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Man, do I love this book. A great collection that totally re-energized my sci-fi interests the first time I read it (ca. 2002).
4.25/5 (collated rating: Very Good)The 1977 Annual World’s Best SF, ed. Donald A. Wolheim and Arthur S. Saha (1977) is a glorious anthology of SF published from the year before containing rousing works by the established masters (Isaac Asimov and Brian W. Aldiss), philosophical gems from New Wave icons (Barrington J. Bayley), and gritty and disturbing commentaries on masculinity by the newer voices (James Tiptree, Jr.). While Richard Cowper and Lester del Rey misfire, the overall quality is high...
Highlights for me: "The Bicentennial Man" by Isaac Asimov and "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" by James Tiptree, Jr.
A great collection. Judging by the very high quality of most stories in this book, I'd say science fiction was in top form in 1977 (or 1976, as each volume in this series aimed to give us the best from the previous year). Appearance of Life (Brian W. Aldiss) - An anticipation of modern day gadgets and a love triangle stretched out in time. A beautiful introduction to the book and, for me, to Aldiss. Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (John Varley) - An early cyberpunk story, before the term exi...
5 stars just for the brilliant "My Boat" by Joanna Russ.The Asimov and the Tiptree stories are both masterpieces as well.Overdrawn at the Memory Bank by John Varley is also very good.'76 was a great year for scifi.
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank is my favorite story in this book.
I always enjoy these "little slice of history" anthologies... this one, while not dramatically outstanding for me, was good as always, as most of this series is...I'd read the Cowper, Del Rey and Tiptree stories before, but long enough ago that I read them over...Appearance of Life - Brian AldissHolographic recordings of a long-dead couple lead to an insight(?) about the nature of our universe.Overdrawn at the Memory Bank - John VarleyA futuristic 'vacation' technique involving transfer of consc...
I picked this up at a library book sale a year or so ago, and promptly forgot all about it. If I had read the table of contents, I would have sat down and read the book immediately. Joanna Russ! Asimov's "Bicentennial Man"! Tiptree! It wasn't until I bought new bookshelves and rearranged my collection that I realized what my spare dollar had gotten me. Introduction (Donald A. Wollheim) - Is pretentious too strong a word to use for this guy? From his intro to the blurbs he puts at the beginning...
I really liked the James Tiptree Jr. story (Houston, Houston Do you Read?) and "Appearance of Life" by Brian Aldiss. Alas, I don't remember the rest very well.
This is my favorite year of Wollheim's annual "World's Best..." anthologies. Among a few other stories, there are..."Appearance of Life" by Brian W. Aldiss - I'm not usually really fond of Aldiss stories but this short one is just great and will surprise you (at least if you've read as much science fiction as I have)."Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" (John Varley) - I wish I could read this again for the first time. I've read it many times, but that first time just amazed me because of how it twist...
Some real gems in this book.
I don't really know how to review anthologies objectively. In *my* opinion these were mostly mediocre, ho-hum stories; I even skipped a couple after reading the first couple of pages. I'm just not fond of SF from the 70s anyway. I will say that I was very impressed with "Those Good Old Days of Liquid Fuel" by Michael G. Coney, though, and will look for more by the author (of whom I've never heard of before...).
Donald Wollheim edited a series of books on the year's best science fiction works. This volume focuses on 1977. My favorite story is Isaac Asimov's "The Bicentennial Man." Other of my favorite authors in this work: Brian Aldiss, Lester Del Rey, Joanna Russ, James Tiptree, Jr., and Damon Knight.I really enjoyed this series back in the day!!
Another excellent collection. The last two stories, by Tiptree and Knight, were especially terrifying, and "The Bicentennial Man" was really great too.
Rather intermittently I’ve written about sci-fi and I find that if I don’t take the time to slow down and write something out then I promptly forget whatever it is that I just read. This post is not only an attempt to share but also one of self-preservation for my own recollection.Appearance of Life – Brian W. AldissThe introductory paragraph for this story says, and I quote, that Brian has been writing stories that “baffle the comprehension.” I don’t find personally that this story is completel...
Best passage in the whole collection, from Those Good Old Days of Liquid Fuel by Michael G. Coney:"I was scanning my Newspocket to pass away the time, when my interest was suddenly caught by a news item."It's always fun to run across a SF reference that pans out, this time 30 years in advance. I was there in 1977, excited about the Commodore 64 and the Tandy computers, thinking that someday I might really have a computer at my house! I had no thought that I'd have a computer in my pocket, but he...
