“A Traveler’s Tale” by Lucius Shepard ( Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, July 1984) - Locus and Nebula nominee “Souls” by Joanna Russ ( The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 1982) - Nebula nominee, Locus Award winner, Hugo Award winner “Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang” by Kate Wilhelm ( Orbit 15, 1974) 1973) - Hugo nominee, Locus Award winner, Nebula Award winner “The Death of Doctor Island” by Gene Wolfe ( Universe 3. “The Merchants of Venus” by Frederik Pohl ( Worlds of If, July-August 1972) Aldiss ( Galaxy Magazine, February 1968) - Hugo and Nebula nominee Delany ( Worlds of Tomorrow, February 1967) - Hugo nominee “On the Storm Planet” by Cordwainer Smith ( Galaxy Magazine, February 1965) - Nebula nominee “The Longest Voyage” by Poul Anderson ( Analog Science Fact & Fiction, December 1960) - Hugo winner “The Miracle Workers” by Jack Vance ( Astounding Science Fiction, July 1958) - Hugo nominee Virtually every story within was in the running for at least one major award by the SF community I’ve noted the most significant wins and nominations. Martin’s hardcover edition of Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction has held up at least as well as Gardner hoped, and remains a wonderful introduction to SF novellas even for todays’ readers.
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Twenty-seven years after the book was published - and a mere three years after Gardner’s untimely death, at the age of 70 - I think time has shown that his taste served him very well indeed. I like to think that thirty-six years from now, long after I’m dead, these stories will prove to be still as timeless as they are today, and it is my fond hope that this book will continue to provide enjoyment for generations of reader yet to come, far into the unknown and unknowable future. I also hope that, at the very least, this book serves to demonstrate some of the amazing range, diversity, and vitality of modern science fiction, as well as the durability of the best of its stories - the oldest story here will be thirty-six years old by the time you read these words, and it is still as fresh and vivid as it was on the day it was written. These are the novellas that I liked best… although that doesn’t look as good on the cover as the firmly authoritative Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction… So, as I warned you, it all comes down to one person’s taste, my own. Stories that I enjoyed - uncritically, instinctively - as a reader. These are the stories that spoke to me, as a reader, that touched me, that moved me, on a purely instinctive and emotional level - they are the stories that, when I read them again, sometimes after a lapse of many years, could still make me say “Wow!,” could make my pulse race faster, or the sweat start on my forehead, or totally absorb me, or scare me, or touch my heart. Gardner explains his selection process in his Preface. Aldiss, Frederik Pohl, Gene Wolfe, Joanna Russ, Lucius Shepard, Nancy Kress, and others. Instead Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction contains a more eclectic and personal selection of long-form SF by Jack Vance, Poul Anderson, Samuel R. In fact, there’s not a single story overlap between this book and The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume II, which for many of us old timers is the gold standard of classic SF novella anthologies.Īvon paperback editions of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volumes I, IIA and IIB.Įdited by Robert Silverberg and Ben Bova (19) Schmitz, or “The Big Front Yard” by Clifford D. No “Rogue Moon” by Algis Budrys, or “The Witches of Karres” by James H. Campbell, Jr., nor Kornbluth’s “The Marching Morons,” or Kuttner and Moore’s “Vintage Season,” or Theodore Sturgeon’s “Baby Is Three” for that matter. I say surprising because the first time I opened it, I was a bit taken aback at Dozois’ selections. There’s no sign of Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, or any of the usual suspects you might expect - no “Who Goes There?” by John W. It’s packed with a surprising assortment of 13 novellas from some of the greatest SF writers of the 20th Century.
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When I talked about Gardner Dozois’ 1997 anthology Modern Classics of Fantasy a few years ago, I called it “a book that makes you yearn to be stranded on a desert island” (or anywhere you could read interrupted for a few days, really.) That description applies equally well to his 1994 volume Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction, a book that over the last few decades has become one of my favorite fall reads. Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction (St.