The SFWA Grand Masters, Volume 3

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Overview

The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented, by active members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. The Grand Master Award is given to a living author for a lifetime's achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.

Frederik Pohl, an eminent figure in science fiction, has been authorized by the SFWA to edit an anthology in three big volumes featuring substantial selections of the work of all the first fifteen Grand Masters. These are the seminal writers ...

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More About This Book

Overview

The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented, by active members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. The Grand Master Award is given to a living author for a lifetime's achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.

Frederik Pohl, an eminent figure in science fiction, has been authorized by the SFWA to edit an anthology in three big volumes featuring substantial selections of the work of all the first fifteen Grand Masters. These are the seminal writers of the modern SF field, whose works are of dominant importance and influence. This series of collections is a permanent record of greatness in SF.

Volume Three, presenting the last five writers to receive the Grand Master award, features the fiction of Lester Del Rey, Frederik Pohl, Damon Knight, A. E. Van Vogt, Jack Vance.

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Editorial Reviews

Locus
On the basis of the...pieces...one can conclude that [some of the authors] were having a degree of sheer imaginative fun that may no longer be available to SF writers in today's market.
Kirkus Reviews
The third volume of stories by writers-according to editor Pohl's introduction-officially designated grandmasters of SFWA. Though there are many more 20th-century SF authors worthy of being called grandmasters of the genre, the 15 featured here are unquestionably worthy of the designation, even if some of the 20 stories from the 5 grandmasters included this time seem a bit dusty. One can almost feel the pulp and smeary ink of the old magazines as A.E. Van Vogt (who, thanks to a good translator, was all the rage in France, Pohl says) begins his deathless "Vault of the Beast" with the three-word sentence "the creature crept." The feverish cleverness, though, of Jack Vance's "Miracle Workers," a comic fantasy that lampoons WWII army movies with a battalion of spell-casting "jinxsters," is more forced than funny. In "The Handler," Damon Knight, known in the genre more as an editor than writer, spoofs a martini-swilling Sid Caesar-like TV star who, when thanking the little people made him successful, introduces one that is literally pulling his strings. Lester Del Rey asks if God might look after intelligent dogs in "The Faithful," then fulminates about the hypocrisy of religious groups and their demagogic leaders in his scathing "For I Am a Jealous People." Pohl's work seems to have held up best, as seen in a story about a crew of space explorers who find that they must solve impossible problems, or perish, in the boldly imaginative but awkwardly titled "Gold at Starbow's End." Creaky and squeaky though they may be, these tales, considered the creme de la creme in their day, retain their value as memorials to an earlier generation's fears, hopes, and joys.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780312868765
  • Publisher: Doherty, Tom Associates, LLC
  • Publication date: 3/20/2002
  • Series: SFWA Grand Master Series
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 480
  • Sales rank: 1,228,352
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.50 (h) x 1.06 (d)

Table of Contents

Introduction by Frederik Pohl

LESTER DEL REY

The Faithful The Pipes of Pan The Coppersmith For I Am a Jealous People

FREDERIK POHL

Let the Ants Try The Tunnel Under theWorld Day Million The Gold at the Starbow's End

DAMON KNIGHT

The Handler Dio Not With a Bang I See You Masks

A. E. VAN VOGT

Black Destroyer Far Centaurus Vault of the Beast Dear Pen Pal

JACK VANCE

Sail 25

Ullwar's Retreat The Miracle Workers

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