Literature / Isaac Asimov Presents: The Great Science Fiction Stories, Volume 10 (1948)

First published in 1983, by editors Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. This Genre Anthology contains sixteen Science Fiction stories that were first published in 1948, ranging in length from Short Story to Novelette. The introduction describes "the world outside reality" first, marking significant historical events, sports trivia, and literary publications. The "real world" is the science fiction and fantasy pop culture; the Diamond Age of Science Fiction.

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Works in this anthology:

• "Dont Look Now", by Henry Kuttner
• "He Walked Around the Horses", by H. Beam Piper
• "The Strange Case Of John Kingman", by Murray Leinster
• "That Only A Mother", by Judith Merril
• "The Monster", by A.E. van Vogt
• "Dreams Are Sacred", by Peter Phillips
• "Mars Is Heaven", by Ray Bradbury
• "Thang", by Martin Gardner
• "Brooklyn Project", by William Tenn
• "Ring Around The Redhead", by John D Mac Donald
• "Period Piece", by JJ Coupling
• "Dormant", by A.E. van Vogt
• "In Hiding", by Wilmar H Shiras
• "Knock", by Fredric Brown
• "A Child Is Crying", by John D Mac Donald
• "Late Night Final", by Eric Frank Russell

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Isaac Asimov Presents: The Great Science Fiction Stories, Volume 10 (1948) provides examples of:

• Biography: Each story is prefaced by a short description of why this story (from this author) was chosen to represent one of the sixteen best stories of the year along with a paragraph from Isaac Asimov's perspective.
• Butterfly of Doom: Hilariously lampshaded/satirized in "Brooklyn Project", which opens with the acting secretary to the executive assistant on press relations explaining to a group of journalists that the project to send a probe four billion years into Earth's past — and then two billion, and then one billion and so forth — is perfectly safe, that nothing that happens in the past can change the present. In brief vignettes we see the probe condensing moisture on its outer surface, the probe destroying microorganisms with its weight, the probe crushing tiny trilobites... and the story ends with "the thing that had been the acting secretary to the executive assistant on press relations" spreading his tentacles and explaining that as they can all see, nothing has changed.
• Caught in the Ripple: "Brooklyn Project" ends with an official demonstrating that the experiment had changed absolutely nothing... except that the reader is fairly certain that neither him not the audience were Blob Monsters when the demonstration started.
• Child Prodigy: The main characters of both "In Hiding" and "A Child Is Crying" are these, belonging to the "Mutant with Super-Intelligence" kind.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Satirized in "Dont Look Now".
• For Want Of A Nail: In "Brooklyn Project", the "acting secretary to the executive assistant on public relations" describes a government Time Travel experiment to a group of journalists, explaining that some scientists were foolishly concerned that a probe sent into the past might by its very presence inadvertently change the present. But this is a ridiculous notion, of course: the story ends with the journalists dissolving themselves into liquid and flowing up to examine the time travel apparatus, while the acting secretary extends his fifteen purple blobs and exclaims, "Nothing has changed!"
• The Last Man Heard a Knock...: Fredric Brown's "Knock": The story begins by quoting a Flash Fiction often known as the world's shortest horror story; "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door." It continues by subverting the horror, making the knock a hopeful sign: it's the return of the last woman on Earth.
• A Nuclear Error: A.E. van Vogt's "Dormant": A scary, scary SF Short Story, describing a robotic nuclear weapon that landed on Earth from a long-ago war. The robot is activated by fallout from nuclear bomb tests. On detonation, it almost thrusts the Earth into the Sun, because it doesn't know it's not the same war and would have had no choice even if it had.
• One-Word Title:
  • "Dormant", by A.E. van Vogt
  • "Knock", by Fredric Brown
  • "Thang", by Martin Gardner
• Pen Name:
  • "Dont Look Now" is credited to Henry Kuttner, however in his introduction to My Best Science Fiction Story, he claims that it was the work of his wife, C. L. Moore. The editors of The Great SF Stories admit that the husband-and-wife team wrote under each other's name and shared pseudonyms often enough that it is difficult to determine how much each contributed to any given story.
  • "Period Piece" is credited to JJ Coupling, an alias occasionally used by John R Pierce.
• Planet Eater: Martin Gardner's "Thang": The titular creature is large enough to grasp Earth between two fingers. It clears off all water and ice before chewing the planet, core and all. It, in turn, is also eaten by a planet-eater eater.
• Shout-Out: In the introduction, several important political developments are described, and multiple works are mentioned as being first published or becoming hits in 1948:
  • Anne Of A Thousand Days
  • "Baby Its Cold Outside"
  • The Black Flame, by Stanley G. Weinbaum
  • Mel Brooks is singled out as (probably) still using the name Melvin Kaminsky.
  • The Carnelian Cube, by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt
  • The City And The Pillar, by Gore Vidal
  • The term Cold War is coined by Bernard Baruch to describe the growing U.S.-Soviet tensions.
  • Cybernetics, by Norbert Wiener
  • Darker Than You Think, by Jack Williamson
  • L. Sprague de Camp's novels:
    • Divide And Rule
    • The Wheels Of If
  • The Ed Sullivan Show
  • The Heart Of The Matter, by Graham Greene
  • The introduction mentions the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30th.
  • Charles L Harness published his first story, "Time Tomb" in August.
  • Robert A. Heinlein
    • Space Cadet
    • Beyond This Horizon
  • Hopalong Cassidy
  • "Ill Be Home For Christmas"
  • Intruder in the Dust, by William Faulkner
  • The introduction mentions Israel's War of Independence which began this year and ended next year.
  • Key Largo, starring Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart
  • Kiss Me, Kate
  • The Lady from Shanghai, starring Rita Hayworth
  • Judith Merril published her first story, "That Only A Mother" in June.
  • Mr Roberts
  • The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
  • The Olympic Games were held for the first time since World War II began.
  • "Once In Love With Amy"
  • The Original Amatuer Hour, hosted by Ted Mack
  • Peter Phillips published his first story, "Dreams Are Sacred" in September.
  • Pogo
  • Portrait of Jennie
  • The Radio Man, by Ralph Milne Farley
  • Red River, starring John Wayne
  • "Red Roses For A Blue Lady"
  • E. E. "Doc" Smith published two novels:
    • Skylark Three
    • Triplanetary
  • And Some Were Human, by Lester del Rey
  • Summer And Smoke
  • The Sunken World, by Stanton Coblentz
  • "Tennessee Waltz"
  • The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, starring Humphrey Bogart
  • The Treasury Of Science Fiction, a Genre Anthology edited by Groff Conklin.
  • Walden Two, by BF Skinner
  • The Well Of The Unicorn, by Fletcher Pratt
  • Wheres Charlie
  • Who Goes There?, by John W. Campbell
  • Without Sorcery, by Theodore Sturgeon
  • The World Of Null A, by A.E. van Vogt
  • The Young Lions, by Irwin Shaw
  • Several future Science Fiction writers were born this year, including Michael Ashley, Robert P Holdstock, Jonathan Fast, Vonda Mc Intyre, Marta Randall, Robert Reginald, Spider Robinson, Pamela Sargent, Brian Stableford, Steven Utley, Joan Vinge, and Laurence Yep.

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