Stars of Albion

A superb collection of short SF fiction, published by Pan in the late 1970s, showcasing the best of British SF writers from the previous 15 years. Edited by Robert Holdstock and Christopher Priest, this has some absolutely brilliant stories and if you can track a copy down I would highly recommend you do so.

Standout stories for me are the tongue in cheek The Giaconda Caper by Bob Shaw, where a seemingly unknown version of the Mona Lisa leads to a shocking revelation about Da Vinci; Whores by Christopher Priest, part of his Dream Archipelago stories, although this tale of war and its aftermath is more nightmare; Traveller’s Rest by David I. Masson, a mind bending tale of time distortion and war, cleverly constructed and compelling; and Weihnachtabend by Keith Roberts, possibly the best story here, similar to PKD’s Man in The High Castle or Deighton’s SS-GB, in that it’s a “what if Germany won WW2” tale, but utterly its own beast.

To be honest there’s not a bad story here. Sadly only one woman is represented, Josephine Saxton, but that doesn’t diminish the book in any way. If you like SF short fiction, hunt this one down. Excellent stuff.