At this point I’m starting to question my decision to work through these 60s/70s SF/F collections, but I continue on because each of them does have a few notable stories, and I am interested in the history and foundation of the field. I think what I got the most out of this one was seeing famous authors breaking onto the scene and the background information on magazines Merril was pulling from, as well as her opinions on current events and the state of SF/F in the 60s. The stories themselves were honestly forgettable enough that I will have to flip through the book to jog my memory, which is a grim state of affairs considering I finished it this morning. I just found so many stories in here to be plain and devoid of life or any interesting events. This was really the era when SF got so self-serious and leaden that it became borderline unreadable — my mom actually stopped reading SF altogether during this time. A lot of these books are hers and after reading them myself, I can see why.
I think the best story in here is probably “Descending,” by Thomas M. Disch, where a man goes down the escalators in a department store and then realizes he’s trapped in a world of descending escalators. It sounds silly but Disch does an excellent job of making it very scary and macabre. There’s a sense of nihilism and randomness to the event, which I like in a short horror story. “Be of Good Cheer” by Fritz Lieber was a funny but bleak take on the apocalypse. “It Could be You” by Frank Roberts precedes Stephen King’s later triumphant use of the same idea of murderous game shows. And “The Shining Ones” by Arthur C. Clarke is a solid take on the idea of an intelligent octopus race. There were also several other short stories very much in the vein of one good idea with a twist, but none of them really stood out as world changing fiction or even good enough to be remembered within the field of fiction.
Overall, not something I necessarily regret reading but it wasn’t a book that will stick with me. I respect the work Judith Merril did and I’m sure this was the best SF of 1965, but 1965 was just not a great year for it. I’ll keep reading these collections next year but I will also keep supplementing with SF/F that reminds me why I actually love the genre.