Andrea, whom I visit above his brother's Old Pier Bookshop, asked me what I thought was the best single work of sf that I knew of in any medium. He thought that I was finding it difficult to answer the question whereas I was pausing in order to formulate my answer. There are many good individual works like HG Wells'
The Time Machine and Poul Anderson's
Genesis but the work that I thought of was Anderson's
The Earth Book Of Stormgate. It might be argued that that is not a single work but a collection although it is bound together into a unity by the new introductions. Far from objecting to my choice, Andrea said that he would read it. Describing the
Earth Book involved describing its connection to five previous volumes and, to a lesser extent, to the subsequent Technic History volumes. But I have already summarized the
Earth Book and the Technic History far too often on this blog to need to do it again.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
You beat me to the objection I was going to make that, as excellent as THE EARTH BOOK is, it was a collection, not a single work! I hope Andrea enjoys it.
It's hard to satisfactorily answer the question of which of his stories and novels can be called the best of Anderson's works. Because I can think of too many candidates. Some have proposed BRAIN WAVE, but that's a very early work using related themes I believe Anderson developed better in a late novel like GENESIS. Others have suggested TAU ZERO, but its author himself would not agree--because of being dissatisfied with it; partly because of not having enough time to finish the story to his satisfaction.
THE EARTH BOOK OF STORMGATE belongs to Anderson's Technic History series. And he had a special fondness for Nicholas van Rijn, so perhaps THE MAN WHO COUNTS should be counted as among the best of Anderson's stories. He also liked Dominic Flandry, and a special favorite of mine, from the Flandry stories, is A CIRCUS OF HELLS.
This illustrates the difficulty I have in selecting a single work as the best of Anderson's stories. There are too many possibilities I could pick from his stories and novels. Perhaps I should settle for THE BROKEN SWORD, because of how its author liked it so much he thought it worth revising, to become the second edition pub. in 1971. Both versions, from 1954 and 1971, should be read.
Wells is best known for THE TIME MACHINE, Heinlein for A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, Walter Miller for A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ, Frank Herbert for DUNE, Clarke for 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, Bradbury for FAHRENHEIT 451, etc. But Anderson wrote too many similarly excellent stories for a SINGLE one of them to jump out as the BEST of them all.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment