I only bought The Norton Book of Science Fiction because Le Guin was one of the editors, and I almost felt I'd received my money's worth after reading her twenty eight page introduction! While there is no theme to the collection, it is not representative of science fiction as a whole, being restricted to North American writers and to stories published between 1960 and 1990. Some of the stories are classics and have been anthologized many times before; others are not well known at all. As expected, the editors take a broad view of what constitutes science fiction and have included more stories by women than one usually finds in science fiction anthologies. All in all, this is probably the best general science fiction anthology I have ever read. Tastes will differ, of course, but anyone who likes science fiction should find a lot of enjoyable reading in this collection.

February 1995

External links:

- buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Related reviews:

- books by Ursula K. Le Guin
- more science fiction
- more short fiction