The World That Couldn't Be


Clifford D. Simak - 1958
    He was honored by fans with three Hugo Awards and by colleagues with one Nebula Award. The Science Fiction Writers of America made him its third SFWA Grand Master and the Horror Writers Association made him one of three inaugural winners of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. This is one of his stories.

Mr. Spaceship


Philip K. Dick - 1953
    This was accomplished, and something unforeseen: a strange entity called . . . Mr. Spaceship

The Repairman


Harry Harrison - 1958
    Ever. Therefore I have a little job I know you-ll enjoy. Repair job. The Centauri beacon has shut down. It-s a Mark III beacon.-- What kind of beacon? Mark III - The Old Man repeated, practically chortling. - ...This was the earliest type of beacon ever built-by Earth, no less. Considering its location on one of the Proxima Centauri planets, it might very well be the first beacon.

Bread Overhead by Fritz Leiber, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror


Fritz Leiber - 1958
    In this toasted tomorrow, the highly-mechanized Puffy Products is bent on producing the supremely lightest loaf. The story is what happens if bread isn't just airy, but pumped full of lighter-than-air helium. Leiber (Ships to the Stars) didn't often bake up such a souffle of spoof, but he's a master in the kitchen. And "Bread Overhead" has just enough to say about human nature to be filling, besides.

Earthmen Bearing Gifts


Fredric Brown - 1954
    Something really and truly terrible is about to happen. Like, maybe the end of the world. Or worse!

The Aliens


Murray Leinster - 1959
    and so, they knew, were the Aliens. When two expanding empires meet... war is inevitable. Or is it...?

Dead Ringer


Lester del Rey - 2010
    Dead Ringer appeared in the November 1956 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.There was nothing, especially on Earth, which could set him free--the truth least of all!

All Cats Are Gray


Andre Norton - 1953
    But out in deep space the normal may be reversed--for humans at any rate.

The Burning Bridge


Poul Anderson - 1960
    ------------- The foul-up starts when the reason-for-wanting -------------- is satisfied ... and the need remains!excerpt from the introductory: THE message was an electronic shout, the most powerful and tightly-beamed short-wave transmission which men could generate, directed with all the precision which mathematics and engineering could offer. Nevertheless that pencil must scrawl broadly over the sky, and for a long time, merely hoping to write on its target. For when distances are measured in light-weeks, the smallest errors grow monstrous. As it happened, the attempt was successful. Communications Officer Anastas Mardikian had assembled his receiver after acceleration ceased-a big thing, surrounding the flagship Ranger like a spiderweb trapping a fly-and had kept it hopefully tuned over a wide band. The radio beam swept through, ghostly faint from dispersion, wave length doubled by Doppler effect, ragged with cosmic noise. An elaborate system of filters and amplifiers could make it no more than barely intelligible. But that was enough. Mardikian burst onto the bridge. He was young, and the months had not yet devoured the glory of his first deep-space voyage. "Sir!" he yelled. "A message ... I just played back the recorder ... from Earth!" Fleet Captain Joshua Coffin started. That movement, in weightlessness, spun him off the deck. He stopped himself with a practiced hand, stiffened, and rapped back: "If you haven't yet learned regulations, a week of solitary confinement may give you a chance to study them." "I ... but, sir-" The other man retreated. His uniform made a loose rainbow splash across metal and plastic. Coffin alone, of all the fleet's company, held to the black garments of a space service long extinct. -

Precipice


John Jackson Miller - 2009
    It is an offense punishable by death-and a fate to which Commander Yaru Korsin will not succumb. But on a crucial run to deliver troops and precious crystals to a combat hotspot in the Sith's war against the Republic, Korsin and the crew of the mining ship Omen are ambushed by a Jedi starfighter. And when the Sith craft crash-lands, torn and crippled, on a desolate alien planet, the hard-bitten captain finds himself at odds with desperate survivors on the brink of mutiny-and his own vengeful half brother, who's bent on seizing command. No matter the cost, Korsin vows that it will not be his blood and bones left behind on this unknown world. For the way of the Sith leaves little room for compromise-and none at all for mercy.

Watchbird


Robert Sheckley - 1953
    The idea is peace on Earth, see, and the way to do it is by figuring out angles.

Youth


Isaac Asimov - 1952
    The animals seem intelligent enough, and Red recruits Slim to help him train the odd creatures to do circus tricks. But the boys are about to discover their playthings aren’t exactly animals—and they’ve allowed themselves to be caught for a reason . . . Youth is a riveting tale from the author of countless classics, including I, Robot and the Foundation Trilogy, which won the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series.

First Flight


Mary Robinette Kowal - 2009
    "First Flight" is a finalist for the 2010 Locus Award.The winner of the 2008 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of short fiction published in Strange Horizons, Cosmos, and Asimov's. Her first novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, will be published by Tor in 2010.

If at First . . .


Peter F. Hamilton - 2007
    Hamilton has proven himself a modern master of epic space opera, carrying the tradition of far-future empire building begun by Heinlein and Asimov into the new millennium. But Hamilton is also a master of the short story, and when he tackles one of science fiction’s most enduring themes—time travel—the result is as provocative as it is entertaining. It starts in 2007 with a break-in. The victim: Marcus Orthew, the financial and technological genius behind Orthanics, the computer company whose radical products have delivered a one-two punch to the industry, all but knocking PCs and Macs out of the ring. The perpetrator: a man obsessed with Orthew. Just another simple case of celebrity stalking—or so everyone assumes at first, including Metropolitan Police Chief Detective David Lanson. But when Lanson interviews the suspect, he makes a startling claim: Orthew is from the future. Or, rather, a future—a parallel timeline. Thus begins the ride of a lifetime for Lanson, as his pursuit of the facts tumbles him headlong down a rabbit hole—and the hunter finds himself hunted.

Sjambak: A Classic Science Fiction Adventure


Jack Vance - 1953
    With polite smiles, the planet frustrated him at every turn - until he found them all the hard way! A classic science fiction story originally published in the "If Worlds of Science Fiction" in July, 1953. Includes a detailed "About the Author" and a selected bibliography.