Sci Fi Shorts

I have been reading a lot of short story science fiction lately, mostly on my phone. Feedbooks has a wonderful collection of short stories by popular SF writers that appeared in Galaxy magazine or elsewhere. Some of them have been a little hit or miss, such as the laughably bad Quest of the Golden Ape which has an interesting premise. It gets bogged down by the fact that it is a men's adventure fantasy that even features an exotic virgin. Hoo! It's hard to believe that it's even from 1957 as it reads like something from 1937. It could easily be re-written today or made into a movie though.

More promising are all the Phillip K. Dick stories I enjoyed, such as The Gun, Second Variety, Beyond Lies the Wub and Mr. Spaceship. They all have the twist endings that were very popular at the time.

I also read my first Harry Harrison book, Deathworld, which I found very forward thinking for 1960. It has an interesting environmental as well as social bent to it, and now I have to read the next two books of the trilogy.

I'm also moseying my way through the SFWA's European Hall of Fame which features short stories from Europe. I can't help but feel that something is lost in translation or culture when reading most of them though! I bought it for $5 in a remainder bin, so it wasn't a huge loss :-)