The Year's Best S-F, 5th Annual Edition by Judith Merril

“Though Dreamers Die” by Lester del Rey February 11, 2023.

Why Do Science Fiction Stories Always Sound Stupid When I Try To Tell People About Them Out Loud? February 13, 2023.

Can You Come Up With a Better Science Fictional Idea for This Cover Than They Did in 1929? February 15, 2023.

I Asked ChatGPT To Create a Taxonomy of Science Fiction Themes February 16, 2023.

If Science Fiction Was A Religion What Would Be Its Creed? February 18, 2023.How Will SpaceX’s Starship Change Science Fiction? March 5, 2023.Science Fiction About Surviving a Nuclear Holocaust – Pre-1960 March 8, 2023.10 Reasons How I’m Reevaluating My Interest in Science Fiction March 11, 2023.Visualizing Science Fiction April 1, 2023.The Future of Science Fiction April 2, 2023.Visualizing Fiction with AI April 8, 2023.The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany April 14, 2023.How Many Post-Apocalyptic Stories Do We Need to Read? April 27, 2023.Five Reviews of The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell May 2, 2023.“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut May 6, 2023.Science Fiction Book Reviewers on YouTube May 6, 2023.“Forgetfulness” by John W. Campbell May 8, 2023.“Special Flight” by John Berryman May 10, 2023.“Triceratops” by Kono Tensei May 15, 2023.“The Man Who Lost the Sea” by Theodore Sturgeon – 3rd Reading May 18, 2023.“Mockingbird” by Walter Tevis May 20, 2023.“On the Inside Track” by Karl Michael Armer May 20, 2023.“The Golem” by Avram Davidson May 22, 2023.Our Classics of Science Fiction database showed these stories for 1959-1960 with three or more citations:

That means nine Merril stories overlap with Asimov/Greenberg out of nineteen in her 5th annual edition. I can’t believe Asimov and Greenberg left out “Flowers for Algernon.” In the 1960 volume Asimov and Green also chose Merril’s picks “ Mariana” by Fritz Leiber and “ The Handler” by Damon Knight. Greenberg revisited 1959 in their anthology The Great SF Stories 21 (1959), which included these stories (I’ve bolded stories that Merril also picked): That makes it hard to compare this best-of-the-year anthology against others – although in 1959-1960 Merril was the sole contemporary annual anthologist. It annoys me that Merril didn’t stay within the 1959 boundary and included four stories from 1960. An Inquiry Concerning the Curvature of the Earth’s Surface and Divers Investigations of a Metaphysical Nature.Luckily we have to tell us where these stories from 19 were originally published and reprinted (click on title). Probably out of the 400 members only a handful have a copy. This presents a kind of scavenger hunt to find the stories because most of the members do not have a copy of this 1960 book. Our Facebook group is scheduled to read The Year’s Best S-F: 5th Annual Edition edited by Judith Merril in February and March.

The Year's Best S-F, 5th Annual Edition by Judith Merril