The last couple of days have been hectic, and I’m too tired to put together another ghost story post (I need to do  some bibliographic research on the author of the next story) or do much work on original fiction. But since I wanted to write something to keep my writing streak going.

I’ll do a followup on this one later. I need to do some research first. You’ll see what I mean below.

And that’s on the original unthemed anthology series. There were a number of them back in seventies, although they didn’t originated in that decade. That was a time when science fiction and fantasy were experiencing a boom period. I’m not sure how many such series there were at the time. That will be part of the research.

Not all of them published origiinal stories. There were also some reprint anthologies. Case in point, Alpha, edited by Robert Silverberg. This was a reprint anthology.

I was out of town today. My wife had a minor eye procedure done in a nearby city. After she got out, we ran a few errands. I stopped at a second hand book store, where i picked up volumes 2-5 of this series for what I thought were fair prices.

That got me thinking about original anthology series.

I’ve collected some of them over the years. I’m not sure how many of which ones I’ve currently got. I discvered a couple of years ago to my surprise that I have all of the year’s best anothologies edited by Lester Del Rey when I decided to see if I had could collect the whole set.

My understanding is that Fred Pohl eddited the first such seeries, entitled Star Science Fiction, back in the 1950s.  It was a groundbreaking concept that published some of the top writers of the day. The quality was excellent. That was to be expected with Pohl as the editor.

That concept expanded to other series.

Orbit. Shadows. New Dimensions.

They were the opposite of the themed anthologies that proliferated in the nineties and oughts, primarily but not exclusively published by DAW.  I have nothing against themed anthologies. Especially if the  theme is one that appeals to me and isn’t too narrow.

The thing about the original, nonthemed antholgy series is that while each one reflected the editor’s tastes and preferences, there were few if any requirements to stick to a certain type of story or theme. Obviously, what you would find in a volume of Orbit would be very different from what would fill the contents of a volume of Shadows. Damon Knight had very different tastes from Charles L. Grant, aside from the fact that the two series focused on different genres.

But each story was something unexpected. To use an overuse analogy, they were like a box of choclates.

That was the appeal. The reader was (hopefully pleasantly) surprised by the stories. They were also a great way to discover new authors.

So, one of the projects for the next year is to look at s ome of these anthology series. I’m not including any of the Best of antholgy series that have come and gone over the years. I will probably do a few such posts, but they won’t be part of this series.

And I’m not likely to read and review every installment of each series. I think Orbit ran to twenty volumes. I’n not sure I have that much time before I die to read all of those. and I’m not sure I would want to.

If you have one you would like me to discuss, please drop me a line in the comments.