Robert Moore Williams' "The Sound of Bugles" (short story)

Adventure involving a well intentioned human researcher & a greedy human villain - both trying to figure out how Martians are able to literally create material things out of thin air. Villain will die trying; scientist will learn that their technique cannot be replicated by humans because it involves biological capability we lack, & that he's dealing with super-beings.

Collected in.

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

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, September 1949.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Robert Moore Williams.

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.

C H Robinson's "Longhead: The story of the first fire" (novella, free): Down of human civilization

Longhead, a man from a time before there were homo sapiens, accidentally discovers fire & helps kickstart the ideas that would start the humans on their journey to civilized life...

Fact sheet.

First published: 1913.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg.
Rating: B.

Jules Verne's "Ticket No '9672'" aka "The Lottery Ticket" (novel, non-genre, free): Introducing idyllic Norwegian countryside

I actually picked it up expecting an adventure, & got disappointed. It's readable enough, if you are in mood for a slow moving story in scenic locations with far too much descriptions & far too little dialogs or action.

Story summary.

Story is mostly set in Dal, a small town in Norway. A family of 3 Hansens - mother, daughter, & son, running an inn. Daughter's fiance has gone on a fishing expedition to Newfoundland, & the marriage is expected on his return; only his ship gets wrecked at sea, with all presumed dead.

Eventually, a bottle is found at sea, containing a lottery ticket bearing the number of story's title, & a farewell message at its back for the girl from fiance. News spreads, people get superstitious about the number, & begin sending bids to buy it. Add an influential man who'll get fond of the family & will move mountains to get positive proof of the sailor's death.

Eventually happy ending.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1886.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Feedbooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Jules Verne.

Henry Kuttner's "The Time Trap" (novella, adventure, free)

This is readable enough, but in a mindless sort of way.

Story summary.

A disparate group of apparently good samaritans come together from several eras - hero from 1930s, heroine & hero's sidekick from 5000 years ago from what is now Arabia, & a friend from sometime in future. They're chasing two villains - both from future - through time. In the process, they'll have lot of adventures in exotic locales & among exotic species at different times in earth's history.

Two curious things stood out for me. One is a factual error - in the story, the moon has come much closer to earth in far future; I thought it is going away a few centimeters every year. Other is something you see a lot on pulp magazine covers but not in actual stories - here, heroine is nude at least a half dozen times - sometimes an object of lust, other times as part of torture, yet another time as part of worship! I haven't read many stories from Marvel, but I wonder if the magazine specialized in titillation?

Title refers a metallic device that looks like a pair of obelisks, planted in some remote corner of Arabia by the main villain. The device will live to the end of earth, & is a trap: whenever someone is within range of device &, simultaneously, lightening strikes the device, the person is sent to about 3000 BC!

Fact sheet.

First published: Marvel Science Stories, November 1938.
Download full text from AlfaLib.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Retro Hugo Awards 1939 in novella category.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

John W Campbell's "Dead Knowledge" (as by Don A Stuart) (novelette, alien invasion): "Molecular", microscopic, space traveling, light-eating alien invaders want to control us as tools!

Three human star travelers have arrived at a new world 27 light years from earth, only to find that it once harbored intelligent, highly developed, humanoid civilization that is now dead. And, curiously, it's long dead residents have their bodies well preserved & they all apparently committed suicide!!

It drags on for a while, until the visitors themselves start committing suicide - first one, then other. It's the final one who will enlighten us on the nature of infection before himself committing suicide.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, January 1938.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Retro Hugo Awards 1939 in novelette category.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Works of John Campbell (as by Don A Stuart).

Clifford D Simak's "Rule 18" (novelette, humor): How earth won it's first football match against Martians in decades

Martians have been beating earth in annual football match for a long time. And the diagnosis is: earth-men have become soft because of too much automation here; they never get a chance to exercise their muscles. But things are about to change as a cool newly invented gadget, the earth team's coach sick of losing too long, & a betting syndicate come together...

Title comes from one of the rules of the game that requires a player of the team to not only be natives of his world, but his 9 preceding generations should have been native of this world too. Coach will twist this rule in a curious way to win.

Update 21 July 2014:  Marooned has a note on an Isaac Asimov connection to this story.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, July 1938.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Retro Hugo Awards 1939 in novelette category.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Clifford D Simak.

Robert E Howard's "Pigeons From Hell" (novelette, haunted house, free)

While I'm not a fan of haunted house tales, & the first of its 3 parts did bore me a bit, the later parts were generally quite readable.

Story summary.

An abandoned house in the US South is haunted by a "zuvembie", a "zuvembie" created by black voodoo in revenge for serious maltreatment of a "mulatto" maid by a former slave owner. Now the zuvembie targets whatever hapless human happens by the place, killing the victim. A lucky escaped victim & a policeman will join hands to kill the zuvembie.

Fact sheet.

First published: Weird Tales, May 1938.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg of Australia.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Retro Hugo Awards 1939 in novelette category.
Related: Stories of Robert E Howard.

Lester Del Rey's "The Faithful" (short story, doomsday, free)

Uplifted dogs are taking over the civilization, as the last of the Man is dying following a war & then a plague...

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, April 1938.
Download full text from Chomikuj.pl (badly formatted HTML; I'd to edit it in a text editor on PC discarding entire HTML header & footer, & saving it as TXT file, before it would read correctly in Moon+ Reader on my tablet).
Rating: B.
Nominated for Retro Hugo Awards 1939 in short story category.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Lester del Rey.

Pierre Barbet's "A Problem in Bionics" (short story, detective)

A group of scientists are working on a bunch of green technologies inspired by the workings of animals & insects. To get noticed by a wider audience, they move to live on an island using only the green tech - no petroleum, no CO2, ... The idea is to demonstrate that living in an environmentally sane way is possible.

But a thief among them has been selling the technology to unscrupulous elements outside, who intend to patent them; hence hinder their widespread adoption.

So a detective is hired to catch the thief...

Notes.

I'm not convinced of the ending. I've never seen a microfilm, but can you attach one to a wing of a butterfly & have the poor thing still fly?

Collected in.

1. Donald A Wollheim (ed)'s "The Best from the Rest of the World: European Science Fiction".

Fact sheet.

First published: Horizons du Fantastique (French), sometime in 1974. This post is based on an English translation by Stanley Hochman included in Wollheim's anthology.
Rating: B.

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" (short story, horror, free)

This is not science fiction. It's creepy horror. A mad man is telling us how he murdered an old man because the victim had blue eyes of a vulture!

Fact sheet.

First published: 1843.
Download full text.
Download MP3 from Internet Archive.
See a movie adaptation at YouTube.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Edgar Allan Poe; from 19th century.

Poul Anderson's "Genius" (novelette, superman): Who is observing whom, in this lab experiment?

This is said to be the "first stand alone piece of short fiction" by Anderson.

I personally found it a somewhat boring read. Content of the story is mostly in the form of infodump - a character lecturing another one, plus description of author's idea of a utopia.

Story summary.

In far future, human empire extends to tens of thousands of planets in galaxy, has some interactions with alien empires, & it is a fairly static society with thought conditioning of populace to ensure they don't think inconvenient thoughts.

And the "psychotechnological" ruling elite conduct laboratory experiments on humans, as one would on rats: dump a couple of thousand men, matching some profile, with their memories wiped out, into some experimental environment, & observe their behavior!

One such experiment has been going on for 1500 years on "Station Seventeen": a virgin earth-like world, complete with a moon, seeded with a few thousand geniuses. And the experiment didn't turn out the way the experimenters expected...

Collected in.

1. Everett F Bleiler & T E Dikty (eds)' "The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1949".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, December 1948.
Download MP3 of an old time radio drama based on this story titled "Planet of Geniuses". [via SFFaudio]
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Poul Anderson.

Donald B Day's "Jaephus" (short story, humor, free)

Adventures of a man with a "lobbly" named Jaephus - a naughty invisible, presumably intelligent, creature with wings, tentacles & other unusual anatomical features.

Fact sheet.

First published: Fanscient, Fall 1948.
Download full text as part of the magazine it originally appeared in, or read online as HTML.
Rating: B.

Henry Kuttner's "Extrapolation" (short story, satire, free): Science fiction vs fantasy wars in fandom

Author tells us why there won't be any science fiction or fantasy magazines after 1958, a decade after this story was published.

He's using some sort of prescience to find this, but no details are given. And there is suggestion it's not humans doing the editing in 1958, just before the end of the genre.

Fact sheet.

First published: Fanscient, Fall 1948.
Download full text as part of the magazine it originally appeared in, or read online as HTML.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep" (short story, Christmas, non-genre)

This is light hearted christmas story of a newspaper editor obsessed with his work & uninterested in fun things like christmas celebrations.

Circumstances put him on a committee that will judge the town's Annual Christmas Outdoor Lighting Contest. So we'll see him turning the job into a news making exercise...

Title comes from a Christmas song in the story (I don't know if the song is real or imaginary):
  For Christ is born of Mary,
  And gathered all above,
  While mortals sleep, the angels keep
  Their watch of wondering love.

Fact sheet.

First published: Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction" (2011).
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut.

Alec Nevala-Lee's "The Whale God" (novelette): Subaudible sound as a military weapon

Main idea has been used in fiction for decades: sounds with frequency below the human hearing threshold, while inaudible, still make people uncomfortable.

Here, US military is testing it during Vietnam War as a possible weapon. Only problem is: they're using it off a ship, & targeting the sound at coast. Not only are a lot of non-combatants affected, it's also affecting the whales in the ocean.

In fact, much of the story is about attempts to refloat whales that wash ashore as a result of their senses getting confused because of these subvocal sounds.

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, September 2013.
Rating: B. 
Related: Stories of Alec Nevala-Lee.

Fritz Leiber's "The Bleak Shore" (short story, fantasy, free)

My first story from author's famous "Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser" series. And I'll say a disappointing introduction to the series.

Story summary.

In a world not yet well explored, two adventurer friends - Fafhrd & Mouser - have a reputation of defying death in difficult situations. And suddenly a curse is placed on them - to sail to a far off "Bleak Shore", where we'll witness a scene that will be filmed decades later in "Godzilla": the two are in the midst of hatching reptilian monster eggs...

Of course, there will be happy ending for our heroes.

Fact sheet.

First published: Unknown, November 1940.
Download full text from Baen eBooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Fritz Leiber.

Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky's "Roadside Picnic" (novel, first contact): Aliens are to us what we are to ants!

While I didn't dislike it, there are long scenes of the kind you've probably read dozens of times: a band of hardy people on treasure hunt in a jungle full of dangers.

I think its classic status probably has to do with the central thesis: aliens so advanced they won't even notice us if they ever came to earth.

Story summary.

This is a first contact story, but we never actually see aliens. What we see are signs of their Visitation at 6 different locations on earth. "Imagine that you spin a huge globe & you start firing bullets into it. The bullet holes would lie on the surface in a smooth curve... all six Visitation Zones are situated on the surface of our planet as though someone had taken six shots at Earth from a pistol located somewhere along the Earth-Deneb line. Deneb is the alpha star in Cygnus."

Zones where they visited are dead places. And deadly ones. And contain a lot of alien stuff. Why did they visit? Why did they turn these places into ruins? Why did they leave all those artifacts behind? Many explanations are offered, but one is a particularly special one - the roadside picnic theory: "Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car drives off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out of the car carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios & cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, the birds, & insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Gas & oil spilled on the grass. Old spark plugs & old filters strewn around. Rags, burnt out bulbs, & a monkey wrench left behind. Oil slicks on the pond. And of course the usual mess--apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody's handkerchief, somebody's pen knife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow... A roadside picnic, on some road in the cosmos."

So the Visitation Zones contain litter from their "picnic". I could not find a satisfactory answer to why 6 parties would almost simultaneously decide to come for picnic on earth?

Story is mostly an adventure. Government claims to own the stuff left behind by aliens. But "stalkers" illegally smuggle a lot of stuff out.

Fact sheet.

First published: "Avrora literary magazine in 1972, issues 7-10."
Rating: B.

Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Mask of Circe" (novel, supermen, free): Gods of Greek mythology are actually mutants & machines!

This is an adventure - a science fictional retelling of some Greek legends. But an adventure more in line with "doc" Smith's soap opera - enjoy the unbelievable fun ride but don't think much, please. I didn't enjoy first half - there is just too much unfamiliar Greek mythology, but second half was easy to follow.

Story summary.

A modern man, while playing subject for a new sedative drug, ends up importing the memories of a long dead ancestor from 3000 years ago! And through much of the story, he is magically transported back 3000 years, to the time of this ancestor - to have adventures in time of Greek legend.

Notes.

1. Some commentators have noted that this story is a tribute to Abraham Merritt's "Ship of Ishtar". I haven't personally read this Merritt story.
2. "Mask" of title refers to a machine that holds the brain dump of someone long dead; its wearer assumes the personality of that long dead individual. "Circe" of title is a women who fell in love with the hero, hero who won't be born for another 3000 years! "Mask" is to help her meet him when he's eventually born!

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, May 1948.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner, C L Moore.

Benjamin Rosenbaum's "Feature Development for Social Networking" (short story, free): A look at trending on social networks

This looks at trending on a social network when a new hot topic presents itself - from the point of view of both the users of it & of the software developers maintaining it. Hot topic in question is a new fast spreading contagious disease.

Fact sheet.

First published: Tor.com, 13 November 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Benjamin Rosenbaum.

Paul Di Filippo's "Wavehitcher" (flash fiction, free): Swimming solo safely in open ocean for several weeks

When I was in low teens & just started taking bicycle some distance from home, a favorite sport among the peers used to be to catch the chain at the back of one of the passing trucks with one hand, & hitch a ride without paddling. Sounds dangerous today, but at that age it was fun.

This story is a more science fictional & hi-tech hitching a ride of a similar nature.

Story summary.

A US coast guard vessel has discovered a suspicious "wavehitcher", a man hitching a free ride on an unmanned marine research robot vessel. When they catch him & get his reason for being where no one should be, it gave me a smile.

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 10 October 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Paul Di Filippo.

Ronald D Ferguson's "The meaning of life" (flash fiction, free)

It begins very well - with interesting illustrations of the idea that the ultimate purpose of life is ... to move stuff from here to there. But later parts become a bit too far fetched.

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 17 October 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Dream's End" (short story, recursive dreaming, free)

It has at least one episode of recursive dreaming - dream within a dream. I'm not sure of the other episodes - they're either independent hallucinations, or even deeper dream in a dream in a dream...

I'll put it among the less interesting stories of authors.

Story summary.

A doctor in a sanatorium has found what he thinks is a cure for most forms of insanity - what he call "empathy surrogate therapy". It involves a device whose electrodes are put on the head of the sane doctor & of insane patient. And something happens involving empathy. Only the first experiment seems to have gone seriously wrong - for the doctor, at least...

See also.

1. Henry Kuttner's "All is Illusion" (read online): A much better story about dreaming.

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, March 1947.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner, C L Moore.

David V Reed's "Penance Cruise" (novella, adventure, humor, free)

Two young soldiers, off duty & drunk in an alien land, misbehave with local high officials. Resulting court martial hands them a sentence to go on a mission under a witless local official - a mission to catch a dangerous brigand. This is the funny story of their adventure to catch the brigand.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, July 1942.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Analog/Astounding issues edited by John Campbell.

Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Dark Angel" (short story, superman, free)

What happens when one member of a couple is a prodigy? In this case, the wife is superhuman - first of the new species of homo superior. Story is about the reactions of the couple to this realization.

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, March 1946.
Read online at UNZ: part 1 & part 2.
Note: Story begins several pages down on part 1; last page of part 1 is the same as first page of part 2.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner, C L Moore.

Clifford D Simak's "Tools" (novelette, free): Introducing very weird radioactive gaseous aliens

Key parts of this story involve Radon-222 gas, a natural radioactive decay product of radium, & the biggest cause of lung cancer among non smokers on earth. It also is the heaviest gas on earth, though its own decay products aren't gaseous. It's highly toxic.

Story summary.

Humans have been mining radium on Venus, where it's available in vast quantities. It's a key source of energy, & this mining business is a monopoly of Radium, Inc.

Someone discovered strange life-like properties in radon gas found there. In a lab, they've succeed, via special electrical sensors, to communicate with a bottled concentration of it. They've robotic mining devices whose brains are small confined concentrations of gas.

When the bottled gas intelligence in lab that has learned a lot about the human civilization leaks, gas all across Venus learns the things we know. So we have an adventure fighting an elusive omnipresent alien with completely unfamiliar thought processes.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, July 1942.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Analog/Astounding issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Clifford D Simak.

Alice Munro's "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" (novelette, senility, non-genre, free)

It's a decently readable story, but I find the subject of senility depressing.

Story summary.

An old woman who's losing her wits is put in some kind of old age care home by her husband of 50 years. It's mostly about his depressing visits to see her periodically, her growing fondness for another man at the place, & the complicated relations that develop between the two couples.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 27 December 1999.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Alice Munro.

Henry Kuttner's "Sword of Tomorrow" (novella, adventure, free)

This is a complicated & very pulpish adventure in far future.

Story summary.

A US soldier is a prisoner of war of Japan near the end of WWII, held captive somewhere in China. From a fellow prisoner, he learns Tibetan "self-hypnotism", & goes into hibernation to avoid questioning.

War ends. A bombing raid destroyed his prison, & entombed him. No one finds him. There he lay hibernating for eons.

Eventually, he wakes into a future where continents don't look familiar & stars aren't familiar. Humans have since fallen to savagery, & again built a civilization, but historical trauma has made it impossible for them to conceive weapons, though they can build all other kinds of gadgets.

A would be dictator would see an opportunity when our hero comes into his time...

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, September 1945.
Read online at UNZ. Or download HTML from Arthur's Bookshelf or BookReader.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Jack Williamson's "Collision Orbit" (as by Will Stewart) (novella, antimatter, free)

This story is supposed to have invented the term "terraforming".

While there is a lot of action, I found it generally boring because of length & too much contrived jargon.

Story summary.

Eons ago, asteroid belt was created by the impact of an "contraterrene" celestial body with the now lost planet at that orbit. Asteroid belt now includes contraterrene debris ("seetee"), in addition to ordinary matter. This makes it extremely dangerous because impact means complete annihilation.

The mad scientist hero of the story will tame this contraterrene matter for human use, in spite of major opposition from all quarters.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, July 1942.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Analog/Astounding issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Jack Williamson.

Ray Bradbury's "Eat, Drink and Be Wary" (flash fiction, humor, free)

A "Venusian banquet lasts a week or ten days, sometimes more, with eight meals a day & twenty courses to a meal." That's normal for Venusians with their ultra-fast metabolism.

But when a human diplomat is invited to one of these banquets, saying no is not an option & going there is death sentence. So our diplomat will seek some scientific help...

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, July 1942.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Analog/Astounding issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Ray Bradbury.

Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Baby Face" (novelette, body snatching, free): "Baby's Day Out", from many decades earlier

So now we know the story of the "Baby's Day Out" (1994) is at least this old!

Story summary.

To figure out why a baby is crying, a mad scientist uses his latest invention: to exchange the mind of his friend, minding the baby, with the baby - so friend in baby's mind can find out what is wrong!

That's when Nazi spies steal the brain exchange gadget. So we are left with: the grown up man is in baby's body, baby in grown up man's body, & scientist injured & unconscious. And the man in baby's body overheard the spies will pass on the gadget to a contact on circus that night.

So now it's up to the hero, in baby's body, to ensure the gadget doesn't fall in enemy hands...

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, March 1945.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner, C L Moore.

Henry Kuttner's "Music Hath Charms" (short story, detective, free)

An ace detective solves a complex murder attempt at Sky City, a city hollowed into an asteroid. A rather colorful murder attempt: some animals escape from a zoo, a virus on a far off world to which locals are immune, a business where one partner is trying to swindle the other, ...

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, December 1943.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Henry Kuttner's "The Uncanny Power of Edwin Cobalt" (as by Noel Gardner) (short story, weird, free)

"It seemed if I doubted the existence of anything, that thing ceased to exist. And the power was retroactive. The thing never had existed."

That is the basic conceit of the story: when narrator begins to doubt the existence of something, that thing not only ceases to exist, but had never existed in the first place! This is the story of him realizing his power, & eventually beginning to doubt if he himself existed...

Fact sheet.

First published: Fantastic Adventures, October 1940.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Jack Vance's "The Men Return" (short story, weird physics)

This is unlike anything else I've seen of Vance. And pretty near amongst the weirdest stories I've seen.

Story summary.

Earth passes through a peculiar region of space where causelty no longer holds & physics is weird. Earth is not necessarily solid & can randomly change phases. You can pick up a chunk of air & eat it, or ride it! Etc.

Most men died out. Few survivors are in two groups: organisms are thoughtless with random spur of the moment action. Relicts are rational of the old but are fast dying out - since this world has not rationality & doesn't tolerate rationality.

That's when the universe inexplicably returns back to a state where the effect follow the cause & rational men can claim the world again.

Fact sheet.

First published: Infinity Science Fiction, July 1957.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Jack Vance.

Henry Kuttner's "The Elixir of Invisibility" (short story, free)

This is a mad adventure using invisibility & visibility potions. Drink from the red labeled vial, & you become invisible; drink from green, to become visible again.

A whole lot of crazy things happen. Reporters disbelieving the inventor receive parcels containing invisible frogs! A thief steals a couple of vials, uses it for a bank robbery. An invisible dog, & sundry other invisible people at public places cause chaos, etc.

Fact sheet.

First published: Fantastic Adventures, October 1940.
Read online at UNZ: part 1, part 2, & part 3.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Robert F Young's "The Servant Problem" (novelette, first contact, free): When servants thought they were masters!

Village idiot is also the village inventor. When he mysteriously received plans for a knot-tying machine on an April Fool's Day, he had to build that machine. And what kind of knots did it tie!

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, November 1962.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg.
Download audio from LibriVox.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Robert F Young.

Henry Kuttner's "Pegasus" (short story, fantasy, free)

This is a very minor story.

A farm boy believes flying horses exist, & will find one with the help of a stranger dwarf. When his dad finds out, he wants to milk it for money - to clip its wings & use it as a race horse. Boy will eventually save horse.

Fact sheet.

First published: Famous Fantastic Mysteries, May/June 1940.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Sean McMullen's "The Firewall and the Door" (novelette, star travel)

This is a story with a lot of classic tropes but with a simple message: "Give people wonders, & they'll sit back, open a beer, & watch. If you want them to get up & do something, you must give them mysteries."

Story summary.

An unmanned human starship was sent out to flyby Alpha Centauri system, change direction using gravity of one of its stars, & then go on to Gliese 581. This in a world that considers anything without obvious payoff as waste, so the project had major opposition.

Now, many decades later, the ship has reached the Alpha system, but things don't seem to be going as planned. There seems to be actual sabotage to the project...

Notes.

"Firewall" of title is the name of the "shield" of the starship. "The door" is a metaphor: the man who's not capable enough to do great deeds himself, but performs a great service by opening & keeping open the door for others who're capable.

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, March 2013.
Rating: B.Related: Stories of Sean McMullen.

Marissa Lingen's "The Radioactive Etiquette Book" (novelette, diplomacy, humor)

A human diplomat posted at some alien site has to deal with incomprehensible motives of different species of aliens. Specific situations in the story include kidnap of some human kids & stealing of the diplomatic rule book ("The Radioactive Etiquette Book"), neither of which the aliens consider bad.

The story makes a lot of effort to be funny, but it just didn't work for me.

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, March 2013.
Rating: B.

Arthur K Barnes & Henry Kuttner's "The Energy Eaters" (novelette, monster, free): When a human city was overrun with electricity eaters!

This is another "Hollywood on the Moon" story. Set mostly in the lunar city of Hollywood on the Moon, but no movie shooting here.

Image on the right is a picture of Henry Kuttner included with the original magazine publication of the story.

Story summary.

Gerry Carlyle, the interplanetary adventurer, is a headache for Nine Planet Films, Inc: whenever they release a movie featuring exotic life forms of other worlds, she goes there & brings back live animals to earth - so people prefer going to zoo rather than movie theater!

Anthony Quade of Nine Planet has an idea: to bribe her with an exotic alien animal no one has seen, in return for promise to not spoil the company's movie releases. To this end, he's captured some "Promethians", little furry-looking creatures from the "day side" of Mercury. Creatures that feed on electricity & radiation.

Before anyone can do anything, the cute little creatures overrun the city of Hollywood on the Moon, threatening the lives of everyone...

See also.

1. Fredric Brown's "The Waveries": Electricity eating alien invaders make use of electricity impossible on earth.

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1939.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Henry Kuttner's "Suicide Squad" (novelette, space stuntmen, free)

This is the third movie-filming story I've read of Kuttner in a row, though it doesn't mention "Hollywood on the Moon". Its movie studios are located on Callisto, & action scenes are shot presumably in space near it.

Main movie shooting story is framed in another story of a giant, powerful, & corrupt space corporation that ruins careers of its pilots as it finds scapegoats for its own sins. A pilot harmed this way & his friend will go become movie space-stuntmen.

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1939.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Henry Kuttner "Doom World" (novelette, adventure, free): A precursor to Jurassic Park!

This is a sequel to author's "Hollywood on the Moon", & is completely set on moon.

There is too much similarity to Jurassic Park that was still many decades into future. Artificially engineered dangerous beasts at a place that is not their natural habitat. Nature takes over, safeguards break down, & mayhem results.

Story summary.

The story happens on the sets of a movie named "Doom World". Set is in the caverns under the city of "Hollywood on the Moon" on the far side of moon. Set is supposed to model the jungles of radioactive Pluto, with its many dangers!

Beasts on the set are biologically engineered, with radio-controlled electronic implants in their brains to control them. Story calls them robots, but they're not like any robots you've read about.

In the course of the story, nature takes over & the electronic implants serve little more than to irritate the animals. Hell breaks loose in the artificial jungle of the set, & the heroes & the film crew will have to face it...

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1938.
Read online at UNZ.
Note: I read it on an Android tablet with Firefox, & the document was a rather badly behaved one. Each page would allow only partial reading... until I move tablet to landscape orientation, & then back to portrait! On PC, it seems to display ok.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Kurt Vonnegut's "$10,000 a Year, Easy" (short story): Your mother doesn't always know what's best for you

A great singer died, & his widow keeps seeing his talent in their child. Child grows up thinking he has father's talent too - even if success has so far eluded him.

His music guru will gently & tactfully nudge him towards his true talent - without offending either mother or the pupil...

Fact sheet.

First published: Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction" (2011).
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut.

Henry Kuttner's "Hollywood on the Moon" (novelette, free): Adventure on an asteroid

Much of it is old fashioned adventure on an alien world with many local dangers - a man & a girl traveling through its many perils. The alien world in question is Ganymede, not the moon of Jupiter but an asteroid.

Other parts are mostly set on moon. Far side of moon is smaller than near side, has a huge crater where a city has been built - "Hollywood on the Moon". And yes, it's a tinsel town. A film director will go for shooting to asteroid & have adventures there.

Note.

There are two curious things here that were popularized by other works later. But this is probably the earliest mention I've seen of these technologies.

1. James Blish's "Cities in Flight" has New York city uprooted from ground along with its atmosphere & turned into a spaceship & has galactic adventures. In this Kuttner story, the city on moon has a local atmosphere held there by magical hand-wave while rest of the moon has no atmosphere; this is not really a domed city but one like in "Cities in Flight", only grounded.
2. Inhabitants of lunar city prefer artificial radio-controlled animals for pets to the real thing. Sounds a bit like PKD's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"?

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1938.
Read online at UNZ: part 1, part 2, part 3.
Note: These parts links are not natural divisions of the story, but posting mistake. Last page of each part is the same as first page of next part; so begin it at second page for part 2 & 3.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Henry Kuttner's "When the Earth Lived" (short story, doomsday, free): When a mad scientist defeated God

This appears to be among the earliest science fiction stories of Kuttner.

Story summary.

Our universe is but an atom in a larger "super-universe". Alien scientists experimenting in one of their labs have been subjecting some matter to the "cosmic ray" generated by a device in their lab - the ray that creates life! "The power of the cosmic ray--the life ray--at first gave life to only those elements which could readily acquire it--organic entities, protoplasm, evolving to man. Now that the cosmic ray is stepped up, the mysterious life force is spreading to all things throughout the Universe."

So the universe has gone bonkers - with rock, sand, metal, & sundry artifacts acquiring a will of their own! Our mad scientist will debug the cause & build a machine to destroy the alien source of cosmic ray. Recently animated matter goes back to its animate state because it hasn't been alive long enough, so life can go on!

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1937.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Kurt Vonnegut's "Money Talks" (short story, love story, non-genre)

A young man's grocery store has gone bust. Creditors take charge tomorrow; he's about the close the store for the last time. That's when a young woman walks in - asking for directions & to buy some stuff.

The woman is the nurse who'd cared for a dying rich man in the town during his last days, & to whom the man left his fortune - $12m. Of course, the town thinks the nurse manipulated the man.

They get talking, & a difficult love story develops - they know they're in love, but is the broke man after the newly rich woman's fortune?

Fact sheet.

First published: Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction" (2011).
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut's "Mr Z" (short story, love story, non-genre)

A young man from a family of priests is studying criminology in college, among other subjects. As part of a project, he's sent to interview a very bitter but smart female convict in a local jail - convicted because stolen goods were found on her, though her thief & gangster husband is free for lack of evidence.

One thing leads to another & the two will end up in hospital with broken bones: young man beaten by friends of gangster husband, woman by the husband. And a romance begins... in the hospital.

Notes.

Title, "Mr Z", is a joke. During interview, the man is referring to woman's associates as "Mr A", "Mr B", etc - to protect their identity. So she begins referring to him as "Mr Z".

Fact sheet.

First published: Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction" (2011).
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut's "The Man Without No Kiddleys": (short story, non-genre): How many kidneys are there among 2 men?

This is a very simple story of chance meeting of two strangers in a park. Both very old. A lonely, very talkative, but simple-minded one who loves to talk of all things that ail him (I thought only India had such people!). Other a more sober one & a stranger to the town.

Talkative one will bug the stranger enough to make him lose his temper. But the kind hearted stranger will regret it & will come back to make amends.

Fact sheet.

First published: Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction" (2011).
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut.

Stories from Nature magazine, August 2013 issues

5 stories, all flash fiction length, all online. Only one that somewhat held my interest was Hecht's.

List below is in order of my preference, best first. Links on author fetch more fiction by author.

1. 29 August: Jeff Hecht's "The speed of dark energy" (B); download: A physicist has discovered that dark energy moves faster than light. And landed a job that promises faster execution of automated trades in the stock market. Only there is a minor glitch about its practicality...
2. 22 August: Marko Jankovic's "Alone" (B); download: Having perfected a robot that thinks it is human, the CEO of the company making it is getting the feeling he's the only human among his automaton-like colleagues.
3. 8 August: Milo James Fowler's "One meal a day" (B); download: There's a bit of "To Serve Man" (download as part of a larger package) here, though the story had a far lesser impact than that classic.
   
   A shapeshifting alien is on earth, looking for another of his species - a run away price who's believed to be hiding here.
4. 15 August: Grace Tang's "Time heals all wounds" (C); download: A man experiencing hallucinations is given a new brain surgery that results in an unexpected side effect - time seriously slows down for the patient whenever he is experiencing great emotion!
5. 1 August: Lee Hallison's "The best of us" (C); download: Human scavengers are hunting for usable stuff over an earth gone dead & dangerous, & with most people recently dead. No cause is given for the apocalypse; story appears to be about the toughness & human emotions among the survivors. 

Related: Stories from Nature magazine.

Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The World is Mine" (as by Lewis Padgett) (novelette, humor, free)

This is part of authors' well known series featuring Gallagher, the mad scientist. I used to love these stories when I first encountered them; I'm no longer as much a fan, but this is still a light fun read.

Story summary.

Gallaghar wakes up from his yet another drinking bout to find a series of curiosities - 3 rabbit-like Martians ("Lybblas") from 500 years into future who want to conquer earth, a time machine focused on his backyard that cannot be turned off & that he apparently invented when his genius unconscious was in control, & a series of corpses of himself from future each with a ray gun hole through his chest.

The story is about putting the puzzle together, inventing a couple of other gadgets along the way.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, June 1943.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner, C L Moore (as by Lewis Padgett).

Isaac Asimov's "Silly Asses" (flash fiction, satire, free)

It's a commentary on the first nuclear (weapons?) tests - wise alien's reaction to discovery that the man has detonated a nuclear device on his own world.

The SFFAudio link below has more on the immediate political background to the story.

Fact sheet.

First published: Future Science Fiction, February 1958.
Download full text & audio from SFFAudio. [via QuasarDragon]
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Isaac Asimov.

Fredric Brown's "Sentry" (flash fiction, war, free)

In a long drawn galactic war, the "good" side is still not used to the sight of ugly monsters that comprise the enemy.

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, February 1954.
Download full text & audio from SFFAudio. [via QuasarDragon]
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Fredric Brown.

H G Wells' "The Red Room" (short story, gothic horror, free)

This is a haunted house story. A large abandoned palace with three old caretakers has a "Red Room" that is haunted & feared. Narrator, apparently a traveler, will insist on staying there saying he doesn't fear ghosts, & will discover the fear first hand.

Notes.

Much of story is about setting the mood, but the key part went over my head. In the end, narrator tells us "there is no ghost there at all, but worse, far worse, something impalpable— ... The worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal men, ... and that is, in all its nakedness—'Fear!' Fear that will not have light nor sound, that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms." And yet the mysterious events of the
night before don't quite fit this conclusion.

Fact sheet.

First published: The Idler, March 1896.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg or eBooks@Adelaide.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of H G Wells.

H B Fyfe's "The Wedge" (short story, first contact, free)

A sole human exploring a far away world in his scout-ship is captured by local aliens. Aliens are interested in learning about the capabilities of humans, so our hero plays a dumb animal...

Fact sheet.

First published: If, September 1960.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks. [via Becky@ClassicScienceFiction]
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of H B Fyfe.