Literature / Isaac Asimov Presents: The Great Science Fiction Stories, Volume 21 (1959)

First published in 1990 by editors Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. This Genre Anthology contains fourteen Science Fiction stories that were first published in 1959, 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 world of science fiction and fantasy pop culture.

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Works in this anthology:

• "Make A Prison", by Lawrence Block
• "The Wind People", by Marion Zimmer Bradley
• "No, No, Not Rogov!", by Cordwainer Smith
• "What Rough Beast?", by Damon Knight
• "The Alley Man", by Philip José Farmer
• "Day At The Beach", by Carol Emshwiller
• "The Malted Milk Monster", by William Tenn
• "The World Of Hearts Desire", by Robert Sheckley
• "The Man Who Lost The Sea", by Theodore Sturgeon
• "A Death In The House", by Clifford Simak
• "The Pi Man", by Alfred Bester
• "Multum In Parvo", by Jack Sharkey
• "What Now Little Man?", by Mark Clifton
• "Adrift On The Policy Level", by Chandler Davis

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Isaac Asimov Presents: The Great Science Fiction Stories, Volume 21 (1959) provides examples of:

• After the End: Carol Emshwiller's "Day At The Beach": This story is a Beach Episode after some unspecified disaster affects the world. Nations are apparently gone, and there is limited transportation. Women and men have lost their hair, although the protagonist's son is the reverse; covered in hair and unable to use English despite being over three years old.
• Bald Mystic: Carol Emshwiller's "Day At The Beach": This story delays telling you the protagonist's name to tell the reader that Myra is hairless. In fact, all of the women are hairless, and so are the men. The setting is after some unspecified calamity that eliminated most of the population a few years ago, and the only character with hair is Littleboy, their son.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Cordwainer Smith's "No, No, Not Rogov!": Between the (fictional) years of 1939 to 1944, Cherpas and Rogov argued constantly, and publicly. The solution was obvious to both of them; they married in 1945.
• Biography: Each story is prefaced by a short description of why this story (from this author) was chosen to represent one of the fourteen best stories of the year along with a paragraph from Isaac Asimov's perspective.
• Capital Letters Are Magic: Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Wind People": Helen distinguishes a dream from The Dream; her spaceship had landed on an uninhabited planet and in the first few days, she dreamed of a strange, ephemeral man who had sex with her. Not long after that, she discovered she was pregnant, but she couldn't identify the father from the rest of the crew.
• Driven to Suicide: Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Wind People": Helen, concerned about her inability to separate fantasy (ephemeral dryad-like aliens) from reality (an uninhabited world), and her son Robin's desire for sex with the only woman he knows, leaps off the edge of a steep bank into a raging river below. She had fantasy and reality confused, as the world really did have dryad-like people living there.
• Nameless Narrative: Theodore Sturgeon's "The Man Who Lost The Sea": No character is named in this story, starting off with the premise, "Say you're a kid".
• Once More, with Clarity: Cordwainer Smith's "No, No, Not Rogov!": The story opens with a golden machine in the year 13,582 A.D., then goes back to the early 1930s, explaining the work Rogov did to build a secret spying device. When he first activates its remote viewing ability, he's taken to that same machine in the year 13,582 A.D.At the end of the story, we return again to that golden machine, and the end of the dance.
• Oubliette: Lawrence Block's "Make A Prison": The alien Altheans haven't had a murder in thirty generations. Unwilling to execute the culprit, they construct a suite of rooms in a tower so tall that anyone who tried to climb down would fall and die. A one-way pneumatic tube will be used to send additional food up to the prisoner.
• Parental Incest: Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Wind People": When Robin is aroused and tries to "love" his mother, it freaks her out, and she feels embarrassed over not thinking ahead to this problem years ago. She worries about what she can do, since as far as she knows, they're alone on an otherwise uninhabited world.
• Second-Person Narration: Theodore Sturgeon's "The Man Who Lost The Sea": The story starts with the proposal that you're a young boy, who meets an old man, and you try to talk to the old man, and tell him stories, but the old man just wants to watch the ocean. He doesn't want you bothering him. Then it turns out that the boy and the man are the same person.
• Shout-Out: In the introduction, multiple works are mentioned as being first published or becoming hits in 1959:
  • The 4 D Man
  • ''Advise & Consent'’, by Allen Drury
  • Aliens 4, by Theodore Sturgeon
  • The Amazing Transparent Man
  • Anatomy of a Murder
  • The Angry Red Planet
  • The Atomic Submarine
  • Battle in Outer Space
  • Beast From Haunted Cave, directed by Roger Corman
  • Ben-Hur, directed by William Wyler, won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
  • "The Big Front Yard", by Clifford Simak, was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Novelette.
  • James Blish, for publishing Vor and for winning the Hugo Award for Best Novel for A Case Of Conscience.
  • Bonanza began airing.
  • The Brain That Wouldn't Die
  • Breathless, directed by Jean-Luc Godard
  • Mel Brooks is referenced.
  • Caltiki The Immortal Monster
  • "Le Champ De Mars" was painted by Marc Chagall.
  • The Dawning Light, by Robert Randall
  • Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternack
  • La Dolce Vita, starring Anita Ekberg
  • Echo In The Skull, by John Brunner
  • Exodus, by Leon Uris
  • The Falling Torch, by Algis Budrys
  • First Man Into Space
  • First Spaceship on Venus
  • Galactic Derelict, by Andre Norton
  • The Giant Gila Monster
  • The Giant Leeches
  • Gorgo
  • Gunsmoke
  • Gypsy, by Stephen Sondheim and Jule Styne.
  • The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson
  • Have Gun – Will Travel
  • Have Rocket Will Travel
  • Hawaii became the fiftieth state this year, fourteen years after the end of World War II.
  • The Head
  • The Heavens Call
  • "That Hell Bound Train", by Robert Bloch, was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Short Story.
  • Henderson the Rain King, by Saul Bellow
  • The Hideous Sun Demon
  • Hiroshima
  • "Im Just A Lonely Boy"
  • Invisible Invaders
  • Island Of Lost Women
  • Journey To The Centre Of The Earth
  • The Killer Shrews
  • "Kookie Kookie"
  • Lady Chatterley's Lover, by DH Lawrence
  • Level Seven, by Mordecai Roshwald
  • The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction was awarded Hugo Award for Best Professional Magazine.
  • The Manster
  • The Man Who Could Cheat Death
  • The Marching Morons, by Cyril M. Kornbluth
  • A Medicine For Melancholy, by Ray Bradbury
  • The Miracle Worker, starring creator/Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke.
  • Mon Amour
  • The Mouse That Roared
  • Nine Tomorrows, by Isaac Asimov
  • North By Northwest, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
  • On the Beach
  • The Outward Urge, by John Wyndham
  • "Personality"
  • The Pirates Of Zan, by Murray Leinster
  • The Planet Killers, by Robert Silverberg
  • Salvatore Quasimodo won the Useful Notes Nobel Prize for Literature.
  • A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry.
  • Rawhide began airing.
  • Return of the Fly
  • Seed Of Light, by Edmund Cooper
  • The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut
  • Some Like It Hot, starring Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe.
  • "The Sound Of Music"
  • The Sound of Music
  • Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein
  • The Status Seekers, by Vance Packard
  • The Sun Smasher, by Edmond Hamilton
  • Sweet Bird Of Youth, written by Tennessee Williams.
  • Time Out of Joint, by Philip K. Dick
  • The Tingler
  • "Tom Dooley", by the Kingston Trio.
  • The Twilight Zone (1959) began airing.
  • The Two Cultures, by CP Snow
  • The Untouchables
  • Virgin Planet, by Poul Anderson
  • Visit To A Small Planet
  • Wagon Train
  • The Wasp Woman
  • Wolfbane, by Cyril M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl
• Two Aliases, One Character: Theodore Sturgeon's "The Man Who Lost The Sea": The old man and the boy end up being the same character, and so is the doll riding Delta. Also, you are the main character.
• Xenofiction: Lawrence Block's "Make A Prison": The Altheans encounter an unknown species, which quickly assaults and murders three of their kind. Unable to coexist with a murderer, the Altheans construct the titular prison. The prisoner flies away.

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