First published in 1982 by editors Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. This Genre Anthology contains sixteen Science Fiction stories that were first published in 1946, ranging in length from Short Story to Novelette. The introduction describes "the world outside reality" first, marking significant historical events, sports trivia, and literary publications. The "real world" is the science fiction and fantasy pop culture, the birth of what many in the 1970s were calling the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Because World War II ended in September of 1945, this book covers the first year of peace. The introductions have been growing larger and larger, because individuals that had been drafted for the war effort are being released back to civilian lives. Many of these creators are taking inspiration from their time in service for innovations and inventions. "Automation" is coined by Delmar S. Herder, a portmanteau of "automatic operation". Depending on your view, this year begins or ends the Golden Age, and ending means preparing the transition to New Wave Science Fiction.
Works in this anthology:
- "A Logic Named Joe", by Will F Jenkins
- "Memorial", by Theodore Sturgeon
- "Loophole", by Arthur C. Clarke
- "The Nightmare", by Chan Davis
- "Rescue Party", by Arthur C. Clarke
- "Placet Is A Crazy Place", by Fredric Brown
- "Conquerors Isle", by Nelson S Bond
- "Lorelei Of The Red Mist", by Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury
- "The Million Year Picnic", by Ray Bradbury
- "The Last Objective", by Paul A Carter
- "Meihem In Ce Klasrum", by Dolton Edwards
- "Vintage Season", by Lawrence O'Donnell
- "Evidence", by Isaac Asimov
- "Absalom", by Henry Kuttner
- "Mewhus Jet", by Theodore Sturgeon
- "Technical Error", by Arthur C. Clarke
Isaac Asimov Presents: The Great Science Fiction Stories, Volume 8 (1946) provides examples of:
- The Alternet: "A Logic Named Joe": Published by Will F Jenkins, who usually used the Pen Name Murray Leinster. Home computers called "logics" that were networked with each other and with "tanks" that contained the sum total of human knowledge. Logics also functioned as a television and Video Phone, connecting people around the world.
- Baby Planet: Fredric Brown's "Placet Is A Crazy Place": The planet Placet is tiny, but with a breathable atmosphere because the core is made of extra-dense 'heavy' matter to give it its shape and gravity. It even has life forms made of heavy matter that "fly" through the crust (which is like air to them since they are so dense), causing earthquakes. It obviously suffers from the "what keeps the heavy matter from expanding" problem common to tiny dense planets, having been written in The '40s. The buildings on Placet are small and light, and never last more than three weeks, because the birds fly right through the foundations.
- Binary Suns: Fredric Brown's "Placet Is A Crazy Place": The planet Placet orbits two suns in a figure-eight. When it is between the suns, the human colonists experience visual hallucinations. This is only one of the reasons why it is considered crazy.
- Biography: Each story is prefaced by a short description of why this story (from this author) was chosen to represent one of the sixteen best stories of the year along with a paragraph from Isaac Asimov's perspective.
- Drill Tank: Paul A Carter's "The Last Objective": This Short Story features very large subterrene drill tanks the size of oceangoing warships—"underground cruisers"—in a post-apocalyptic world in which the surface has been rendered uninhabitable by atomic bombs but the survivors continue to futilely battle it out underground.
- Homeworld Evacuation: Arthur C. Clarke's "Rescue Party" has aliens coming to Earth in order to try saving at least a few humans before the Sun goes nova. In the end, it turns out the humans built a fleet and left already.
- Information Wants to Be Free: The primary conflict in “A Logic Named Joe” comes from a “logic” (computer) that sees nothing wrong in helping humanity find any information it wants - including how to commit the perfect murder, break into bank vaults, bypass parental controls, find an ex-lover who doesn’t want to be found …
- Language Drift: Dolton Edwards's "Meihem In Ce Klasrum": Out of context, the last paragraphs are unintelligible gibberish. That's because the story invokes spelling drift while you're reading. "By 1975, wi ventyur tu sei, cer wud bi no mor uv ces teribli trublsum difikultis", because the context makes the structure of the words clear.
- One-Word Title:
- "Absalom", by Henry Kuttner
- "Evidence", by Isaac Asimov
- "Loophole", by Arthur C. Clarke
- "Memorial", by Theodore Sturgeon
- Pen Name:
- The introduction to "A Logic Named Joe" points out that readers of Will F Jenkins might be more familiar with his pseudonym, Murray Leinster.
- "Vintage Season" is credited to Lawrence O'Donnell, which is a pseudonym used by the writing team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore.
- Shout-Out: In the introduction, multiple works are mentioned as being first published or becoming hits in 1946:
- Adventures In Time And Space, edited by J Francis Mc Comas
- All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
- Annie Get Your Gun, by Irving Berlin
- Another Part Of The Forest, by Lillian Hellman
- The Best Of Science Fiction, edited by Groff Conklin
- The Best Years of Our Lives, directed by William Wyler
- The Big Clock, by Kenneth Fearing
- The Big Sleep
- Born Yesterday, by Garson Kanin
- Mel Brooks is singled out as still using the name Melvin Kaminsky.
- Call Me Mister, by Harold Rome
- "The Christmas Song"
- Arthur C. Clarke's first story, "Loophole"
- "Cow With Umbrella", by Marc Chagall
- Duel in the Sun
- Eastman Kodak created Ektachrome color film for commercial purchase.
- Fantasy is launched for the first time.
- "Faun Playing The Pipe", by Pablo Picasso
- The Harvey Girls
- The Iceman Cometh, by Eugene O'Neill
- The Killers, starring Burt Lancaster
- "La Vie En Rose"
- Member Of The Wedding, by Carson McCullers
- New Worlds is launched for the first time.
- Open City, directed by Roberto Rossellini
- The Postman Always Rings Twice
- The Skylark of Space, by E. E. "Doc" Smith
- Slan, by A.E. van Vogt
- Margaret St Clair's first story, "Rocked To Limbo"
- William Tenn's first story, "Alexander The Bait"
- The Time Stream, by John Taine
- "To Each His Own"
- Zorba The Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis
- Will-be famous Science Fiction writers born this year were Alan Dean Foster, F. Paul Wilson, Christopher Foss, Robert Weinberg, Mark Geston, Eric S Rabkin, Richard Glyn Jones, Steven G Spruill, and Bruce Mc Allister.
- Spell My Name With An S: "The Million Year Picnic" isn't given a hyphen on the title page, but it does appear with a hyphen (“The Million-Year Picnic") above the story pages.
- Twist Ending: Arthur C. Clarke's "Rescue Party": The ending subverts a Big Damn Heroes moment, implying both that Humans Are Special and that Humans Are the Real Monsters. While nothing exceptional for Military Science Fiction, it's particularly jarring to see it in Clarke's context.
- Weird Sun: Fredric Brown's "Placet Is A Crazy Place": Placet, the titular planet, has a lemniscate (figure-8) orbit around two suns — one matter, one antimatter. This causes a shedload of weird effects
- Zeerust: "A Logic Named Joe": Published by Will F Jenkins, who usually used the Pen Name Murray Leinster. This story was published in 1946, yet it revolves around a computer network strangely prophetic of the real-world Internet, complete with online pornography and content filters. At that time, there were 6 working computers in the world. Although they have a very modern monitor-and-keyboard interface, the eponymous "logics" run on a combination of relay switches and "cold" vacuum tubes, and can literally figure out anything.