From the Bookshelf: American Science Fiction 1953-1956

I happened to see in my own newspaper's occasional science fiction book column news of a boxed set of SF novels from the 1950s. Remembering the hardcover edition of the Foundation novels I'd bought last year, I did keep my eyes open for the box set, and after a while I also found a bookstore coupon in my newspaper of sufficient magnitude to go to the bookstore and buy the set. Just like with the Foundation novels, I'd long had a good number of the books included in the set as second-hand purchases, and more than that I also happened to think a little about how still this doesn't reconnect me to the modern currents of written science fiction I might have become disconnected from through the crawling suspicion the discussions of others about it will criticise all of my other tastes. Still, the thought of higher-quality editions of novels that were, after all, long and well remembered did continue to appeal to me. Reading through the first volume of the set even left me with a few thoughts about its novels.
( Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth's The Space Merchants )

( Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human )

( Leigh Brackett's The Long Tomorrow )

( Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man )