User:DoctorWho42/Introduction to Best SF: 1968

"Introduction to Best SF: 1968" or "Introduction to The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 2" is an essay by American author Harry Harrison. It was published in the 1969 short story anthology Best SF: 1968 edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison.

Publication history
The introduction first appeared in the 1969 book Best SF: 1968 or The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 2 edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison. In 1977, it reappeared in the Severn House book The Year's Best Science Fiction.

Content
1968 has been a good year for SF. SF began in pulp. It was not very respected. However, SF magazines now are considered literature. There were few SF publishers. Today SF is marketable. SF movies have changed since 2001: A Space Odyssey. A few of the reviews are included. Institutions are taking notice of SF. Courses are taught at univerisities. Manuscript collections are also stored there. This should be of no consequence to the reader. Early SF writers could not predict its impact in 1968. There are more methods and material in SF. There are more and better writers besides more and better stories. Older writers are returning with new stories too. There might be a clash between "New Wave" and "old wave" writers. There is no new wave. Just writers who experiment in form which is nothing new. The editor intends to maintain the same spirit. Brian Aldiss helped with the selection and fielded British writers. He also wrote the afterword.

Reception
In 1969, Cosmos: A Science-Fantasy Review's Geoffrey Giles critiqued the Introduction with "Funny . . . I had the impression that all this, or most of it, happened some years ago, to have its repercussions here. True, the change came almost overnight, but it took years to lay the foundations of the edifice which Mr. Harrison has only just run into. Where has he been all this time, I wonder?" In 1970, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction's Joanna Russ said Best SF: 1968 was "a fair mixed bag of stories framed by an Introduction and Afterword that indirectly—and unfortunately—lead one to expect more from the stories than they manage to give."