Best of
Speculative-Fiction

1966

Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Rocannon’s World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions


Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin - 1966
    Le Guin is one of the greatest science fiction writers and many times the winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Her career as a novelist was launched by the three novels contained in Worlds Of Exile And Illusion. These novels, Rocannon's World, Planet Of Exile, and City Of Illusions, are set in the same universe as Le Guin's ground-breaking classic, The Left Hand Of Darkness.Tor is pleased to return these previously unavailable works to print in this attractive new edition.

For a Breath I Tarry


Roger Zelazny - 1966
    featured in whatever manner he chose.") Though Man has disappeared, his robotic creations (and their creations in turn) continue to function.Along the way, the story explores the differences between Man and Machine, the former experiencing the world qualitatively, while the latter do so quantitatively. "A machine is a Man turned inside-out, because it can describe all the details of a process, which a Man cannot, but it cannot experience that process itself as a Man can." This is illustrated by a conversation Frost has with another machine named Mordel.

S is for Space


Ray Bradbury - 1966
    S is for science fiction, spine-tingling, supernatural and sublime! S is for stories from a "Star Wilderness that stretched as far as eye and mind could see and imagine".ChrysalisPillar of FireZero HourThe ManTime in Thy FlightThe PedestrianHall and FarewellInvisible BoyCome into My CellarThe Million-Year PicnicThe Screaming WomanThe SmileDark They Were, and Golden-EyedThe TrolleyThe Flying MachineIcarus Montgolfier Wright

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale


Philip K. Dick - 1966
    The valleys, he thought. What would it be like to trudge among them? Great and greater yet: the dream grew as he became fully conscious, the dream and the yearning. He could almost feel the enveloping presence of the other world, which only Government agents and high officials had seen. A clerk like himself? Not likely.Novellete-length, this story is the inspiration behind the popular Total Recall movies from 1990 and 2012.

The Snail on the Slope


Arkady Strugatsky - 1966
    One is the Administration, an institution run by a surreal, Kafkaesque bureaucracy whose aim is to govern the forest below. The other is the Forest, a place of fear, weird creatures, primitive people and violence. Peretz, who works at the Administration, wants to visit the Forest. Candide crashed in the Forest years ago and wants to return to the Administration. Their journeys are surprising and strange, and readers are left to puzzle out the mysteries of these foreign environments. The Strugatskys themselves called The Snail on the Slope “the most perfect and the most valuable of our works.”

This Immortal


Roger Zelazny - 1966
    And, as Arts Commissioner, he's been given a job he'd rather not do. Escorting an alien grandee on a guided tour of the shattered remains of Earth is not something he relishes- especially when it is apparent that this places him at the center high-level intrigue that has some bearing on the future of Earth itself.

A Book of Wizards


Ruth Manning-Sanders - 1966
    

The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein


Robert A. Heinlein - 1966
    Heinlein is a collection of science fiction short stories by Robert A. Heinlein published in 1966.It includes an introduction entitled "Pandora's Box" that describes some of the difficulties in making predictions about the near future. Heinlein outlines some of his predictions that he made in 1949 (published 1952) and examines how well they stood up to some 15 years of progress in 1965. The prediction was originally published in Galaxy magazine, Feb 1952, Vol. 3, No. 5, under the title "Where to?" (pp. 13-22).Following the introduction are five short stories: * "Free Men" (written c. 1947, but first published in this collection, 1966) * "Blowups Happen" (1940) * "Searchlight" (1962) * "Life-Line" (1939) * "Solution Unsatisfactory" (1940)In 1980, the entire contents of this collection, including "Pandora's Box" (further updated), were engulfed in Heinlein's collection, Expanded Universe.

Under Old Earth And Other Explorations


Cordwainer Smith - 1966
    Giant planoforming ships travel the hazardous spaceways. Men and women genetically 'built' from animals do civilization's labour - and plot in secret, planning revolution. But the hell-planet Shayol with its bizarre torments awaits those who rebel against the dictatorial yoke of the Instrumentality...Cordwainer Smith's vision and talent represent something unique in the field of imaginative SF.Contents :Introduction by Anthony CheethamThe Game of Rat and DragonOn the Sand PlanetUnder Old EarthAlpha Ralpha BoulevardThe Ballad of Lost C'mellThe Crime and the Glory of Commander SuzdalA planet Named Shayol

Attic of the Wind


Doris Herold Lund - 1966
    A story about what happens to all the things (such as feathers, hats, kites, autumn leaves) that blow away and are lost in the wind.

Beyond Belief


Richard J. HurleyArthur C. Clarke - 1966
    Smith: The Hardest Bargain- Willy Ley [as by Robert Willey]: The Invasion- Isaac Asimov: It's Such a Beautiful Day- Theodore Sturgeon: The Man Who Lost the Sea- Clark Ashton Smith: Phoenix- Richard Matheson: Third from the Sun- Murray Leinster: Keyhole- Arthur C. Clarke: History Lesson

The Shape of Space


Larry Niven - 1966
    ContentsThe Warriors (Known Space series) / Larry NivenSafe at Any Speed (Known Space series) / Larry NivenHow the Heroes Die (Known Space series) / Larry NivenAt the Bottom of a Hole (Known Space series) / Larry NivenBordered in Black / Larry NivenLike Banquo's Ghost / Larry NivenOne Face / Larry NivenThe Meddler / Larry NivenDry Run / Larry NivenConvergent Series / Larry NivenThe Deadlier Weapon / Larry NivenDeath / Ecstasy (Gil Hamilton series) / Larry Niven

Tomorrow Midnight


Al Feldstein - 1966
    1953 with art by Wallace Wood based on a story published in ''Planet Stories'' Fll 48 · Outcast of the Stars · ss Super Science Stories Mar ’50

The Cloud Forest


Joan North - 1966
    Taken from an orphanage and adopted by a woman teacher, twelve-year-old Andrew lives uneasily as the only boy in a girls’ boarding school in England. He himself attends a school for local boys and girls in a nearby town, but his free time is spent at Searly House, where his “Aunt Badger” teaches and where he is expected to make himself very scarce indeed. Marion Badger shows no fondness for her adopted son, who grows more and more unhappy and withdrawn. He is especially reluctant to go to Annerlie Hall, on old manor house on the edge of the school grounds, where Sir Edward Annerlie lives with his invalid brother. Andrew senses a strangeness there—an evil presence, almost. His life changes for the better when he meets Ronnie Peters, a student at Searly House, a girl who is quite content to be what Miss Spencer calls “an odd child.” Ronnie takes an immediate interest in Andrew and his problems. Together they become involved in a strange search for Andrew’s identity and for the meaning of experiences beyond their comprehension—a search in which they are guided by some who wish them well and hindered by others who wish them ill.