Anthony Boucher - The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fifth Series (1956) Another anthology, this time collecting the best stories from F&SF magazine from 1955, you get some true classics here. Foremost among them is of course the magazine version of A Canticle for Leibowitz, but you also get highlights from Arthur C. Clarke, Damon Knight, Isaac Asimov, Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson and the really fascinating Pottage from Zenna Henderson. This is truly a golden age of science fiction writer, with many authors which are part of the pantheon of science fiction and fantasy since then. Of course there are some repetitions in this anthology if you've read the Judith Merrill and T.E. Dikty anthologies of the same year. It does however show a dominance and an overall quality to F&SF magazine at this time that far surpasses its companion magazines. By this point Analog was still stuck on their weird pseudo-science groove and Galaxy was excellent but still very focused exclusively on SF, which would change by 1956. All in all an excellent picture of fantasy and science fiction in the mid-50s with household name and iconic stories. It's also pretty surprising, for the time, how many great works of fiction here are by women writers in a field famously dominated by men. But Shirley Jackson's Zenna Henderson's and Mildred Clingerman's stories are great. And Alice Eleanor Jones' Created He Them, with it's strong feminist plot, was a particular revelation. (4/5) #anthonyboucher #isaacasimov #scifi #sciencefiction #book #books #bookish #bibliophile #bookgram #bookstagram #bookporn #bookworm #booklover #shortstories #damonknight #fantasy #shirleyjackson #arthurcclarke (at Lisbon) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5dO4r_lvZq/?igshid=1sp9181zj6wxu