The Golden Age of Science Fiction (anthology)

The Golden Age of Science Fiction

First edition
Author	Kingsley Amis
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Hutchinson
Publication date	1981
Pages	370

The Golden Age of Science Fiction is an anthology of science fiction short stories all originally published between 1949 and 1962. The stories were selected and introduced by Kingsley Amis, who also wrote an Editor's Note and a 21-page Introduction. The collection was first published by Hutchinson in 1981 and was released in paperback by Penguin in 1983.

Contents

The book includes the following stories:

• "The Quest for Saint Aquin", by Anthony Boucher
• "The Xi Effect", by Philip Latham
• "The Tunnel under the World", by Frederik Pohl
• "Old Hundredth", by Brian Aldiss
• "A Work of Art", by James Blish
• "Harrison Bergeron", by Kurt Vonnegut
• "The Voices of Time", by J. G. Ballard
• "Specialist", by Robert Sheckley
• "He Walked Around the Horses", by H. Beam Piper
• "The Game of Rat and Dragon", by Cordwainer Smith
• "The Nine Billion Names of God", by Arthur C. Clarke
• "The Streets of Ashkelon", by Harry Harrison
• "The Country of the Kind", by Damon Knight
• "The Machine that Won the War", by Isaac Asimov
• "Student Body", by F. L. Wallace
• "It's a Good Life", by Jerome Bixby
• "Sister Planet", by Poul Anderson

Reception

Dave Pringle reviewed The Golden Age of Science Fiction for Imagine magazine, and stated that "a fat collection of 1950s SF, aimed at the 'general reader' and including stories by Pohl, Blish, Sheckley, Clarke, Asimov, etc. A good anthology, but many of us will have read it all before."

Reviews

• Review by Ken Methold (1982) in Omega Science Digest, May-June 1982
• Review by Colin Greenland (1983) in Interzone, #5 Autumn 1983