The SF Hall of Fame Volume Two B

THE

SCIENCE FICTION

HALL OF FAME

Volume Two B

The Greatest Science Fiction Novellas of All Time

Chosen by the Members of

The Science Fiction Writers of America

Edited by Ben Bova

TOR*

A Tom Doherty Associates Book New York

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters,
organizations, and events portrayed in these novellas are either products of
the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously.

THE SCIENCE FICTION HALL OF FAME: VOLUME TWO B

Copyright © 1973 by The Science Fiction Writers of
America

Originally published by Doubleday & Company, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book, or portions thereof, in

any form.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty
Associates, LLC.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-0532-9 ISBN-10: 0-7653-0532-1

First Tor Edition: May 2008

Printed in the United States of America

098765  43  2   1

An ebookman scan.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Martian Way,
by Isaac Asimov, copyright © 1952 by
Galaxy Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Earthman, Come Home,
by James Blish, copyright © 1953
by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author
and his agent, Robert P. Mills, Ltd.

Rogue Moon,
by Algis Budrys, copyright © 1960 by
Algis Budrys. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, the
Lantz-Donadio Literary Agency.

The Spectre General,
by Theodore Cogswell, copyright
© 1952 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the
author.

The Machine Stops,
by E. M. Forster, from
The
Eternal Moment and Other Stories
by E. M. Forster, copyright © 1928 by
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.; copyright renewed 1956 by E. M. Forster.
Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

The Midas Plague,
by Frederik Pohl, copyright © 1954
by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Witches of Karres,
by James H. Schmitz, copyright
© 1949 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the
author and his agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

E for Effort,
by T. L. Sherred, copyright © 1947 by
Street & Smith Publications, Inc., copyright © 1972 by T. L. Sherred as
part of the collection,
First Person Peculiar.
Reprinted by permission
of the author and his agent, Virginia Kidd.

In Hiding,
by Wilmar H. Shiras, copyright © 1948 by
Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Big Front Yard,
by Clifford D. Simak, copyright ©
1958 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the
author and his agent, Robert P. Mills, Ltd.

The Moon Moth,
by Jack Vance, copyright © 1961 by Galaxy
Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agents,
Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

This two-book set is the second volume of the Science
Fiction Hall of Fame, and consists of stories of longer lengths than those
published in the highly acclaimed Volume One.

These stories have been selected by the members of the
Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), the organization of some four
hundred professional science fiction writers. Thus, the Science Fiction Hall of
Fame is the definitive anthology in this field, the collective choice of the
practitioners of the science fiction art themselves.

Founded in 1965, each year since 1966 SFWA has given
achievement awards for the best stories of the year. The awards are called
Nebulas, and are chosen on the basis of a vote by SFWA's members. The purpose
of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthologies is to bestow a similar
recognition on stories that were published prior to 1966, and thus never had a chance
to earn a Nebula.

Like the annual Nebula awards themselves, election to the
Hall of Fame anthology is based on a poll of SFWA's members. Volume One was
restricted to short stories; Volume Two is devoted to novelettes and novellas.

The voting procedure began with recommendations. For nearly
a full year, SFWA members sent in suggestions for stories that were worthy of
inclusion in the Hall of Fame. As editor, I quickly began to see that it was
going to be a heartbreaking job to rule out
any
of these fine tales.
Almost every title recommended brought back a powerful memory of the first time
I had read that particular piece. And the authors! H. G. Wells, John W.
Campbell, Jr., Robert Heinlein, Cyril Kornbluth . . . how could any of them be
ruled out?

A ballot was finally prepared, consisting of seventy-six
recommended stories. The SFWA members were asked to vote for ten stories out of
the seventy-six. Since many authors had more than one story on the ballot, and
we didn't want any individual author to be represented more than once in the
anthology, the members were further asked to vote for only one story per
author.

Many of the ballots came back with screams of despair and
frustration scribbled over them. "How can I pick only ten of 'em?"
was the typical cry. Most of the members wanted most of the recommended stories
to go into the final anthology.

When the votes were counted, the top ten stories were:
who goes there?
by John W. Campbell,
Jr. A
canticle for leibowitz
by
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
with folded hands
by
Jack Williamson
the time machine
by
H. G. Wells
baby
is
three
by Theodore Sturgeon
vintage season
by Henry Kuttner and C.
L. Moore
the marching morons
by
C. M. Kornbluth
universe
by
Robert A. Heinlein
by his bootstraps
by
Robert A. Heinlein
nerves
by
Lester del Rey

Since several authors had more than one story on the ballot,
and thus were in the unhappy position of competing with themselves, I sliced
the pie in the other direction, too, and looked for the ten most popular
authors: Robert A. Heinlein Theodore Sturgeon John W. Campbell, Jr. Walter M.
Miller, Jr. Lester del Rey C. M. Kornbluth Jack Williamson H. G. Wells Poul
Anderson Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore

The procedure for picking the stories to go into the
anthology, then, was fairly straightforward, since most of the top authors were
also represented among the most popular stories. I prepared a list of stories
that included the highest vote-getters among the stories and the most popular
authors. For any individual author, I picked the story of his that had received
the most votes.

It was much easier to start the list than end it. There was
always the temptation to sneak in just one more story—after all, I would tell
myself,
this one's
really too good to be left out. I ended with a list
of twenty-two stories, totaling more than 400,000 words. Far too much for a
single book.

I took my problem to Larry Ashmead, the editorial mastermind
who presides over Doubleday's science fiction publications. It was a shameful
dereliction of duty, but I didn't have the heart to cut out any of those
twenty-two stories. Thankfully, neither did Larry. After one look at the list,
he suggested making a two-book set so that all the stories could be included.

Unfortunately, two of the stories—Miller's
A Canticle for
Leibowitz,
and Ray Bradbury's
The Fireman—were
unavailable for this
anthology. Both are currently available in book form, however.

So here is the second volume of the Science Fiction Hall of
Fame. It represents the best that science fiction has to offer, by some of the
best writers working in this or any field of literature.

One final note of acknowledgment and thanks. Much of the
onerous work of tracking down publication dates and magazines, toting up
wordage lengths, and finding copies of the original stories, was done by
Anthony R. Lewis. Without his aid, this volume might still be little more than
an unfulfilled promise.

From the doorway of the short corridor between the only two
rooms in the travel-head of the spaceship, Mario Esteban Rioz watched sourly as
Ted Long adjusted the video dials painstakingly. Long tried a touch clockwise,
then a touch counter. The picture was lousy.

Rioz knew it would stay lousy. They were too far from Earth
and at a bad position facing the Sun. But then Long would not be expected to
know that. Rioz remained standing in the doorway for an additional moment, head
bent to clear the upper lintel, body turned half side-wise to fit the narrow
opening. Then he jerked into the galley like a cork popping out of a bottle.