George W. Proctor (1946–2008)

I enjoyed volumes one and two B of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and found volume two A lacking. In the stronger volumes, it felt like every story was a great, just one after another after another. Which, one supposes, is what you want out of a series called "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame." Volume three is somewhere in the middle; while I remember mostly bouncing off volume two A, volume three contains some great work, some important work I'm glad to have read, and some stuff that while not terrible, did little for me.

Highlights included the two stories by Harlan Ellison: "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" and "A Boy and His Dog." The latter, about a boy and his telepathic dog in a postapocalyptic wasteland, is kind of a predictable Twilight Zoneesque affair, but with more sex and violence, elevated by a strong sense of voice. The former was excellent sf-as-satire, and feels even more pressing in the 2010s than it did in the 1960s, I suspect. After reading Ellison's biography last year, I realized I'd read little of the man's actual work, so it was nice to have some fall into my lap.

There are a couple Roger Zelazny stories as well; while I found "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth" kind of meh, I really enjoyed "He Who Shapes." More intelligent dogs, this time used to aid blind people. Interestingly, Zelazny can imagine self-driving cars... but not text-to-speech or speech-to-text technology! But it's a cool concept, well-executed, and the self-driving cars are kind of an incidental detail of the story, but one whose implications he pursues in interesting ways nonetheless.

Of course I was fond of Brian Aldiss's H. G. Wells pastiche, "The Saliva Tree," which does a good job of doing the Wellsian thing of reimagining humanity's place in the universe through biological analogy. The bit where he stuffs in all the story titles was a bit much, but overall this gets both the flavor and the mission of the early scientific romances.

Samuel Delany is someone else I'm always meaning to read more of. "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" was strong on atmosphere, but a little impenetrable; however, I was very impressed by "Aye, and Gomorrah . . .", which imagines not only a group of sexless spacers (the radiation of space damages the sexual organs), but a group of people who would be attracted to them.

I was also pleased to read some more of Robert Silverberg's short sf, another person I feel like I haven't read enough of; "Passengers" is grim and well put together. And I've read Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonrider" before (it's a novella that became the middle third of her novel Dragonflight, which I read as part of The Dragonriders of Pern omnibus), but it mostly works on its own, too, and I enjoyed it all over again; it reminded me that I have a few more Pern novels I have never read.

Other good stories, though not as strong as the above, included Michael Moorcock's "Behold the Man" and Richard Wilson's "Mother to the World." And then there are several more besides. It's a big book, with sixteen stories ranging from about ten pages to ninety. There were only two stories I bounced off completely: Richard McKenna's "The Secret Place" and Kate Willhelm's "The Planners." I don't think either was bad; they just never grabbed me. It's a good hit rate for an anthology.

Unlike volumes ones and two, volume three of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame is no longer in print, but if you come across it in a used bookstore (as I did), it's worth your time and money. I look forward to reading volume four and beyond in time.… (mehr)

What ESPers were transferred? So you spend 99% of the book following Greybar and his chase for Kraal, only to have a deux ex machina ending making the whole thing pretty much pointless.This story is basically a white savior story, however it wasn't Greybar, but someone from a long time ago. So, basically the Talirians are pretty much now under the rule of the empire thanks to Past White Dude, and it's just better to go along with the Empire than to try and push back. Basically telling colonized people to just join with their colonizers and then work from within, DESPITE this book basically showing the reason WHY THAT DOESN'T WORK. Its the reason Kraal is on the run in the first place.Lest to say women in this book are only described sexually, and Mary with male baby are only there as a plot device to show that Kraal isn't a terrible horrible murderer, so Greybar can choose to not shoot him. Mind you the baby is male, for no other reason than sexism, because I guess a daughter wouldn't do. Also Mary is described a frail and delicate (barf).Lest to say the ending is a super huge info dump of stuff that is barely hinted at and doesn't really resolve the conflict between Greybar and Kraal at all other than to say "Oh ho ho, don't worry about all that stuff. Thus rendering the whole book pointless in the first place.So about the espers? Yeah that's not really explored much at all other than, "yes dulire are espers." and thy have a oneness and stuff. Not the stuff I was looking for. I have no idea what the title means really. Espers transferred where? If you are wondering about the cover art, it's Kraal on a thacatti, who he's fighting, I have no idea as that never happens in the book. The dulire don't have wings and no one is ever mentioned at having wings.… (mehr)