The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection (Black lizard)

Informative and well illustrated creating many talking points

A fantastic collection.

Amazing collection. Only minuspoint is the fact that such a massive book is hard to read in paperback. Better would have been if it were three books or even more.

This is indeed a Very Big book, weighty and with quite dense text on each page, and with 99 stories inside. The sheer size of the book makes it seem quite fragile and also very heavy in the hands. The paper quality wasn't the best, presumably to save on size/weight.Now I love my science fiction short stories and get through multiple anthologies each year, but I have to say that this one felt like just a step too far. Too many old/obscure stories, which might be great from a historical viewpoint, but simply felt out of date, or not aligned with my specific areas of interest within the genre. I struggled to complete - it took me 6 months in total (interspersed with a range of other books, which I read so I could have a break from what felt at stages like a slog).Yes, I discovered some new authors and some new stories by authors I already knew, but sadly I just felt that the investment of my time was too much for the overall meagre payback. In future I'll stick with slimmer volumes covering shorter timespans.

Bought as a gift and he seemed happy with it

Book binding is poor quality - the cover of my copy split in the mail. Quality of the stories is very mixed. The story chosen for Iain M Banks for example is probably the weakest piece of writing of his that I've ever read, and not a good introduction to either him or the Culture series. Yet it is one of the more readable works in this book. Same with Connie Willis and Gene Wolfe. The HG Wells story is drivel. Maybe the editors kept costs down by reprinting crappier stories... Maybe they just wanted to insult the greats.Not worth your time or money, and please don't use this book to introduce anyone to sci-fi. They'll be forever put off!

Looks great doesn't it ?... don't be fooled, despite a striking cover by Bruce Pennington and containing a large collection of stories, it lacks only one thing, quality....the standard of these shorts is abysmal, even the ones written by well known authors are forgettable and inconsequential...... complete waste of ( a lot) of money....

So far I've read the first 6 stories, and it's fascinating to read what early 20th century writers - male and female from around the world - were imagining. Highly recommended!

A well crafted collection of the very best science fiction stories of all time with biographies of the authors. I loved it.

Ce livre était destiné à être un cadeau, mais il est tellement abîmé qu'il semble être d'occasion ! Il s'agit d'un livre de poche lourd et très épais, avec une couverture fine, qui a été envoyé dans une enveloppe en carton, sans couverture ni rembourrage. TRÈS décevant.

Bien

The media could not be loaded.  This is definitely a brilliant collection. Very diverse. It is huge. My issue is with the binding and the packaging. For such a thick book, with more than 1000 pages, the binding should have been better. I am spending more than a thousand bucks but I have to constantly worry about not damaging the book. In fact when I received the package it was already damaged. The cover was torn at the top. I did not return it because this book is very difficult to find.So publishers, please do proper binding and give it a strong cover, something that can hold this amazing collection.And seller, please take care while packaging. Cover the edges properly and don't tear the book.