by Mina
Most would agree that an anthology is a collection of short(er) works in one volume. Beyond that, there is room for disagreement: some would insist that these works must be by different authors; others that there must be a unifying setting or theme. The Britannica dictionary gives two definitions for “anthology”: (1) a published collection of writings (such as poems or short stories) by different authors and (2) a collection of works of art or music. Since “works of art” is a very broad category, it’s easy to see why some would treat definition (1) as a subset of definition (2). According to various sources, the word anthology originally comes from the Greek anthología, literally “flower-gathering”, where it became used for a collection of short poems and epigrams by various authors. Whatever your accepted definition of anthology is, it definitely will be broader than just a collection of poems. And anthologies today go beyond the written word, they can include radio, film and TV. But let’s begin by looking at SF/sci-phi anthologies in (paper and electronic) book form, which would comfortably fit under the narrower definition (1).
One anthology I discovered recently (on paper) is Classic Science Fiction Stories, selected and introduced by Adam Roberts. In his introduction, Roberts tells us: “much of the best SF ever written has appeared in the short story format.” He muses that there is an “affinity between the genre of science fiction and the form of the short story.” He theorises that this is because a short story can focus on a “central trope or metaphor” and SF is “a fundamentally metaphorical form of art”. In his opinion, short stories could be considered closer in form to lyric poems, and the form could be extended to TV series like Star Trek and Doctor Who which “assemble mega-texts out of lots of short-story-esque discrete elements”. Whichever form SF anthologies take, they present us with “a universe animated by the strange and sublime and extraordinary.”
An anthology series I have enjoyed thoroughly (and reviewed) in the last couple of years is called Writers of the Future. It collects stories by means of a regular contest and the quality of these stories is excellent. As Jody Lynn Nye tells us in the introduction to volume 41, the stories contained in it don’t follow a single theme, trope or style. They are selected based on two criteria: they are bloody good (my words) and they are original ideas. Each story is accompanied by a beautiful colour illustration, also from the human winners of a contest, as, to agree with Echo Chernik, AI cannot (yet?) understand symbolism and turn it into something truly original and meaningful. Another intriguing format is that of the Shapers of Worlds series with short stories by authors featured on the podcast The Worldshapers. The only thing required of these stories is that they present “unique worlds”. It also contains black and white illustrations and I always enjoy the blend of words and images.
Tales of the United States Space Force does have a unifying theme. It takes the reality of space weapons, satellites and debris and the stories in it speculate about possible futures, with as much stress on the science as on the fiction. Full Steam Ahead is another anthology with a very clear unifying theme: steampunk in all its guises. But an anthology can even have more than one unifying theme. An Assembly of Monstersis a great deal of fun blending steampunk, mythology and good old-fashioned Gothic horror (in particular the Dracula and Frankenstein tropes). There are many good, traditional anthologies out there, catering to all tastes. You can find lists of recommendations on the internet without too much trouble. You can even ask AI to give you a list of recommendations if you are feeling particularly lazy.
But what if we talk of anthologies in the broader sense (2)? Can we count collections of short stories by the same author anthologies? If we do, I would include books such as Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and Asimov’s I, Robot stories. In The Martian Chronicles, we see the exploration and settlement of Mars in episodic and chronological form; in I, Robot, the framing narrative is Dr Susan Calvin recounting her past cases to a reporter who acts as the narrator (not to be confused with the later publication, The Complete Robot). Interestingly, both of these books are considered “fix-ups”, which the SFE describes as “a term first used by A.E. van Vogt to describe a book made up of previously published stories fitted together – usually with the addition of newly written or published cementing material – so that they read as a novel.”
So is “fix-up” a better label here? Paul Brians is not entirely sure when he talks about The Martian Chronicles:
“Bradbury has clearly tried to fix this one up by adding connective bits between the main stories to smooth the joins; but that this smoothing-out process was not entirely successful is made clear by the fact that when the television miniseries was created the scriptwriters felt the need to impose far more unity on the stories than Bradbury had. But if the stories are considered as variations on a theme rather than as chapters of a unified novel, these variations should cease to be troubling.”
For me, the inconsistencies and contradictions in this collection of short stories become irrelevant if we treat it as an anthology rather than a fix-up novel. I, Robot’s very loose framing narrative also makes more sense if we treat it as an anthology, rather than a fix-up novel, with a unifying theme of the interactions between robots and humans, and the ethical implications, especially if a robot displays behaviour requiring a “robopsychologist”.
Brians’ comment shows that it feels natural to also extend anthology to cover the air waves and moving pictures. In the 1950s, the radio series “Dimension X” dramatised short stories by authors like Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein and Simak. In the words of M. Keith Booker: “Radio programs such as Mutual’s 2000 Plus and NBC’s Dimension X were anthology series that offered a variety of exciting tales of future technology, with a special focus on space exploration (including alien invasion), though both series also often reflected contemporary anxieties about the dangers of technology.” Most of the stories were adapted by Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts and they also provided original scripts for this very loose unifying theme. The Twilight Zone was a US anthology TV series created by Rod Serling, who was also the host, narrator and one of the screenwriters. Each tale would have a moral or unexpected twist, with a pinch of creepiness thrown in. The more recent Black Mirror is British and has been labelled a “prestige” SF anthology series. It was created by Charlie Brooker and is considered speculative fiction with SF elements. It focuses on the dangers of unbridled new technologies and episodes come with a sting in the tail. Throw in dystopia, satire and social commentary, and you know happy endings are going to be a rare occurrence.
On a lighter note, the Star Trek universe is a great backdrop for many different short stories on the screen. They are peopled with familiar, recurring characters but they are placed in all sorts of different contexts and situations. This allows the screenwriters to literally play with ideas, science, philosophy, religion, sociology and anthropology, all within an SF frame. Star Trek is not considered an anthology series, but I agree with Roberts that it could be. The best anthologies have good curators, whether they act as compilers and guides like Roberts, or like creators like Serling, Brooker and Roddenberry. SF magazines like Asimov’s and Clarkesworld could arguably be considered anthologies, often tightly crafted and carefully edited.
In fact, “anthology” would seem to be a very loose term covering various different formats and media. I rather like that it’s an amorphous creature, but I do wonder what changes technology has wrought. Once upon a time, an anthology was a paper book you had to buy or take out on loan from a library. On paper, we tend to read from beginning to end, so we typically read the stories in the order they were put in. When anthologies were first aired on the radio and TV, audiences would have to wait a week for the next episode. Today, electronic media and streaming mean that you no longer have to wait and you no longer have to read, listen or watch stories in order. You can hop around like a demented grasshopper.
I’m not sure a value judgement is needed here; it’s a matter of preference. It’s like listening to music: do you play records on a record player so that you can have that distinctive, less than perfect sound? Do you play CDs, listening to songs in the order they were put in, obsessively reading the sleeve notes and the translation of lyrics from old Norse? Do you create playlists on Spotify, listen to the playlists the application creates for you based on your listening behaviour or click on “shuffle”? Perhaps you do a bit of all of these or live in total silence on a mountain top. Maybe, how you appreciate an anthology doesn’t matter. Maybe, what matters is that you do appreciate a universe animated by the strange, sublime and extraordinary.
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Bio:
Mina is a translator by day, an insomniac by night, and a magazine reviewer at Tangent Online in-between. Reading Asimov’s robot stories and Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids at age eleven may have permanently warped her view of the universe. She publishes essays in Sci Phi Journal as well as speculative “flash” fiction on sci-fi websites and hopes to work her way up to a novella or even a novel some day.
