Read Alchemy And Academe : A Collection Of Original Stories Concerning Themselves With Transmutations, Mental And Elemental, Alchemical And Academic (1979)
Alchemy And Academe : A Collection Of Original Stories Concerning Themselves With Transmutations, Mental And Elemental, Alchemical And Academic (1979) - Plot & Excerpts
ix • Foreword (Alchemy and Academe) • (1970) • essay by Anne McCaffrey 1 • The Dance of the Solids • (1969) • poem by John Updike 5 • A Mess of Porridge • (1970) • shortstory by Sonya Dorman 22 • The Institute • (1970) • shortstory by Carol Emshwiller 28 • Condillac's Statue, or Wrens in His Head • (1970) • shortstory by R. A. Lafferty 41 • The Sorcerers • (1970) • poem by L. Sprague de Camp 43 • The Weed of Time • (1970) • shortstory by Norman Spinrad 53 • Night and the Loves of Joe Dicostanzo • (1970) • shortstory by Samuel R. Delany 76 • Come Up and See Me • (1970) • shortstory by Daphne Castell 88 • Shut the Last Door • (1970) • shortstory by Joe L. Hensley [as by Joe Hensley ] 97 • Big Sam • (1970) • shortstory by Avram Davidson 104 • More Light • [The King In Yellow] • (1970) • novelette by James Blish 138 • The Man Who Could Not See Devils • (1970) • shortstory by Joanna Russ 153 • The Key to Out • (1970) • shortstory by Betsy Curtis 161 • Ringing the Changes • (1970) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg 175 • In a Quart of Water • (1970) • shortstory by David Telfair 193 • Morning-Glory • (1970) • shortstory by Gene Wolfe 202 • Ascension: A Workday Arabesque • (1970) • poem by Virginia Kidd 203 • The Devil You Don't • (1970) • novelette by Keith Laumer 229 • The Triumphant Head • (1970) • shortstory by Josephine Saxton 234 • Mainchance • (1970) • novelette by Peter Tate
Anthologies are a crapshoot: you rifle through a grab-bag of short stories organized around an ostensible theme, hoping to find a couple good stories and maybe an author to investigate further. If you're lucky, the editor is friends with good writers and has a clear conceit in mind. If you're unlucky, you get a book like Alchemy and Academe, which muddles along on mediocre stories and an inexplicable theme. Alchemy and Academe? According to McCaffrey's fulsome introduction, these stories are all about an intellectual/technical approach to fantasy and transmutations thereof. To make matters worse, she's taken a poem by John Updike (a poet whom other poets giggle about) as her guiding principle. But anthologies are a crapshoot, even anthologies born under an unlucky star. Alchemy and Academe has two stories which redeem its ill-begotten existence: Samuel R. Delany's wonderfully creepy "Night and the Loves of Joe Dicostanzo," and Gene Wolfe's haunting "Morning-Glory." (Gosh, I sure hope those two gentlemen went on to write other stuff!)
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