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Vintage Season
Henry Kuttner - 1946
L. Moore [as by Lawrence O'Donnell]First publication: Astounding Science Fiction, September 1946
The Long Rain
Ray Bradbury
This story was originally published in 1950 as "Death-by-Rain" in the magazine Planet Stories, and then in the collection The Illustrated Man. The story tells of four men who have crashed on a planet where it is always raining. As they try to reach the safety of the Sun Domes, they end up being driven insane by the endless rains.The story was republished in several collections and was incorporated into a film also titled The Illustrated Man.-- Wikipedia
Showdown
Dan Moren - 2019
But Commonwealth operative Simon Kovalic knows nothing ever goes to plan. So, when a duplicitous bounty hunter lives up to his reputation, Kovalic’s ready—just maybe not ready enough.Now he and his team must get offworld, before their enemies catch up with them…
The Big Front Yard (Astounding Science Fiction. Vol. LXII. No. 2. October 1958)
Clifford D. Simak - 1958
The situation get stranger when his dog Towser finds a buried ship in the woods.- Winner of 1959 Hugo Award for Best NoveletteSubsequently published in a number of anthologies.
The Multiplex Man
James P. Hogan - 1992
He knew that the countries of the former Eastern Block, who now claimed to have more freedom than the United States, as well as booming economies fueled by their exploitation of the resources of space, were only spreading ridiculous propaganda, and they either would soon collapse, starved by their diminishing natural resources and choked in their own pollution—or else they would attempt to steal the resources of the rest of the world, and have to be destroyed. Didn't the government say that was so?And then his world went to hell...
First Contacts: The Essential Murray Leinster
Murray Leinster - 1998
This collection contains two stories not previously published, and it contains an introduction by Hal Clement, with cover art by Hannibal King.
Cat Scratch Fever
Tara K. Harper - 1994
At last, she took the guide virus that would mutate her body to create the gate she so desperately craved. But the lifeform her body took was the one lifeform forbidden--the felines, who had scouted the planet for the First Droppers and, in exchange, been promised their freedom forever from human domination. By laws of the Guide Guild and the First-Landing Pact, she could never call to the cats, never speak with them, never approach them. But then capture and imprisonment, torture and slavery took the place of an empty future. Suddenly Tsia's only hope lay with her gate--and once she had touched the cats, there would be no turning back...
The Immortal Bard
Isaac Asimov - 1954
It was first published in the May 1954 issue of Universe Science Fiction, and has since been republished in several collections and anthologies, including Earth Is Room Enough (1957) and The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1986). Like many of his stories, it is told as a conversation, in this case between two professors at a college faculty's annual Christmas party.It is likely that Asimov wrote this short story after seeing how literary academia viewed his own writing. His autobiography, In Memory Yet Green, describes how science fiction gradually became more "respectable", while at the same time, professors of literary studies wrote things about SF — even about Asimov's own stories — which he completely failed to grasp. "The Immortal Bard" is an expression of Asimov's own deep admiration for William Shakespeare which also satirizes the interpretations built upon Shakespeare's work — such as symbolic, Freudian, and New Critical.
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Harlan Ellison - 1967
It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction.It won a Hugo Award in 1968. The name was also used for a short story collection of Ellison's work, featuring this story. It was recently reprinted by the Library of America, collected in volume two (Terror and the Uncanny, from the 1940s to Now) of American Fantastic Tales (2009).
Astounding Science Fiction, February 1943
John W. Campbell Jr.Kolliker - 1943
John W. Campbell Jr.)The Weapon Makers, Part 1 of 3 (Weapon Shops of Isher #) / A.E. van Vogt; interior artwork by Frank Kramer In Times to Come / essay by unknownFlight into Darkness / Webb Marlowe (i.e. J. Francis McComas); interior artwork by Frank KramerMimsy Were the Borogoves / Lewis Padgett (i.e. Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore); interior artwork by KollikerThe Man in the Moon / Henry A. Norton; interior artwork by KollikerGod's Footstool / essay by Malcolm JamesonThe Analytical Laboratory: December 1942 / essay by The Editor (i.e. John W. Campbell Jr.)Blue Ice (Probability Zero series) / Henry KuttnerProbability Zero! / essay by L. Sprague de Camp and Fox B. Holden and Colin Keith and Henry KuttnerEfficiency (Probability Zero series) / Colin Keith (i.e. Malcolm Jameson)Noise is Beautiful! (Probability Zero series) / Fox B. HoldenThe Anecdote of the Movable Ears (Probability Zero series) / L. Sprague de CampBrass Tacks / essay by The Editor (i.e. John W. Campbell Jr.)Opposites—React!, Part 2 of 2 (Seetee serial) / Willi Stewart (i.e. Jack Williamson); interior artwork by Kolliker
They're Made Out of Meat
Terry Bisson - 1991
Here’s the correct version, as published in Omni, 1990." -- Terry Bisson
Wave Without a Shore
C.J. Cherryh - 1981
It wasn't that Freedom was inhospitable as planets go. The problem was that outsiders—tourists and traders—claimed the streets were crowded with mysterious characters in blue robes and with members of an alien species.Native-born humans, however, said that was not the case. There were no such blue-robes and no aliens.Such was the viewpoint of both Herrin the artist and Waden the autocrat—until a crisis of planetary identity forced a life-and-death confrontation between the question of reality and the reality of the question…
Rescue Party (When the World Ends, #1)
Arthur C. Clarke - 1946
With time rapidly ticking down, the crew desperately searches a now-desolate planet for any possible human survivors.This is a dramatisation of the very first short story written by one of the world's most prominent Science Fiction authors.Originally published in Astounding (May, 1946).
The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Gene Wolfe - 1972
It is said a race of shapeshifters once lived here, only to perish when men came. But one man believes they can still be found, somewhere in the back of the beyond.In The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Wolfe skillfully interweaves three bizarre tales to create a mesmerizing pattern: the harrowing account of the son of a mad genius who discovers his hideous heritage; a young man's mythic dreamquest for his darker half; the bizarre chronicle of a scientists' nightmarish imprisonment. Like an intricate, braided knot, the pattern at last unfolds to reveal astonishing truths about this strange and savage alien landscape.
Call Me Joe
Poul Anderson - 1957
The plot involves an attempt to explore the surface of the planet Jupiter using remote-controlled artificial life-forms. It focuses on the feelings of a disabled man who operates an artificial body. The story was published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine by its editor John W. Campbell.The Science Fiction Writers of America selected Call Me Joe for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two.