Selected by a vote of the membership of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), these 26 reprints represent the best, most important, and most influential stories and authors in the field. The contributors are a Who's Who of classic SF, with every Golden Age giant included: Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, John W. Campbell, Robert A. Heinlein, Fritz Leiber, Cordwainer Smith, Theodore Sturgeon, and Roger Zelazny. Other contributors are less well known outside the core SF readership. Three of the contributors are famous for one story--but what stories!--Tom Godwin's pivotal hard-SF tale, "The Cold Equations"; Jerome Bixby's "It's a Good Life" (made only more infamous by the chilling Twilight Zone adaptation); and Daniel Keyes's "Flowers for Algernon" (brought to mainstream fame by the movie adaptation, Charly). The collection has some minor but frustrating flaws. There are no contributor biographies, which is bad enough when the author is a giant; but it's especially sad for contributors who have become unjustly obscure. Each story's original publication date is in small print at the bottom of the first page. And neither this fine print nor the copyright page identifies the magazines in which the stories first appeared. Prefaced by editor Robert Silverberg's introduction, which describes SFWA and details the selection process, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964 is a wonderful book for the budding SF fan. Experienced SF readers should compare the table of contents to their library before making a purchase decision. Fans who contemplate giving this book to non-SF readers should bear in mind that, while several of the collected stories can measure up to classic mainstream literary stories, the less literarily-acceptable stories are weighted toward the front of the collection; adult mainstream-literature fans may not get very far into The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964. --Cynthia Ward· Introduction · Robert Silverberg · in · A Martian Odyssey [Tweel] · Stanley G. Weinbaum · nv Wonder Stories Jul ’34 · Twilight [as by Don A. Stuart; Dying Earth] · John W. Campbell, Jr. · ss Astounding Nov ’34 · Helen O’Loy · Lester del Rey · ss Astounding Dec ’38 · The Roads Must Roll · Robert A. Heinlein · nv Astounding Jun ’40 · Microcosmic God · Theodore Sturgeon · nv Astounding Apr ’41 · Nightfall · Isaac Asimov · nv Astounding Sep ’41 · The Weapon Shop [Isher] · A. E. van Vogt · nv Astounding Dec ’42 · Mimsy Were the Borogoves · Lewis Padgett · nv Astounding Feb ’43 · Huddling Place [City (Websters)] · Clifford D. Simak · ss Astounding Jul ’44 · Arena · Fredric Brown · nv Astounding Jun ’44 · First Contact · Murray Leinster · nv Astounding May ’45 · That Only a Mother · Judith Merril · ss Astounding Jun ’48 · Scanners Live in Vain · Cordwainer Smith · nv Fantasy Book #6 ’50 · Mars Is Heaven! · Ray Bradbury · ss Planet Stories Fll ’48 · The Little Black Bag · C. M. Kornbluth · nv Astounding Jul ’50 · Born of Man and Woman · Richard Matheson · vi F&SF Sum ’50 · Coming Attraction · Fritz Leiber · ss Galaxy Nov ’50 · The Quest for Saint Aquin · Anthony Boucher · ss New Tales of Space and Time, ed. Raymond J. Healy, Holt, 1951; F&SF Jan ’59 · Surface Tension [Lavon] · James Blish · nv Galaxy Aug ’52 · The Nine Billion Names of God · Arthur C. Clarke · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #1, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953 · It’s a Good Life · Jerome Bixby · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #2, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953 · The Cold Equations · Tom Godwin · nv Astounding Aug ’54 · Fondly Fahrenheit · Alfred Bester · nv F&SF Aug ’54 · The Country of the Kind · Damon Knight · ss F&SF Feb ’56 · Flowers for Algernon · Daniel Keyes · nv F&SF Apr ’59 · A Rose for Ecclesiastes · Roger Zelazny · nv F&SF Nov ’63

    Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life-As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strifeOf semblance with reality which brings To the delirious eye more lovely things Of Paradise and Love-and all our own! Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known. [1827, 1828]SPIRITS OF THE DEADThy soul shall find itself alone'Mid dark thoughts of the graytomb-stone--Not one, of all the crowd, to pryInto thine hour of secrecy: IIBe silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness-for thenThe spirits of the dead who stoodIn life before thee are -againIn death around thee-and their will Shall overshadow thee: be still. IIIThe night-tho' clear--shall frownAnd the stars shall look not down, From their high thrones in the heaven, With light like Hope to mortals givenBut their red orbs, without beam, To thy weariness shall seem As a burning and a fever Which would cling to thee for ever. IVNow are thoughts thou shalt not banishNow are visions ne'er to vanishFrom thy spirit shall they pass No more-like dew-drop from the grass. VThe breeze---the breath of God-is still-And the mist upon the hillShadowy-shadowy-yet unbroken, Is a symbol and a token-How it hangs upon the trees, A mystery of mysteries!--[1827, 1839]EVENING STAR'Twas noontide of summer, And mid-time of night; And stars, in their orbits, Shone pale, thro' the lightOf the brighter, cold moon, 'Mid planets her slaves, Herself in the HeavensHer beam on the waves.On her cold smile; Too cold-too cold for me-There pass'd, as a shroud, A fleecy cloud, And I turn'd away to thee, Proud Evening Star, In thy glory afar, And dearer thy beam shall be; For joy to my heartIs the proud partThou bearest in Heav'n at night, And more I admireThy distant fire, Than that colder, lowly light.[1827]

    Lafferty, the highly acclaimed author of Past Masters and Fourth Mansions. His people are heroic, foolish, demonic or mischievous, but always unpredictable, and his stories soar with imagination even while they chuckle at themselves.Here at last are the finest of Lafferty's shorter works, stories about:A man who found one day that he knew everyone in the world.A race who kept their most ancient ancestors on shelves in the basements.A speeded-up world where a man could earn and lose a dozen fortunes a night.A friendly bearlike creature named Snuffles who said he was God....in all, twenty-one immensely enjoyable stories that will continue to delight you long after you've read them.

    It includes the harrowing novella Dzahn ("Soul"), in which a young man returns to his Asian birthplace to find his people deprived not only of food and dwelling, but of memory and speech, and "The Potudan River," Platonov's most celebrated story.In December 2007 The Fierce and Beautiful World will be superseded by Soul (978-159017-254-4), a new translation of eight of Platonov's stories.

    Anna Kavan now stands alongside Virginia Woolf as one of Britain's great 20th-century modernists.narratives highlight the shadowed world of the incurable drug addict and probe the psychological aspects of addiction.

    These nineteen stories resonate with all the great themes that Cather staked out like tracts of fertile land: the plight of people hungry for beauty in a country that has no room for it; the mysterious arc of human lives; and the ways the American frontier transformed the strangers who came to it, turning them imperceptibly into Americans. In these fictions, Cather displays her vast moral vision, her unerring sense of place, and her ability to find the one detail or episode that makes a closed life open wide in a single exhilarating moment.

    This book of twenty stories is Isaac Bashevis Singer's fifth collection and contains such classics as "The Cafeteria" and "On the Way to the Poorhouse."

    In Brodie's Report, he also returned to the style of his earlier work with its brutal realism, nightmares, and bloodshed. Many of these stories, including Unworthy and The Other Duel, are set in the macho Argentinean underworld, and even the rivalries between artists are suffused with suppressed violence. Throughout, opposing themes of fate and free will, loyalty and betrayal, time and memory flicker in the recesses of these compelling stories, among the best Borges ever wrote.

    With uncanny insight he takes us inside the minds of an unrepentant Nazi, an imprisoned Mayan priest, fanatical Christian theologians, a woman plotting vengeance on her father's “killer,” and a man awaiting his assassin in a Buenos Aires guest house. This volume also contains the hauntingly brief vignettes about literary imagination and personal identity collected in The Maker, which Borges wrote as failing eyesight and public fame began to undermine his sense of self.

    This is an exclusive collection of only 8 stories based on some whimsical characters. Every main character in all these stories has one thing in common. In a true sense, they are not whimsical; actually they have set their own doctrines and have stuck to them, no matter whatever happens. In one of the stories, the hero dies just because of his doctrines. The other story is based on the mentality of being lame; it proves that many a times those who are physically disabled are more firm than those who are physically capable of doing everything but have a lame and limp mind. One story is based on the insecurity; here the heroine who had refused someone whom she loved so much comes into contact with him again. She feels that he will blackmail her but fails to understand him, at the end, though very beautiful, her insecure mind shows its ugliness. Each and every story has some splendid felling or other to share with us, to reveal the vastness and the insularity of the mind.

    These pieces, written mostly before McCullers was nineteen, provide invaluable insight into her life and her gifts and growth as a writer. The collection also contains the working outline of “The Mute,” which became her best-selling novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. As new generations of readers continue to discover her work, Carson McCullers’s celebrated place in American letters survives more surely than ever. Edited by McCullers’s sister and with a new introduction by Joyce Carol Oates, The Mortgaged Heart will be an inspiration to writers young and old.

    Arranged by topic — Origins, Love, Heroes, and People — the tales combine universal themes and uncanny wisdom. Though some of these stories have been around for centuries and many were passed down by slaves, Julius Lester's urban expressiveness and Tom Feeling's spirited illustrations give them continued resonance for today's audience.

    The reader will also find an introduction entitled "Some Random Reflexions" written by Paustovsky, which appeared in the second collection of his works published in Russian (1967-69) in eight volumes. Konstantin Paustovky's life (1892-1968) was a long and highly productive one. Over a period of some fifty years passionately devoted to literature this great Soviet writer produced many delightful works. His talent and profound humanism won him world-wide fame and popularity. Here are just a few of the remarks addressed to him by his friends and colleagues: "A certain lady writer, one of our contemporaries, once told me: 'Without Paustovsky's books something would be missing. There may be other more talented writers, but I cannot think of anyone as conscientious as him.' This is why we have such great respect for you. It is why we revere our great predecessors, the writers of the last century: because of their love for their fellow men, their desire to help them, their understanding attitude towards mistakes, and the high demands which they made on themselves.'" - Ilya Ehrenburg "I think the public likes Paustovsky because he dispenses goodness so generously... One can fight for goodness in many ways. One way of serving it is by inculcating a sense of goodness in people. This is how Paustovsky serves it." - Olga Berggolts "Konstantin Paustovsky cannot possibly know all his disciples because there are millions of them in this country of ours. As one who constantly feels himself to be a disciple of this great writer I would be only too happy if my life and work could convey even a fraction of Paustovsky's great concern for his fellow man." - Vladimir Tendyrakov

    Louis, Henry Dumas had amassed a considerable body of work at the time of his death in 1968 at the age of thirty-four. These two volumes (Ark of Bones and Other Stories and Poetry for my People), comprise most of his work, published and unpublished. They amply show the sensitivity and skill with which he approached the themes of blackness and youth, the preoccupations of the stories, and, in the themes and techniques of the poems, demonstrate the awareness of what an African heritage can mean to an American writer.

    Stories depict the culture of traditional Jewish life in Poland, the lost world of Eastern European Jewry, and the emerging society of modern Israel.

    

    Like first-rate poetry, they are endlessly readable. Those who have not read them have something to look forward to, and an assortment of Dunsany is the foundation stone of any fantasy collection.” —L. Sprague de CampThirty short and short-short stories by the 18th Baron of Dunsany. Edited by, and with introduction, notes and afterword by, Lin Carter.Contents: Introduction: The dreams of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀI / Lin Carter — The cave of Kal — Of the gods of Averon — Mlideen — The King that was not — The men of Yarnith — In the land of Time — Time and the gods — The opulence of Yahn — The fortress unvanquishable, save for Sacnoth — Poltarnees, beholder of Ocean — The idle city — Bethmoora — Idle days on the Yann — The hashish man — Carcassonne — In Zaccarath — The dream of King Karna-Vootra — How the enemy came to Thlūnrāna — The distressing tale of Thangobrind the jeweller, and of the doom that befell him — A shop in Go-by Street — The avenger of Perdóndaris — How the dwarfs rose up in war — The probable adventure of the three literary men — The loot of Bombasharna — The injudicious prayers of Pombo the idolater — The bride of the man-horse — The quest of the Queen’s Tears — How one came, as was foretold, to the City of Never — A day at the Edge of the World — Erlathdronion — Epilogue — Afterword / Lin Carter(Cover Illustration: Ray Cruz)

    Ltd"'Clifford Ashdown: 'The Assyrian Rejuvenator'L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace: 'Madame Sara'Clifford Ashdown: 'The Submarine Boat'William Le Queux: 'The Secret of the Fox Hunter'Baroness Orczy: 'The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway'R. Austin Freeman: 'The Moabite Cipher'Baroness Orczy: 'The Woman in the Big Hat'William Hope Hodgson: 'The Horse of the Invisible'Ernest Bramah: 'The Game Played in the Dark'

    

    You'll shiver and shake, quiver and quake at your ghastly moans and chuckles!

    

    It corrects factual and formal errors in the introduction and notes, and emends misprints in the text.

    The stories were recognized with both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

    

    It had originally been commissioned as one of a set of stories by different authors who all used a common starting point as set out in the story's prologue, written by Keith Laumer. Ellison's contribution was a longer work than one usually expects from him, but it nevertheless sustains its bombardment of ideas and feelings throughout. What's more, Ellison created a story that demanded a different format to allow for full expression. The result was a typesetter's nightmare but, as you will see, the experience now only makes this story all the more fascinating, it actually takes you into the story itself. Mike Ashley

    Higginbotham's CatastropheAlice Doane's appealGray ChampionYoung Goodman BrownWakefieldAmbitious GuestMinister's Black VeilMay-Pole of Merry MountGreat CarbuncleMan of AdamantLady Eleanor’s MantleEgotism, or, the Bosom SerpentBirthmarkChristmas BanquetArtist of the BeautifulRappacini’s DaughterEthan BrandFeathertop, A Moralized LegendSketches (12)Sights from a SteepleHaunted MindSunday at HomeFancy's Show BoxNight SketchesVirtuouso's CollectionOld Apple DealerHall of FantasyCelestial RailroadFire WorshipEarth's HolocaustMain StreetPrefaces:The Old MansePreface to the third edition of Twice-told tales --Preface to The Snow Image and other twice-told talesJournalism:From: Chiefly about War Matters

    In these short fictions and sketches Ficowski reinterprets a question posed by the writer central to him, Bruno Schulz, about the mythologization of reality. For Schulz, fiction was a way of turning the quotidian into the fantastical and eternal. Ficowski's prose seems to reinterpret this approach to address the sense of loss and bleak landscape of postwar Poland. Effortlessly weaving memory, religious ritual, daily life, and the magical, he hints at a sinister presence lurking behind these dreamlike tales – a trace of ruin or disintegration always present as the narrator repeatedly struggles to link some aspect of a past that has been annihilated with a present that is foreign and hostile.Not having belonged to any definable literary school or circle, Ficowski occupies an unique place in Polish literature. His only identifiable precursors might be Boleslaw Lesmian (whose Russian verse he has translated to Polish) and of course Bruno Schulz."In this collection of 28 short, lyrical prose pieces, Ficowski, a Polish poet and scholar who participated in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, blends hallucination, reminiscence and reverie in a way that suggests but never spells out the horrors and deprivations of life in Poland during and after WWII. [...] Many pieces read like dream journals, or "recollections confused with fantasy," unraveling from reality in a style recalling the work of Borges and Calvino, and the dark, surrealist fables of Bruno Schulz, the subject of Ficowski's best known nonfiction work, Regions of the Great Heresy. But the collection contains pieces, such as the profound "Intermission," about a brief, terrifying lull during the Warsaw Uprising, that clearly touch on his own experience of war and loss. First published in Poland in 1970, this expressive collection illustrates how a suffering nation can find refuge in dreams, even if those dreams are haunted by a reality the dreamer is trying to escape."– Publishers Weekly (starred review

    The case quickly becomes more complex with the death of a beautiful coed, who is the daughter of an important senator. - The Mystery Lover's Companion, Art Bourgeau

    The carver in ivory who used only the rarest materials...The Hallowe'en party for the children that was planned to be authentic in every detail ...The impecunious tourist who still had one priceless commodity to sell ...The weird jewels that would for ever retain a memory of beauty ...These are only some of Charles Birkin's nerve-twisting excursions into a new dimension of horror.

    

    Henry Lawson's Bush Undertaker, The Drover's Wife, The Loaded Dog and The Union Buries Its Dead are remembered not simply as his most popular stories but as the cornerstones of his literary reputation.Lawson projected parts of his own personality into the central re-occurring characters in his stories and in this carefully selected presentation by Colin Roderick, Lawson's best stories are published in harmonious sequences to demonstrate the point.This unique A & R CLASSIC volume of Henry Lawson's stories includes a 25 page Commentary on the author's corrections and publishing history of each story.