Talk:Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century

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Not seeing any indications this may meet WP:NBOOK. ISFDB has nothing. Ping @Cunard, the Great Book Savior. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:56, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi. Here are some sources about the book  Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century:  The review notes: "Any science fiction fan can cite several works Card left out, but let's not quibble. This is a wonderful collection of 27 stories that will remind you why you fell in love with science fiction in the first place. Perhaps the biggest oversight is that there are no stories in the book by Orson Scott Card."  The review notes: "Card (Shadow of the Hegemon, 2000, etc.), science fiction's popular neo-pastoral writer, picks his 27 favorites of the century--most of which are undisputed classics, even if Poul Anderson's "Call Me Joe," Brian Aldiss's "Who Can Replace Man?" and Arthur C. Clarke's "Nine Billion Names of God" have been included in so many best-of and college textbook collections that they are almost canonical. Others are good, but not necessarily representative of their authors' finest work."  The review notes: "The 29 classic stories in this anthology are as well chosen as you might expect, given editor Card's formidable knowledge of the field and his fellow writers, knowledge that makes his introductory comments on each story very good, further enhancing the book's considerable value for the classroom and as an introduction to major stories and writers for nonstudents."  The review notes: "Actually, considering the price of college textbooks these days, Masterpieces would be a reasonable choice for an introductory sf course—supplemented, to be sure, by a few novels and by xeroxed copies of additional stories by Wells, Phyllis Gotleib, Michael Bishop, Geoffrey A. Landis, Roger Zelazny, Alfred Bester, and the like. A problem may be coming into view here. Nobody but Card would accept this anthology exactly as it stands. ... But that doesn't happen in Masterpieces. Card spends little time explaining the merits of his choices. Instead, his story introductions are admirably concise and factual, and his brief general introduction barely pauses to sneer at what he elsewhere (in the introduction to his 1998 anthology Future on Ice, for example) has labeled the "li-fi" literary establishment: critics and teachers. He just states that the stories here are ones that he loves and believes will "appeal to a wide audience of readers and not just a small group" (3). Since there's no arguing about love, there doesn't seem to be much room for discussion."  The review notes: "it's co-copyright "Tekno Books," which means it's a Martin H. Greenberg anthology [his ten-thousandth? — well, maybe not far off]; it contains all-reprint stories by such well-known names as Brian Aldiss, Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, James Blish, C. J. Cherryh, Arthur C. Clarke, John Crowley, Harlan Ellison, William Gibson, Robert A. Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl, Robert Silverberg, Theodore Sturgeon and Harry Turtledove; the earliest story — "Devolution" by Edmond Hamilton — dates from 1936, and then there's a large chronological jump to the next-oldest story, Ray Bradbury's "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" [1949]; so really, despite its sub-title, the book covers mainly the second half of the century just ended.) November 2001."  The book notes: "Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century (Ace), edited by Orson Scott Card, provides Card's subjective take on the best SF of the twentieth century—which, of course, immediately began to be argued with by other critics as soon as the book appeared, who preferred their own subjective take on the matter instead. I'm no exception. I'd quibble with most of Card's list, in fact, which, for the most part, strike me as neither "masterpieces" or "the best science fiction of the century"—or even as the best work of the authors represented. And, as always, I disagree with many of the opinions and conclusions offered in Card's editorial front-matter." Cunard (talk) 08:56, 17 October 2023 (UTC)