Search Worlds Without End

Table of Contents:

• Personal Account - essay by H. L. Gold
• It Happened Tomorrow - essay by H. L. Gold
• Honeymoon in Hell - (1950) - novelette by Fredric Brown
• Coming Attraction - (1950) - shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• Rule of Three - (1951) - novelette by Theodore Sturgeon
• Third from the Sun - (1950) - shortstory by Richard Matheson
• The Last Martian - (1950) - shortstory by Fredric Brown
• Sooner Than You Think - essay by H. L. Gold
• Jaywalker - (1950) - shortstory by Ross Rocklynne
• The Reluctant Heroes - (1951) - novelette by Frank M. Robinson
• A Little Journey - (1951) - shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• Venus Is a Man's World - (1951) - novelette by William Tenn
• The Worlds We Made - essay by H. L. Gold
• Beyond Bedlam - (1951) - novella by Wyman Guin
• The Stars Are the Styx - (1950) - novelette by Theodore Sturgeon
• Inside Earth - (1951) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• I, the Unspeakable - (1951) - novelette by Walt Sheldon
• Aren't You an Extraterrestrial - essay by H. L. Gold
• The Pilot and the Bushman - (1951) - novelette by Sylvia Jacobs
• Judas Ram - shortstory by Sam Merwin, Jr. [as by Sam Merwin ]
• Hostess - (1951) - novelette by Isaac Asimov
• Betelgeuse Bridge - (1951) - shortstory by William Tenn
• Cabin Boy - (1951) - novelette by Damon Knight
• Field Study - (1951) - shortstory by Peter Phillips
• Let's Build Somebody - essay by H. L. Gold
• Good Night, Mr. James - (1951) - novelette by Clifford D. Simak
• Syndrome Johnny - (1951) - shortstory by Katherine MacLean
• Made to Measure - (1951) - novelette by William Campbell Gault
• Not Around the Corner - essay by H. L. Gold
• Ask Me Anything - (1951) - novelette by Damon Knight
• If You Was a Moklin - (1951) - novelette by Murray Leinster
• Man of Destiny - (1951) - shortstory by John Christopher
• Susceptibility - (1951) - shortstory by John D. MacDonald
• The End of History and Beyond - essay by H. L. Gold
• The Waker Dreams - (1950) - shortstory by Richard Matheson
• Common Denominator - (1951) - shortstory by John D. MacDonald
• Second Childhood - (1951) - shortstory by Clifford D. Simak
• About Time - essay by H. L. Gold
• Don't Live in the Past - (1951) - novelette by Damon Knight
• The Biography Project - (1951) - shortstory by H. L. Gold
• Dark Interlude - (1951) - shortstory by Fredric Brown and Mack Reynolds
• The Other Now - (1951) - shortstory by Murray Leinster

Table of Contents:

• A Saucer of Loneliness - (1953) - shortstory by Theodore Sturgeon
• University - (1953) - novelette by Peter Phillips
• Unready to Wear - (1953) - shortstory by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• Junkyard - (1953) - novelette by Clifford D. Simak
• Specialist - (1953) - shortstory by Robert Sheckley
• Not Fit for Children - (1953) - shortstory by Evelyn E. Smith
• Warm - (1953) - shortstory by Robert Sheckley
• Caretaker - (1953) - shortstory by James H. Schmitz
• A Bad Day for Sales - (1953) - shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• Minimum Sentence - (1953) - shortstory by Theodore R. Cogswell
• Problem on Balak - (1953) - shortstory by Roger Dee
• Four in One - (1953) - novelette by Damon Knight
• Teething Ring - (1953) - shortstory by James Causey
• Self Portrait - (1951) - novelette by Bernard Wolfe
• Tiger by the Tail - (1951) - shortstory by Alan E. Nourse
• Pillar to Post - (1951) - novelette by John Wyndham
• A Pail of Air - (1951) - shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• The Year of the Jackpot - (1952) - novelette by Robert A. Heinlein
• Star, Bright - (1952) - novelette by Mark Clifton
• Surface Tension - [Pantropy] - (1952) - novelette by James Blish
• The Snowball Effect - (1952) - shortstory by Katherine MacLean
• Tea Tray in the Sky - (1952) - shortstory by Evelyn E. Smith
• Game for Blondes - (1952) - shortstory by John D. MacDonald
• The Misogynist - (1952) - shortstory by James E. Gunn
• Lost Memory - (1952) - shortstory by Peter Phillips
• The C-Chute - (1951) - novelette by Isaac Asimov
• Lover, When You're Near Me - (1952) - novelette by Richard Matheson
• Student Body - (1953) - novelette by F. L. Wallace
• Hallucination Orbit - (1952) - novelette by J. T. McIntosh
• A Gleeb for Earth - (1953) - shortstory by Charles Schafhauser
• To the Hills! - [Editor's Page] - (1953) - essay by H. L. Gold
• Command Performance - (1952) - novelette by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

The novel concerns a future where the human race is owned and operated by the invisible Vitons, parasites that feed on human pain and anguish. The Vitons are only visible when humans come into contact with a certain combination of chemicals. After several people use the combination of chemicals painted on the skin and die, the person investigating the suspicious deaths is puzzled by the victims apparently insane actions.

Here is the compelling story of the launching of Prometheus -- Earth's first true spaceship -- and of the men who made it happen.

Dirk Alexson:
Chronicler of the greatest space adventure of all time, he was chosen to immortalize the incredible story of the men and their heroic mission.

Sir Robert Derwent:
Direct-General of Interplanetary -- London Headquarters for the international space-flight project -- he was the man who got the mission off the ground and into the pages of history.

Professor Maxton:
The world's leading atomic engineer, he designed the huge ship's drive units and he waited with the rest of the world to see if the project would be a success.

Speculate for a moment on the enormous challenge to archaeology when interplanetary travel is possible... and relics are found of a race extinct for half a million years! A race that was so far in advance of ours that they held the secret of life restoration! What happens when a member of that race is brought back after 500,000 years of death...

Spencer Chambers wants to make the solar system his own personal Empire. A trillionaire and industrialist he owns the ships that can carry humanity to freedom and plenty in the untapped riches of the solar system. In return he wants to charge exorbitant prices making it so that he will end up owning every planet and asteroid. Gregory Manning has a different idea. He sees a solar system open to everyone. Only one man's vision for the future of humanity can come true: slavery or freedom. Gregory Manning has an ace up his sleeve--a scientific ace.

John Wainwright is a freak, a human mutation with an extraordinary intelligence which is both awesome and frightening to behold. Ordinary humans are mere playthings to him. And Odd John has a plan - to create a new order on Earth, a new supernormal species. But the world is not ready for such a change.

THE ETERNAL LOVE TRIANGLE...

This is the story of how two men and one woman reach a solution to the eternal love triangle through the use of a secret scientific device--a machine that will reproduce anything... or anyone!

Fame and honor come to them, and then this incredible situation turns savage. For there is no escape from the net of the four-sided love triangle...

The novel concerns Lieutenant Commander Frank Jacklin who is blown up in a thorium bomb explosion while on the battleship Alaska. He awakens in the body of Winnie Tompkins who had perpetrated the explosion. As Tompkins, he learns of a plot by German agents to poison Franklin D. Roosevelt and he tries to warn the authorities. He continues to become involved in intrigue until another accident restores Tompkins to his body, leaving Jacklin in the body of a dog.

His first sf novel, The City in the Sea (1951), deals with a matriarchal culture which begins to re-invade a USA reverted to savagery.

Contains both The House of Many Worlds (1951) and Three Faces of Time (1955).

THE CLASSIC OF ALTERNATE EARTHS!

Ancient, encrusted with legend, supposedly empty, the old mansion on Spindrift Key stood like a dark and lowering wraith. Reporter Elspeth Marriner's nose for news leads her into a world of trouble. Make that, in worlds of trouble. When she and photographer Mack Fraser, the man she loves to hate, are sent to investigate the old mansion in the Hatteras, they never dream that once inside their lives will never be the same. For the house is a gateway to alternate Earths, watched over by a mysterious group called the Workers, who guard against more advanced civilizations crossing the dimensional barriers to conquer defenseless neighbors. From the Workers, Elspeth learns that her and Mack's presence at the house is no accident. They have been personally selected by the Workers for a dangerous assignment. Their unique combination of talents and knowledge are needed to counter a threat that could plunge the entire world into war. If Elspeth accepted the assignment, she would have to cross to another world, aided only by her native ingenuity, then surmount a succession of plots and counterplots, with death the price of failure. Worse, she would have to work more closely than ever with the detested Mark Fraser.

Seeds of Life, in short, is the story of Neils Bork, an alcoholic and failure raised to supernal heights of scientific genius and altruism by a scientific accident. And it is the story of what became of his golden dream of free, limitless energy for all, and of the marriage he thought would be crowned with glorious offspring.

Tipton Bond was a man who lived for challenges - and Earth had no more challenges for him. But on Xota: One of the giants' faces bent over him, sardonically benign. "You are an Earthman, little human electron. You are a denizen of a planet which the Warriors of Day will reach and engulf, in a bare thousand years. Did you think to escape us by coming to Xota? You have brought yourself closer to the thing which you thought to escape. You will share in the general holocaust when the Wild Star arrives!" Giants they might be, Bond decided, but they had limitations. "What is this Wild Star?" he called. The slow thunder answered: "It is the most condensed of white dwarfs, almost pure neutronium throughout. And what makes a sun a runaway sun? The answer, little one, is very simple: The Warriors of Day!

Terrifying disturbances have been reported in the Uranium mines of Fortuna. The minors have come to believe that they are haunted, and the delays in production have attracted the attention of the Royal Atomic Energy Commission. Their agent arrives to discover one of the mine's owners, a young woman of unknown origin, living in terror of the other, an old man with mad dreams of immortality. They follow a mysterious and ruthless would-be goddess into another world, where masked beings of pure energy have enslaved the population for thousands of years, drawing their titanic power from the unfathomable Well of the Worlds.

In one split second they were hurled across time into a world one million years away. A surprise nuclear war may cause the End of the World, but not the way anyone could have imagined. A classic science fiction tale originally published in Galaxy Magazine. The pleasant little American city of Middletown is the first target in an atomic war - but instead of blowing Middletown to smithereens, the super-hydrogen bomb blows it right off the map - to somewhere else! First there is the new thin coldness of the air, the blazing corona and dullness of the sun, the visibility of the stars in high daylight. Then comes the inhabitant's terrifying discovery that Middletown is a twentieth-century oasis of paved streets and houses in a desolate brown world without trees, without water, apparently without life, in the unimaginably far-distant future.

(Amazon.com)

Caiden had trouble getting used to his frightening new powers - he could read minds, walk through walls, control inanimate objects, foresee events. He found himself suddenly jerked into a timeless limbo where he had to fight for his life using his unmastered abilities against ruthless adepts bent on the dstrction of our universe.

Unexpectedly the starship Stellaris hurtled off the earth and into the farthest reaches of space. If only that was the only problem! No star maps, killer aliens and a ship that was only partially built.

On the far planet Wing IV, a brilliant scientist creates the humanoids--sleek black androids programmed to serve humanity.

But are they perfect servants--or perfect masters?

Slowly the humanoids spread throughout the galaxy, threatening to stifle all human endeavor. Only a hidden group of rebels can stem the humanoid tide...if it's not already too late.

Fist published in Astounding Science Fiction during the magazine's heyday, The Humanoids--sceince fiction grand master Jack Williamson's finest novel--has endured for fifty years as a classic on the theme of natural versus artificial life.

Due to his research into the lives of geniuses, Dr Julius Conrad of the Wellington Institute for the Study of the Humanities has developed a radical hypothesis: Namely, that the work of most geniuses, past and present, has been directed by minds from a ruthless future which take possession of either the unstable geniuses themselves or else of unstable people who are in a position to change the course of the geniuses' work. When Conrad is murdered on the eve of announcing his theory, journalist Henry Sanford and the Institute's brainy Liza Drew investigate. Soon the pair discover their own lives are in jeopardy, for the people of the future are determined that no one of our era will ever reveal their existence or the role they play in human history.

"Murder in Space," is a great mystery set in deep space. There was a place in the asteroid belt called the Hive. It was a deadly whirl of destruction filled with thousands of spiraling asteroids--where no spaceship could enter and return in one piece. And deep within it lurked an unsolved murder.

Terwilliger Ames was the best attorney this side of Earth; but when he was swayed by the charms of a beautiful young woman into accepting a murder case, he had no idea his life would soon be in grave danger, and that his adventures would lead him to the deepest part of the asteroid belt in search of a cold-blooded killer.

An exceptional, thought-provoking outer space murder mystery.

Martin Padway, 20th-century archaeologist, becomes a reluctant one-way time-traveller, landing in Rome on the verge of the Dark Ages. With no way home, he sets out to make the world he's in a better place.

In short order, Padway "invents" and introduces such things as Printing and newspapers, Arabic numerals, Double entry bookkeeping, Copernican astronomy, and, most important -- Distilling. And the world of decaying Rome will never be the same!

Note: A fix up of all 3 Kim Rendell stories: "The Disciplinary Circuit", "The Boomerang Circuit" and "The Manless Worlds".

A Variant Title for The Fairy Chessmen:

A mathematician whose research involves a type of chess played with variable rules ("fairy chess") is the only one able to solve an "equation from the future" in which the constants are treated as variables that the "bad guys" are going to use to win World War III.

Two people awaken from Suspended Animation to find themselves in conflict with a dictatorship.

How can Thorn fight a dream foe -- risking life and sanity, that is exactly what he sets out to do . . . and his shrewd tactics and reckless daring create a pulse-hammering story against an all to real opponent!

Professor James Lowry didn't believe in spirits, or witches, or demons. Not until a gentle spring evening when his hat disappeared, and suddenly he couldn't remember the last four hours of his life. Now, the quiet university town of Atworthy is changing - slightly at first, then faster and more frighteningly each time he tries to remember. Lowry is pursued by a dark, secret evil that is turning his whole world against him while it whispers a warning from the shadows: If you find your hat you'll find your four hours. If you find your four hours then you will die...

Double Jeopardy is a science fiction fix-up novel by Fletcher Pratt.

It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1952, and is a combination of two shorter pieces, the novellas "Double Jeopardy" and "The Square Cube Law," originally published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in the issues for April, 1952 and June, 1952, respectively.

The story features Pratt's detective hero George Helmfleety Jones in two adventures dealing with the ramifications of a newly discovered matter-duplication process. The first concerns a case of industrial espionage involving the bootlegging of duplicated drugs, and includes Jones's marriage to a duplicated woman. The second is a locked-room mystery in which a fortune is somehow stolen from a sealed, pilotless cargo plane.

The accidentals were human... but not human enough for Earth. Humans had abolished nearly every disease, deformity, and defect; but there were still a few that couldn't be fixed by surgery or cures. Those people who couldn't be cured or repaired to reflect the perfection of the rest of the populace just didn't belong. They were called accidentals. Their home was an asteroid called Handicap Haven--the residents called it the Junkpile. But there were those among the accidentals who longed for something better--a greater sense of freedom, and the vast reaches of space seemed to hold promise of that. So against the wishes of the Solar Committee, the Junkpile was piloted out of the solar system, toward the Centauri cluster. The only question remaining was whether or not the renegade asteroid could reach its new home before the long arm of the committee could reach out and stop them.

While vacationing in Italy, 19-year-old Leo Thrasher rashly experiments with a radical new science. The result: he "reflects" himself 500 years back in time and must deal with life in the middle ages as he strives to return to the present. And in the 20th century, the memoirs of Leonardo da Vinci are unearthed.

Also published as The Deviates.

In a world where but one man in a hundred, and eight women in a hundred, could produce children, only one science counted: Genetics. And the most respected, feared, and hated man in the world was the Chief of the Genetics Bureau, Robert Wellton. It was under his direction that gene charts were made of every citizen, and where those who dared to take the test discovered their fate. A few were Normals, who could be parents; the majority were Deviate-carriers, whose progeny would be monsters -- Uglies, as the Deviates were called.

Wellton alone knew the truth. The Genetics Program was failing, for fewer Normals were discovered every year. More and more citizens were falling back on their legal right not to be tested, not daring to learn that they might be Deviate-carriers. The whole world hungered for children, but each man and woman wanted to be the parents of the children they reared; and the fortunate few were hated by the vast majority.

But Wellton's father, who had been Genetics Chief before him, had discovered that not all Deviates were Uglies -- Nature's failures. Some were successes, improved human beings. These were telepathic and long-lived; their average intelligence level was that of the most intelligent Normals. They were what humanity needed.

Humanity could not accept them. Bitter and hate-filled, they would not believe that a Deviate could be anything but a monster; and the legal forces of the entire world were committed to the extermination of all Uglier on sight. Thus, Adam Wellton's giant plan was devised. And when he was assassinated, Robert Wellton carried it on. The plan called for the creation of a secret people -- the Children.

Born of Normal mothers, they were all Wellton's sons and daughters, bearing his improved genes. Telepathic as he was, Wellton was in mental contact with the Children from the moment of their birth, comforting and guiding them, sending them away from civilization to a hidden colony in the Canadian wilds. Here, under the direction of Wellton's first son, Barron, they built their own world. Here they waited for the mysterious being they knew only as the Father, who had promised to come to them some day and lead them to their destiny. For Wellton had never seen any of the Children -- nor had any of them seen him.

Then disaster struck, while the second generation of Children was growing up. A powerful committee, headed by a bitter man who suspected the existence of concealed Deviates, started an investigation. Wellton knew that Rossi and his associates would discover the secret, sooner or later. And there would be only one result: the Children would be hunted down and wiped out.

Thus starts a moving novel of fear and hope in a world where the only hope for humanity lay in that which all men feared.

An advanced alien race is considering our sun as a reference point on their star route, but must first determine if there are any intelligent life-forms in its solar system, since altering the sun would be fatal for all the system's life. The aliens seek to contact the most highly-regarded being on planet Earth, coming up with Dusty Britton of the Space Patrol. What they DON'T realize is that he's an actor, star of a hit sci-fi TV show! Egotistical Dusty quickly realizes that he must now play his TV role in real life in order to save the solar system from disaster.

The Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece and Rome had returned to Earth -- with all their awesome powers intact. Overnight, Earth was transformed. War on any scale was outlawed, along with boom-and-bust economic cycles, and prudery. No change was more startling than the face of New York, where the Empire State Building became the Tower of Zeus.

In this totally altered world, William Forrester is an acolyte of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, and a teacher of history. Only Maya Wilson, one of his students and a worshipper of Venus, Goddess of Love, had a different sort of grading in mind. Maya is the first of the many Trials of Forrester, every bit as mighty and perilous as the Labors of Hercules. In love with Gerda Symes (like him, a devotee of Athena and a frequenter of the great Temple of Pallas Athena -- formerly known as the 42nd Street Library) and dedicated to the pleasures of the mind -- Forrester falls under the soft, compelling pressure of soft, compelling devotees of Venus and Bacchus. He's going to be in need of all the strength that he and his Goddess, the beautiful and intellectual Athena, can muster!

Into this sensuous strife stride the Temple Myrmidons -- religious cops sworn to obey orders without question or hesitation -- with a pickup order for William Forrester. Where he is taken, what happens to him, and the truly fantastic discoveries he makes about himself and the Gods and Goddesses... here are the ingredients that make up this science fiction novel of suspense, intrigue, mystery and danger!

Space Commander Stagg explored the galaxies for 800 years. Upon his return, the hero Stagg is made the centerpiece of an incredible public ritual, one that will repeatedly take him to the heights of ecstasy and the depths of hell.

The 1968 Doubleday edition (as well as subsequent editions) is a revised and expanded version of the 1960 orginal.

TO SAVE THE WORLD, THEY PLOTTED TO WIPE OUT ALL MALES!

This science fiction classic begins when Larry Finlay, a young and unsuspecting chemist, discovers sinister forces have taken an interest in his new approach to the seemingly innocuous problem of hemophilia. Soon, Finlay is unwittingly caught up in a nightmare plot of violence and counter-violence. Behind it is the sinister cabal that calls itself The White Widows. But who are what are they? When Larry learns all these events are tied in to the concept of parthenogenesis, he realizes that a certain woman scientist has found the secret of giving birth without the need of males. She and the other White Widows are determined to end war, greed, violence, poverty, and the idea of cut-throat competition by eliminating all men! Particularly the man named Larry Finlay! The only person he can turn to for help is the woman he loves. If he can trust her with his life... And he'll have to!

Events move fast in Umbalathorp, the capital city of the new African republic of Goya. When Soames Noyes, a young Englishman of the old school (public, of course) arrives, he finds himself caught in more than one stream of conflicting ideas - and more than one bed of conflicting women... An incisive and current investigation of sexual response, politics, and the drives which govern men.

Mars was no paradise. But to Dr. Tony Hellman, it meant a second chance for man - and to Hugo Brenner it meant a world to plunder.

Tony was the leading member of Sun Lake Colony, a band of frontier-extending Earth people -- intrepid space pioneers. Brenner was the planet's most powerful magnate, an operator who vast wealth was based on Earthmen's tragic addiction to the vicious drug, marcaine. When Brenner accused the Sun Lakers of stealing a hundred kilograms of the Martian drug, the colony was threatened with extermination unless the thief was found and the marcaine returned.

Tony and his fellow colonists saw their second chance fading. Brenner's success would mean the end of their better world. Could the struggling colony survive the assaults of entrenched greed and persecution?

Published under the penname Cyril Judd.