"We live in a spaceship, dear"

I almost never read collections of short stories and as such I really don't know how to review this.

Anyway, I read Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century, which Keen lent/gave to me a few years ago. The collection is edited by Orson Scott Card, who wrote a preface essay and also a little recap of each author's works at the beginning of each selection. Card refrained from going into his "Women and minorities are ruining science fiction" spiel, although he did name the first group of stories "the Golden Age." The "Golden Age" goes up through the seventies, more or less, and while I am somewhat skeptical that this really was a "golden" age of science fiction (sure, it was really popular, but 90% of it was Martians Are Coming To Steal Our Women goofy shit), the actual short stories featured in this work are pretty awesome, including stories by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ray Bradbury. A lot of it does have that "Fifties in Space" quality that bugs me a heck of a lot more than Victorian quality of Victorian science fiction (mostly because Victorian stuff is cuter and can be used to spawn movements like steampunk), in which far into the future, white guys who smoke lots of cigars have conquered space, and are stationed in lonely research stations around Jupiter 'n' shit where they study space, fill up their fancy ventiliation systems with cigar smoke, and are lonely if the government does not have the budget to provide them with, like, space hookers. Or something. Poul Anderson's "Call me Joe" has aged the most badly on this count; it is a story about some scientists who have bioengineered a life form that can colonize Jupiter, and some scientists can communicate with them by technology that allows them to have psychic control over the life-forms bodies. The research station has plans to have the Jovians build an entire civilization, including "housewives," and at one point the lone Jovian on the planet, a male named Joe, realizes he is lonely being the only intelligent lifeform on the planet, and puts said loneliness down to being "a male with male instincts." First of all, dude, you're an alien; second of all, I thought we debunked the whole "women thrive on solitary confinement" bs with Jane Eyre in 1847? Isaac Asimov restores my faith in the capacity of midcentury white dudes who are supposedly futuristic-minded creative types to apply their what-if-ing skills to social structures with Robot Dreams, in which the characters are two female scientists and a robot. (Note to self: Really, really need to read more Asimov.) Heinlein has a rather well-done story called "All You Zombies--" about hermaphroditism and time travel (the space program in this story does still require regiments of space hookers, but this is a rather peripheral plot point in the life history of the Unmarried Mother). Ted Sturgeon and Ray Bradbury are, as usual, awesome.

The second selection of stories is designated "The New Wave," and includes some famous pieces like Harlan Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman, which is delightful and absurd, if a little too in love with the idea of being late for everything (I still think keeping people waiting unnecessarily is rude).  Sadly, the Ursula K LeGuin selection is one of her world-building-without-a-plot stories, which are probably great pieces of writing as meditations on why such-and-such a thing is important, but as stories, they are not as good as her actual stories (I'm looking at you, The Telling). And we know she can write really good stories, like The Left Hand of Darkness. There is also a great Larry Niven story called The Inconstant Moon, which concerns Extreme Weather Events, and was therefore very much Relevant To My Interests right after this whole Hurricane Irene thing. Who Can Replace A Man? is a story in which all of the characters are robots, who talk in an adorable little dry dialect of, like, Logical Basic English.

The third and most recent selection of stories was labeled "The Media Generation," which I found a little odd, particularly since the first story in that group was George R. R Martin's Sandkings, and (a) George R. R. Martin is old and (b) Sandkings had almost nothing to do with posthumanism or media technology at all. It was about fighting ants. It was a goddamn creepy story, in the best possible way, mixing sci-fi with some trappings of medievalism and a healthy dose of big scary Monsters Are In Your Basement Waiting To Eat You horror. The rest of the stories tended more cyberpunky, with authors like William Gibson. (The other big exception here was Bears Discover Fire, by Terry Bisson, which is exactly what it says on the tin.)

Overall, it was a pretty good collection, and it's definitely put more authors on my radar to check out (once I've finished my enormous TBR pile and read all the YA scifi/fantasy that's been recommended during the "Say Yes to Gay YA" kerfuffle... so, in like ten years).