Roger Dee's "The Obligation" (novelette, free, first contact): An alien's adventures at a human camp on Venus

A shape-shifting surveyor ("Cseth Abrii of Pselpha from the binary suns Kornephoros") from an alien elder race saves a human fisherman on Venus in a storm. Alien's later friendly gestures at the human camp drive another man mad with fear - so we have a madman hunting the alien & other humans of the habitat trying to save the alien. Eventually, the madman will die & so will the saved man's wife, but does the man need to know his wife is dead? Alien thinks he has an obligation towards the friendly man who lost his wife trying to save him...

Collected in.

1. Donald A Wollheim (ed)'s "Adventures on Other Planets".

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, September 1952.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Roger Dee.

Jerry Sohn's "The Seventh Order" (short story, alien invasion, free): Invasion of the machines...

An almost invincible robot has arrived on earth from a far away world called Zanthar. A 7th order robot; by comparison, humans are equivalent to 5th order.

He's an advance scout, before more of his kind follow. Idea is to perpetuate themselves - force humanity to dedicate itself to manufacture more of them. But humanity is not ready to give up so easily...

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, March 1952.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, or as part of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: B. 
Author's real name appears to be "Gerald Allan Sohl, Sr".

"Galaxy Science Fiction", March 1952 (ed H L Gold) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

Where I am aware of a story elsewhere, I include that link too. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on title goes there. Links on author fetch more works of author.

1. [novelet] Robert A Heinlein's "The Year of the Jackpot".
2. [ss] H B Fyfe's "Manners of the Age"; download: "With everyone gone elsewhere, Earth was perfect for gracious living--only there was nothing gracious about it!"
3. [ss] Jerry Sohl's "The Seventh Order" aka "The 7th Order"; download: "History is filled with invincible conquerers. This one from space was genuinely omnipotent, but that never keeps humanity from resisting!"
4. [ss] Damon Knight's "Catch That Martian" (B); download: A "Martian" in New York is turning people into ghosts!
5. [serial - 3/3] Alfred Bester's "The Demolished Man".

Fact sheet.

Labeled: Vol 3 No 6.
Download whole issue from Internet Archive (does not include pages for 3 stories - "The Year of the Jackpot", "Catch That Martian", & "The Demolished Man").
Related: Fiction from Galaxy (whole issues only); old pulps.

John W Campbell, Jr (ed)'s "The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology": Annotated table of contents & review

23 stories, all originally published in Astounding magazine.

Not only does it include 2 stories penned by Kuttner/Moore (neither of them anywhere near authors' best), it includes one of their fan fictions too - by William Tenn. This Tenn story must be among the best fanfic of the genre & a beautiful read on its own too.

And Simak's is probably the best immortality story I've read so far.

List below is generally in order I liked - best first, unread last. But I'd read many of these stories years back & have mostly forgotten; I'll probably reorder the list if I were to read all of them today.

Where I know of an online copy of a story, I include download link too. My rating appears in brackets (ABC; A = worth the time; C = don't bother). Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there.

1. [novelette] Murray Leinster's "First Contact" (A); download text as part of a larger package or audio; May 1945: How to go about establishing trust with strangers when the cost of misplaced trust can be unacceptably high?
2. [novelette] William Tenn's "Child's Play" (A); read online or download audio; March 1947: What if Kuttner & Moore retold "Frankenstein"?
3. [novelette] Clifford D Simak's "Eternity Lost" (A); July 1949: A lawmaker considers himself above law...
4. [novelette] James H Schmitz's "The Witches of Karres" (A); download from Baen CD or Internet Archive; December 1949: I've an impression what I'd read several years back was a novel; I'm not sure I've read this novelette version.
   
   It's a space opera, but features a community of supermen/women ("witches" of title) who have unusual mental abilities.
5. [novelette] Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" (A); download text/audio; September 1941: On a world orbiting a sun in a system of 6 suns, all suns never set except once in several thousand years. How would the natives react to darkness they're completely unfamiliar with.
   
   I personally read its novel version before this shorter version. While the later half of novel is useless bloat, I liked first half of it corresponding to original short story far better than the shorter version itself.
6. [novelette] Eric Frank Russell's "Late Night Final" (A); December 1948: A variant of "... And Then There Were None" (download), but with a very different ending.
7. [novelette] L Sprague de Camp's "The Exalted" (A); download; November 1940: I remember I'd loved this when I first read it. A funny piece about the adventures of a nutty professor & his uplifted bear.
8. [ss] H B Fyfe's "Protected Species" (A); March 1951: Arrogant humans are humbled. 
9. [ss] Lester del Rey's "Over the Top" (A); download as part of a larger package; November 1949: Men go to war, unless distracted!
10. [ss] John Pierce's "Invariant" (A); April 1944: Serious consequences of rejuvenation treatment... 
11. [ss] Murray Leinster's "Historical Note" (A); read online; February 1951: What if personal flying machines become a reality? Story is extremely satirical of communist Soviet Union.
12. [non-fact] W K Lessing's "Meihemin Ce Klasrum" (as by Dolton Edwards) (A); download; September 1946; humor: A plan to turn written English into a phonetic language.
13. [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "When the Bough Breaks" (as by Lewis Padgett) (B); download as part of a larger package; November 1944: A baby is a superman - the first of the new race "homo superior", causing much anguish & heartburn in his parents.
14. [novelette] Robert Heinlein's "Blowups Happen" (B); download; September 1940: It'll be safer if nuclear power plants were located in space rather than on earth. I don't recollect how it proposed to get the power generated in space down to earth.
15. [ss] Jack Williamson's "Hindsight" (B); download; May 1940: Time travel cannot change significant history!
16. [novelette] A E van Vogt's "Vault of the Beast" (B); August 1940: I don't remember much of it. Something about an alien (invader?) from another dimension trapped in a vault on Mars & some human getting involved in removing the resulting threat to humanity.
17. [novella] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Clash by Night" (as by Lawrence O'Donnell) (B); March 1943: Description of a war in a society where countries don't keep militaries, but hire the services of independent military companies for both attack & defense! Set on Venus.
18. [novelette] Eric Frank Russell's "Hobbyist" (B); September 1947: A stranded spaceman on an alien planet hasn't realized he's actually met god!
19. [novelette] T L Sherred's "E For Effort" (B); May 1947: Using a past-viewer to abolish war! 
20. [novella] H Beam Piper's "Last Enemy" (B); download; August 1950: An adventure to rescue a damsel in distress, involving travel across the "levels" of "paratime" "sectors" & some space travel. Took me almost a week to finish it.
21. [ss] Kris Neville's "Cold War" (B); October 1949: US military superiority is a double-edged sword...
22. [novelette] Theodore Sturgeon's "Thunder and Roses" (B); download; November 1947: Finding hope for humanity in an angry world...
23. [ss] William T Powers' "Meteor" (C); September 1950: Very confused, & to me pointless & boring, description of a meteor scare involving earth & Mars.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1952.
Related: The stories edited by John Campbell for Astounding/Analog.

"Galaxy Science Fiction", April 1952 (ed H L Gold) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

Links on author fetch more fiction by author. Where I'm aware of an online copy of individual stories, I include those links too.

Table of contents.

1. [novella] F L Wallace's "Accidental Flight"; download: "Outcasts of a society of physically perfect people, they couldn't stay & they couldn't go home again -- yet there had to be some escape for them. Oddly enough, there was!"
2. [novelet] Damon Knight's "Ticket to Anywhere".
3. [ss] J T M'Intosh's "Katahut Said No": "When the machine ordered any course of action, the answer was always yes. Except when---"
4. [ss] Fritz Leiber's "The Moon is Green"; download: "Anybody who wanted to escape death could, by paying a very simple price -- denial of life!"
5. [ss] Lucius Daniel's "Martians Never Die"; download: "It was a wonderful bodyguard: no bark, no bite, no sting ... just conversion of an enemy!"
6. [ss] Peter Phillips' "She Who Laughs": "It's really a very simple story -- if you refuse to believe in ghosts & know that time is circular!"

Fact sheet.

Download full text from Internet Archive (does not include the text of Damon Knight's story).
Labeled: Vol 4, No 1.
Related: Fiction from Galaxy (whole issues only); fiction from "pulps".

Eric Frank Russell's "A Little Oil" (novelette): Even precision machinery needs a bit of lubricating!

Most stories on this theme tend to be melancholy - a very few people, packed together in a small spaceship for years, with little hope of ever locating home, cracking up one after the other. This one, on the other hand, is sometimes funny, & made me laugh once.

There is something here I don't think I've seen in this kind of stories before: main thing driving the crew crazy is noise the ship's drive is making - relentless, day after day, with no respite for years.

Story summary.

First 2 manned starships never returned. Story is set on 3rd one - 4 years out from earth - 2 of them going to an unnamed target star, 2 returning. Sol should have been located by now & is not, & everyone seems to be cracking up. Everyone, that is, except ...

Notes.

1. Title comes from analogy to a precision machine - cogs & wheels working together generate friction - so you oil the interfaces to cut friction. Here precision components are highly skilled crew members, & oil is...
2. There was "a film offer by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, MGM, for A Little Oil". Looks like the movie never came through. 

Collected in.

1. "Major Ingredients" (ed Rick Katze). 

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, October 1952.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Eric Frank Russell (annotated list).

Eric Frank Russell's "Take a Seat" (short story, body snatching)

ArchiveHub records that F&SF turned down this story because of its "peculiar language".

Story summary.

Some sort of alien entity has taken possession of a human body, somewhere, using a newly developed "psycheport machine". Story is of its exploration of the new body, & of nearby humans' reaction to very unexpected behavior of their colleague, now possessed.

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, May 1952.
Rating: B.  
Related: Stories of Eric Frank Russell (annotated list).

Theodore Cogswell's "The Spectre General" (novella, military sf, humor): Neither is complete, till they come together!

A human galactic empire, long since fallen apart.

A spaceship maintenance battalion of its military got stranded on a front world, now long forgotten & isolated. But in a funny variation of "A Canticle for Leibowitz", they carry on the tradition of teaching spacecraft & machine maintenance to their kids, & maintain a sort of military discipline, though the society has fallen to primitive agrarian levels & no one thinks the machines they learn to fix can actually do something.

Elsewhere, a military version of empire has come up, next in command always intriguing to unseat the current ruler. Current ruler denies technical staff to commanders who could potentially unseat him, to keep them weak.

So we have a military commander with fleet falling apart & no one to fix things. And an isolated world of trained maintenance men who don't even believe the machines they can fix can do anything useful. Results should be interesting when the two parties meet...

Collected in.

1. Ben Bova (ed)'s "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two B".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, June 1952.
Rating: A.
Among the stories in Astounding/Analog issues edited John Campbell.

Eric Frank Russell's "I Am Nothing" (novelette): Ruthless dictator has a change of heart

There is a well known name in Indian history - Ashok. He lived a couple of centuries AD, was a ruthless warrior, & is today remembered as the ultimate pacifist - a change of heart that is said to have happened when he saw the ruins of one of his battles. He's supposed to be the man who first publicized Buddhism at a large enough scale. The official stamp of the government of India is a symbol taken from one of his monuments.

This is a similar story - a ruthless dictator who has never known love, & has destroyed a lot of communities & lives to his ambition, meets a distraught little girl, the only survivor of a village destroyed by his troops. And we witness may be the beginnings of a change of heart...

Quotes.

1. "Only the strong knew there is but one cause of war. All the other multitudinous reasons recorded in the history books were not real reasons at all. They were nothing but plausible pretexts. There was but one root cause that persisted right back to the days of the jungle. When two monkeys want the same banana, that is war."
2. "The feared are respected and that is proper and decent.
   
   If one can have nothing more."

Notes.

1. I was wondering if the author modeled the dictator after an alternate wishful image of Hitler? Or was there an Ashok-like emperor in European history too?

Collected in.

1. Eric Frank Russell's "Somewhere a Voice".
2. "Major Ingredients" (ed Rick Katze). 

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, July 1952.
Rating: B.
Among the stories edited by John Campbell for Astounding/Analog.
Related: Stories of Eric Frank Russell.

Eric Frank Russell's "Somewhere a Voice" (collection): Annotated table of contents & review

I've not read all stories yet. Will fill up entries as I read.

"Dear Devil" is one of the most loved stories of the genre.

ToC below is in order of my preference, best first. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on title goes there. Where I'm aware of an online copy of the story, I include the link. Links on publisher or year fetch more matching fiction.

1. [novelette] "Dear Devil" (A); download scans as part of a larger package; Other Worlds, May 1950: Humanity rises from post-nuclear-war apocalypse - with some external help.
2. [ss] "U-Turn" (as by Duncan H Munro) (B); Astounding, April 1950: State helps a bored man commit "suicide"...  
3. [novelette] "I Am Nothing" (B); Astounding, July 1952: A ruthless dictator has a change of heart...
4. [novella] "Somewhere a Voice" (B); Other Worlds, January 1953: Unsuccessful hike to rescue by the stranded.
5. [ss] "Tieline" (as by Duncan H Munro) (B); Astounding, July 1955: A man alone on an entire planet that houses a space lighthouse is very lonely.
6. [novelette] "Seat of Oblivion" (B); Astounding, November 1941: What's the best place to hide for a runaway death row convict? In another man's body! 
7. [ss] "Displaced Person" (B); Weird Tales, September 1948; religion: Some revolutionaries aren't welcome anywhere.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1965.
Related: Stories of Eric Frank Russell.

L Sprague de Camp's "The Guided Man" (novelette, humor): Call center to help the socially awkward

I seem to be picking up stories with risque elements lately. This one has nudism & a contest to select the bustiest woman. Another one I recently read - Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters" - requires everyone in the US to be nude when in public, by a Presidential decree!

This also is probably the oldest story I've seen so far with chip implants. It also has wireless 2-way communications at city-size distances & short range wireless communications akin to bluetooth.
PS: Puppet Masters too has aliens whose memory works in ways similar to modern electronic devices! But more on Puppet Masters some other time.

Story summary.

Say you are one of those people uncomfortable in certain social situations. Like during job interviews, or when talking to a girl you find attractive. Now here is a call center service just for you.

They'll plant a chip in your head. And they'll give you a little device with a button that goes in your pant pocket. When you press the button, the chip in your head allows a call center agent to take over your head: you're aware of everything, but your body language, speech, body movements, etc are controlled by the agent. To regain control, press the switch again. Before the event, brief your agent about it & give him the time, so he'll be prepared.

This is a funny story of a man who hires the call center services to get a job, & to get help impressing the girl he's mooning. Only the call center agent assigned himself gets interested in the girl...

See also.

1. Mary Shelley's "Transformation" (download): Hero (in good faith!) exchanges his body with an evil magician, only the magician now gets interested in hero's girlfriend.

Collected in.

1. "The Best of L Sprague de Camp".

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, October 1952.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of L Sprague de Camp.

Damon Knight's "Catch that Martian" (short story, detective, free): A "Martian" in New York is turning people into ghosts

This could be a satire, on people who don't behave well in public - like speaking loudly in a theater during performance, or eating in a restaurant in a certain way, ...

Whether there is a Martian in the story is a matter of conjecture. Story is told by a police officer. Based on available information, he believes a Martian recently arrived in New York city, is posing as a human, & is finicky about manners of people around him. When he doesn't like someone's behavior, he does something to move him to another dimension, so he won't be bothered anymore! The people moved become like ghosts - they can see us & we can see them, but their voice cannot reach us, they cannot touch any physical object
here, ...

Story is of the policeman working towards catching this suspected "Martian".

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, March 1952.
Download full text from Internet Archive. [via Marooned]
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Damon Knight.

Reginald Bretnor's "Sugar Plum" (short story, satire, free): A planet that "uninhibits" you!

Charles Edward Button has brought a new piece of real estate in a tax auction - a whole earth-like world called "Sugar Plum". As the family begins setting up at their new rather spacious home, they discover this world does amazing things to people...

Note: The story appears to be a satire on Victorian mores. My familiarity with the subject is limited, so I read it literally; offers enough chuckles even for the unfamiliar.

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, November 1952.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks. [via QuaserDragon]
Rating: B. 
Related: Stories of Reginald Bretnor.

Henry Hasse's "One Purple Hope!" (short story, drug addiction, free)

A good samaritan helps a serious drug addict who was once a competent man shed addiction & start getting his sanity back.

Story is set on Venus.

Fact sheet.

First published: Planet Stories, July 1952.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, or Feedbooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Hasse; fiction set on Venus; fiction from 1950s.

Alan E Nourse's "Marley's Chain" (short story, racism, free): What if racial prejudice in the US reversed color?

Not the first story with this idea - people with black skin dominating & hating whites - see, e.g., Arthur Clarke's "Reunion". Clarke's is a mild story & uses racist allusion for amusement; this one is emotionally intense. I've never been able to identify with such stories, but that could be because I've never faced discrimination based on physical appearance.

Story summary.

Nuclear wars, fought among the whites, have turned them into a minority; majority of those living are now blacks (I guess author is referring only to US?) There is some sort of uprising, bringing out centuries of stored hatred - so it's now a black man's US where whites ("Sharkies") aren't welcome.

Tam Peters, a white man, has just returned after many years of work on other planets to find his US has no place for him anymore. He will eventually resolve his dilemma the way of Kurt Vonnegut's "The Big Trip Up Yonder" (download)!

Notes.

1. One of the characters tells us an "old Christmas story" which ties the title to the plot: "an evil man who went through life cheating people, hating and hurting people, and when he died, he found that every evil deed he had ever done had become a link in a heavy iron chain, tied and shackled to his waist. And he wore that chain he had built up, and he had to drag it, and drag it, from one eternity to the next--his name was Marley".

Fact sheet.

First published: If, September 1952.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Alan E Nourse.

Poul Anderson's "Sargasso of Lost Starships" (novella, space opera, free): Humans humble god-like aliens

This is one of the impossible adventures in the style of early sf: humans travels hundreds of light-years, only to fight with swords & spears, against aliens so powerful the humans ought not to have any chance! About half way through, I'd to shut off the mind & just kept reading without being critical.

"Sargasso" of the title apparently comes from Sargasso Sea, a region of Atlantic Ocean bounded by sea streams. In the story, there is the Black Nebula - a huge cloud in the skies - that acts a kind of Bermuda Triangle: ships entering it simply vanish, & are never heard of again. I don't know if the real Sargasso Sea is part of Bermuda Triangle.

This is the story of human adventurers entering this forbidden region of galaxy, & surviving - with heavy losses. There they will meet & overcome psychopathic ancients of enormous magical powers.

Fact sheet.

First published: Planet Stories, January 1952.
Download full text in multiple formats from Internet Archive.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Poul Anderson.

Noel Miller Loomis' "You Too Can Be A Millionaire" (short story, insurance dystopia, free): Another kind of "Midas Plague"

This story appeared two years before Frederik Pohl's far better known "Midas Plague". Pohl's version is closer to today's "download dystopia", if such a thing exists - far too much content than anyone can consume.

Story summary.

A funny evolution of frivolous insurance claims has led to a society where nobody works - automated machinery produces plenty. But you need "points" to buy stuff. You get a certain number of fixed points from the "Machine" - a sort of central agency coordinating everything, & where you need to get your points "balanced". You can earn more points by duping others into signing theirs over to you! And machine expects that you not be in too much debt - you should expect bad but unspecified things in such cases.

This is the story of Mark Renner & Penelope, two individuals bored by lack of work who've turned their talents to become perfect crooks! They amass so many "points" that they've been noticed by the Machine...

Fact sheet.

First published: If, November 1952.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg or Manybooks.
Rating: A.

Stanley Mullen's "Master of the Moondog" (novelette, adventure, free): Treasure hunt on moon

"Moondog" of title is hero's pet - a creature found on the moons of Saturn, one who can give out electric shocks or even damage electrical equipment - hence useful as a weapon.

Tod Denver, hero, is near witness to a murder - murder of a prospector on moon who'd found a mine once worked by Martians & presumably still with enough treasures. That's how he gets the map of the treasure mine. Cops he reports murder to are in murderer's pay; so the bad guys are now after hero too!

Of course, all ends well - & hero is richer with a girlfriend too!

Fact sheet.

First published: Planet Stories, July 1952.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, or Feedbooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Fiction set on moon.

New at Project Gutenberg (11 June 2010)

Links on author, publisher, or year fetch more matching fiction.

1. James Elroy Flecker's "The Last Generation" (1908); download: Probably a short novel.
2. H B Fyfe's "Manners of the Age"; download; Galaxy, March 1952: "With everyone gone elsewhere, Earth was perfect for gracious living--only there was nothing gracious about it!"
3. Kirby Brooks' "All That Goes Up"; download; Space Science Fiction, May 1953: "At fifty, a man should be too old to go around flying off the handle, or wandering around on the ceiling. But what could a man do when he had a son who insisted on being a genius?"

Related: Fiction from old "pulp" magazines.

William Tenn's "Firewater" (novella, communications): Traders come before theorists

The key thesis here is: well organized human knowledge often has a vast history behind. A whole lot of people over long periods of time doing routine jobs gathering bits of isolated data, until finally the accumulated lot begins to fit a pattern & is fit for generalization & theorizing.

This is also a first contact story about communication difficulties with aliens who're totally & utterly incomprehensible, & with whom we don't have anything in common - sort of, a tamer version of Stanislaw Lem's "Solaris" & Terry Carr's "The Dance of Changer & the Three" (download). Another noteworthy story of the class is Hal Clement's "Longline"; while aliens continue to remain impossible to understandable here, a method of communication is worked out.

Through the story, we see analogies with European invaders of Americas in the past & their interactions with native Americans. "Firewater" of title refers to whisky, apparantly a European product sometimes traded with native Americans for tobacco, the local product. I obviously missed nuances Americans will see here.

Story summary.

This is a complex-story-that-feels-simple, with several actors persuing their own agenda:

1. "Aliens" who've been on earth a while, & now occupy localized places. They're so vastly superior to humans as to be god-like. They're obviously not interested in occupying earth or looting. Their presence here is giving humanity fits because of inferiority complex it breeds.
2. "Primeys", short for "Humanity Prime": Some of the smartest humans who've achieved enough contact with aliens to get noticed have turned into these gabbing idiots, but with vast magical powers. They effectively run as errand boys for Aliens, & are best seen as a race distinct from normal humanity. Think of them as magic-weaving characters from James Schmitz's "The Witches of Karres" (download), but of incomprehensible motives.
3. United Mankind's "Special Investigating Commission" (SIC): And organ of the "world government" ("United Mankind"), granted vast police powers & mandated to open channels of communications with Aliens. They've nothing to show, in spite of a lot of public money spent.
4. "Humanity Firsters", or just "Firsters": A near-religious cult a man named Vandermeer Dempsey spawned & is using to further his own agenda of political power. Cultists deny that Aliens exist, & think Primeys & people who deal with them are humanity's worst enemies.
5. Algernon Hebster, a rich businessman who's made a fortune building gadgets by picking knowledge off Primeys. He's the central character around whom the whole story is woven.

P Braganza, of SIC, wants Hebster to work for government in establishing communications with aliens. Dempsey sees Hebster as the poster boy to rouse passions among the masses that will begin a revolution for him. Running from both, Hebster will end up getting caught among the Aliens & successfully contact the trade representative of their expedition: let's begin with the profits, understanding can come centuries hence using bits of data that will be gathered while trading.

Notes.

1. During the meeting of Hebster with Aliens, we're offered a simile: "like the girl in Greek mythology who had begged Zeus for the privilege of seeing him in the full regalia of his godhood. A few moments after her request had been granted, there had been nothing left of the inquisitive female but a fine feathery ash."
   
   I know of at least one other story that uses this Greek legend in a central way: Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Children's Hour" (download).

Collected in.

1.  William Tenn's "Time in Advance".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, February 1952.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John W Campbell, Jr. 
Related: Stories of William Tenn.

New at Project Gutenberg (31 May 2010)

Links on author, publisher, or year fetch more matching fiction.

1. Franz Habl's "The Long Arm"; download; Weird Tales, October 1937: "Creeping, writhing, insidiously crawling and groping, the long arm reached out in its ghastly errand of death".
2. F L Wallace's "Accidental Flight"; download; Galaxy, April 1952: "Outcasts of a society of physically perfect people, they couldn't stay and they couldn't go home again--yet there had to be some escape for them. Oddly enough, there was!"
3. Winston K Marks' "Tabby"; download; If, March 1954: "Tabby was peculiar, of course, but seemed harmless: just a little green fly that couldn't even protect itself from ordinary spiders. So the spiders fed, and grew, and fed, and grew..."

Related: Fiction from old "pulp" magazines.

New at Project Gutenberg (30 May 2010)

Links on author, publisher, or year fetch more matching fiction.

1. Henry Kuttner's "The Secret of Kralitz"; download; Weird Tales, October 1936: "the shocking revelation that came to the twenty-first Baron Kralitz".
2. Dwight V Swain's "Henry Horn's X-Ray Eye Glasses"; download; Amazing Stories, December 1942: "Henry Horn had a new invention; a pair of glasses that worked on the x-ray principle. But he didn't expect them to reveal Nazi secret agents and their works of sabotage!"
3. Roger Phillips Graham's "The Old Martians"; download; If, March 1952: "They opened the ruins to tourists at a dollar a head but they reckoned without The OLD MARTIANS".
4. Horace Brown Fyfe's "Let There Be Light"; download; If, November 1952: "No matter what the future, one factor must always be reckoned with--the ingenuity of the human animal."
5. Tom Leahy's "Tape Jockey"; download; If, March 1954: "Pettigill was, you might say, in tune with the world. It wouldn't even have been an exaggeration to say the world was in tune with Pettigill. Then somebody struck a sour note..."
6. Sam Merwin's "The Ambassador"; download; If, March 1954: 'All Earth needed was a good stiff dose of common sense, but its rulers preferred to depend on the highly fallible computers instead. As a consequence, interplanetary diplomatic relations were somewhat strained--until a nimble-witted young man from Mars came up with the answer to the "sixty-four dollar" question.'
7. Basil Wells' "Stalemate"; download; If, November 1954: "The rules of a duel between gentlemen are quite different from the rules of war between nations. Is it because gentlemen do not fight wars, or is it that men in war cease to be gentlemen?"

Related: Fiction from old "pulp" magazines.

New at Project Gutenberg (29 May 2010)

Links on author, publisher, or year fetch more matching fiction.

1. Manly Wade Wellman's "The Golgotha Dancers"; download; Weird Tales, October 1937: "an artist who sold his soul that he might paint a living picture".
2. Forrest J Ackerman's "Micro-Man"; download; Fantasy Book, Vol 1 No 1 (1947): "The little man dared to venture into the realm of the Gods--but the Gods were cruel!"
   
   Note: I didn't know Ackerman wrote fiction too. I used to think he was the ultimate science fiction fan.
3. Richard S Shaver's "Of Stegner's Folly"; download; If, March 1952: "When a twenty-foot goddess walked out of the jungle, they knew Stegner wasn't kidding."
4. Don Thompson's "The Telenizer"; download; Galaxy, March 1954: "Langston had technicolor delusions; inanimate objects came alive in his hands; THEY were persecuting him, out to get him ... what a relief it was to know he wasn't going insane!"

Related: Fiction from old "pulp" magazines.

New at Project Gutenberg (28 May 2010)

Links on author, publisher, or year fetch more matching fiction.

1. John Murray Reynolds' "The Golden Amazons of Venus"; download; Planet Stories, Winter 1939: "Dakta death, horrible beyond the weirdest fever-dreams of Earth-men, faced Space Ship Commander Gerry Norton. The laconic interplanetary explorer knew too much. He stood in the dynamic path of Lansa, Lord of the Scaly Ones, the crafty monster bent on conquering the fair City of Larr and all the rich, shadowless lands of the glorious Amazons of Venus."
2. Robert Moore Williams' "The Lost Warship"; download; Amazing Stories, January 1943: "Jap bombs rained down, there was a tremendous blast--and a weird thing happened to the Idaho".
3. Howard Carleton Browne's "Twelve Times Zero"; download; If, March 1952: "It was a love-triangle murder that made today's headlines but the answer lay hundreds of thousands of light years away!"
4. Ralph Sholto's '"And That's How It Was, Officer"'; download; If, July 1952: "When Uncle Peter decided to clean out the underworld, it was a fine thing for the town, but it was tough on the folks in Tibet."
5. Murray Leinster's "The Ambulance Made Two Trips"; download; Astounding, April 1960: "If you should set a thief to catch a thief, what does it take to stop a racketeer...?"
   
   Note: This appears to be a repost or update. I'd read it long back. An adventure involving a gadget that acts as a lucky charm, or something.

Related: Fiction from onld "pulp" magazines.

New at Project Gutenberg (14 May 2010)

Links on author, publisher, or year yield more matching fiction.

1. Robert Moore Williams' "Sinister Paradise"; download; If, September 1952: "It was like a mirage in reverse, this strange island off the California coast--it couldn't always be seen, but it was there--in Time."
2. Jerome Bixby's "The Holes Around Mars"; download; Galaxy, January 1954: "Science said it could not be, but there it was. And whoosh--look out--here it is again!"

Related: Fiction from old "pulps".

New at Project Gutenberg (12 May 2010)

Links on author, publisher, or year yield more matching fiction.

Note: This will be the only post tonight. I was running late, & foolishly took up a novel for today's main post - Jack Vance's "The Languages of Pao" - rather than a short story, & am now out of time. But its writeup is partly done, so may be will have it sometime over next few days.

1. Gerald Allan Sohl's "The Seventh Order"; download; Galaxy, March 1952: "History is filled with invincible conquerors. This one from space was genuinely omnipotent, but that never keeps humanity from resisting!"
2. Lewis Parker's "The Animated Pinup"; download; Imagination, July 1953: "You're not expected to believe this story since it's the kind of thing that science calls impossible. But anyway, she happened. Who? Why--"
3. Robert Sheckley's "Keep Your Shape"; download; Galaxy, November 1953: "Only a race as incredibly elastic as the Grom could have a single rule of war:"
4. Stephen Marlowe's "Voyage To Eternity"; download; Imagination, July 1953: "Temple faced leaving Earth--and the girl he loved--if his country drafted him. But the hard part was in knowing he'd never return!..."
5. Randall Garrett's "Time Fuze"; download; If, March 1954: "The ultradrive had just one slight drawback: it set up a shock wave that made suns explode. Which made the problem of getting back home a delicate one indeed..."
6. Roger D Aycock's "Pet Farm"; download; Galaxy, February 1954: "The next worst thing to hell is being shanghaied into the Paradise of an alien planet!"

Related: Fiction from old "pulps".

Isaac Asimov's "Youth" (novelette, first contact, free): On daring of the young

Familiar tropes - tiny intelligent species meets giants. But it was good fun read. With a surprising, though not new, ending.

Very important:  See note with download links at bottom before choosing a download link & format. Most versions include spoiler as illustration!

Story summary.

Two young boys are caught up in adventure. One of them found two tiny very exotic animals, & has put them in a cage. The duo intend to use them to get into a circus.

Of course, the "animals" are actually aliens, crash landed on their world last night. One of them had previously made contact with dad of one of the children, but is not able to meet appointment because of being caged.

Advenure & confusion ensues.

Fact sheet.

First published: Space Science Fiction, May 1952.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks (Caution: Prefer text-only version at Project Gutenberg; all other versions, including landing pages at Manybooks & Feedbooks, include an illustration that is a BIG story spoiler).
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Isaac Asimov; Fiction from 1950s; Tuesday Classics.

Free fiction: Galaxy, March 1952 & April 1952, & Amazing Stories, November 1957

All at Internet Archive in multiple formats.

1. "Galaxy Science Fiction", March 1952; download.
   
   "The pages for the stories 'The Year of The Jackpot' by Robert A. Heinlein, 'Catch That Martian' by Damon Knight and 'The Demolished Man' by Alfred Bester, have been deleted from the files since the Copyright was renewed".
   
   That leaves 3 complete stories. "The Demolished Man" was a serial of which last part appeared in this issue.
2. "Galaxy Science Fiction", April 1952; download.
   
   "The pages for the story 'Ticket to Anywhere' by Damon Knight have been deleted from the files since the Copyright was renewed".
   
   Among the authors: Fritz Leiber.
3. "Amazing Stories", November 1957; download.

Related: Fiction from Galaxy, Amazing, 1950s; Old pulps.

Howard L Myers' "The Reluctant Weapon" (short story, space opera, free)

This is the first published story of Myers.

Story summary.

"Sentient Killer No.VT672", a world-destroying weapon aimed at a certain world (that will later be called Hova) by aliens called Zoz a billion years ago, malfunctioned & turned non-violent! Now Zoz are long dead, The Weapon has uplifted a local species of animals who now have a 37-world empire, & finally there is the beginning of a conflict between Hovans & the humans.

When Hovans seek the help of The Weapon - a kind of god to them - against humans, The Weapon wants to first meet a human specimen - so it can learn to hate the species enough to destroy them!

The Weapon's funny interactions with the human specimen, Jacob Absher, however, turn out to have an unexpected side effect...

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, December 1952.
Rating: B.
Download full text from Baen CD.
Related: Stories of Howard L Myers.

A E van Vogt's "The Mixed Men" aka "Mission to the Stars" (collection, space opera): Annotated table of contents & review

I've only read the online stories from this collection - 3 of the 5. Nowhere near the best of van Vogt, but readable. My rating is in brackets. In case I have a separate post on a specific story, link on title goes there.

Stories should generally be read in order; later stories assume the reader is familiar with events in earlier ones.

Table of contents.

1. [ss] "Concealment" (B); download; Astounding, September 1943: An exploration battleship of Imperial Earth has located an unexpected civilization of "Dellian perfect robots" in Lesser Magellanic Cloud, bringing to fore the ancient mutual hatred of the two species.
2. [novelette] "The Storm" (B); download; Astounding, October 1943: Long drawn human/robot wars now show promise to end amicably.
3. [novelette] "The Mixed Men" (B); download; Astounding, January 1945: Of the 3 species of robots in Fifty Suns - Dellian, non-Dellian, & "Mixed Men" - Mixed Men are the least numerous & most competent; they've now declared a war on humanity.
   
   We'll eventually learn that non-Dellians aren't robots at all but humans, that humans & robots can interbreed(!) to produce "Mixed Men" children - so the future appears to be the next evolution of both humans & robots - the "Mixed Men".
4. [novelette] "Lost: Fifty Suns"; original appearance was probably in this collection: Not read.
5. "Is it true?": Looks like it appeared only in a few editions.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1952.
Credits: Some of the information here comes from Wikipedia & ISFDB.
A lot of covers of various editions of this book are available at The Weird Worlds of A E Van Vogt.
Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding/Analog.
Related: Stories of A E van Vogt.

Donald A Wollheim (Ed)'s "Avon Science Fiction Reader No 3" (April 1952, anthology, free): Table of contents & download links

Whole book is available as JPEG page scans online, but as part of a larger package. Download information.

Table of contents.

1. Frank Belknap Long's "The Robot Empire"; 1934: Not read.
2. S Fowler Wright's "P. N. 40"; 1949: Not read.
3. Francis Flagg's "The Master Ants"; 1927: Not read.
4. Kenneth Sterling & H P Lovecraft's "In the Walls of Eryx"; 1939: Not read.
5. Mary Elizabeth Counselman's "The Black Stone Statue"; 1937: Not read.
6. R F Starzl's "The Planet of Dread"; 1930: Not read.
7. Hannes Bok's "The Alien Vibration"; Future, February 1942: Not read.
8. Thorp McClusky's "The Ultimate Paradox"; 1945: Not read.

Related: Avon Science Fiction & Fantasy series.

Murray Leinster's "Gateway To Elsewhere" aka "Journey to Barkut" (novel, adventure, free): What if djinns actually existed!

This is an alternate history on a parallel earth type of story. But those aspects are mere garnishings, as is common in such stories. Main story is a juvenile adventure of a young man from New York city in a parallel Arab world where djinns actually exist as distinct species. Story could very well have done without parallel world bit, the way Ted Chiang often manages.

There are occasional ethnically sensitive sentences that might rub the wrong way depending on where you live in the world. Thankfully, there aren't too many of them, & I found them easy to ignore.

On entertainment front, I'll call it "not bad". Nowhere in the top league where you cannot put the book down. Nor one where you wish you hadn't picked it up.

Story summary.

Barkut is a walled city state on the earth in a parallel universe. It's located in roughly the region where Arabian states live in our world.

Tony Gregg, a young man from New York, is washed ashore a few miles from the city - in the tradition of magical island stories. He has been seeking this place as a trader - monopoly trade between an alternate world & New York ought to be profitable.

He will instead find himself in a world of adventures where humans & djinns exist in a warring state. His boasting about US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima to impress the slave girl Ghail (who has been teaching him local language) will lead to his getting appointed the general of city's army that is expected to vanquish the djinn empire!!!

To add to complications, a "djinnee" (female djinn) Nasim has fallen in love with him while she was spying in Barkut!

His talk of US nuclear bomb will also get djinn king worried. He gets invited to djinn capital, & lavishly entertained. But he senses an assassination plot. His desperate & hopeless actions will succeed beyond expectations, & he will find himself appointed King of Djinns!!

Also there is human queen in captivity in djinn-land who needs freeing!

Of course, by the end he will be the "King of Djinns and Men", having married the ...

Story describes djinns in loving detail, even occasionally attempting hand-wavy descriptions of their physical nature.

1. Djinns are made from a matter fundamentally different from matter we are made from. And each djinn is equivalent of a full-scale atom bomb (we will see some blasts near end)!
2. While they are shape shifters, total mass of a djinn doesn't change during these metamorphoses. So a djinn in the shape of a bug is far denser than in the shape of a camel.
3. While physically very powerful, psychologically djinns are like human children or apes.
4. All djinns have a basic biological allergy to a plant called "lasf". This will the main human weapon in war against djinns.
5. ... there is a lot else I don't recall.

On parallel universe bit.

May be 10% of the story is devoted to this part. Given two parallel earths, they share some part of earth's surface. If you are in these common parts, you can normally move to either one! This gateway aspect is both similar to & different from his much better known story, "Sidewise in Time".

Someone wanders to parallel earth via such a gateway. A search is mounted for him. This search changes the universe's probabilities in ways that that place is no longer shared between the two earths! So, over the eons, these gateways have been shrinking - though there are still some. In this story, an Arab city bordering Mediterranean called Suakim will serve as gateway.

To ensure there is not too much mingling of parallel worlds, "matter" from each world has something distinct that makes it feel attracted to its own world - something akin to gravitation!

In fact, Tony's adventure began in New York when he found a "ten-dirhim" gold coin from Barkut. Inquiries revealed no known place now or in history where the coin could have come from. Because coin wants to go home, it will become his luck charm & eventually motivate him to travel to the parallel earth where coin is happy!!

Collected in.

1. Murray Leinster's "A Logic Named Joe" (collection), ed Eric Flint.

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling magazine, January 1952 as "Journey to Barkut" [via Wikipedia].
Download full text from Webscription.
Rating: B
Related: All stories of Murray Leinster.