The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum


The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum is a collection of science fiction stories by Stanley G. Weinbaum, published in 1974 as an original paperback by Ballantine Books as a volume in its Classic Library of Science Fiction. The volume included an introduction by Isaac Asimov and an afterword by Robert Bloch. Ballantine reissued the collection twice in the later 1970s; Garland Publishing published a library hardcover edition in 1983, and Sphere Books released a UK market edition in 1977, under the title A Martian Odyssey and Other Stories. The original edition placed third in the 1975 Locus Poll for best genre collection.

Contents

"The Adaptive Ultimate" originally appeared under the byline "John Jessel".

Reception

Alexei and Cory Panshin were of the opinion that although the collection was important because it gave modern readers "the chance to see Weinbaum in context with this major collection of his short work," they felt that "the special power to command that Weinbaum once had no longer exists. What is left is, at best, no more than occasionally and tepidly amusing."