This is an important, important anthology; no Asimov fan with the slightest self-respect could be without it. Inspired by The Early Asimov and a dream, the Good Doctor has taken all his favorite short sf stories from the 1930’s and wrapped them inside autobiographical narrative, giving his fans a view of his early life and the stories that inspired him to be an sf writer, all together.

Of course, much of the autobiographical information is later found, and in more detail, in In Memory Yet Green, but it is still the price of the book to get a hold of this story of a young sf fan in the 1930’s. (Heck, it’s very nearly worth the price of the book to see how Asimov coyly refers to Janet in the introduction as “my good lady” —this was before they were married, and before the term “significant other” had been invented. When I first read the book, I had no idea that he’d divorced and assumed that “my good lady” was a very strange way of referring to Gertrude.)

In fact, this is an all-but perfect anthology. It has but a single flaw:

The stories stink.

Well, not all of them. Some of them are good. In all 900+ pages, however, only Murray Leinster’s “Sideways in Time” is truly a great classic worthy of being read by all and sundry. Clifford D. Simak’s “World of the Red Sun” is OK, as are Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “Parasite Planet,” Murray Leinster’s “Proxima Centauri,” and Ross Rocklynne’s “Men and the Mirror” . None of the rest are terribly memorable, except for “Submicroscopic” and “Awlo of Ulm,” both by S.P. Meek, P. Schuyler Miller’s “Tetrahedra of Space,” and the two Charles R. Tanner’s two “Tumithak” stories—those five are a pain to reread. (Still, I’m not sure I’d rate any of them quite as low as Asimov’s own “Half-Breeds on Venus”.) The remainder are quaint and vaguely interesting in a historical kind of way, but not likely to generate any enthusiasm in a modern reader of the genre or historian of the field.

(But to admit my own prejudices, I don’t like sword-and-sorcery stories with muscular heros. Asimov apparently did when he was young.)

Get the book, then, by all means—but just skip most of the stories in it. You may be happier that way.