. . ?Nicholas Martin looked up at the robot across the desk."I'm not going to ask what you want," he said, in a low, restrained voice. "I already know. Just go away and tell St. Cyr I approve. Tell him I think it's wonderful, putting a robot in the picture. We've had everything else by now, except the Rockettes. But clearly a quiet little play about Christmas among the Portuguese fishermen on the Florida coast "must" have a robot. Only, why not six robots? Tell him I suggest a baker's dozen. Go away."

    Is it not so? Either to dream that what you seek is yours, or else to dream that what you hate is conquered. You drink to escape reality, and the irony is that even reality is a dream.'

    But the problem Orne had was one step tougher than that! A science fiction classic from Frank Herbert, author of DUNE!

    Written may 1948.First published in Saturn, October 1957 as The Elephant Circuit.First collected into The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, 1959.

    Helpless, doomed, into the graveyard of space floats the wrecked freighter Pallas.

    Would you believe extraterresterials?

    Kindle edition of sci-f/fantasyi writer Andre Norton.

    In their exile on the ground they have to adapt to vastly different circumstances, fight monsters resembling dinosaurs, and finally happen upon the godly giants, whose existence they had questioned.

    The Solar League ambassador to the Lone Star Planet has the unenviable task of convincing New Texans that a s'Srauff attack is imminent, and dangerous. Unfortunately it's common knowledge that the s'Srauff are evolved from canine ancestors -- and not a Texan alive is about to be scared of a talking dog! But unless he can get them to act, and fast, there won't be a Texan alive, scared or otherwise!

    In fact, all over the country it was bad for robots, especially one trying to get a job without all his parts working.

    

    It was the Professor's Wife, always a perceptive hostess, came to her husband's rescue by saying, "Top of the stairs, end of the hall, last door."Oddly enough, it was the start of a puzzling and all but unspeakable misadventure. As it were.

    It doesn't appear as a standalone work, but is included with several collections. The story is a prequel to the events in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and has the young Zaphod Beeblebrox working as a salvage ship operator. He guides some bureaucrats to a crashed spaceship which may be leaking some hazardous materials. The bureaucrats are determined to "make it safe". The comic asides in the story include some of the time travel paradoxes which are a common running theme in Adams' SF work, and plenty of material about lobsters

    His only hope for a cure is to accept a innovative treatment which he campaigned against funding, a decision for which he will be branded a hypocrite. The decision has placed him in the crucible of his life.

    But right down the road was the other town -- and that was even worse! A classic science fiction story from R.A. Lafferty. "Does it matter if he's respected? Not a bit. Does it matter if he's read? Damn right it does: no-one else did the things that Lafferty did in prose-and-occasionally-poetry, although Flann O'Brian came close." -- Neil Gaiman