Cover by Chris Foss ( )

This second of three books detailing Asimov's early short stories. The majority of stories in this instalment come from the early 1940's, and unlike volume one, the quality of the stories aren't too bad on the whole. This is demonstrates well how he was improving as a writer.

Again Asimov provides his own commentary on how each story came about and where it was published, which will be of interest to his fans and students of sci-fi literary history. A couple of the works aren't really sci-fi (more fantasy/ghost stories) but the quality makes up for that.

Far better than volume 1 for normal SF readers though... makes volume 3 more of something to look forward to reading rather than dreading.

Los once relatos que forman este volumen (el segundo de los tres que constituyen la presente antología «La edad de oro») datan de los años 40 y representan, además de una lectura del mayor interés narrativo y de especulación científica, una excelente muestra del proceso seguido por este género literario tan apreciado por todos los públicos. Isaac Asimov siempre ha unido a sus vastos conocimientos una amplia capacidad imaginativa, lo cual puede comprobarse en este libro. Estos relatos se publicaron originalmente en castellano con el título Selección II.

A bit better than the first volume; if nothing else, Asimov had matured slightly as a writer and as a person. The stories here are still mostly forgettable with an occasional shower of awful, but "Christmas on Ganymede" is partly funny, "The Little Man on the Subway" is OK, and "Legal Rites" is actually quite good.

Still, much of this collection is pulpy rubbish; Isaac himself admitted as much. ( )