"New Dimensions #6", ed. by Robert Silverberg, 1976

The 1970ties undoubtedly were "The Golden Age of Original Anthology" - and the "New Dimensions" series was one of the most ground-breaking and truly "original". I enjoyed the sense of unpredictability and generally high submission standards that Silverberg maintained as an editor; these books liberated my mind in many good and wonderful ways. ---------------------------------------------- George Alec Effinger "Target: Berlin!" © New Dimensions # 6, 1976 Live! From Planet Earth, 2005 --/ idea award Alternate history, as the title suggest, but so much more. Effinger's tales are always unconventional and go on unexpected "rabbit paths". Overall clever presentation - absurdist take on a decades-delayed World War II, fought now with... cars. review: 18-Jul-06 (read in 2001) ---------------------------------------------- James Tiptree, Jr. "The Psychologist Who Would Not Do Awful Things To Rats" © New Dimensions # 6, 1976 Star Songs Of An Old Primate, 1978 --novelette : 1977 Locus /6 --/ cool sf story More than the simple future "animal rights" story. Tiptree is a woman, yes (Alice B. Sheldon's pen-name), but every time fools the audience. She served in the Army Intelligence and Air Corps; in the psych lab she and her colleagues had used rats as subjects, in a form of unquestioned power relationship that can be disturbing as seen in this story. review: 18-Jul-06 (read in 1987) ---------------------------------------------- Rachel Pollack "Is Your Child Using Drugs?" © New Dimensions #6, 1976 Burning Sky, 1999 --/ style award "...Playing with form: "Is Your Child Using Drugs? Seven Ways to Recognize a Drug Addict" creates a discomfiting fictional universe using questions from a propagandistic anti-drug pamphlet as cues" review: 18-Jul-06 (read in 1987) ---------------------------------------------- Felix C. Gotschalk "Charisma Leak" (Dome series) © New Dimensions # 6, 1976 --/ fourth place sf story --/ wonder award --/ idea award Felix Gotschalk was perhaps the most brilliant - and the most under-appreciated - of the SF writers in the Seventies; his style was way ahead of its time, and belongs with the cyberpunk (or even the post-modern) school, his ideas are plentiful and original enough to stick in the mind for days, like, say, a rainbow-painted mafia coffin. His "shattered glass" prose is intense and may be tiring in large doses - in other words, he may be a classified genius, whose work still waits to be discovered by the average Amazon / Chapters crowd. Most of his stories are about geriatrics in an "old folks" future Dome, who are slowly going nuts (and yet becoming more "hip" in the process). This story is about someone who's suffering from too much charisma: a person with three in-built charismatic personalities... so he needs to cut some of these personalities off in a suicidal move, leaving behind... well, let's just say, this was an ill-considered move. review: 18-Jul-06 (read in 1987) ---------------------------------------------- Marta Randall "Secret Rider" © New Dimensions # 6, 1976 --/ fourth place sf story --/ wonder award --/ style award --/ awesome scale --/ romance award The phrase "John Albion was/is/will be living/dying/dead; sucked into the dead/dying void... conjugate the tenses of time travel" even made it into the "SF Quotations" book. Another quote opens the story: "Foundering between eternity and time, we are amphibians and must accept the fact." (Aldous Huxley). And one other quote - great lines for the opening to the story: "She had followed him across the galaxy. Twice" This is very competent space/time adventure, with touching love story spanning ages and light-years. review: 18-Jul-06 (read in 1987) ---------------------------------------------- Tom Reamy "Dinosaurs" © New Dimensions # 6, 1976 San Diego Lightfoot Sue, 1979 --/ fourth place apocalyptic sf story --/ wonder award --/ style award --/ shock value Vintage and exciting view of the post-apocalyptic world, with many restrictions on eroticism removed, with people living underground and silicone life-forms reigning above. One of the last "classic" approaches to such a conventional scenario. Done with intensity and style. review: 18-Jul-06 (read in 1987) ---------------------------------------------- Philip Jose Farmer "Osiris on Crutches" © New Dimensions # 6, 1976 Stations of the Nightmare, 1982 --/ cool f story --/ shock value This is a "tongue-in-cheek" story with some unspeakable subject matter and taboo elements. But in some ways it is no more explicit than some Greek / Egyptian mythology, in fact based upon one such myth, and ridiculing the bizarre excesses of ancient world's collective imagination. In breaking many conventions, this original gem embodies the value of whole "New Dimensions" anthology series: wilder, weirder, edgier - building upon "Dangerous Visions" tradition. Respect. review: 18-Jul-06 (read in 1987) ----------------------------------------------

Click to go to "Dark Roasted Blend" site