"Earth Station Charlie" by Billy Crystal

            Yes, you are reading the author's name correctly. That is the very same man who has starred in the film When Harry Met Sally, voiced Mike Wazowski in Monsters, Inc., and hosted the Oscars umpteen times. That very same man has published science fiction, and to my knowledge, it is his only science fiction piece ever published (for reference, it was published in a 1986 issue of Playboy). After seeing his name next to the title, my curiosity led me to reading the story right away.
            I was truly shocked by the quality of the story. I was honestly expecting it to be mediocre or maybe decent at best, but it's truly quite a little gem. I won't say the story is perfect, but it attained the goal it seemed to be reaching for with flying colors, and with that I must say it's a shame Billy Crystal has not jumped back into the foray of science fiction (as an author anyway).
            But when I do say it's not perfect, it's mainly for something I won't spoil, which is the ending; despite still being a great symbolic fit, it probably still could've been changed for the better. The other complaint I would usually have is that there sure are quite a few cultural references slewed throughout the story, but frankly, considering it's a story about a man who does nothing other than watch television (and there's more to the story than that, which would otherwise make it just a realistic fiction story), it makes perfect sense. I generally suggest to people to abstain from cultural references, but here, that tactic works out fine.
            With this review, I mainly intended to bring to light this story. I did not intend to write any sort of lengthy review, but more to suggest something that seems to have slipped under the radar that doesn't deserve to. If you want to find it, the best place to do so is in The Playboy Book of Science Fiction, which holds at least a couple of other gems as well (and some flops to be sure), but I wanted to highlight this one because it's kind of the odd man out and should be looked into.

"The Marching Morons" by C.M. Kornbluth

            C.M. Kornbluth was a strange man. He taught himself by reading through a whole encyclopedia and based ideas in his stories on entries in the encyclopedia, forced a habit of drinking black coffee on himself because he believed professional authors were supposed to do so, and, what may have possibly led to his young-age death (by heart attack), never brushed his teeth (his teeth were reportedly green, and he talked with his hand over his mouth because of this). He has more eccentricities, but considering he has strange habits, it serves that his stories can be strange as well, sometimes written with fellow Futurian Frederik Pohl. They are often effective pieces nonetheless.
            "The Marching Morons", which takes its name from the "Marching Chinamen" paradox (which the story even describes) is indeed an effective piece, but certainly not his best. It's one of his most popular, along with "The Little Black Bag" (which takes place in the same universe as "The Marching Morons"), and is now often compared to the Mike Judge film Idiocracy. The plot of "The Marching Morons" and Idiocracy is essentially the same, that of a man from the past put into a state of suspended animation and woken up in a future full of imbeciles, but the overall story is dealt with differently in both.
            In Kornbluth's story, the man who wakes up in the future is taken by a small group of surviving intellectuals, who are working together to keep society held together, to plot a desperately needed change in the world. Why they need the man from the past, John Barlow, to do that, I don't know (or remember, if the story mentioned why), but hey, let's go with it because we need that for symbolic reasons, right? He does, after all, represent Nazi ideology. Should be obvious why Kornbluth decided to utilize Nazi references, but it's still a bit strange that Barlow would go that route. It's just plain odd for a protagonist to become a dirty rotten bastard pretty much right after being resurrected, and this is even after being afraid of totalitarian society himself. Maybe that's the point, that Barlow is truly a moron as well.
            Regardless, that's the problem with the story is that nobody, whether it be Barlow or the intellectuals, decided to do what essentially happened in Idiocracy: educate. I know that would've been difficult for the small amount of intellectuals compared to the large amount of idiots, but the more idiots you educate, the less idiots there will probably be. I understand why Kornbluth wrote what he wrote, but he exchanges believability for symbolism (including criticism of the welfare system) and trying to prove some kind of point. That idea works for stories like "How Beautiful With Banners" by James Blish, because that's just a short character portrait and not intended to be a full story; it's like observing a painting in print form. With "The Marching Morons" it's just beyond ridiculous.
            This is not to say Idiocracy wasn't ridiculous, either, but that was a straight-up comedy and even took a proper route with the idea. "The Marching Morons" is just frightening, and not really in a good way. I still recommend reading it, because it is quite unique and presents an interesting perspective, but this is another rare time in which I'll say, if you must pick between one or the other, stick to the film.
            But hey, unlike some of the other stories I've reviewed negatively (and this isn't that bad, really), I will actually recommend reading more of C.M. Kormbluth's work.
            For instance, I will recommend the aforementioned "The Little Black Bag", because it's an interesting psychological story involving  a doctor down on his luck who finds new life after discovering a black bag from the same future in which "The Marching Morons" takes place and starts using it to heal people again. The story does take a strange turn again, but that one at least makes sense and is still believable at the same time. And there is an interesting little factoid about the two stories besides the fact that they share the same universal storyline. "The Marching Morons" is a story about something arriving to the future from the past, and "The Little Black Bag" is about something arriving to the past from the future, like some kind of trade. Just a nice little connection there.