Applewhite Minyard (Ed.): Decades of Science Fiction

This book is the chief reason that my Books To Date tally has become a bit meaningless. I started off by posting a bit on each short story in the book, but that shortly proved ridiculous. So I stopped somewhere in the Twenties, and here's the boiled version of the rest of it.

The Sixties, interestingly, were the richest decade in the book. Of course Philip K. Dick is always visionary, but the selection in the book was pretty accessible for him. the other two stories, by second-tier visionaries Anne McCaffrey and Harlan Ellison, were also delightful. A pity that it was so impossible to teach all three.

I did manage to teach all three stories in the Forties section. The themes of the three tied together nicely with each other, and all were well written.

In the truly terrible section, I have filed "The Exiles" by Ray Bradbury. Odd, since the other two Bradbury stories I have taught were pretty good.

And the Miss Congeniality prize goes to "At the Rialto" by Connie Willis. those students that understood it loved it. Both of them. It's not science fiction at all; it's more like meta-science? Quite clever, but subtly.