A Pocketful of Stars
Damon Knight
318 pages
published in 1971

There used to be a time when science fiction was not dominated by novels, but by the short stories, a time when the magazines were at the heart of the genre. This time has long since pasted, the sf magazines are now little more then curious relics of science fiction's past and the field is dominated by the novel. There aren't even that many short story anthologies being published, certainly not many original anthologies. Science fiction has largely turned away from the short story.

And I have as well, as a glance at the number of anthologies and collections I've read this year and last shows. I've only read four: Arthur C. Clarke's Of Time and Stars, Keith Laumer's Nine by Laumer, Year's Best SF 5 and this book, which is an anthology of writers involved with the Milford SF Writers Conference.

Science fiction has a rich tradition of writers groups, workshops and conferences, of which Milford is one of the oldest and most famous. It ran from 1956 up untill 1972 and was created by Damon Knight. You could say A Pocketful of Stars is a retrospective, a showcase featuring some of the best stories workshopped at Milford.

Which means that the stories in this volume are of a diverse variety, ranging from out and out fantasy, to New Wave (Ellison, Wolfe) to classic middle of the road sf (Bova). There is at least one story with only a slight resemblence to sf/fantasy, Sonya Dorman's Harry the Tailor, no more then a New York anecdote; not a particularly good one either.

A Pocketful of Stars, because of this broad range, lacks coherence, which is not necesarily a bad thing --anthologies that are restricted too narrowly are just boring-- but which is a bit of a handicap here, as it can be a bit wrenching having to switch moods from one story to the next. It would've helped if the stories where better, but while there are no outright stinkers, there aren't any real classics either. The last Command by Keith Laumer or Knight's own Masks comes closest in my view. Yes, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream may be better known then either of those, but it has also aged badly. In all, not a bad anthology though, certainly worth picking up if you find it secondhand cheaply.

For your convenience, i've copied the table of contents below: