Mammoth Book of New World Science Fiction: Short Novels of the 1960s

The ``new world'' of science fiction reflected the concerns of the burgeoning youth culture as well as the technological advances of the 1960s. Robert Silverberg's classic ``How It Was When the Past Went Away,'' which shows how the population of San Francisco both suffers and benefits from a memory-loss drug in the drinking water, illustrates the rising drug-consciousness of the times. While a crooked stockbroker's career is ruined--since he can no longer remember any of his marginal dealings--a widower tormented over the death of his family founds a new religion that worships the loss of the past. Philip Jose Farmer's ``The Suicide Express'' voices pk the '60s fascination with spirituality by creating a world where the dead are resurrected as part of an alien research project to determine whether human beings have souls. Notably, early protest against the Vietnam War glimmers in Gordon R. Dickson's ``Soldier Ask Not,'' where a newsman of the future is helpless to stop a military onslaught. An intriguing collection from a historical perspective. Asimov, Greenberg and Waugh also edited Starships: Stories Beyond the Boundaries of the Universe. (July)