Search Worlds Without End

Trurl and Klaupacius are constructor robots who try to out-invent each other. They travel to the far corners of the cosmos to take on freelance problem-solving jobs, with dire consequences for their employers.

Table of Contents:

• What Is This Thing Called Love? - (1961)
• Strikebreaker - (1957)
• Sally - (1953)
• Nightfall - (1941)
• Segregationist - (1967)
• Eyes Do More Than See - (1965)
• Green Patches - (1950)
• Hostess - (1951)
• Breeds There a Man...? - (1951)
• Flies - (1953)
• The Up-to-Date Sorcerer - (1958)
• Unto the Fourth Generation - (1959)
• The Machine That Won the War - (1961)
• My Son, the Physicist! - (1962)
• It's Such a Beautiful Day - (1955)
• Insert Knob A in Hole B - (1957)
• "In a Good Cause--" - (1951)
• The C-Chute - (1951)
• Biographical Comments in "Nightfall and Other Stories" - essay by Isaac Asimov
• "Nobody Here But--" - (1953)
• What If-- - (1952)

Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.

Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there's an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can't have the planet, they're sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.

But there's something wrong with Murderbot; it isn't running within normal operational parameters. ART's crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza's SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they're going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what's wrong with itself, and fast!

Yeah, this plan is... not going to work.

Callahan's Place is the neighborhood tavern to all of time and space, where the regulard are anything but. Pull up a chair. grab a glass of your favorite, and listen to the stories spun by time travelers, cybernetic aliens, telepaths... and a bunch of regular folks on a mission to save the world, one customer at a time.

Even the humans think about killing the humans, especially here. I hate mines, and mining, and humans who work in mining, and of all the stupid mines I can remember, I hate this stupid mine the most. But the humans hate it more. My risk-assessment module predicts a 53 percent chance of a human-on-­human massacre before the end of the contract.

This Murderbot short story was published by WIRED magazine as part of their series "The Future of Work", on December 17, 2018.

Read this story for free at WIRED Magazine.

This Murderbot short story, set just after the 4th novella, Exit Strategy, was published on Tor.com, April 19, 2021.

Read this story for free at Tor.com.

In a galaxy where civilization covers every world with steel and ferroconcrete, only a very special man can break all the rules and still stay free. A man who moves through the rafters of society like a rat. A Stainless Steel Rat . . . .

And when the galaxy goes to war, it needs special men. That's when The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted. The 25th century's most dangerous outlaw is back--and this time it means war! Slippery Jim diGriz, better known as the Stainless Steel Rat, is seeking revenge for the murder of his mentor-in-crime, the fabled archcriminal known as The Bishop. His trail leads to Nevenkebla and the iron-fisted dictator General Zennor--the kind of man who'd sell his own mother into slavery just to see the expression on her face.

Now in the uniform of a Nevenkeblan soldier, Jim discovers Zennor's vile plan to enslave a defenseless planet. Only a man with a Special code of honor--only a Stainless Steel Rat--can save the world from the invading horde.

BUG-EYED MONSTERS ON BROADWAY Pulp SF magazine editor Keith Winton was answering a letter from a teenage fan when the first moon rocket fell back to Earth and blew him away. But where to? Greenville, New York, looked the same, but Bems (Bug-Eyed Monsters) just like the ones on the cover of Startling Stories walked the streets without attracting undue comment. And when he brought out a half-dollar coin in a drugstore, the cops wanted to shoot him on sight as an Arcturian spy. Wait a minute. Seven-foot purple moon-monsters? Earth at war with Arcturus? General Dwight D. Eisenhower in command of Venus Sector? What mad universe was this? One thing was for sure: Keith Winton had to find out fast - or he'd be good and dead, in this universe or any other.

Classic Science Fiction

Here in one superlative volume 17 Science-Fiction tales by a master storyteller.

"The Midas Plague" - They had committed the greatest crime: failure to consume enough! So their punishment was to consume more and more and more....

"The Day the Icicle Works Closed" - The world was facing total unemployment, and the people had only one thing left to hock, their bodies!

"Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus" - There was peace on Earth. But joy to all men? Well, that was another matter!

"The Martian in the Attic" - What's the value of a real, live Martian? Duniop was determined to find out - and he did!

"Tunnel Under the World" - Things are not always what they seem, in fact. Not even what they seem to seem!

And lots more!

Table of Contents:

• A Variety of Excellence - (1975) - essay by Lester del Rey
• The Tunnel Under the World - (1955)
• Punch - (1961)
• Three Portraits and a Prayer - (1962)
• Day Million - (1966)
• Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus - (1956)
• We Never Mention Aunt Nora - (1958)
• Father of the Stars - (1964)
• The Day the Martians Came - (1967)
• The Midas Plague - (1954)
• The Snowmen - (1959)
• How to Count on Your Fingers - (1956)
• Grandy Devil - (1955)
• Speed Trap - (1967)
• The Richest Man in Levittown - (1959)
• The Day the Icicle Works Closed - (1960)
• The Hated - (1958)
• The Martian in the Attic - (1960)
• The Census Takers - (1956)
• The Children of Night - (1964)
• What the Author Has to Say About All This - (1975) - essay by Frederik Pohl

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1955 and was reprinted on Sci Fiction, September 15, 2004. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Hugo Winners, Volume 1: (1955-61) (1963), edited by Isaac Asimov, Men of War (1984) edited by Jerry Pournelle, and The Great SF Stories 17 (1955) (1988), edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. It is included in the collections Far Stars (1961), The Best of Eric Frank Russell (1978) and Major Ingredients: The Selected Short Stories of Eric Frank Russell (2000).

An exciting account of a jungle expedition’s encounter with living dinosaurs, written with the same panache exhibited in the author’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries. This 1912 novel, the first installment of the Professor Challenger series, follows an eccentric paleontologist and his companions into the wilds of the Amazon, where they discover iguanodons, pterodactyls, and savage ape-people.

After a ten-year absence, the return of one of the most enduring series characters in modern SF

James Bolivar "Slippery Jim" DiGriz, Special Corps agent, master con man, interstellar criminal (retired), is living high on the hog on the planet of Moolaplenty when a long-lost cousin and a shipful of swine arrive to drain his bank account and send him and his lovely wife, Angelina, wandering the stars on the wildest journey since Gulliver's Travels.

In this darkly satiric work, Harry Harrison bring his most famous character out of retirement for a grand tour of the galaxy. The Stainless Steel Rat rides again: a cocktail in his hand, a smile on his lips, and larceny in his heart, in search of adventure, gravitons, and a way to get rid of the pigs.

It is carnival time on Mars, but Tabitha Jute isn't partying. She is in hiding from the law, penniless and about to lose her livelihood and her best friend, the space barge "Alice Liddell". Then, the intriguing Marco Metz offers her some money to take him to Plenty, and the adventure begins.

The fantastic story of a spy who could read minds!

Brain Twister - follows the adventures of FBI agent Kenneth J. Malone as he attempts to unravel the machinations of a telepathic spy. How do you find a telepath to catch the first telepath? A fun piece of sci fi that features claims of immortality, mind-reading, spies and insanity.

Because Bran Hoddan was a serious electronice engineer, he didn't want any part of his planet's heritage. For he was from Zan -- and Zan's only occupation was spaceship piracy!