the genre during this period, there's little here that will shock the youngsters, and the reading is pretty easy overall. So this is an excellent book for those just discovering the genre, or trying to understand what all the excitement is about. Be forewarned, however, that the volume begins with some of the older and consequently weaker entries, so those for whom this book represents an exploration into unknown territory might be better served by skipping the first 3 to 5 stories and starting with either Heinlein's exciting "The Roads Must Roll" which features next week's travel technology, or Theodore Sturgeon's amazing "Microcosmic God" which looks at creating life, or if you're very picky about what you read, going straight for Isaac Asimov's famed "Nightfall". Another alternative is to start at the back and read forward. There are some very powerful pieces loaded into the back end, including a couple of tear-jerkers, Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" and Daniel Knight's "Flowers for Algernon". Regardless of how you read it, these stories, more than any other work, represent what science fiction is really about: the human condition remains the same, even as the world around us changes. Watch and learn. And enjoy! 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A return of a classic,
By Andrew - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time Chosen by the Members of the Science Fiction Writers of: 1 (Ay Adult - Silverberg) (Hardcover)
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame is an essential for any science fiction fan. Each of the twenty-six stories in it are all consitered classics in the field, by classic authors such as Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and many more. Some of the stories stand out more than the rest. Nightfall, Surface Tension, Microcosmic God, The Nine Billion Names of God, Flowers for Algernon, and The Roads must roll are just a few of these. The period that the stories cover is consitered the Golden Age of Science Fiction, when the field was the most popular. These stories are the best that there are in the field. It is like having a small library on your book shelf. |
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