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).

John Campbell's "The Invaders" (short story) & "Rebellion" (novelette)

These two, in sequence, are often listed as part of a 3-story series, with the first story as "The Machine". But these two are only marginally related to "The Machine". And these two stories are actually one long story, split probably because of publishing constraints of the day.

Story summary.

At the beginning of "The Invaders", earth is an idyllic place; The Machine had eliminated all threats to humans, including microbes, thousands of years ago. And humans are a bit like Eloi in "The Time Machine" of H G Wells - intellectually degenerated into animals because no skills are required to survive in this world.

That's when alien invaders come & make earth their own. They domesticate the humans, treating & breeding them as animals. There is a very moving scene at the beginning of invasion where aliens are dissecting a woman while her man watches helplessly, not understanding the enormity of what is happening.

"Rebellion" happens several thousand years later. Aliens are well entrenched. Humans are bred into many different strains. Accidentally, a mutation gives back a human the power to lie. And circumstances place him in a situation where he can forge official breeding records.

The mutation is stealthily propagated, until eventually the descendents build a gadget that can overcome the firepower of ruling aliens & the rebels force the aliens to leave earth.

Collected in.

1. Lester del Rey (ed)'s "The Best of John W Campbell".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, June 1935 ("The Invaders") & August 1935 ("Rebellion).
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of John Campbell.

Campbell's "Astounding Science Fiction Anthology" post is now complete

Main post.

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.

Norman Spinrad's "Outward Bound" (novelette, free)

This is a classic "technology as an enabler of freedom" story: government is hell bent to bury a newly developing technology because it cuts into some of its power - think decade old debates & controls on encryption, e.g.

In the story, it's the "Overdrive" - an FTL drive. Earth has a kingdom spanning a few stars, maintained with slower than light ships. These outworlds are always behind earth in technology because ships bringing them earth's information take decades or centuries. (Why don't the outworlds develop their own tech?)

Now someone is onto a theory that can lead to FTL, ending earth's hegemony. So earth has sent a military to nip the technology in the bud...

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, March 1964.
Download full text from Baen Books.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Norman Spinrad.

Lester del Rey (ed)'s "The Best of John W Campbell" (collection): Annotated table of contents & review

"Who Goes There?" has been filmed more than once & is among his best known stories. And I loved "Forgetfulness". "Twilight" is widely anthologized, but didn't work for me; to me it sounded like a bad imitation of some themes from H G Wells' "The Time Machine". "Cloak of Aesir" is also a well known story, but it works best when read after "Out of the Night"; the two actually form one complete story. "The Last Evolution" is the oldest story I've read on the idea of singularity. "Blindness" is now very dated. "The Invaders" & "Rebellion" also need to be read together & in sequence; they too together form a single complete story.

ToC below is in order of my preference, best first (4 commented stories at the end of list are where I need to refer to my notes; will come back on them later). My rating is in brackets. Links on publisher or year fetches more matching fiction. Where I'm aware of an online copy, I include that link too.

1. [novella] "Who Goes There?" (A); download; Astounding, August 1938: When the curious opened the bottle, & let the jinn out...
2. [novelette] "Forgetfulness" (as by Don A Stuart) (A); Astounding, June 1937: Technological progress involves forgetting old knowledge.
3. [ss] "The Machine" (as by Don A Stuart) (B); Astounding, February 1935: North is the best!
4. [ss] "Elimination" (B); Astounding, May 1936: Two men build a "chronoscope" that lets you see, on a TV screen, all places & times in future or past. The inventors begin looking at their own possible futures, & the view is very ugly...
5. [ss] "Blindness" (B); Astounding, March 1935: A great inventor spends substantial time in close proximity to sun, studying it to discover the secret of "atomic power" - an activity that succeeded but blinded him. Ironic ending as another of his earlier inventions, an alloy called "thermlectrium", has outdated the need for atomic power in the meantime.
6. [ss] "The Last Evolution" (C); download; Amazing Stories, August 1932: Probably among the earliest stories about singularity, decades before the term was coined.
7. [ss] "Twilight"; Astounding, November 1934: Description of the last days of human race, as narrated by a time traveler to future...
8. [ss] "The Invaders"; Astounding, June 1935.
9. [novelette] "Rebellion"; Astounding, August 1935.
10. [novelette] "Out of the Night"; Astounding, October 1937.
11. [novelette] "Cloak of Aesir"; Astounding, March 1939.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1976.
Related: Stories of John Campbell; Fiction from 1930s.

John W Campbell's "The Machine" (as by Don A Stuart) (short story, post-apocalypse): North is the best!

This has the feel of one of those so called "proto-sf" stories. And there is clear influence of H G Wells.

Most of the story is of post-apocalypse survival. There is a very curious notion here, apparently borrowed from H G Wells' "The Time Machine", but in a different form. Wells makes an argument that fittest people are those that live in the toughest environments; luxury is ... sort of ... anti-survival. Campbell offers a variation of it: Since north is much colder & tougher to live in than moderate climate of south, biggest & most survival success stories among the post-apocalypse humans will be found in the north!

"The Machine" of title is actually an alien AI. There is a long-winded explanation & history of it that could have made several separate stories, but the important point is: it has tended to the needs of humans for several generations, & now suddenly it has decided to withdraw from earth - bringing in a collapse of civilization.

Notes.

1. Story features a steam powered aircraft that could fly off someone's balcony.

Collected in.

1. "The Best of John W Campbell".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, February 1935.
Rating: B.
Series: "The Machine" (this story), "The Invaders", "Rebellion".
Related: Stories of John Campbell (as by Don A Stuart).

Online: "John W. Campbell, Collected Editorials From Analog" (ed Harry Harrison)

@Internet Archive. [via SF Signal]

Related: Works of John Campbell, Harry Harrison.

John W Campbell, Jr's "Forgetfulness" (as by Don A Stuart) (novelette, first contact): Technological progress involves forgetting old knowledge

I wonder if van Vogt's fantastic story, "The Monster", was inspired by this? Both involve advanced aliens visiting earth, & trying to bully a single apparantly harmless & unarmed man, & ... getting surprised. van Vogt's version is by far the better of the two; that was the story that made me notice van Vogt.

Story summary.

A pioneering 100-strong alien expedition has arrived on earth ("Rhth", to aliens) from Pareeth. Millions of years ago, their distant animal ancestors were uplifted by humans, & perhaps they've come to pay homage to their benefactors.

What they find here are abandoned cities, a tiny village with virtually no technology, & what remains of the human race apparently living a primitive existence off land.

Aliens are respectful, for old times sake, & a bit arrogant too. Seun, a very humble man, shows them around the dead city, but humanity seems to have forgotten much of the technology that made this city tick.

Aliens go back home. Only to return with a colonizing expedition that has instructions to move the remnants of humanity off to some sort of reservation & use only minimal force, in case of resistance, because of its past glory.

Aliens are in for a shock, when they threaten to use this minimal force...

Collected in.

1. Raymond J Healy & J Francis McComas (Eds)' "Adventures in Time and Space".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, June 1937.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of John Campbell (as by Don A Stuart); fiction from 1930s.

And the Campbell Award goes to ... novel that Campbell would have disliked most!

Andrew Wheeler has some observations on the subject, in the context of this year's Campbell & Sturgeon award winners announced a couple of days back.

Related.

1. "best of" lists.
2. Fiction authored or edited by John Campbell.
3. Stories of Theodore Sturgeon.

"Astounding Science Fiction", June 1955 (ed John W Campbell, Jr) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

Scans of this magazine in CBR format are online as part of a larger package.

Table of contents.

1. [short novel] Everett B Cole's "Final Weapon": "Man has developed many a deadly weapon. Today, the weapon most effective in destroying a man's hopes & security is the file folder ... & that was the weapon Morley knew & loved. But there was something more potent to come."
2. [novelette] E G von Wald's "Shock Absorber" (B); download: A man acts on what he believes the facts are, not on the facts. He lives or dies by what the facts are. Now sometimes you don't have time to correct a man's beliefs, yet he must act correctly ..."
3. [ss] Irving Cox, Jr's "The Guardians": "It's not always "The Truth shall set you free!" Sometimes it's "Want of the Truth shall drive you to escape!" And that can be dangerous!"
4. [ss] J Francis McComas' "Criminal Negligence": "Somebody was going to have to be left behind ... & who it would be was perfectly obvious ..."
5. [ss] John O'Keefe's "As Long As You Wish": "If, somehow, you get trapped in a circular time system ... how long is the circumference of an infinitely retraced circle?"
6. [serial - part 3/4] Poul Anderson's "The Long Way Home": "It's almost impossible for a man with one life-long orientation to understand someone whose thinking is all oriented in a widely different culture. And that makes for unpredictability. But it is, also, always a two-edged sword!"

See also.

1. Fiction from Analog/Astounding (only issues edited by Harry Bates, John Campbell).
2. Stories written by John Campbell.
3. Fiction from old "pulp" magazines.
4. Fiction from 1950s.

"Astounding Science Fiction", November 1945 (ed John W Campbell, Jr) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

Scans of this magazine in CBR format are online as part of a larger package., but with some pages missing.

Table of contents

1. [serial - part 1/2] Isaac Asimov's "The Mule": "the one factor even Hari Sheldon could not predict - could not defend the Foundation against. The defenses were based on human psychology; the Mule was a mutant!"
   
   This is the second novel in Asimov's famous Foundation Trilogy. second part of the serial is also online somewhere.
2. [novelette] Geoff St Reynard's "By Yon Bonnie Banks": "A fantasy of a fog, & a wrong turn that led through time - back from one war, to a battle of long ago, where the outcome was foreordained - & still unsuspected."
3. [novelette] George O Smith's "Identity".
   
   Note: Initial pages of this story are missing.
4. [ss] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Line to Tomorrow" (as by Lewis Padgett): "It was a perfectly ordinary telephone, but some wires got a little crossed - & it turned out to be a party line, with one party in Tomorrow!"
5. [ss] Frank Belknap Long's "The Critters": "The Critters from Venus simply could not be fought by all of Man's physical science - because their primary weapon wasn't physical. An old man & a cuckoo clock had part of the answer, though ..."
   
   Note: Many tail pages of this story are missing.

See also.

1. Fiction from Analog/Astounding (only issues edited by Harry Bates, John Campbell).
2. Stories written by John Campbell.
3. Fiction from old "pulp" magazines.
4. Fiction from 1940s.
   

"Astounding Science-Fiction", January 1942 (ed John W Campbell, Jr) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

Scans of this magazine in CBR format are online as part of a larger package.

Table of contents (6 stories, best first, unread last).

My rating is in brackets. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there. Link on author fetches more fiction by author.

1. [novelette] Eric Frank Russell's "Mechanistria" (B): Adventure on planet Mechanistria, a world ruled by very hostile robots.
   
   
   Collected in author's "Men, Martians and Machines".
2. [novelette] Jack Williamson's "Breakdown": "A city is an instrument - built, albeit unconsciously, for a purpose. When that purpose dies - the city dies!"
3. [novelette] L Ron Hubbard's "The Invaders": "The Post Commander was proud of his station - of its importance - of his importance. The technician sent to aid him made a discovery -"
4. [ss] Kolin Keith's "Soup King": "The cook fell in the soup; the crew fell in a gold mine. But the crew was broke & the cook a millionaire. Which was logical, on Venus!"
5. [ss] Normab L Knight's "Fugitive from Vangard": "He came to an ultramodern world with cloths a thousand years out of date, & no memory of where or when - or even whether! - he had been born!"
6. [serial - part 3/4] E E "doc" Smith's "Second Stage Lensmen": "Kimball Kinnison starts a new line of attack - as an officer in the Royal Guard of the zwilnik overlord!"

See also.

1. Fiction from Analog/Astounding (only issues edited by Harry Bates, John Campbell).
2. Stories written by John Campbell.
3. Old "pulp" magazines.
4. Fiction from 1940s.

"Astounding Science-Fiction", February 1945 (ed John W Campbell, Jr) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

Scans of this magazine in CBR format are online as part of a larger package, but with pages missing (including cover & ToC page). ToC below was constructed by scanning the available pages & may be incomplete.

"Wanted - An Enemy" is one of the coolest stories of the genre, though writing style is very pulp era.

Table of contents (4 stories, best first, unread last).

My rating is in brackets. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there. Link on author fetches more fiction by author. Where I know of alternate download locations, I provide those links with specific stories.

1. Fritz Leiber, Jr's "Wanted - An Enemy" (A): A man is trying to convince Martians to attack & vandalize earth. Yet he has the best interests of humanity in mind!
2. Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Piper's Son" (B); read online (no download): Zero tolerance for racists poisoning children's minds.
   
   Incomplete text (initial pages missing).
3. Malcolm Jameson's "Lilies of Life": "There was a disease on Venus, & the natives seemed to have a cure. But the symbiosis involved was madder even than the usual madness of Venus' life-cycles -"
4. [serial - part 3/3] Wesley Long's "Nomad": "Driven from Earth, hated by Mars to start with, driven from Mephisto, Guy Meynard turns to his last possible refuge - Ertene. The pressure is building on him, pressure maneuvered & built up to force him in one, inescapable path."
   
   Note: Probably tail pages are missing.

See also.

1. Fiction from Analog/Astounding (only issues edited by Harry Bates, John Campbell).
2. Stories written by John Campbell.
3. Old "pulp" magazines.
4. Fiction from 1940s.
   

"Astounding Science-Fiction", February 1942 (ed John W Campbell, Jr) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

Scans of this magazine in CBR format are online as part of a larger package.

Table of contents

1. [novelette] C L Moore's "There Shall be Darkness": "The last commander of Earth's legions on Venus is called home - back to a failing, dying empire. Should he go & die with the empire - or stay, trying to start a new upward surge -"
2. [novelette] Kurt von Rachen's "The Rebels": "The Kilkenny Cats had not succeeded in killing themselves; Colonel Gailbraith prevented that. So now they would kill Gailbraith -"
3. [ss] Leigh Brackett's "The Sorcerer of Rhiannon": "The Martians had survival power - power to survive in their own way, until a new race reached their planet -"
4. [ss] Raymond F Jones' "Starting Point": When textbook formulas begin to work in spaceship flight, men tend to forget pioneering, forget there are other ways of doing things than the textbook ways -"
5. [ss] Theodore Sturgeon's "Medusa": "Nice way to start off a voyage - have the glad news that every man on your ship has been successfully & carefully turned into a madman, & that you alone will be sane -"
6. [serial - part 4/4] E E "doc" Smith's "Second Stage Lensmen".

See also.

1. Fiction from Analog/Astounding (only issues edited by Harry Bates, John Campbell).
2. Stories written by John Campbell.
3. Old "pulp" magazines.
4. Fiction from 1940s.
   

John W Campbell, Jr's "The Brain Stealers of Mars" (novelette, puzzle, free): Precursor to "Who Goes There?" & "Mars is Heaven"

I know of at least two very famous stories directly descended from it: Campbell's own "Who Goes There?" (download) & Bradbury's "Mars is Heaven" (download MP3). Plus any number of less well known ones, among them Eric Frank Russell's "Mesmerica", Philip K Dick's "The Father-Thing" (read online), & Fredric Brown's "Nothing Sirius" (download as part of a larger package).

Telling style is very pulp-era, but it's not a bad read & an important classic.

Story summary.

Rod Blake & Ted Penton ran away to Mars, after adventures on moon & Venus, when human authorities got hot on them for doing some banned experiments with atomics. So far, they are the only humans capable of interplanetary flight.

They will meet two kinds of natives on Mars: "thushols" & "centaurs".

1. Thushols are parasites capable of both shape shifting & reading your mind.
2. Centaurs are local intelligent beings that once had a technological civilization that now lies in ruins. Because they've lost the urge. Because thushols now comprise 31% of centaur population, indistinguishable from normal centaurs. They kill centaur babies & implant themselves in their place - always maintaining the magic ratio. Centaurs cannot kill even the ones they suspect, because, if they're wrong, they'll be killing their own!

Thushols had once visited earth, as centaurs' parasites, when centaurs tried to establish colonies there. That was hundreds of years back, & it didn't work out. But that's the source of centaur legends on earth.

Now that Man has advanced to space travel, thushols have decided he would make a worthy host. So they've put impostors among the two human visitors - there are now 13 Blakes & 12 Pentons! How will the originals distinguish from the fake ones, & ensure not only that thushols don't reach earth but warn the earthmen of danger?

Notes.

1. "Campbell's interest in the idea of a shape-changing alien can be traced to his early childhood, when his mother and her identical twin frequently put on each other's clothes in order to play a trick on him. "
2. 'The "Penton and Blake" series impressed a young Isaac Asimov so much that he started his own "Powell and Donovan" stories about two robot-snafu troubleshooters'.
3. It appears to be a curious feature of many old stories - physical travel is possible to far away places, but not electronic communications!
4. Another rather common feature of old stories: advanced animal telepaths inhabit Mars, but Venus is a jungle world of "ferocious plants".

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1936.
Read full text at Scribd.
Rating: A.
According to ISFDB, this story is the first in a series of 6.

Related.

1. Stories authored/edited by John Campbell.
2. Stories about Mars or its moons.
3. Tuesday Classics.
4. Fiction from 1930s.

John W Campbell, Jr's "The Last Evolution" (short story, singularity, free)

While the story itself is unremarkable, there is one thing here that makes it noteworthy: it's probably among the earliest stories about singularity, decades before the term was coined. At least it's the earliest I've read.

Story summary.

Story is narrated by a ... robot or AI or something. Humans have built machines that can build better versions of themselves. But they still serve man.

That's when earth gets attacked by a huge alien armada - but aliens without self-improving machines. So these machines go into superfast evolution as defense. In the end, all humans will be dead before the machines can build something way beyond aliens' capability & throw them out.

So now these machines have inherited earth.

Fact sheet.

First published: Amazing Stories, August 1932.
Rating: C.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg or Manybooks; or MP3 from LibriVox. [via QuasarDragon]
Related: Stories of John Campbell.

Free fiction: Comic book adaptations of 3 important stories

In four issues of comic book anthology series Starstream, at Crosseyed Cyclops. [via QuasarDragon]

Among the lot are:

1. John W Campbell, Jr's "Who Goes There?": This already has several versions online - at least one comic version, original text, some text scans, as well as a movie adaptation.
2. Poul Anderson's "Call me Joe".
3. Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God": With the exception of fix-up novel "More Than Human" (& its original short story, "Baby is Three"), this is probably the best known story of Sturgeon.

These 3 are among the best of science fiction. At least their original texts were, in my book anyway.

Free fiction: Eando Binder, Gordon Dickson, Christopher Anvil, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Pierre Boulle, James P Hogan, John Campbell, C M Kornbluth

Via QuasarDragon: Comic book version of Eando Binder's excellent story "I, Robot" at Grantbridge Street & other misadventures. Apart from being a great story, this was the story that bootstrapped Isaac Asimov's robot stories. Based on reading of the first page, this illustrated version appears to be a faithful & close adaptation of the original story text.

Original story is from Amazing Stories, January 1939. Why does Grantbridge attribute it to Weird Fantasy, #11?

Via Free SF Reader: 3 stories from Gordon R Dickson's collection "The Human Edge" at Webscription:

1. "Danger—Human"; download; Astounding, December 1957.
2. "Sleight of Wit"; download; Analog, December 1961.
3. "In the Bone"; download; If,, October 1966.

Via Free SF Reader: 8 stories at Webscription from Christopher Anvil's collection "War Games":

1. "Truce By Boomerang"; download; Astounding, December 1957.
2. "A Rose By Any Other Name ..."; download; Astounding, January 1960.
3. "The New Member"; download; Galaxy, April 1967.
4. "Babel II"; download; Analog, August 1967.
5. "The Trojan Bombardment"; download; Galaxy, February 1967.
6. "Problem of Command"; download; Analog, November 1963.
7. "Uncalculated Risk"; download; Analog, March 1962.
8. "Torch"; download; Astounding, April 1957.

Via Free SF Reader: 5 stories at Webscription from Christopher Anvil's collection "The Trouble With Aliens" (Ed Eric Flint):

1. "The Prisoner"; download; Astounding, February 1956
2. "Seller's Market"; download; Astounding, December 1958
3. "Top Rung"; download; Astounding, July 1958
4. "Symbols"; download; Analog, September 1966
5. "Foghead"; download; Astounding, September 1958

Via Free SF Reader: MP3 audio versions of 5 stories of Ray Bradbury from The Zombie Astronaut Digest:

1. "The Whole Town's Sleeping"; download MP3.
2. "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl"; download MP3.
3. "The Flying Machine"; download MP3.
4. "Hail & Farewell"; download MP3.
5. "The Golden Apples of the Sun"; download MP3.

Via Free SF Reader: 2 stories of Stephen King from z0mbieastronaut:

1. "Jerusalem's Lot"; download.
2. "Children of the Corn"; download.

Via Dark Worlds: An audio version of the "Planet of the Apes" from BrokenSea. "an audio dramatization of the 1968 film". "Based on the novel by Pierre Boulle and original screenplay by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, this new audio series features additional scenes, original sound design". "Written, directed and produced by Bill Hollweg."

Via Free SF Reader: 2 stories of James P Hogan at Webscription:

1. "The Tree of Dreams"; download.
2. "Jailhouse Rock"; download.

Via QuasarDragon: "SF Signal is streaming The Thing (1982) from Hulu... Watch it HERE. (It is also available directly at Hulu Here, but you have to register to watch it there.)"

This movie is an adaptation of John W Campbell's excellent first contact story "Who Goes There?" Text of original story was already online.

Caution: The movie is DRMed - accessible only within US. Very likely connections anonymized with Tor will also have trouble accessing.

This QD link is actually a month old. I wanted to watch it before linking, but I'm not motivated enough to watch it via a US based proxy.

Via QuasarDragon: Downloadable video in multiple formats at Internet Archive of C M Kornbluth's story "The Little Black Bag".

I haven't seen the video, but this is among the better stories of Kornbluth - similar in spirit to several Henry Kuttner/C L Moore stories about mysterious gadgets.

Note: Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.

Update: List of stories from John W Campbell's Astounding (later Analog)

3 more entries in the big list of stories from among issues of Astounding/Analog edited by John W Campbell, Jr:

1. April 1960: Rick Raphael's "Make Mine Homogenized" (B); download; humor: When exposure to radiation from a nuclear bomb testing facility did strange things to the milk of a cows & eggs laid by hens in a neighboring farm.
2. May 1960: John Cory's "Egocentric Orbit" (C); download: First men in space, making a few rounds around earth, all go mad because...
   
   I'm actually surprised because of publication date - a story from 1960 talking about this!
   
   There are thematic similarities with Tom Godwin's "The Nothing Equation" - but Godwin's story is at least set outside the galaxy & is not likely to get tested soon.
3. January 1972: Jerry Pournelle's "A Matter of Sovereignty" (as by Wade Curtis) (B); download: A US company is practically taking over a small Pacific island republic!
   
   Part of the story is an adventure - a company-mobilized gang forcibly frees its cargo ship seized by a neighboring country for some violation or the other. Then there is a conservation project of a kind that makes me see red - big talk of whale conservation by characters that have little regard for other forms of life. There is also an unrelated tangent background thread about towing glaciers from Antarctica to meet fresh water needs of some place on US west coast!!!
   

Update: Stories from Campbell's Astounding

Some more entries added to the list. A half dozen old posts missed during the first round, plus some new entries. A few free ones.

1. November/December 1959: Everett B Cole's "The Best Made Plans"; download; revolution: A young man helps stage a coup that will topple the current dictator & his evil mentor with the lawful ruler.
2. May 1959: [ss] Robert S Richardson's "Disturbing Sun" (as by Phlip Latham) (B); download: Solar activity affects human moods to the extent that it is this that is primarily responsible for all the evil wars & massacres of history!
3. February 1959: Frank Patrick Herbert's "Missing Link" (B); download: A world of rogue but technologically primitive hominid aliens are brought in line by human policement of galaxy!
   
4. June 1956: [novelette] Eric Frank Russell's "Plus X": I've only read its 1959 novelization - the hilarious & crazy "Next of Kin" - a smart alec does a jailbreak where his captors happily see him off the door! Since the really funny part of the novel is concentrated in later half, I would expect that to be close to original shorter version.
5. July 1955: Eric Frank Russell's "Waitabits" (A); humor: Different people run their lives at different pace. What happens when faster ones try to bring up the slower ones to their pace?
6. February 1955: Algirdas Jonas Budrys's "Citadel" (B); download: Bureaucrats on earth working to aid "private" human colonization of galaxy are feeling guilty for the bad things they have to do.
7. April/May/June/July 1953 (4 part serial): [novel] Hal Clement's "Mission of Gravity" (A); hard sf: Life on a super-high gravity, super cold world where liquid methane plays the role of water & hydrogen of oxygen.
8. December 1948: Eric Frank Russell's "Late Night Final" (A); humor: Star faring colonists of this far future earth end up losing to something rather "simple"!
9. May/June 1948 (2 part serial): [novel] Hal Clement's "Needle" aka "From Outer Space" (B): Two parasitic alien visitors to earth - a fugitive & a cop - both need a human host. By the end, good will win. A lot of text devoted to description of life on an idyllic corral island in the Pacific.
10. October 1945: [novella] A Bertram Chandler's "Giant Killer" (B): When a brave among "the people" slew the only 3 "giants" in the "universe" known to "people". Lot of gory violence. Suspense is officially relieved near end but you are actually clear about most suspense elements much earlier.
11. July 1941: Robert Heinlein's "We Also Walk Dogs" (A): A man builds an anti-gravity device - so alien visitors to a conference on earth will not find local gravity too oppressive!

John W Campbell, Jr's Astounding/Analog: Annotated list of stories & download links

I recently started actively seeking stories published in those issues of Astounding Science Fiction that were edited by John Campbell. Various renamings of the magazine are included, including ultimately to Analog. Given Campbell's reputation as an editor, the hope is it will bring in a rich haul.

ISFDB lists him as editor of the magazine from October 1937 to December 1971. Means his own influence will begin sometime in 1938. And for at least a year after his exit, his purchases should still have appeared in the magazine. This page will, therefore, cover all issues during 1938-1972.

That's 408 issues. Assuming an average of 5 stories an issue, that's a massive 2000 plus stories. I'll split this page as the list grows unwieldy in size.

The annotated list below mostly includes the stories I've read. Plus a few online stories I'm yet to read (actually, quite a few are online - but linking is time consuming, so will do as I read). List is sorted by publication month (arbitrary order within a month). Will insert new entries as I read more.

Download links are available on stories where I'm aware of an online version. If I have a post on a specific story, link on story title goes there. Link on author fetches more fiction from author. My rating appears in brackets.

I normally batch update this file when several stories have accumulated. This list was last updated 8 October 2009. More recent entries are available in a somewhat less convenient form here.

Annotated story list (recent first).

1. August 1972: Jerry Pournelle's "Power to the People" (as by Wade Curtis); download: Not read.
2. June 1972: [ss] Howard L Myers' "Out, Wit!" (A); download; irony: Wrapper matters more than its contents!
   
3. March 1972: Larry Niven's "Cloak of Anarchy" (B); download: An experiment in an anarchy-based society where there is no government.
4. January 1972: Christopher Anvil's "Riddle Me This..."; download: Not read.
5. January 1972: Jerry Pournelle's "A Matter of Sovereignty" (as by Wade Curtis) (B); download: A US company is practically taking over a small Pacific island republic!
   
   Parts of the story are an adventure - a company-mobilized gang forcibly frees its cargo ship seized by a neighboring country for some violation or the other. Then there is a conservation project of a kind that makes me see red - big talk of whale conservation by characters that have little regard for other forms of life. There is also an unrelated tangent thread about towing glaciers from Antarctica to meet fresh water needs of some place on US west coast!!!
   
   An obnoxious "I am superior because I was born in a particular country" attitude is visible all through - not sure if it's author's normal style or something just specific to this story.
6. June/July/August/September 1970: [novel] Hal Clement's "Star Light" (A): Exploring a high gravity world with weird atmosphere & hydrosphere.
   
   This is one of the sequels to "Mission of Gravity".
7. June 1970: Keith Laumer's "Message to an Alien"; download: Not read.
   
8. July 1969: Keith Laumer's "The Choice"; download: Not read.
9. June 1968: [novelette] Howard L Myers' "Duplex" aka "Partner" (as by Verge Foray); download; mystery: One of the two individuals living in the same body has got involved in something sinister...
   
10. April 1968: Christopher Anvil's "Is Everybody Happy?"; download: Not read.
    
11. October 1967: Anne McCaffrey's "Weyr Search" (B): Description of human society on an extra-Sol world that has lost contact with mother world, & has fallen to barbarism. Quite readable. If you are into dragons, feudal lords, & some magic, you will probably enjoy it more than I did.
12. September 1967: [ss] Howard L Myers' "Lost Calling" (as by Verge Foray); download; humor: Making of the ultimate diplomat.
13. August 1967: Christopher Anvil's "Babel II"; download: Not read.
14. January 1967: [ss] Keith Laumer's "The Last Command" (A); download: A buried AI-driven war machine, awakened accidentally decades after the end of war, is unaware of war's end & considers everything nearby an enemy!
15. September 1966: Christopher Anvil's "Symbols"; download: Not read.
    
16. August 1966: [ss] Bob Shaw's "Light of Other Days" aka "Slow Glass" (A); download: A glass that slows down light so much it takes years to pass through!
17. March 1966: Keith Laumer's "Prototaph"; download: Not read.
    
18. April 1965: James H Schmitz's "Goblin Night"; (B); download: A human psychopath on a colony world loves hunting humans visitors to a game park with the aid of his pet nocturnal carnivore.
19. June 1965: Christopher Anvil's "Duel to the Death"; download: Not read.
20. January 1965: Christopher Anvil's "The New Boccaccio"; download: Not read.
21. June 1964: Gordon R Dickson's "Dolphin's Way" (B): Communicating with aliens is likely to be far tougher than assumed, because we live in different environments, & environments affect the kind of signals we exchange.
22. February 1964: Christopher Anvil's "Rx For Chaos"; download: Not read.
    
23. November 1963: Christopher Anvil's "Problem of Command"; download: Not read.
24. August 1963: [novelette] Murray Leinster's "Tallien Three" aka "The Hate Disease"; download part 01, 02, 03, & 04: Even mundane may be essential to life.
    
25. February 1963: Rick Raphael's "Code Three" (B); download: A day in the life of a (road) traffic police patrol car.
26. December 1962: Tom Godwin's "--And Devious the Line of Duty" (A); download: A young man gets his heart broken as part of his professional work. Story is a combination of romance & diplomacy.
27. December 1962: [ss] Mack Reynolds' "Subversive" (A); economy: A case against white collar jobs!
    
28. October 1962: [ss] Christopher Anvil's "Gadget vs Trend" (A); download; humor: Little Brother get a weapon to fight the Big Brother
    
29. July 1962: William M Lee's "Junior Achievement" (A); download from from Project Gutenberg/Manybooks/Feedbooks: When a group of superkids had an entrepreneurial dream...
    
30. May 1962: Ben Bova's "The Next Logical Step" (A); from Project Gutenberg, or Manybooks: Serious implications of the ability to realistically simulate war games.
    
31. March 1962: Christopher Anvil's "Uncalculated Risk"; download: Not read.
    
32. December 1961: Gordon R Dickson's "Sleight of Wit"; download: Not read.
33. June 1961: Lloyd Biggle, Jr's "Monument"; download: Not read.
    
34. May 1961: Arthur Clarke's "Death and the Senator"; read online at wowio: Certain heart ailments may be best treated in a zero gravity environment.
35. March 1961: [novelette] Poul Anderson's "Hiding Place" (B); space opera: Best place to hide ... is in plain sight!
    
36. November 1960: [novelette] Hal Clement's "Sunspot" (A); hard sf: A manned research ship's journey through the solar corona & very near the Sun's photosphere.
37. August 1960: [ss] Joseph Paul Martino's "Pushbutton War" (B); download from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks; Chasing an intercontinental ballistic missile in a rocket ship!
38. May 1960: Laurence M Janifer's "Wizard" (A); download from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks: During the dark days of Christian Inquisition in medieval Europe, a small group of telepaths is doing what it can to reduce the misery of the harassed populace.
39. May 1960: John Cory's "Egocentric Orbit" (C); download: First men in space, making a few rounds around earth, all go mad because...
    
    I'm actually surprised because of publication date - as story from 1960 talking about this!
    
    There are thematic similarities with Tom Godwin's "The Nothing Equation" - but Godwin's story is at least set outside the galaxy & is not likely to get tested soon.
40. April 1960: [novelette] Harry Harrison's "The Misplaced Battleship"; download from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks: Conspirators have built a super-competent battleship in secret for some evil purpose. Hero will track them down.
41. April 1960: Rick Raphael's "Make Mine Homogenized" (B); download; humor: When exposure to radiation from a nuclear bomb testing facility did strange things to the milk of a cows & eggs laid by hens.
42. March 1960: Christopher Anvil's "Shotgun Wedding"; download: Not read.
43. February 1960: [ss] Mack Reynolds' "Summit" (B); download; Cold War: How the vested interests in both US & USSR guarantee an environment of war, & won't let peace happen.
44. January/February/March 1960: [novel] Harry Harrison's "Deathworld" (B); download text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, or Feedbooks; download audio from LibriVox or Internet Archive; survival: Hate begets hate, love begets love.
    
45. January 1960: [novelette] Murray Leinster's "Attention Saint Patrick" (B); download: An unusual pest control problem.
46. January 1960: Christopher Anvil's "A Rose By Any Other Name ..."; download: Not read.
    
47. November/December 1959: Everett B Cole's "The Best Made Plans"; download; revolution: A young man helps stage a coup that will topple the current dictator & his evil mentor with the lawful ruler.
48. November 1959: [ss] Rick Raphael's "A Filbert Is a Nut"; download text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks, or Munseys; download audio from LibriVox; humor: A lunatic asylum inmate who could make magic...
    
49. October 1959: [ss] Murray F Yaco's "Unspecialist" (A); download: Overspecialization kills flexibility.
50. September 1959: [novelette] Gordon Randall Garrett's "... Or Your Money Back" (A); download; humor: Goodluck charms aren't illegal at roulette table!
51. September 1959: [ss] M I Mayfield's "On Handling the Data" (A); download: A sobering look at human reaction to "facts" from "experts".
    
52. September 1959: [novelette] Murray Leinster's "A Matter of Importance" (A); download: A smart cop against a planetful of military.
53. September 1959: [novelette] Gordon Randall Garrett's "... Or Your Money Back" (A); download; humor: Goodluck charms aren't illegal at roulette table!
    
54. August 1959: [novelette] A Bertram Chandler's "Familiar Pattern" (as by George Whitley) (A); download: A replay of European colonization pattern with aliens.
55. August 1959: [novelette] Murray Leinster's "The Aliens" (A); download: First human contact with aliens begins on a very hostile note, but ends in peace. Except for some rather dramatic scenes, it's generally a gripping story.
56. June 1959: [novelette] Ralph Williams' "Cat and Mouse" (A); download: A colorful pest control problem!
57. May 1959: [ss] Robert S Richardson's "Disturbing Sun" (as by Phlip Latham) (B); download: Solar activity affects human moods to the extent that it is this that is primarily responsible for all the evil wars & massacres of history!
58. May 1959: [ss] Roger Kuykendall's "We Didn't Do Anything Wrong, Hardly" (B); download, humor: Couple of US kids have fun building an amateur spaceship & tinkering with a Russian satellite in orbit.
59. March 1959: [ss] George Oliver Smith's "Instinct" (B); download from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks, or Scribd: Powerful aliens are befuddled by human "instinct" to rise from savagary to capability of galactic adventure. Juvenile story.
    
60. February/March/April 1959 (3 part serial): [novel] Murray Leinster's "The Pirates of Zan" aka "The Pirates of Ersatz" (A); download from Webscription/Project Gutenberg/Manybooks/Feedbooks; space opera: A young man's struggle to up his social station.
61. February 1959: Frank Patrick Herbert's "Missing Link" (B); download: A world of rogue but technologically primitive hominid aliens are brought in line by human policemen of galaxy!
62. December 1958: Christopher Anvil's "Seller's Market"; download: Not read.
    
63. October 1958: [novella] Clifford D Simak's "The Big Front Yard" (A): When aliens introduced humans into the cosmic community of rational beings.
64. October 1958: [ss] Rog Phillips' "The Yellow Pill" (A); download: Patient claims the psychiatrist is crazy rather then the patient...
    
65. September 1958: Christopher Anvil's "Foghead"; download: Not read.
    
66. July 1958: Christopher Anvil's "Top Rung"; download: Not read.
    
67. May/June/July 1958 (3 part serial): [novel] Hal Clement's "Close to Critical" (A): Examining a world with extremely dense atmosphere, ample water, & where surface temperature varies only in a very very narrow band, just below the critical temperature of water.
68. February 1958: Mark Clifton's "The Dread Tomato Addiction" (A); download; satire: Logic as used by certain classes of people! Note: Original Astounding classification for this piece is "essay", but it reads well as flash fiction too.
    
69. December 1957: Gordon R Dickson's "Danger - Human"; download: Not read.
70. December 1957: Christopher Anvil's "Truce By Boomerang"; download: Not read.
    
71. November 1957: [novella] Christopher Anvil's "The Gentle Earth" (A); download: Alien cold-blooded invaders have occupied much of US, but are losing battle against earth's weather. Often humorous, but with a lame ending.
72. October 1957: [novella] Murray Leinster's "The Grandfathers' War" (A); download: When kids won't talk to parents...
    
73. September 1957: Eric Frank Russell's "Into Your Tent I'll Creep" (C): Humans are slaves of a master race unknown to them. And now this master race has used humans to spawn itself off as masters of an alien race too - aliens that are friendly to humans.
74. August 1957: [novella] Murray Leinster's "The Mutant Weapon" (A); download; biological warfare: Catching thieves out to steal a world...
    
75. April 1957: [novelette] Poul Anderson's "Call Me Joe" (A); download audio or comic book adaptation: Human operator (via directly linked mind-to-mind interface) of an artificial animal adapted to live on Jupiter's "surface" becomes one with him, & would rather live in that healthy body on Jupiter rather than in his own withered human body.
76. April 1957: Christopher Anvil's "Torch"; download: Not read.
77. February 1957: [novelette] H Beam Piper's "Omnilingual" (A); download text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, or Feedbooks, or audio from LibriVox; Astounding, February 1957: A universal rosetta stone to decode the writings of a long dead civilization known to be at about our level of technological ability.
78. December 1956: [ss] Michael Shaara's "2066: Election Day": Not read.
79. November 1956: [ss] Reginald Bretnor's "The Doorstop": Not read.
80. September 1956: [ss] Hal Clement's "Dust Rag" (A): Description of a lunar phenomenon decades before its verification.
    
81. September 1956: [novelette] Murray Leinster's "The Swamp Was Upside Down" (A); download: How to stop landslides?
82. August 1956: Eric Frank Russell's "Top Secret" (B): Fun with data-corrupting communications channels!
83. July 1956: Murray Leinster's "Critical Difference" aka "Solar Constant" (A); terraforming: When a sun goes cold during a particularly severe sunspot cycle, the life on its two inhabited worlds is threatened. The hero will figure a way out - not only to survive, but to thrive.
84. June 1956: [novelette] Eric Frank Russell's "Plus X": I've only read its 1959 novelization - the hilarious & crazy "Next of Kin" - a smart alec does a jailbreak where his captors happily see him off the door! Since the really funny part of the novel is concentrated in later half, I would expect that to be close to original shorter version.
85. March 1956: [novelette] Murray Leinster's "Exploration Team" aka "Combat Team" (A); download; adventure: A rebel helps tame a dangerous world. Winner of Hugo Award 1957 in novelette category.
86. February 1956: [ss] Algis Budrys' "Silent Brother": Not read.
87. February 1956: [novelette] Mark Clifton's "Clerical Error" (A); download: In a society that doesn't value innovation, a man inflicted with demons formed by an understanding of the nature of his society & his upbringing is cured by a kind psychiatrist.
88. February 1956: Christopher Anvil's "The Prisoner"; download: Not read.
    
89. December 1955: [ss] Stanley Gimble's "Breakaway" (B); download from Project Gutenberg/Manybooks/Feedbooks: Description of the take off of the first manned rocketship flight to moon - from days before the actual event happened.
90. October 1955: [ss] Ernest M Kenyon's "Security" (B); download: There are ways of circumventing the most stifling bureaucracy!
    
91. September 1955: [ss] Murray Leinster's "Scrimshaw" (B); download: A revenge drama that is not really about revenge.
92. August 1955: [ss] James Blish's "One-Shot" (B); download from Project Gutenberg/Manybooks/Feedbooks/Munseys; Cold War: A good gambler's hunch has other uses too!
    
93. July 1955: Eric Frank Russell's "Tieline" (as by Duncan H Munro) (B): Sole man on an entire planet that serves as a space lighthouse is very lonely.
94. July 1955: Eric Frank Russell's "Waitabits" (A); humor: Different people run their lives at different pace. What happens when faster ones try to bring up the slower ones to their pace?
95. May 1955: [ss] Eric Frank Russell's "Allamagoosa" (A): Data fudging can have unforeseen consequences!
96. March 1955: Eric Frank Russell's "Diabologic" (B): The art of driving other people nuts! And using it as a political strategy!
97. February 1955: Algirdas Jonas Budrys's "Citadel" (B); download: Bureaucrats on earth working to aid "private" human colonization of galaxy are feeling guilty for the bad things they have to do.
    
98. January 1955: Eric Frank Russell's "Nothing New" (B): Human explorers to a world suspected to be home to immortals don't realize they are not the first human expedition there.
99. November 1954: [novelette] Algis Budrys' "The End of Summer": Not read.
100. August 1954: [novelette] Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" (A); download full text or MP3 of radio show adaptation: An innocent girl is to be executed due to apathy of administration (according to author, due to nature's laws, but that's not how it comes across in the story). Intensely emotional.
101. July 1954: [novelette] Randall Garrett's "The Hunting Lodge": Not read.
102. September 1953: Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Humpty Dumpty" (as by Lewis Padgett) (B); read online a part of a larger package (no download).
103. April/May/June/July 1953 (4 part serial): [novel] Hal Clement's "Mission of Gravity" (A); hard sf: Life on a super-high gravity, super cold world where liquid methane plays the role of water & hydrogen of oxygen.
104. July 1952: [ss] Michael Shaara's "All the Way Back" (A); download: An answer to "why haven't we met aliens yet?"
105. October/November/December 1951 (3 part serial): [novel] Hal Clement's "Iceworld" (A): First contact between two sentient races with very different sensitivity to temperature.
106. June 1951: Eric Frank Russell's "... And Then There Were None" (A); download: A gang of imperialists is frustrated by a planetful of Gandhian natives.
107. October 1950: Wyman Guin's "Trigger Tide" (as by Norman Menasco) (B); download: An assassin, on a mission to kill leader of a group of despots on a human colony world, learns of strange effects of interaction of its many moons with local piezoelectric rock formations.
108. July 1950: [novelette] C M Kornbluth's "The Little Black Bag" (A): A medical doctor going through a bad patch finds a magical medical kit from future that helps him find a purpose in life.
109. December 1949: [novelette] James H Schmitz's "The Witches of Karres" aka "Karres" (A); space opera: I've only read its longer novelized version; am assuming this original shorter version is similar. It's usual space opera, but features a community of supermen/women ("witches" of title) with unusual mental abilities.
110. September 1949: Arthur Clarke's "Hide-and-Seek": A sole man is on the run on Phoboes, a Martian moon. He is being hunted by a well armed military unit. Will he be able to outwit his pursuers?
111. July 1949: Clifford D Simak's "Eternity Lost" (A): A lawmaker considers himself above law.
     
112. January 1949: [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Private Eye" (as by Lewis Padgett) (A): Getting away with murder in a society where it's impossible to not have witnesses!
     
113. May/June 1948 (2 part serial): [novel] Hal Clement's "Needle" aka "From Outer Space" (B): Two parasitic alien visitors to earth - a fugitive & a cop - both need a human host. By the end, good will win. A lot of text devoted to description of life on an idyllic corral island in the Pacific.
     
114. December 1948: Eric Frank Russell's "Late Night Final" (A); humor: Star faring colonists of this far future earth end up losing to something rather "simple"!
     
115. November 1948: [novelette] Wilmar H Shiras' "In Hiding" (A): A child prodigy is forced to perform at "normal" human level!
     
116. August 1948: A E van Vogt's "The Monster" aka "Resurrection" (A): Nasty aliens attempting colonization of dead earth get a rude shock.
117. June 1948: Judith Merril's "That Only a Mother" (A): In a post nuclear apocalypse world with widespread bad genetic mutations, a mother cannot see the gross physical deformity in her just born daughter. Very moving.
     
118. May 1948: [ss] Murray Leinster's "The Strange Case of John Kingman" (A): A long time inmate of a mental asylum, suffering from superiority complex, is not human at all!
119. November 1947: [novelette] Theodore Sturgeon's "Thunder and Roses" (B); download: A nuclear war has doomed US. Some survivors awaiting death are trying to prevent retaliation it's still capable of inflicting - to give humanity a chance, even if it is without the US.
120. September 1947: Eric Frank Russell's "Hobbyist" (B): A stranded spaceman on an alien planet hasn't realized he's actually met god!
121. July 1947: [novella] Jack Williamson's "With Folded Hands" (A); download MP3: Benign robots have turned humans into worthless beings with no hope. I actually don't like it's negativity much, but rating it B would have moved it below many stories far less well written!
122. March 1947: [novelette] William Tenn's "Child's Play" (A): What if Henry Kuttner & C L Moore retold Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"?
     
123. December 1946: A E Van Vogt's "Hand of the Gods"; download: Not read.
124. September 1946: [novella] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Vintage Season" (as by Lawrence O'Donnell) (A): Uncaring future time travelers visit our time on vacation to enjoy a major disaster!
125. August 1946: A E Van Vogt's "Child of the Gods"; download: Not read.
126. May 1946: A E Van Vogt's "A Son is Born"; download: Not read.
127. May 1946: Arthur Clarke's "Rescue Party" (A); download: There is life even after apocalypse - so don't lose hope.
128. April 1946: Arthur Clarke's "Loophole"; humor: Martian aliens bar earthlings from developing rockets, & get the surprised!
129. March 1946: [ss] Murray Leinster's "A Logic Named Joe" (as by Will F Jenkins) (A); download full text or MP3 (dramatized): Exploits of a super-intelligent AI, but one without human ethics or morals.
130. December 1945: Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Beggers in Velvet" (as by Lewis Padgett) (B); read online a part of a larger package (no download).
131. October 1945: Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "What You Need" (as by Lewis Padgett) (A): Inventor of a future-viewer is silently shaping the world's future!
132. October 1945: [novella] A Bertram Chandler's "Giant Killer" (B): When a brave among "the people" slew the only 3 "giants" in the "universe" known to "people". Lot of gory violence. Suspense is officially relieved near end but you are actually clear about most suspense elements much earlier.
     
133. September 1945: Hal Clement's "Uncommon Sense" (A): A man's curiosity saves his life on a weird world.
134. September 1945: Murray Leinster's "The Power" (B); first contact: Closest Leinster comes to marrying occult with scifi. Befuddled & superstitious humans' reaction to the sole survivor of an alien spacecraft that crash landed somewhere in Europe in fifteenth century.
     
     Very similar in concept to 2007 Hugo nominee novel - Michael Flynn's "Eifelheim".
135. August 1945: Murray Leinster's "Pipeline to Pluto" (B); revenge: Corrupt officials running a racket fed by bribes meet their nemesis.
136. July 1945: Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Lion & the Unicorn" (as by Lewis Padgett) (B); read online a part of a larger package (no download); racism.
137. June 1945: [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Three Blind Mice" (as by Lewis Padgett) (B); read online as part of a larger package (no download); racism: Racist organization needs to be nipped in the bud.
     
138. June 1945: Murray Leinster's "The Ethical Equations" (A); first contact: An enigmatic apparently-dead alien ship has drifted into Sol. How should humans respond? Hero has an unusual answer.
     
     This story appears to have inspired several Arthur Clarke stories - including "Jupiter Five", "Rendezvous with Rama", & a subplot of "Nemesis". Or may be the influence is the other way round.
139. May 1945: [novelette] Murray Leinster's "First Contact" (A); download MP3 version: The story that coined the term "first contact" with its modern meaning. When a human ship meets an alien one in a far off nebula, neither side has reason to trust the other with the location of its mother world. How to ensure both ships can safely leave for home without letting the other know its homewold location, & yet be able to keep contact?
140. March 1945: [novelette] Isaac Asimov's "Blind Alley" (A); humor: Bureaucrat extraordinaire in action...
     
141. February 1945: [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Piper's Son" (as by Lewis Padgett) (B); read online a part of a larger package (no download); racism: Zero tolerance for racists poisoning children's minds.
     
142. January 1945: [novelette] A E van Vogt's "The Mixed Men" (B); download; space opera: 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.
     
     Sightly longer summary in "The Mixed Men" collection.
     
     This story is a sequel to "The Storm" that appeared in October 1943.
143. December 1944: [novella] C L Moore's "No Woman Born" (A): Among the first modern cyborg stories - a victim of fire gets a metallic robot body as the new home of her original brain.
144. November 1944: [novella] Theodore Sturgeon's "Killdozer!" (B): An evil spirit buried by an ancient lost civilization is awakened in a Pacific island at the site of an airport construction project, & has possessed a bulldozer - a bulldozer with only one purpose: kill all humans at the site!
145. [2 posts of this story exist] November 1944: [ss] Clifford D Simak's "Desertion" (B): Reengineered humans & dogs with bodies adapted to Jovian surface behave in unexpected ways.
     
146. November 1944: [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "When the Bough Breaks" (as by Lewis Padgett) (B); generation gap: A variation on "Mimsy Were the Borogoves", with some darker shades of "Absalom" mixed in. A baby is a superman - the first of the new race "homo superior", causing much anguish & heartburn in his parents.
147. October 1944: [ss] Lester del Rey's "Kindness" (A): A mutation has diverged humanity into supers & normal - normals dying out over time. This is the story of the last normal - his extreme discomfort in a society where he's too dumb compared to everyone else.
148. July 1944: [ss] Clifford D Simak's "Huddling Place" (B): A man is suffering from extreme agoraphobia.
     
149. June 1944: [novelette] Fredric Brown's "Arena" (C); download text or comic book adaptation: In a war between humans & aliens, god-like aliens intervene to ensure a decisive conclusion.
150. May 1944: Chester S Geier's "Environment" (B); download: An apparently dead city on an alien world transforms visiting humanoids into super-beings.
151. April 1944: John R Pierce's "Invariant" (A): Serious consequences of rejuvenation treatment.
152. April 1944: [ss] Fritz Leiber's "Sanity" (B): The idea of human sanity depends on what the society considers "normal".
153. December 1943: [ss] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Iron Standard" (as by Lewis Padgett) (B): Jolting a static civilization out of its slumber. Set on Venus.
154. October 1943: [novelette] Eric Frank Russell's "Symbiotica" (B): Travails of inadvertently nasty human adventurers on an alien planet where animal & plant life-forms live in a much closer symbiosis than on earth, & where plants can be very nasty once provoked.
155. October 1943: [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Proud Robot" (as by Lewis Padgett) (A); humor: Hilarious story about a robot in love with itself. Touches on some contemporary themes - video use in a way that annoys content owners, DRM (yes - in a 1943 story!), frivolous patents - but in a manner technologically irrelevant to current times (except last issue - patents).
156. October 1943: [novelette] A E van Vogt's "The Storm" (B); download; space opera: Long drawn human/robot wars now show promise to end amicably.
     
     This story is a sequel to "Concealment" in September 1943 issue; it's sequel is "The Mixed Men" in January 1945 issue.
157. September 1943: [ss] A E van Vogt's "Concealment" (B); download; space opera: 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.
     
     This story begins a series - next story is "The Storm" in October 1943 issue.
158. August 1943: Henry Kuttner's "Endowment Policy" (B): A man wants to tinker past so he can be a despot later!
159. March 1943: [novella] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Clash by Night" (as by Lawrence O'Donnell) (B); read online (no download); war: 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.
160. February 1943: [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" (as by Lewis Padgett) (A); download HTML, or read online at scribd; Astounding, February 1943; generation gap: Cognitive processes impossible to adults can be taught to very young kids.
161. January 1943: Henry Kuttner's "Nothing but Gingerbread Left" (A): A musical super weapon - for use by US against Germany in World War II. Need to read it with suspended credulity, but good fun.
162. December 1942: [novelette] A E van Vogt's "The Weapon Shop" aka "Weapon Shops of Isher" (B): An organization in the role of Robin Hood in a future dystopia.
     
163. September 1942: [novelette] Henry Kuttner and C L Moore's "The Twonky" (as by Lewis Padgett) (A): An audio player that can do your dishes, read & change your mind, stop you from doing naughty things, ...!
164. September 1942: [novella] Lester del Rey's "Nerves" (A): Containing damage in the aftermath of an accident at a facility manufacturing radioactive products.
     
165. April/May 1942 (2 part serial): [novel] Robert Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon" (as by Anson MacDonald) (B): A couple can choose the best baby among all they are going to have over the lifetime. Those normally born are a lower caste. Villains breed special purpose human babies we would call monsters!
166. January 1942: Eric Frank Russell's "Mechanistria" (B): Adventure on planet Mechanistria, a world ruled by very hostile robots.
167. September 1941: [ss] Alfred Bester's "Adam and No Eve" (A); download graphic adaptation: A maniacal inventor inadvertently uses a new discovery & ends up destroying all life on earth. But there is a way yet for earth to rebuild life - only there won't be any more humans.
168. September 1941: [novelette] Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" (A); download MP3: On a world with many suns, natives are unexposed to the idea of night & are very afraid of dark are about to face night & nightmares due to eclipse that occurs only once several thousand years.
169. July 1941: Robert Heinlein's "We Also Walk Dogs" (A): A man builds an anti-gravity device - so alien visitors to a conference on earth will not find local gravity too oppressive!
170. May 1941: Eric Frank Russell's "Jay Score" (A): A passenger ship on earth to Venus voyage is hit by a meteor, & is now headed for Sun!
171. May 1941: [novella] Robert Heinlein's "Universe" (A): A massive spaceship adrift for centuries for reasons long forgotten has inhabitants living as in a primitive society.
172. May 1941: Robert Heinlein's "Solution Unsatisfactory" (B); download: If one country has nuclear weapons, it's logical for every other country to try acquiring it - NPT is a sham. Story has racist overtones.
     
173. April 1941: [novelette] Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God" (A): A technique to significantly speed up the rate of scientific progress. Implicit is the very real prospect of a major threat to future of humanity as a side effect of this technique.
     
174. February 1941: [novelette] Robert Heinlein's "...And He Built a Crooked House" (A); download; humor: An unusually constructed house with 6 rooms in a space that will normally fit only 1 room! Only the architect made a minor mistake!
     
175. January 1941: [novelette] Eric Frank Russell & Maurice G Hugi's "Mechanical Mice" (A): Robots programmed for survival terrorize a neighborhood.
176. December 1940: [novelette] P Schuyler Miller's "Old Man Mulligan": Not read.
177. November 1940: [novelette] L Sprague de Camp's "The Exalted": Not read.
178. October 1940: [ss] L Sprague de Camp's "The Warrior Race": Not read.
179. October 1940: [novelette] Theodore Sturgeon's "Butyl and the Breather": Not read.
180. October 1940: [novelette] Harry Bates' "Farewell to the Master" (A); download; first contact: What we see depends on what we are...
     
181. September 1940: [novelette] Robert Heinlein's "Blowups Happen" (B); download: Dated story. Nuclear power plants require so much uranium that a single one can destroy all life on earth. Hero will find a way out.
     
182. September 1940: [ss] Ross Rocklynne's "Quietus" (A); download: "who we are creates a bias in how we view the world".
183. August 1940: [novelette] A E van Vogt's "Vault of the Beast": Not read.
184. July 1940: [ss] Lester del Rey's "Dark Mission": Not read.
185. June 1940: [novelette] Robert A Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll" (A); download MP3 of radio adaptation: Terrorist attack on suburban transport system causes much mayhem.
186. May 1940: [ss] Jack Williamson' "Hindsight": Not read.
187. March 1940: [ss] Willard Hawkins' "The Dwindling Sphere": Not read.
188. January 1940: [ss] Robert A Heinlein's "Requiem" (B): A man dies pursuing a dream.
189. November 1939: Robert Heinlein's "Misfit" (A): An asteroid is moved - to build a space station!
190. October 1939: [ss] Joseph E Kelleam's "Rust" (A): Killing robots meant to destroy the enemy have done a minor change to their mission - "kill everything that lives", including those who built them.
191. September 1939: [ss] Theodore Sturgeon's "Ether Breather" (A); humor: A new TV transmission technology has made communications with invisible intelligent beings possible! But they have a weird sense of humor.
     
     This is Sturgeon's first published story.
192. August 1939: Robert Heinlein's "Life-Line" (A); download: Soothsaying can be dangerous! First published story of Heinlein.
193. August 1939: Milton A Rothman's "Heavy Planet" (B) (as by Lee Gregory); download: A native of a super-high gravity & super-dense atmosphere world has found an invaluable relic of alien origin.
194. August 1939: [novelette] L Sprague de Camp's "The Blue Giraffe" (A); humor, science fiction: Adventures of a British investigator in an animal reserve in South Africa where too many freak births have been happening among the animals.
195. July 1939: [novelette] A E van Vogt's "Black Destroyer" (A); download: A practically immortal super-being of an alien world is attacking human visitors & threatens to overrun inhabited galaxy. I found the ending incomprehensible, but it was an interesting read. First published story of Van Vogt.
196. July 1939: [novelette] C L Moore's "Greater Than Gods" (B): Depending on which of the two woman a man marries, there will be two futures of mankind. His telepathic descendants from far future of either branch are now reaching out to his time - to canvass for their branch of future!
197. July 1939: [ss] Isaac Asimov's "Trends" (B): Religious cranks won't let the first manned flight to moon happen - terming it sacrilege against gods! Hero will fight the forces of the dark & win (after much trouble).
     
     Asimov's first appearance in Astounding, & his third published story.
198. May 1939: [ss] Lester del Rey's "The Day is Done" (A): Last neanderthal breaths his last. Sentimental & sad mood.
199. March 1939: [novella] John W Campbell, Jr's "Cloak of Aesir" (B) (as by Don A Stuart): Earth was colonized by aliens thousands of years ago - an event that turned men into surfs. Now a group of men are beginning a revolution to throw the aliens out.
200. December 1938: Lester del Ray's "Helen O'Loy" (A): A hominid robot in a female body is madly in love with "her" creator!
201. August 1938 (download issue scans): [novelette] Arthur J Burks' "Hell Ship": "Josh McNab, good Scots engineer, finds himself against a cracked rotor-shaft & a bull-headed skipper - aboard the Spaceship Arachne!"
202. August 1938 (download issue scans): [ss] A B L Macfadyen, Jr's "Jason Comes Home": "A boy sailed out - trapped in an unmanned spaceship. A man sailed back, years later, to wipe the green scum of life from all Earth -"
203. August 1938 (download issue scans): [ss] Warner van Lorne's "Resilient Planet": "A man is baffled by the problem of fuel - when the entire planet - machines, buildings, even people - is made of rubber!"
204. August 1938 (download issue scans): [ss] Calvin Peregoy's "The Terrible Sense": "Not sight - nor hearing, quite, nor touch, nor taste - but he learned through it the tyranny of Sound!"
205. August 1938 (download issue scans): [ss] Royal S Heckman's "Asteroid Pirates": "Concerning the highly intelligent & completely bullet-proof Saturnian Apes!"
206. August 1938 (download issue scans): [ss] Malcolm Jameson's "Eviction by Isotherm": "When the weatherman can make his predictions come true, he becomes he becomes a dangerous enemy -"
207. August 1938 (download issue scans): [ss] Henry Kuttner's "The Disinherited": A god-like energy being won't let the violent & cruel humans travel beyond earth to corrupt other planets, & is ready to help them grow up.
208. August 1938 (download issue scans): [novella] John W Campbell, Jr's "Who Goes There?" (as by Don A Stuart) (A); download text, or (in US only) watch John Carpenter's movie adaptation titled "The Thing" (1982) at SF Signal or at Hulu: Curious figuratively & inadvertently open the bottle to let the djinn out, & all hell breaks loose.
209. June 1938: [novelette] Raymond Z Gallun's "Seeds of the Dusk" (A); biological warfare: How Martians exterminated the descendants of humanity.
     

Related:

1. All stories from Analog/Astounding
2. Harry Bates' Astounding.
3. Feed that catches only posts about Campbell's Astounding.
4. Feed that catches only Analog/Astounding posts.
   

Legend.

ss = short story.