A collection of science fiction short stories curated by “Edmund Crispin”. The stories are each in equal parts thoughtful, funny and poignant. As the best science fiction often does, it holds up a mirror to contemporary society by pointing the direction where it would be headed.
- Judas Bomb (1961) by Kit Reed - Competing street gangs fight over control of a Bomb, with little thought to consequences.
- A Work of Art (1956) novelette by James Blish - Richard Strauss is recreated, and sets to work composing.
- The Nostalgia Gene (1954) by Roy Hutchins - A young man with a fixation on times gone by invents a time machine.
- The Star Ducks (1950) by Bill Brown - A reporter locates a small rural farm where aliens have landed
- The Waitabits (1955) novelette by Eric Frank Russell - Aliens with a time perception much lower than humans are unconquerable
- The Fly (1952) by Arthur Porges - An engineer looking for radioactive ores encounters a fly caught in a spider’s web
- Kaleidoscope (1949) by Ray Bradbury - Astronauts have a catastrophic failure and are facing their imminent death
- Camouflage (1945) novelette by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore - Criminals hijack a space freighter, but now have to find the elusive pilot, who is integrated into the circuits of the spaceship
- Letter to a Phoenix (1949) by Fredric Brown - An accident causes a man to age very very slowly.
- Death March (1956) novelette by Algis Budrys - and perhaps meritocracy gone awry
- Weapon (1954) by John Christopher - the military attempts to build a weapon from 100 years in the future
- Billennium (1961) by J.G. Ballard - In an overpopulated world with very controlled living space, two friends find a hidden space.
- Old Hundredth (1960) by Brian W. Aldiss - Far in the future, humans have left earth and animals have developed intelligence
- A Life and a Half (1959) by Frederik Pohl
Excellent collection of shorts from the golden age of science fiction. A quick and intriguing read.