Year’s Best Science Fiction Novels: 1954 is a 1954

1954 in literature

The year 1954 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible, which will influence him greatly.*John Updike graduates from Harvard with a thesis on George Herbert....

 anthology of science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novels and novellas edited by Everett F. Bleiler

Everett F. Bleiler

Everett Franklin Bleiler was an editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" series of science fiction anthologies, and his Checklist of Fantastic Literature has been called...

 and T. E. Dikty

T. E. Dikty

Thaddeus Maxim Eugene Dikty was one of the earliest science fiction anthologists.He started the first "Best of the Year" anthologies, called The Best Science Fiction, which ran from 1949 until 1957. In 1953, he married writer Julian May, and in 1957 the two started an editorial service for...

. An abridged edition was published in the UK by Grayson in 1955 under the title The Year’s Best Science Fiction Novels: Second Series. The stories had originally appeared in 1953 and 1954 in the magazines Amazing Stories

Amazing Stories

Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...

, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Science Stories, Galaxy Science Fiction

Galaxy Science Fiction

Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...

and Space Science Fiction

Space Science Fiction

Space Science Fiction was a science fiction magazine published by Space Publications, Inc. of New York and The Archer Press Ltd. of London that ran for eight issues from May 1952 to September 1953. Space was edited by Lester del Rey and featured a monthly book review column by George O. Smith...

.

Contents

• Introduction, by Everett F. Bleiler
  Everett F. Bleiler
  Everett Franklin Bleiler was an editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" series of science fiction anthologies, and his Checklist of Fantastic Literature has been called...
  
   & T. E. Dikty
  T. E. Dikty
  Thaddeus Maxim Eugene Dikty was one of the earliest science fiction anthologists.He started the first "Best of the Year" anthologies, called The Best Science Fiction, which ran from 1949 until 1957. In 1953, he married writer Julian May, and in 1957 the two started an editorial service for...
  
  
• "The Enormous Room", by H. L. Gold
  H. L. Gold
  Horace Leonard Gold was a science fiction writer and editor. Born in Canada, Gold moved to the United States at the age of two...
  
   & Robert Krepps
• "Assignment in Aldebaran", by Kendell Foster Crossen
• "The Oceans Are Wide", by Frank M. Robinson
  Frank M. Robinson
  Frank M. Robinson is an American science fiction and techno-thriller writer.-Biography:Robinson was born in Chicago, Illinois. The son of a check forger, Frank started out working as a copy boy for International Service in his teens and then became an office boy for Ziff-Davis...
  
  
• "The Sentimentalists", by Murray Leinster
  Murray Leinster
  Murray Leinster was a nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history...
  
  
• "Second Variety
  Second Variety
  "Second Variety" is an influential short story by Philip K. Dick first published in Space Science Fiction magazine, in May 1953. It is one of Dick's many stories in which nuclear war has rendered the Earth's surface an uninhabitable, gray ash pile, and the only things remaining are killer robots...
  
  ", by Philip K. Dick
  Philip K. Dick
  Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
  
  

Reception

P. Schuyler Miller

P. Schuyler Miller

Peter Schuyler Miller was an American science fiction writer and critic.-Life:Miller was raised in New York's Mohawk Valley, which led to a life-long interest in the Iroquois Indians. He pursued this as an amateur archaeologist and a member of the New York State Archaeological Association.He...

reported that the editors' choices here were "by no means up to the very high standards of their annual short-story anthologies," although he rated the Robinson and Dick stories highly.