The World Turned Upside Down

Rating:
Summary: A big pile of great stuff you've probably read already
Review: I'm conflicted about how to review this, because--on the one hand--I'd read a good three-quarters of the stuff in it before (in some cases, quite a long time before.) On the other hand, there was some new stuff, and the "liner notes" for each story were often interesting. You could probably put together a very good literature class around the stories in this volume.

On the gripping hand...riffing on classic sci-fi is a bit pretentious.

Anyway...as with most compilations of early sci-fi, this is a good selection of famous short stories. If you're looking for a book to get someone started on science fiction (or trying to give some culture to someone who buys John Ringo for the covers) then you couldn't go far wrong with "World Turned Upside-Down". Be warned, though, that the content in some of the stories is a rather PG-13 (and some of them involve themes that younger kids simply won't get.)