Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" (1972)

Macmillan 1977, Richard Powers

Russian science-fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky wrote their unique "alien contact" novel Roadside Picnic (Пикник на обочине, Piknik na obochine) in 1971, after which it appeared in serialized form in the literary magazine Avrora the following year. Due to censors, the novel version was not readily available in the Soviet Union for eight years, although this did not prevent it from becoming very popular in other countries. The 1977 American edition (Macmillan, translated by  Antonina W. Bouis) includes an introduction by Theodore Sturgeon, while a more recent 2012 edition from Chicago Review Press (translated by Olena Bormashenko) includes an introduction by Ursula K. Le Guin. The novel also gained some fame after it was made into a (very) loose 1979 movie adaptation named Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.

Alex Andreyev

Stalkers

The novel takes place in the industrial city of Harmont, thirteen years after a "Visitation" by extraterrestrials. Going against genre conventions, circumstances of the Visitation itself are never made clear. Instead, the narrative centers on the aftermath effects of the event on the surrounding area, eventually known as a dangerous "Zone", a region fraught with bizarre phenomena. An Institute near the site sends out periodic expeditions to investigate the site and retrieve bits of alien technology for study. At the same time, hard-bitten scavengers named "stalkers" make unauthorized trips into the Zone to retrieve artifacts for sale on the black market.

Roadside Picnic follows the exploits of a Harmont native named Redrick as he struggles to make a living doing odd jobs while also moonlighting as a stalker. Much of the novel, written a a somewhat noir style, focuses on Redrick's desperate personal life and his uneasy relationship to a network of other stalkers working the Zone. However, during the course of the novel, three Zone expeditions are undertaken in which the authors describe some of the strange wonders found in it. 

Gollancz/Orion 2007, Dominic Harman

Roadside Picnic

The title refers to one scientist's theory that the artifacts and phenomena found in the Zone are merely detritus left behind by the extraterrestrials, just as humans leave behind garbage in the wake of picnic excursions. In this way, the novel effectively reduces mankind's self-image to that of "ants" in comparison to the advanced technology of the Visitors. The novel is structured as a prologue and four vignettes (separated over eight years), and the third episode highlights this humbling proposition. Some the alien artifacts/phenomena described in the book include the following:

Empties: Two copper discs separated by an invisible (hydromagnetic) field (force field container), sometimes containing blue matter ("filled empties")
Itcher/Shrieker: Ultrasonic grenade
Cobweb: silvery web, causes delayed heart attacks
Moulage: Reanimated corpse (harmless)
Mosquito mange/Bug trap: high gravity well ("graviconcentrate")
Golden Ball (Sphere): supposedly grants wishes
Witch's Jelly/Hell Slime: dissolves bone, highly infectious
Meatgrinder ("Happy ghosts"): invisible physical force which twists objects in mid-air
Burning Fuzz: Misty floating substance, very hot 
Perpetual motion bracelet
Black sparks: tiny beaded spatial anomalies used as exotic jewelry
Death lamp: fatal ray-emitting device
So-sos ("spacells"): perpetual batteries which reproduce

Tom J. Manning

Synopsis

From an interview by a special correspondent from Harmont Radio with Doctor Valentine Pilman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics for 19..

• Thirteen years after the city of Harmont is visited by aliens (referred to as the "Visitation"), a scientist named Pilman describes the method he used to determine their origin point based on six total Visitation sites. He is also questioned about "stalkers", criminal scavengers who enter the Visitation "Zones" unofficially to acquire alien artifacts for illegal profit.  

Jerzy Skarżyński 1976

1. Redrick Schuhart, Age 23, Bachelor, Laboratory Assistant at the Harmont Branch of the International Institute for Extraterrestrial Cultures

• In order to cheer up his Russian scientist friend Kirill, a young lab assistant named Redrick (a resident of Harmont who sometimes makes money as a stalker) proposes to help Kirill on an expedition into the Visitation Zone to retrieve an "empty" (essentially a cylindrical alien canister with no sides). Before they leave, Redrick is given a warning by a security head for his past stalker indiscretions. Nonetheless, he and Kirill enter the Zone's Plague Quarter on a "boot" (hover transport) to enter the Zone. They are joined by a third member named Tender in order to adhere to official expedition protocols.
• Almost immediately, they are shaken when they briefly spot a shimmering entity, although the bizarre creature soon floats away. Later, they encounter a "graviconcentrate" zone (area of extreme gravity) which Redrick traces through the trajectories of nuts and bolts thrown through the air. After avoiding a few other strange phenomena, Redrick's hover transport arrives at a garage where he retrieves the "full empty" (filled with blue material). However, when Kirill helps him carry the artifact back to the transport, he accidentally brushes against a silvery, crackling web-like substance. Fortunately, Kirill seems not to have been harmed.
  
• The expedition soon returns to the Institute to collect their bonus pay and make statements to the press. Later at a bar named the Borscht, Redrick fends off some of the shady characters frequenting the place, but eventually hears that Kirill has suddenly died due to a heart attack. Upset, Redrick sabotages the bar (with a bit of Visitor tech called an "itcher" or a "shrieker") and meets his girlfriend Guta, who subsequently informs him that she is pregnant. She tells him that she is concerned about the disturbing rumors she has heard about children born from stalkers.

Vladislav Vovchuk

2. Redrick Schuhart, Age 28, Married, No Permanent Occupation

• On another stalker expedition, Redrick and a veteran stalker named Burbridge go into the Zone in order to obtain some "swag", but Burbridge's legs become crippled when they come into contact with some "Witch's Jelly" ("hell slime"). After evading both Zone patrols and a zombie-like creature, Redrick takes him back to the city where he drops him off with Butcher, a doctor who helps stalkers. Afterwards, he returns home to Guta and his golden-furred daughter Monkey. 
• After refreshing himself, Redrick heads to the Metropole hotel for a rendezvous, but before he enters he has a brief moment of sensory overload (probably related to one of the artifacts he is carrying). Before he enters the hotel, he runs into Noonan, an old friend from the Institute who invites him to a meeting later in the day at the Borscht. Inside the Metropole, Redrick sells the artifacts obtained from his stalker expedition to some shady characters named Bones and Throaty, after which he visits Burbridge's house and gives half of the earnings to the stalker's apathetic children (one of whom is a mutant). Later, he goes to the Borscht to meet with Noonan but is ambushed by police. Redrick narrowly escapes them and rushes home to hide a bit of "special" Visitor swag (a porcelain jar containing some Witch's Jelly). Afterwards, he calls Throaty and gives him the location of the Witch's Jelly in return for his promise to care for Guta and Monkey while Redrick is in prison.

Penguin Books 1979, Adrian Chesterman

3. Richard H. Noonan, Age 51, Supervisor of Electronic Equipment Supplies for the Harmont Branch of the IIEC

• Under the impression that he has completely wiped out all illegal stalker activity in the Harmont Zone, Noonan meets with his superior and learns that despite all his undercover efforts, a large number of Zone goods have continued to hit the market. He goes to the Five Minutes bar to interrogate his inside man Mosul about the contraband leaving the Zone, but Mosul claims ignorance of any such activity.
• Afterwards, Noonan has a drink with the famed physicist Valentine Pilman to discuss the true purpose of the Visitation and the Zones. Pilman explains his theory that the technological wonders of the Zones are merely the tossed off remnants of extraterrestrial holiday excursions, much like mankind leaves garbage in the forest after a "roadside picnic". Pilman also categorizes the different kinds of strange phenomena triggered by the Zones and states that his biggest fear concerns the Emigrants (people who had lived in Harmont at the time of the Visitation and have since moved away). When an Emigrant arrives in a new city, that city becomes prey to an unnaturally high statistic of disasters. This warping of statistical processes defies mathematics itself.
  
• Afterwards, Noonan drives to Redrick's house and has a reunion with his old friend, who has recently gotten out of prison. He notices that Red's daughter Monkey has become more inhuman than ever and no longer even speaks. A "moulage" (reanimated corpse) also sits in the living room, who is later revealed to be Redrick's deceased father. Noonan wonders if the Visitation was not a "roadside picnic" but a form of invasion through indigenous mutation. Noonan tells Redrick that some Witch's Jelly obtained from an "unknown source" had destroyed a lab in another city, but Redrick shows no remorse. 

Pocket Books 1978, Alan Magee

4. Redrick Schuhart, Age 31

• Burbridge gives Redrick a map which will lead him to the Golden Ball, a Visitation artifact supposedly with the power to grant any wish. Redrick hopes to use the Golden Ball to make his daughter normal, while Burbridge hopes to wish his crippled legs back to normal. Unfortunately, to reach the Golden Ball, a "patsy" has to be sacrificed in order to get past one of the hazards on the way. Redrick decides to bring Burbridge's eager son Archie (but doesn't tell the boy his true purpose, or tell Burbridge that he is bringing his son). After a long and painful trek (during which Redrick questions his own motives), the two make it to the quarry where the Golden Ball lies. As planned, Archie is killed by the "meat grinder" (some kind of destructive invisible force) while trying to reach the Golden Ball, although before he dies he reveals that his wish is "happiness for all". With the way clear, Redrick makes his way to the Golden Ball and ends up echoing Archie's dying wish in his mind.

Alex Andreyev

Wiki Entry
Stanislaw Lem on Roadside Picnic 
Ursula K. Le Guin on Roadside Picnic 

The Politics of Roadside Picnic, by Michael Andre-Driussi (NY Review of SF)

Burroughs' "The Land That Time Forgot" (1918)

A. C. McClurg & Co. 1924, J. Allen St. John

In 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs (creator of Tarzan and John Carter of Mars) wrote a sequence of  "lost world" stories for Blue Book Magazine (Aug, Oct, Dec 1918) which builds on some of the "dinosaurs-in-the-present" concepts made popular in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World. Later published in book form as The Land That Time Forgot (1924), Burroughs' three-story saga describes the discovery of Caspak, a small South Seas (or Antarctic) continent surrounded by a cliff barrier. Within Caspak exists a unique tropical ecosystem populated by coexisting forms of life from past and future evolutionary history, including dinosaurs, cave-men and genetically-bred flying humanoids (although on a technological level all of the inhabitants remain on a pre-industrial level). 

Ace Books 1963, Roy G. Krenkel

The Caspak Trilogy

The first installment of the Caspak sequence, "The Land That Time Forgot", opens with the sinking of an American passenger ship by a German U-boat during World War I. Led by an engineer named Bowen Tyler,  survivors of the freighter (as well as from a torpedoed British tug) manage to surprise and commandeer the U-boat. The combined crews then wander around the Pacific until eventually stumbling across an underwater passage leading to Caspak's inland sea. There, the multinational group are forced to put their political differences aside in order to survive the dangers of this strange prehistoric land. When Tyler's female colleague Lys is abducted by one of the primitive natives, he goes on a solitary quest deep into Caspak's northwestern region in order to rescue her.

Amazing Stories Feb 1927, Frank R. Paul

The second installment, "The People That Time Forgot", describes a second expedition to Caspak led by Tyler's childhood friend Tom Billings, who had come across a "message in a bottle" thrown into the sea by Tyler at the end of the previous installment. After crossing Caspak's cliff perimeter in a seaplane, he promptly crashes in the southeastern region of the island. Fortunately, he quickly befriends a female native named Ajor, and together they make their way north along the eastern side of Caspak. As they navigate their way through encounters with various tribes of humans exhibiting more and more advanced evolutionary states, Billings ends up caught in a war between two of Caspak's more advanced tribes.

Canaveral Press 1962, Mahlon Blaine

The final volume, "Out Of Time's Abyss", follows Bradley, an English member of Tyler's first expedition who is abducted by a flying humanoid (Caspak's most evolved form). After several adventures in the labyrinthine island city of these bizarre "Wieroo", Bradley escapes with a female prisoner and together they settle down into a peaceful existence in the wilderness. However, when the Wieroo eventually close in, he and his comely companion are forced to escape further west, where they eventually get the opportunity to settle the score with some old enemies.

Temps Futurs 1982, Jean-Claude Gal

Although Burroughs' novel is written from the viewpoints of three different narrators, it is essentially a romantic survival epic describing the exploits of three modern men (of 1916) amongst the accelerated-evolution world of Caspak and its various creatures and tribes. 

(1973 Map)

The World of Caspak

Burroughs' lost world is unique from most in that it manages to juxtapose life from different ages of the Earth in territorial "zones" separated by landscape formations such as cliffs or bodies of water. While the southern-most area is dominated by dinosaurs and cave-men, the middle latitudes feature exotic prehistoric mammalian fauna such as sabre-tooth tigers and giant bears. The northern region is dominated by wildlife closer to the outside world and is populated by Homo sapiens with metal-working skills. The humanoids of Caspak can be divided into the following types (each with their own territory, from souh to north):

Alu: Speechless cave-men
Bo-lu: Neanderthals with clubs (can speak)
Sto-lu: Hatchet-wielding, white skinned primitives living in simple caves
Band-lu: Cro-Magnon's with spears 
Kro-lu: Archers, living in huts
Galu: Homo sapiens skilled with rope and wear metallic ornamentation
Wieroo: Cadaverous winged, male humanoids who live in cities on the island of Oo-oh, prey on the Galu and worship skulls

Additionally, "the Caspakian passes, during a single existence, through the various stages of evolution, or at least many of them, through which the human race has passed during the countless ages since life first stirred upon a new world". In other words, there is only one kind of inhabitant in Caspak, but each individual somehow metamorphoses (like a butterfly) from one species to another according to an evolutionary process paralleling that of the outside world from the last million years. Life begins when females (of all evolutionary levels and species) lays eggs which are then washed downstream to the southern-most body of water. There they hatch into tadpoles, after which a sequence of physical changes occur which transform them into land animals, then primitive humanoids and finally into Homo sapiens. For this reason, there are no human children or elderly on Caspak, as young Caspakians start out as tadpoles and die as adult Homo sapians.

Tandem 1975

At one point in the dim past, a group of these Homo sapiens (Galu) had continued to evolve through a process of controlled breeding to become the winged Wieroo. Additionally, the most-valued trait among the Galu and the Wieroo is the ability to give birth to a living child rather than lay eggs. This evolutionary stage is considered the "highest form" of life in Caspak, and females with this ability are fought over or abducted by the ruthless Wieroo (who enforce a form of harem slavery on their captives).

Ace Books 1973, Frank Frazetta

Synopses

I. The Land That Time Forgot (Bowen J. Tyler’s Manuscript)

1. A tourist in Greenland discovers a floating thermos containing an odd manuscript: The narrator, an American submarine engineer named Bowen Tyler, describes being attacked by a German U-Boat while onboard an American liner in 1916. The liner goes down, but Tyler manages to gain the temporary safety of a single lifeboat. He also manages to save his Airedale terrier Nobs and an attractive female named Lys.
2. The three survivors are soon rescued by an English tug roaming the area. However, in short order the German sub attacks the tug as well. Although the tug's captain is killed, Tyler and the crew charge the sub and board it before it can destroy them. After a heated hand-to-hand battle, the sub is captured, although their own tug sinks. By an incredible coincidence, it turns out that Lys' German fiancé Baron von Schoenvorts (from an arranged marriage) is in command of the sub. Due to his familiarity with submarines, Tyler is made the new commander of the captured U-boat. He tries to reach England with it, but English ships immediately fire on the U-boat as soon as it approaches, believing it to be a German invader.
3. Several acts of sabotage lead Tyler to accuse Lys of helping her German fiancé to destroy the sub, but she storms off angrily. While trying to gain supplies from a Swedish ship, Tyler's crew are surprised by the German prisoners and von Schoenvorts retakes command, after which the U-boat rendezvous with a German freighter. However, Lys liberates Tyler from his chains, allowing him to fire the sub's torpedoes at the German freighter. While the Germans are still stunned by this development, Tyler's crew retakes the U-boat once again. Afterwards, Lys tells Tyler that she is innocent of collaboration with the Germans. 

4. 

   (Joe Jusko)
   

   When Tyler suspects one of his other crewmen of sabotaging the compass, he is nearly drowned as the traitor traps him outside while submerging the sub. However, Lys eventually shoots the traitor and Tyler is saved. The sub soon comes across an Antarctic continent rising up from the sea on high cliffs. The men believe that this place might be the mythical lost continent of Caprona. Following an underwater tunnel of freshwater current, they eventually surface behind the cliff barrier perimeter to discover a world of exotic plants and animals - including dinosaurs. With great difficulty, they kill a plesiosaur and eat it.
   
5. Tyler suspects that Caprona had once been a mountain but, due to an eruption, its central region had been blown away, leaving a gigantic continental crater shielded from the surrounding cold environment by the crater walls. After anchoring in a natural harbor, Tyler's men form a truce with their German prisoners and then head inland to search for meat. They soon encounter and kill an allosaurus by shooting it in the heart.
6. Upon returning to the beach area, Tyler's party is attacked by hundreds of savages made up of various forms of cave-men and ape-men. They repel them with guns and capture one of them (a Bo-lu named "Ahm"). Now with plentiful food and water, the visitors create a base camp ( "Fort Dinosaur") with a defensible perimeter wall. As weeks pass, Tyler and Lys learn Ahm's language, while an expedition of five (led by a man named Bradley) heads further inland and north to do some exploring. One day, the Germans discover an oil geyser near Fort Dinosaur, which gives the crew hope that they might use it to refuel the U-boat in order to return to civilization.
7. As the Germans proceed to refine the oil, Tyler and Lys fall in love. However, one day Lys goes missing, apparently abducted by ape-men during the night. At the same time, the Germans finish refueling the sub and begin to sail away, but not before shelling Fort Dinosaur as a parting gesture against the British sailors. Nonetheless, Tyler heads into the interior in search of Lys.
   
8. After heading north, Tyler discovers a tribe of white-skinned hatchet-armed savages (Sto-lu) more evolved than the Bo-lu found in the south. He finds Lys among them, about to be forced into a primitive "marriage ceremony" with their leader. With the aid of his pistol, Tyler frees Lys and makes a temporary camp in the caves nearby. After making a truce with the Sto-lu, he is told that these savages will eventually go north to "become Galus". One day while hunting, Tyler gets lost, and finds a grave marker indicating the body of one of the members of Bradley's exploration party.
9. Tyler is then attacked by some spear-wielding savages (Band-lu), again more evolved than any he had met before. He eventually befriends them (somewhat) and helps one of the females go further north, as she has apparently evolved to a level more suitable to those of the north (a Kro-lu). After returning south, Tyler finds that his Sto-lu encampment with Lys has been destroyed and can find no survivors. After futilely searching for his missing love, he ends up back in the southern region of Caspak and makes a new camp at the top of the cliff barrier overlooking the outside ocean, hoping to someday catch sight of a passing ship.
10. One day, he spots Lys at the bottom of the cliff. After saving her from some hyaenadons (with his rifle), Tyler is attacked by one of the Sto-lu savages who had tried to claim Lys after Tyler had left the tribe. Tyler eventually kills his rival in hand-to-hand combat, after which he and Lys resign themselves to a primitive life on Caspak.

A. C. McClurg & Co. 1924, J. Allen St. John

 II. The People That Time Forgot (The Adventures of Thomas Billings)

1. After Bowen Tyler's manuscript is sent back to his family estate, Tylers' childhood friend Thomas Billings organizes a rescue mission equipped with a seaplane. When his ship eventually reaches the cliffs of Caprona, Billings alone flies his plane up to the cliffs and beyond in order to scout the region.
2. While engaging in a foolhardy aerial duel with a pterodactyl, Billings crashes his plane in a tree. After climbing down, he saves a young girl (Ajor, apparently a near-civilized Galu) from one of the speechless ape-men (an Alu) with his rifle. Together, they find refuge in a cave and the eager Ajor begins to teach Billings the language of Caspak. At one point during the night, a gigantic bear tries to attack them, but Billings holds it off with fire until a sabre-toothed tiger attacks the bear from without.
3. The pair soon head further north and make camp in a cave inside a cliff. Later while looking for firewood, Billings is captured by some Band-lu and left as a sacrifice to a giant reptile living in a cave complex. Fortunately, the brave Ajor finds and frees him, and together they head deeper into the cave labyrinth to find escape. After several days of hazardous, lightless exploration, they emerge into the open air.
4. While searching for a path down to the valley below, the pair are halted by a Band-lu savage named To-mar. When Billings saves To-mar's mate from a cave-lion with his rifle, he pledges friendship to the man. For a time, To-mar and his mate So-al accompany Billings and Ajor north towards Galus.

5. 

   Ace Books 1977, Maurice S. Carter

   One day, Ajor tells her friends that she is the daughter of Jor, the chief of the Galus, and one of the few Galus not born from an egg. Due to her unique status (as a child-bearer), she had been promised to an ambitious Galu warrior named Du-seen whom she despised. After escaping from the Galus, she had been captured by a Wieroo, a flying humanoid even further up the evolutionary scale than the Galus. Later, while the Wieroo had been occupied with some pterodactyls, Ajor had managed to escape her abductor, after which she had run into Billings. When the quartet reaches the borders of Kro-lu, Billings and Ajor part from To-mar and So-al so that they can find their way to the Kro-lu on their own. Billings and Ajor soon encounter a Kro-lu warrior named Chal-az, held prisoner by some Band-lu. Billings saves him (and amazingly saves Ajor's life by shooting down a spear in mid-air), and afterwards is introduced to the Kro-lu people. Although incurring the wrath of their chief, Al-tan, Billings and Ajor are welcomed into the Kro-lu's hut-village. There they learn that Du-seen has been seeking Kro-lu allies with which to overthrow the leader of the Galus, Ajor's father Jor.
   
6. In the village, Billings and Ajor finally declare their love for one another. Later, when called to a meeting with Al-tan, Billings is reunited with Nobs, Tyler's dog. Du-seen is also at the meeting (and claiming ownership of Nobs), and after an argument orders the Kro-lu to slay Billings. With Nobs' help he escapes and finds refuge with Chal-az. After Billings learns that Ajor has escaped into the forest, Billings resolves to go after her, disguised as a Galu.
7. After climbing his way to the southern edge of the Galus' territory, Billings captures a horse and names it Ace. Several days pass in which he trains the horse and searches for Ajor with no results. Finally, he spots Ajor fleeing from Du-seen and his Galus and attempts to rescue her. Unfortunately, after sweeping her onto Ace with him, Billings and Ajor become trapped in a bog. Just as they are about to be killed by Du-seen's archers, riflemen from Billings' offshore expedition appear and slay the renegade Galus. Jor then appears, as well as Tyler, now an ally of the Galus (along with Lys). After remaining some time with the Galus, Tyler and Lys leave with Billings' rescue party to hike over the cliff barrier and to their anchored freighter. However, Billings ultimately decides to stay behind with his beloved Ajor (who had not been given permission to leave by her father, due to her status as a possible child-bearer). 

Amazing Stories Apr 1927, Frank R. Paul

III. Out of Time’s Abyss (The Tale of Bradley)

1. While exploring lower Caspak, Bradley's party encounters a giant bear, but Tippett, usually a cautious man, manages to kill it with a few shots of his rifle. Later they are attacked by some Sto-lu hatchet men, but they frighten them off after killing a couple of them with their guns. When they are briefly terrorized by a winged, cadaverous-looking humanoid swooping from the sky (a Wieroo), some of the men become spooked by this "angel of death". That night, Tippett spots the ghostly creature again and fires at it in vain. The next day, he is eaten by a tyrannosaurus. A few days later a man named James is similarly harassed by a Wieroo and then subsequently slain by a sabre-tooth tiger. A day out from returning to Fort Dinosaur, Bradley goes missing, apparently abducted by a Wieroo during the night. In the end, only two men make it back alive to Fort Dinosaur, where they learn from the few men remaining there that the Germans have abandoned them in the U-boat and that Tyler has gone north alone in search of Lys.  
2. While on watch, Bradley is captured by two Wieroo and taken to their home Oo-oh (an island within the inland sea of Caspak). There they treat him as a curiousity and allow him to have a meal, during which he is stared at by many Wieroo. After returning to his captor's quarters, he gets into a fight and kills the Wieroo with his bare hands. While hiding the body, he comes across a female Galu named Co-Tan, who explains that she will soon be a sacrifice victim. Several Wieroo then appear and after a brief struggle Bradley is imprisoned in the "Blue Place of Seven Skulls".

3. 

   Ace Books 1979, Vicente Segrelles

   In his dark cell, Bradley meets a starved and deranged Galu named An-Tak. He learns that the females of Caspak lay eggs which produce tadpoles. The tadpoles swim south and then begin metamorphosing into more and more advanced lifeforms (amphibians, reptiles, mammals, cave-men, etc), with each step prompting a northerly migration, ultimately reaching the Galu form. After 7 generations, a Galu is able to give birth to a baby (rather than an egg). These child-bearing "cos-ata-lo" are highly regarded amongst the denizens of Caspak, as they represent the peak of evolution. The Wieroo are only able to produce males of this type, and therefore abduct female Galu with which to impregnate. In any case, Bradley discovers a hidden door which leads to an underground river. While wading down this river, he finds that it contains floating headless corpses, thrown down to the water by the Wieroo through wells. When he comes to an open plaza, he manages to disguise himself has a corpse and floats into the interior of a temple. There he witnesses two Wieroo fight over Co-Tan, the Galu female he had met earlier. After the Wieroo are slain, Bradley is unfortunately then recaptured when more Wieroo arrive.
   
4. Bradley is brought before "He Who Speaks for Luata", the high-priest/leader of the Wieroo, who asks him the secret of becoming a cos-ata-lu (child-bearer). Bradley pretends to be about to share the secret to child-bearing, but then slays the distracted Wieroo leader and escapes with Co-Tan. By disguising themselves as Wieroo, they eventually sneak out to the surrounding forest. After journeying for several days they make a new home in a nearby cave area located near water and game. Because they have no way of reaching the "mainland" (of Caspak), they remain there for several months, during which time they fall in love.
5. Eventually several Wieroo discover their camp by chance. Bradley kills most of them with his pistol and forces the remaining two to carry himself and Co-Tan over the inland sea to the western side of Caspak (after which he allows them to go free). Downriver, Bradley is stunned to find the returned German U-boat anchored off the beach. It turns out that von Schoenvorts and his crew had gotten lost after their escape, and had returned to Caspak in order to force the British survivors they had abandoned to help them refuel the sub for a second journey. Bradley and Co-Tan ambush the German soldiers and retake command of the sub (with the aid of some sympathetic German crewmen). Later, while searching for Tyler and Lys one last time, the U-boat sails up the inner coast to Galus where they are greeted by Billings and Ajor. Bradley convinces Ajor to leave her people and both couples escape Caspak in the sub. In short order, they rendezvous with the freighter carrying Tyler and Lys back home. On board the freighter, all three couples are finally married in a ceremony overseen by the ship's captain.

A. C. McClurg & Co. 1924, J. Allen St. John

ERBList Summaries
ERBzine Entry 

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1 (1929-1964)

Doubleday 1970

One of the most well-known science-fiction anthologies of the 1970s is The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1, published by the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) in 1970 and edited by Robert Silverberg. The stories were voted on by a panel of 300 published sf writers and had to have appeared between 1929 and 1964 (after which the SFWA had already been giving their yearly Nebula awards). This first volume contains winning short stories of 15,000 words or less. Out of 132 nominated stories the following 15 topped the list:

1. "Nightfall", Isaac Asimov
2. "A Martian Odyssey", Stanley G. Weinbaum
3. "Flowers for Algernon", Daniel Keyes
4/5. (tied) "Microcosmic God", Theodore Sturgeon,
   "First Contact", Murray Leinster
6. "A Rose for Ecclesiastes", Roger Zelazny
7-10. (tied) "The Roads Must Roll", Robert A. Heinlein,
   "Mimsy Were the Borogoves", Lewis Padgett,
   "Coming Attraction", Fritz Leiber,
   "The Cold Equations", Tom Godwin
11. "The Nine Billion Names of God", Arthur C. Clarke
12. "Surface Tension", James Blish
13. "The Weapon Shop", A. E. van Vogt
14/15. (tied) "Twilight", John W. Campbell,
   "Arena", Fredric Brown

Another 11 stories fill out the rest of the book. As editor, Silverberg adjusted the top 15 winners to better balance the book's representation of sf authors in the last half century. The book essentially gives an idea of what sf writers in 1969 considered the most "classic" sf shorts of the preceding 40 years and are presented (mostly) in order of publication.

Avon 1971

Contents

"A Martian Odyssey", Stanley G. Weinbaum (Wonder Stories, July 1934)
"Twilight", John W. Campbell (Astounding Stories, Nov 1934)
"Helen O'Loy", Lester del Rey (Astounding Science-Fiction, Dec 1938)
"The Roads Must Roll", Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding Science-Fiction, June 1940)
"Microcosmic God", Theodore Sturgeon (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1941)
"Nightfall", Isaac Asimov (Astounding Science-Fiction, Sept 1941)
"The Weapon Shop", A. E. van Vogt (Astounding Science-Fiction, Dec 1942)
"Mimsy Were the Borogoves", Lewis Padgett (Astounding Science-Fiction, Feb 1943)
"Huddling Place", Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1944)
"Arena", Fredric Brown (Astounding Science Fiction, June 1944)
"First Contact", Murray Leinster (Astounding Science Fiction, May 1945)
"That Only a Mother", Judith Merril (Astounding Science Fiction, June 1948)
"Scanners Live in Vain", Cordwainer Smith (Fantasy Book, Vol. 1, No. 6, 1950)
"Mars is Heaven!", Ray Bradbury (Planet Stories, Fall 1948)
"The Little Black Bag", Cyril M. Kornbluth (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1950)
"Born of Man and Woman", Richard Matheson (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Summer 1950)
"Coming Attraction", Fritz Leiber (Galaxy Science Fiction, Nov 1950)
"The Quest for Saint Aquin", Anthony Boucher (New Tales of Space and Time, 1951)
"Surface Tension", James Blish (Galaxy Science Fiction, Aug 1952)
"The Nine Billion Names of God", Arthur C. Clarke (Star Science Fiction Stories, 1953)
"It's a Good Life", Jerome Bixby (Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2, 1953)
"The Cold Equations", Tom Godwin (Astounding Science Fiction, Aug 1954)
"Fondly Fahrenheit", Alfred Bester (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Aug 1954)
"The Country of the Kind", Damon Knight (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Feb 1956)
"Flowers for Algernon", Daniel Keyes (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1959)
"A Rose for Ecclesiastes", Roger Zelazny (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Nov 1963)

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Wonder Stories, July 1934, Frank R. Paul

“A Martian Odyssey” (Stanley G. Weinbaum, 1934)

Jarvis, a member of a Martian exploration team, becomes stranded when his rocket crash lands far from his base. While heading back on foot, he rescues an ostrich-like alien from a black, tentacled creature and earns its trust. After naming his new friend “Tweel”, Jarvis allows Tweel to escort him on a days-long odyssey home. On the way, they encounter various Martian life-forms, including animated grasslands, silicon-based creatures who spend their lives building small pyramids, and a predatory creature which uses mental visions to lure its victims (Tweel’s original attacker). They later encounter a race of barrel-shaped creatures who gather surface detritus and sacrifice it to their giant underground grinding wheel. Near the grinding wheel is a strange crystal which apparently heals through some kind of radiation. The barrel creatures chase Jarvis and Tweel to the surface and are about to kill them when they are saved by the sudden arrival of an Earth ship. Tweel returns to his own people, while Jarvis reveals that he now possesses the healing crystal worshiped by the barrel creatures. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Stories, Nov 1934, Elliott Dold

 "Twilight" (John W. Campbell, 1934)

A man from the year 3059 travels 7 million years into the future and discovers that mankind has conquered the entire solar system and destroyed all other competitive life. Science has advanced mankind to power levels equivalent to near omnipotence. However, most scientific knowledge has been lost and the remaining vestiges of mankind are slowly dying out in a universal haze of ennui. Man has lost his sense of curiosity and life is maintained by machines. Lamenting this sad twilight of mankind, the time traveler programs one of the machine to try to seek out and restore the curiosity that Man has lost, and then heads back to his own time. On the way back, he lands in the 20^th Century and tells a local farmer his tale.

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science-Fiction, Dec 1938, Charles Schneeman

"Helen O'Loy" (Lester del Rey, 1938)

Annoyed with the limitations of their female mechanical servant, a doctor named Phil and his engineer roommate Dave purchase an android equipped with emotions, hoping that this added element will allow it to serve them more efficiently. The android, dubbed Helen O'Loy (after Helen of Troy), is activated and then left in front of a television set while the men go off to work. Phil does not return for several days due to a work trip, but when he does, he learns that television shows have instilled in Helen a great romantic passion for Dave (who had activated her in the first place). Dave has become frustrated at Helen's attempts to please him as a wife, and eventually moves out to run a fruit ranch. Phil remains with Helen but realizes she still pines for Dave. When Phil phones Dave to tell him that he and Helen have decided to wipe Helen's memory, Dave changes his mind and accepts Helen as his wife. Many years later, Dave dies of old age, at which point Helen asks Phil to have her buried alongside her husband's body (after she has deactivated herself).

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science-Fiction, June 1940, Hubert Rogers/Charles Schneeman

"The Roads Must Roll" (Robert A. Heinlein, 1940)

Mass transit is effected by people-moving conveyor belts (“roads”) which criss-cross the country at high speeds (reaching over 100 mph). When a mentally-unstable engineer named Van Kleek organizes a revolt amongst the workers, the union workers cause one of the roads to suddenly stop (which leads to many casualties). The Chief Engineer, Gaines, eventually makes his way to a meeting with Van Kleek. By preying on Van Kleek’s psychological weaknesses, Gaines eventually disarms Van Kleek, and the “rolling roads” are restored back to normal service.

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1941, Charles Schneeman

"Microcosmic God" (Theodore Sturgeon, 1941)

A misanthropic genius scientist named Kidder establishes a research lab on a remote island off New England. Somehow, he manages to create life in cellular form. Using his knowledge of biochemistry, he then comes up with a radiation treatment which speeds up the metabolism of lifeforms under its rays. Kidder then creates an artificial environment where he uses his ray on his new life-form, thus causing it to propagate at high speed and evolve into a full-scale civilization which he dubs the "Neoterics". Acting as the Neoterics' "god", he forces them (under penalty of death) to invent new technologies for him, with which he uses to gain wealth to further fund his research. Although Kidder's only desire is to be left alone on his island, his banker, an unscrupulous man named Conant, wants to use Kidder's mysteriously-derived technology for personal gain. Using hired thugs, Conant appropriates highly-efficient energy technology from Kidder and builds a power transmission plant on Kidder's island. Using the plant's power beams to control the detonation of devastating bombs placed around the country, Conant holds the U.S. government ransom. When Conant decides to drop bombs on Kidder's lab, Kidder hurriedly has his Neoterics invent an impenetrable shield to protect the island. After this shield also cuts off the transmission beams from the island power plant (disabling the ransom bombs), Conant is arrested and put into an insane asylum. However, the island's shield remains intact, and the narrator fears what might emerge from the island one day if the dome ever comes down.

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science-Fiction, Sept 1941, Hubert Rogers

"Nightfall" (Isaac Asimov, 1941)

Having 6 suns, the people of the planet Lagash never experience night. However, a scientist named Aton predicts that a solar eclipse will plunge the planet into total darkness for the first time in 2050 years, kicking off a social and technological apocalypse which will take 2000 years from which to recover from (after which the cycle will repeat itself). At the scientist’s observatory, a news reporter named Theremon expresses skepticism, while a cultist named Latimer claims that the phenomenon is a religious miracle predicted in the cult’s famous “Book of Revelations”. A psychologist named Sheerin claims that the mental strain caused by Aton's inconceivable “darkness” will prompt the citizenry to light their cities on fire in order to drive off the night (although this will also cause the collapse of their civilization). While these men discuss the approaching doom in the Aton’s observatory, cultists begin wreaking havoc in the nearby city in preparation for their “rapture”. When the eclipse becomes total, the witnesses are shocked to discover that their sky is filled with tens of thousands of stars (where they had only expected a half dozen). The unexpected realization that their planet is only a tiny part of a much larger universe drives them all mad. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science-Fiction, Dec 1942, William Timmins

"The Weapon Shop" (A. E. van Vogt, 1942)

In the harmonious village of Glay, built in homage to the Empress Isher, a "weapons shop" suddenly appears. A law-abiding man named Fara (who holds the Empress in high esteem) becomes angry at this affront to the power of the Empire and confronts the store owner. However, after being briefly interrogated by the store owner and his colleague, Fara is soon ejected from the premises. In the following days, events occur which ruin his town reputation and destroy his relationship with his rebellious son. Eventually, his son moves away to a more urban area, and becomes caught in a plot which causes Fara to lose his repair shop to a rival. With his life in ruins, his "friends" suggest to Fara that he go back to the weapon shop to purchase a gun, presumably to commit suicide with. He goes to the shop where he is sold a gun, but then taken on a bizarre journey where he learns that his revered Empire has been behind thousands of swindles against its own citizens, and that the weapon shops (spread throughout the Empire) are a secret resistance group aiming to open the eyes of the Empire's most devoted citizens and arm them with weapons with which to fight for their individual rights. Now fully convinced of the weapon shops' cause (which is shared by his helpful friends), Fara gladly uses his new gun to stand his ground against the local constables.

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science-Fiction, Feb 1943, Kolliker

"Mimsy Were the Borogoves" (Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore), 1943)

• One million years in the future, a scientist puts a few of his son's old toys in a box and tests his time machine by sending the box back in time to 1942. It doesn't return, so he sends another box to the late 19th century. This too doesn't return and the scientist soon loses interest.
• In 1942, a boy named Scotty discovers the box and the toys it contains. He and his younger sister Emma begin playing with the toys and begin to see reality in unexplained ways (he can solve puzzles in a way which makes no sense). Scotty's father invites a psychologist over, who proposes that somehow the toys are teaching the children how to think by using non-Euclidean geometry and applying unconventional symbolism.
• In the late 19th century a young girl plays with some of the "magic toys" she had discovered in a box one day, and tells her Uncle (Lewis Carroll) strange stories, as well as a bizarre nonsense song ("Jabberwocky"). She explains that the nonsense rhyme reveals "a way out". Her Uncle promises to put her stories and the song in a book.
• In 1942, Scotty and Emma discover Carroll's book (Through The Looking-Glass), and using verses from "Jabberwocky", uncover a method by which they can open a way to another dimension. They depart to a more advanced level of existence (one more natural to the adults of one million years in the future), leaving their confused parents behind. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science Fiction, July 1944, A. Williams

"Huddling Place" (Clifford D. Simak, 1944)

In the year 2117, the people of Earth have stopped living in crowded cities ("huddling places") and instead occupy individual family estates isolated from one another in the countryside. Although many younger people do travel to other planets, at a certain age they always return to their family estates to live out their lives. A retired doctor named Webster soon recognizes this psychological syndrome as an extended form of agoraphobia, but keeps it as a secret. One day, he is needed off-planet to save the life of a Martian friend (and a renowned interplanetary philosopher). At first afraid to leave his estate, he eventually resolves to go to Mars due to pressure from the government. However, when his transport to the spaceport arrives, his robot attendant sends the car away without telling its master, assuming that Webster would never have wanted to leave his home. Webster realizes that he is a prisoner of his own "huddling place".

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science Fiction, June 1944, A. Williams

"Arena" (Fredric Brown, 1944)

Outside the orbit of Pluto, an Earth armada confronts an alien fleet bent on mankind's destruction. On the outskirts of the battle lines, an Earth man named Carson and one of the alien Outsiders are each plucked from their fighters and placed in an artificial domed environment by a godlike being. The being tells them that the massive battle about to take place will ultimately result in both races' destruction. In order to save one of the races, the being has decided that a lone representatives from each of the two races will fight a duel (won through courage and intelligence) which will decide the surviving race. In the domed environment, Carson discovers that an invisible force wall prevents him from engaging the spherical, tentacled Outsider (dubbed the "Roller" by Carson) in hand-to-hand combat. After a period of exchanging thrown projectiles with the Roller, a weak and dehydrated Carson eventually deduces that the barrier only prevents conscious beings from passing through it. He then knocks himself out with a stone, angling his body so that it falls into the other side of the barrier. Woken up by tentative attacks by the Roller, he immediately kills it with a hand-made knife. He then wakes up back in his ship, and soon learns that the enemy fleet has been mysteriously destroyed.

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science Fiction, May 1945, William Timmins

"First Contact" (Murray Leinster, 1945)

While exploring a nebula in deep space , the Earth ship LLanvabon detects an alien ship. The Llanvabon's captain is concerned that if the aliens are hostile, they might follow the Llanvabon back to Earth to invade it. He assumes the aliens may have similar concerns about their own planet and believes that this state of distrust requires that only one ship will survive this encounter. Eventually, the two craft establish inter-ship communication, and the Llanvabon's crew learn that the aliens appear to have the same worries as themselves. Neither ship may leave this encounter without suspicion of the other, and both are hesitant to destroy the other. During the ensuing standstill, Tommy, the Llanvabon's communications officer, eventually comes up with a plan to allow both ships to survive. The two crews proceed to disable weapons and tracking systems on their own ships, after which they exchange ships. This allows both ships to return home in an alien ship without fear of being followed or destroyed. The two crews promise to meet again, hopefully in peace. Later, Tommy tells his captain that the aliens are just as "humane" as himself, and that he had spent some time exchanging dirty jokes with one of the aliens before their parting.

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science Fiction, June 1948, Alejandro

"That Only a Mother" (Judith Merril, 1948)

While her husband Hank is away on assignment, a pregnant woman named Margaret worries about the rising rate of mutant babies being born (affected by atomic radiation). In several letters to her husband, she expresses excitement after the child's eventual birth and praises the newborn's beautiful face and advanced intelligence. When Hank finally returns home, he is horrified to discover that their child has no limbs, although Margaret seems to be in denial of this fact.  

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Fantasy Book, Vol. 1, No. 6, Jack Gaughan

"Scanners Live in Vain" (Cordwainer Smith, 1948)

Due to an unexplained deep space malady called "the Great Pain" (possibly depression from sensory deprivation), humans need to be kept in a "sleep state" while in their spaceships. However, a crew is still necessary for the ships to function. To combat the Great Pain, these crew members are made into "habermen", in which connections between their brains and their senses (except for vision) are severed. Body functions are monitored and regulated through mechanical attachments. Because this transformation causes the haberman crew to resemble robots more than humans, most of them are created from criminals. However, one class of haberman, "Scanners", act as pilots and law enforcement. These Scanners (drawn from heroic volunteers of the Haberman process) are sometimes also allowed to "cranch", that is, use artificial means to briefly re-stimulate their senses so that they can re-experience physical sensations and real emotions.

One day, a man named Adam Stone discovers a way for mankind to traverse space without the need for hibernation or a haberman crew (by shielding passengers and crew with "expendable" life, such as oysters). At an emergency meeting, the Scanners decide that the abolishment of haberman crews will result in chaos amongst humanity, and that such a development will cause Scanners to "live in vain" (they will have no purpose). A Scanner named Parizianski is elected to assassinate Stone. However, a Scanner named Martel arrives at the meeting in a cranched state, and in such a state realizes that the Scanners are contemplating murder for selfish reasons. He races to Stone's apartment and warns him of the danger he is in. When Parizianski arrives, Martel kills Parizianski (by overloading his "circuits") but loses consciousness in the struggle. When he wakes up, he finds that his body has been restored to a normal, non-haberman state, and learns that Stone's plan will involve the rehabilitation of the Scanners back into normal humans. In fact, Scanners will continue in their roles as honored space pilots. Martel also learns that the authorities believe that Parizianski died from an "overload" triggered by happiness over this news. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Planet Stories, Fall 1948

"Mars is Heaven!" (Ray Bradbury, 1948)

In 1960, an armed expedition to Mars (mankind's third) discovers what appears to be a Wisconsin town from 1926. Soon dead relatives and friends of the astronauts begin appearing, urging their guests not to question this "gift from God". The crew members disperse to join their individual families (all previously-thought long-dead). That night, when Captain John Black lies down to sleep in his parents' house, he begins to suspect that he and his crew are being deceived and divided through telepathic means so that the Martians can destroy their armed invaders more easily. When he tries to leave the room, he is killed. The next morning, the townspeople hold a funeral for the entire crew of the space ship, now all deceased. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science Fiction, July 1950, Edd Cartier

"The Little Black Bag" (Cyril M. Kornbluth, 1950)

In the 25th century, a doctor accidentally sends his medical bag back in time to the 20th century. There, it is discovered by a drunk named Full, formerly a doctor himself, but now considered a quack. Full discovers that the futuristic instruments in the bag allow him to work "miracles" and uses its properties to rehabilitate his status in life. Along the way he is joined by Angie, another "colleague" from the gutter who dreams of getting rich through the bag's powers. Full eventually tells Angie that he plans to turn the bag over to the Surgeon General so that mankind can benefit from this unknown technology. However, Angie disagrees with this altruistic plan and kills the doctor with a knife from the bag. An agent in the 25th century is then alerted to the fact that the contents of the missing medical bag has been used for homicidal purposes and promptly disables it remotely. When Angie next uses one of the bag's instruments in a "demonstration" to a client she is trying to swindle, she is unintentionally killed. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Born of Man and Woman: Tales of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Chamberlain Press 1954

"Born of Man and Woman" (Richard Matheson, 1950)

A roughly-phrased diary of a creature chained up in a cellar describes its fearful relationship with its human parents. One day, when the parents have a party, the creature tries to emerge but is beaten back to the cellar. In another incident, the creature is discovered by the family cat and kills it. Further beaten, it vows vengeance on its parents someday. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Galaxy Science Fiction, November 1950, Paul Callé

"Coming Attraction" (Fritz Leiber, 1950)

In a dystopic future NYC dotted with radiation zones caused by an ongoing war with Russia, a visiting Englishman saves a masked woman from some street punks who try to scare her with their armored car. In thanks, she asks him to meet her later in the evening. In the meantime, the Englishman muses on how masks have become a normal standard for women's fashion in America, sometimes to hide ugliness and sometimes to lure beauty-seekers. That night, the two of them go to a club named "Heaven", where she asks the Englishman to help her escape to England. She tells him that her partner (a wrestler who wrestles women) beats her after he loses bouts. Her partner eventually shows up at the club and threatens the girl. When the Englishman knocks down the wrestler, the girl attacks the Englishman and comforts her lover. The Englishman unmasks the girl to reveal the face of a pathetic self-victim. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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New Tales of Space and Time 1951, Lawrence H. Hoffman

"The Quest for Saint Aquin" (Anthony Boucher, 1951)

In a post-apocalyptic world ruled by the Technarchy, religion is outlawed. However, the Catholic Church exists in secret. One day, a priest named Thomas is given a mission to seek out the body of a deceased evangelist named Aquin in order to qualify him as a saint (Aquin's body is rumored to have not decayed). In his search for Aquin, Thomas rides a "robass", a mechanical ass which has the ability to speak. During the journey, the robass tests Thomas' beliefs and tries to dissuade him from completing his mission. When Thomas eventually finds Aquin, it turns out that Aquin is a deactivated robot. The robass tells Thomas that Aquin is considered a holy being amongst his own kind and will help Thomas become the new Pope. Thomas prays for guidance. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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“Surface Tension” (James Blish, 1952)

• I. Mankind settles other planets by seeding them with human "germ cells" which are custom-designed to produce "adapted humans" which can then survive in otherwise hostile environments. However, when a seed ship crashes on the swamp planet of Hydrot, the technicians realize that they will soon starve to death. Nonetheless, before they do, they initiate the seeding process, using their own germ cells as seeds for the new planetary "pantropes" (adapted humanoids). Although these new humans will hatch as fully-grown, intelligent humanoids, they will also need to be microscopic in size in order to thrive in the swamp biosphere.
  

• Some time in the future, two micro-humanoids named Lavon and Shar meet in their underwater castle to discuss a strange metal shell with mysterious writing on it (actually a history left behind by the now-deceased technicians). Their people have been able to translate the writing, but the words referring to other universes and "stars" have no meaning. However, their allies the alien "Protos" fear the history plate, because its knowledge may make man greater than themselves. When Lavon impulsively decides to throw the plate away, a Proto happily disposes of it for them. 
• II. Still wondering about the idea of "other universes", Lavon decides to try and pierce "the sky" (the surface of their pond). When he emerges above water for the first time, he experiences air for the first time. However, his body is not designed for breathing (or sunlight) so he is forced to quickly descend back underwater. 
• III. After Lavon recovers from his brief exposure to "space", he has his people begin building a "spaceship" which will allow for the exploration of the theorized worlds beyond the sky (surface of the water). However, some of the people under Lavon's rule feel that this project is a waste of time. 
• IV. In time, a two-inch space-ship (land-crawler) is built, and Lavon leads an expedition up the sand bank to reach beyond "the sky". Once on the beach, they realize that yet another sky lies above the space they have just breached. As night falls, they are stunned to see stars filling the night sky.
• V. After evading some bizarre monsters (possibly insects or frogs), the ship soon reaches another pool of water and descends into the world contained in it. There, they save a woman from some Eaters (who race had been driven to extinction in Lavon's own world/water body long ago). Lavon tells her that mankind can overcome their environments with brains and cooperation. He and Shar also consider the exploration of the "space" above the newly-discovered sky. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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The Nine Billion Names of God, Harbrace Paperbound Library 1967

"The Nine Billion Names of God" (Arthur C. Clarke, 1953)

Monks at a Tibetan lamasery borrow a supercomputer for three months and program it to print out the nine billion possible names for God derivable from a 9-letter combination. Two technicians are sent to Tibet to oversee the computer's function. One of them learns that the monks believe that once these names have been printed out, "God's purpose will be achieved", after which the end of existence will arrive. They are skeptical, but when the computer finally finishes its task, they look up to see the stars winking out.

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Science Fantasy Sept 1955, Quinn

"It's a Good Life" (Jerome Bixby, 1953)

In the town of Peaksville, everyone lives in fear of upsetting a young 3-year old boy named Anthony, a mutant with omnipotent powers. At birth, Anthony had whisked the entire town away into a void (or possibly destroyed everything beyond its borders). Although Anthony is not "evil", he is telepathic, and when he attempts to help people (who think or say discomforting sentiments) using his powers, the result is frequently disastrous. At the same time, when something or someone makes him unhappy, he destroys it with a thought. Out in the fields, Anthony has a better relationship with the wildlife, who have very simple wants. One night, during a birthday party, a man named Dan has too much to drink and expresses less than perfectly-happy thoughts. He is immediately killed by Anthony. The rest of Peaksvilles' citizens continue to hope that someday Anthony will grow up and be more mature with his powers.

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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Astounding Science Fiction, August 1954, Frank Kelly Freas

"The Cold Equations" (Tom Godwin, 1954)

On the way to a nearby planet to deliver precious medical supplies, the pilot of a spaceship discovers a stowaway, an 18-year old girl who had impulsively sneaked aboard in order to visit her brother, believing that she would only get fined for her transgression. Unfortunately, the pilot knows that he must jettison her into space, otherwise the ship will not have enough fuel to complete a safe landing on the planet below. Understandably shocked, the girl writes letters to her parents and has a last radio conversation with her brother before she steps into the airlock and is jettisoned. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1954, Nick Solovioff

"Fondly Fahrenheit" (Alfred Bester, 1954)

Because of his android's predilection to periodically go insane and kill people, a man named Vandaleur is forced to continually abandon planets and create new identities for himself and his android on new ones. Eventually, he finds out that the android goes berserk when a temperature of 91 degrees is exceeded in the room. In order to solve this problem, Vandaleur plots to move his android and himself to a colder climate. However, the police track them down in a manhunt and the android is destroyed. Vandaleur himself manages to escape, but after he gets a new android, the new one begins to exhibit the same murderous habits as the previous one. It seems that Vandeleur has taken on his first robot's mental issues through "psychotic projection", and is now in turn projecting psychotic thoughts onto his new android. (Throughout the narrative, the viewpoint is frequently mixed between that of Vandeleur and his android.) 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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SF: The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy 1956, Ed Emshwiller

"The Country of the Kind" (Damon Knight, 1955)

In a society in which individuals prone to violence or anti-social behavior are treated as if they do not exist (in fact, as if they cannot even be seen), the destructive narrator travels around the world causing massive property damage (although a mental block prevents him from doing direct violence to another person). He tries to create works of "art" and place them before people, hoping that they will read his handwritten message, which states that a willingness to do violence will allow one to rule the world. However, despite his best efforts, everyone he encounters refuses to acknowledge him or his message. The story's title is a play on H.G. Wells' short story "The Country of the Blind".

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Apr 1959, Ed Emshwiller

“Flowers for Algernon” (Daniel Keyes, 1959)

A mentally-retarded man named Charlie undergoes a surgical procedure which allows his IQ to triple. His progress is partially gauged by observing a mouse named Algernon, as both try to complete mazes in as short a time as possible. Charlie becomes a genius over the following weeks, and realizes that he has been ridiculed his whole life as a moron. Although Algernon has also gained in intelligence through a similar operation, he eventually deteriorates and dies. Charlie places flowers on Algernon’s grave, and soon also begins to lose his newly-gained intellect. In the end Charlie breaks off his journal and wishes to experience his final days away from observation, but asks that the scientists continue to place flowers on Algernon’s grave. 

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Nov 1963, Hannes Bok

"A Rose for Ecclesiastes" (Roger Zelazny, 1963)

On an expedition to Mars, an Earth poet/linguist named Gallinger is invited to examine sacred documents in one of the last refuges of the dying Martian race. After witnessing one of the Martians' sacred dances, he becomes intimately involved with Braxa, one of the temple dancers. He also learns that her race, although long-lived, has been made sterile and impotent by a plague, and is thus doomed to extinction in this generation. When Gallinger decides to bring Braxa back to Earth with him, he learns that she has gone out into the desert. He eventually finds her, and learns that she is pregnant with his child. However, she claims that an Earth-Martian child will defy their god's prophecy of racial extinction and that her fatalistic people will not allow its birth. Gallinger returns to the Martian temple with Braxa and confronts the Martian religious council, using verses from the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes to demonstrate how mankind had once defied its own holy writings to reach for the stars. His argument is successful and Braxa is allowed to keep her child. Gallinger also learns that his coming and his speech had all been part of a foretold Martian prophecy. Unfortunately for Gallinger, Braxa does not love him and has only been acting out her role in the prophecy. Gallinger eventually leaves Mars alone and in tears.

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion

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