World’s Best Science Fiction – Second Series is a reprinting of World’s Best Science Fiction: 1966, which was edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr. This was an anthology series that ran for seven years (1965-1971), and the first four volumes were eventually reprinted as First Series (the reprinted version of 1965), Second Series (the reprinted version of 1966), Third Series (the reprinted version of 1967), and Fourth Series (the reprinted version of 1968).
Wollheim and Carr were at one time considered a powerhouse duo of editors, though they had a falling out at some point in the early 1970s and went their separate ways.
Wollheim was a prolific writer, having published his first short story “The Man from Ariel” in the January, 1934, issue of Wonder Stories. He then went on to have a long career, during which he published many more short stories, as well as several novels (many of them under the pseudonym
David Grinnell).
Carr, on the other hand, worked mostly as an editor, though he did publish some short fiction, including “The Robots Are Here” in the May, 1967, issue of Worlds of IF.
The art here is by Jack Gaughan, though this is a redesigned version of the cover for World’s Best Science Fiction: 1967. This is a little bit strange, since, as we mentioned earlier, this was actually a reprinting of the 1966 anthology, not the 1967 anthology. Here’s the original version of the cover:
(This image comes courtesy the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.)
Interestingly enough, Gaughan also did the cover for the issue of Worlds of IF we mentioned just a couple paragraphs ago.
As for the collection itself (World’s Best Science Fiction – Second Series), here is a full list of contents:
- Introduction by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr
- Sunjammer by Arthur C. Clarke
- Calling Dr. Clockwork by Ron Goulart
- Becalmed in Hell by Larry Niven
- Apartness by Vernor Vinge
- Over the River and Through the Woods by Clifford D. Simak
- Planet of Forgetting by James H. Schmitz
- “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison
- The Decision Makers by Joseph Green
- Traveler’s Rest by David I. Mason
- Uncollected Works by Lin Carter
- Vanishing Point by Jonathan Brand
- In Our Block by R. A. Lafferty
- Masque of the Red Shift by Fred Saberhagen
- The Captive Djinn by Christopher Anvil
- The Good New Days by Fritz Leiber