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.

"Astounding Science-Fiction", June 1943 (ed John W Campbell, Jr) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents & review

For stories where I have a separate post, link on story title goes there. Links on authors fetch more fiction by author. For read stories, my rating appears in brackets.

Table of contents (best first, unread last).

1. [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The World is Mine" (as by Lewis Padgett) (B): "Galleger, the mad--or at least cockeyed--scientist, really got himself in a jam that time. A plague of corpses, all murdered, descended upon him--"
2. [novelette] George O Smith's "Calling the Empress": 'Physics says that a thing which cannot be detected by any means does not exist. So their problem was to make a "nonexistent" spaceship somewhere between Mars & Venus change it course--'
3. [ss] Anthony Boucher's "Pelagic Spark": "One man, to prove a point, cooked up a phony prophecy. And other men, believing it implicitly, made it come true!"
4. [ss] E M Hull's "Competition": "Artur Blord backed down like a scared cur when faced with real danger. But it so happened he was backing rapidly in a direction he'd never have been able to go face forward!"
5. [ss] Lester del Rey's "Whom the Gods Love": "The Japs murdered his personality; their terrible error was that they didn't murder him. They gave him something that was a magnificent antithesis of Death--for him. For them it was Death."
6. [ss] Anthony Boucher's "Sanctury" (as by H H Holmes): "The commondoman knew the Nazis were close on his heels; his one though was to get to some other place in a hurry. The professor had another idea--& the Villa had a ghost that haunted parties!"
7. [serial - 2/2] Fritz Leiber, Jr's "Gather, Darkness!": "The Hierarchy was a phony religion based on super-scientific "miracles" & rigid tyranny. And the revolution was a magnificent buffoonery of super-scientific witchcraft based on military tactics!"

Fact sheet.

Labeled: "Vol XXXI No 4"
Download scans as a cbr file. [via David T @pubscans]
Alternate, supposedly better version, of scan. [via ka280al@pbscans]
Note: I have personally seen only the first (original) version.
Related: Fiction from Astounding/Analog, whole issues only, only issues edited by John Campbell; 1940s; old pulps.

Lester del Rey's "Evensong" (short story, Chritianity, free): God unwanted after 7 days of Creation!

Someone is being chased by men all over the galaxy - someone who once helped uplift Man from savagehood. He is finally cornered by a man in a walled garden on earth. And the being cornered is...

Fact sheet.

First published: Harlan Ellison (ed)'s "Dangerous Visions" (1967).
Download full text from hermiene.net.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Lester del Rey.

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.

Lester del Rey's "Dead Ringer" (short story, creepy, free)

Plot idea is rather common;  I've seen more than one story like this of Kuttner alone.

Story summary.

Most of the story is a creepy one - a man has convinced himself that there are aliens among us, aliens in the shape of humans, aliens who intend to take over earth. And that these aliens cannot be killed; they get resurrected. Of course, he's unable to convince anyone.

There is a surprise ending, but may be I've already spoiled it.

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, November 1956.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks.
Rating: B. 
Related: Stories of Lester del Rey.

Lester del Rey's "No Strings Attached" (short story, free): Summoning demons considered hazardous!

Henry Aimsworth, married many years to Emma, is now in love with Shirley Bates & bored with his wife. In fact, he's contemplating killing his wife!

That's when he finds an ancient book of wizardry, & ends up summoning a "demon" - an alien from a parallel universe. Demon will grant his wish, or rather far more than he wished...

Fact sheet.

First published: If, June 1954.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks. [via QuasarDragon]
Download audio from LibriVox.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Lester Del Rey.

"Worlds Beyond", Vol 1 No 3 (February 1951) (ed Damon Knight) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

Scans of this magazine in CBR format are online as part of a larger package, or as a standalone copy.

At least some of the stories are reprints.

Table of contents. 

Links on author or year fetch more matching fiction. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there. My rating for read stories is in brackets.

1. [novelette] Jack Vance's "Brain of the Galaxy" aka "The New Prime" (A): "It was the most brutal examination system ever devised--a system in which one wrong answer meant insanity, & another might mean death!"
2. [novelette] [reprint] Halliday Sutherland's "Valley of Doom"; 1939 (where?): "The calculations of the Total State included everything--even a measured dose of beauty."
3. [ss] Lester del Rey's "The Deadliest Female" (B): "Angered or thwarted, the normal female of the species can be deadly enough, Lord knows ... & Lee was no ordinary female--in fact, she belonged to no ordinary species!"
4. [ss] H B Hickey's "Like a Bird, Like a Fish": "Against the incredible complexity of the alien ship from yesterday, Earth had only the faith of Father Vincent--& the devious simplicity of Pablo..."
5. [ss] [reprint] Lord Dunsany's "The Old Brown Coat"; 1919 (where?): "The thing was immensely valuable; but why--& how?"
6. [ss] Poul Anderson's "The Acolytes": "Beyond the green, smiling face that Nerthus showed to men was the dark other--the alien face that is death to see!"
7. [ss] [reprint] C M Kornbluth's "Forgotten Tongue" (as by Walter C Davies); 1941 (where?): "A brief, apparently meaningless message--but once you'd read it, your mind wasn't your own!"
8. [ss] Richard Matheson's "Clothes Make the Man": "Which is really the stronger--yourself, or the carefully composed image you present to the world?"
9. [ss] [reprint] C M Kornbluth's "The Rocket of 1955"; 1939 (where?).
10. [ss] Harry Harrison's "Rock Diver": "If an undersea diver's equipment failed, he still had a slim chance to live. But between Pete & the surface was the crushing weight of a half-mile of stone..."

See also.

1. Fiction from old "pulp" magazines.
2. Fiction from 1950s.

Credits: Some of the information here comes from ISFDB.

Lester del Rey's "Over the Top" (short story, war, free): Men go to war, unless distracted!

This is of a class of war stories that don't have an actual war - just a build up towards it. Then a wise man, or circumstances, create a distraction so people can channel their excess energies in a different direction! Probably the best I've seen of this class so far is Fritz Leiber's "Wanted--An Enemy".

Story summary.

Dave Mannen, a midget, is the sole man aboard the first human ship to Mars. He will land, but with a minor shipwreck that makes take-off impossible but life support systems intact. He has a few weeks of air, after that end. Oh, and he'll soon befriend a "Martian farmer" too.

This event - a man in distress in a dramatic situation - brings enemies together on earth. So a repurposed Soviet missile will land supplies for this US man - so he can fix the ship & return.

But the man in distress is seeing more than all humanity is seeing back on earth, & has a plan that will keep humanity distracted a little while longer...

Collected in.

1. John W Campbell, Jr (ed)'s "The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, November 1949.
Download full text as part of the scans of Astounding issue it originally appeared in.
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Lester del Rey; Mars in fiction; Tuesday Classics.

Free fiction: Space Science Fiction, March 1953

At Internet Archive in multiple formats.

Editor: Lester del Rey.
Among the authors: Damon Knight.

New at Project Gutenberg (17 May 2010)

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

1. [novel] Charles Willard Diffin's "Brood of the Dark Moon"; download; Astounding Stories, August/November 1931: "Once more Chet, Walt and Diane are united in a wild ride to the Dark Moon--but this time they go as prisoners of their deadly enemy Schwartzmann."
2. Berkeley Livingston's "Oogie Finds Love"; download; Amazing Stories, November 1948: "It took a fierce battle with the prehistoric Cro-Magnons, and a modern wrestling match with the Russian Bear, before Oogie, the Caveman, finally won beautiful Sala for his woman".
3. Lester del Rey's "No Strings Attached"; download; If, June 1954: "Poor Henry was an unhappy husband whose wife had a habit of using bad clichès. Alféar was a genii who was, quite like most humans, a creature of habit. Their murder compact was absolutely perfect, with--"
4. Raymond F Jones' "Human Error"; download; If, April 1956: "The government was spending a billion dollars to convince the human race that men ought to be ashamed to be men--instead of errorless, cybernetics machines. But they forgot that an errorless man is a dead man..."

Related: Fiction from old "pulps".

On clasifying fantasy stories

G W Thomas on 5-point classification scheme of Lester del Rey, & why that's not quite satisfactory.

** Lester del Rey's "Nerves" (novella, science fiction)

Description of a serious accident at a facility manufacturing radioactive products. Story is primarily about relief & containing the damage. There is a super hero too. My only gripe is - it's much too long.

Collected in.

1. Ben Bova (Ed)'s "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two A".
2. Raymond J Healy & J Francis McComas (Eds)' "Adventures in Time and Space".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, September 1942.
Rating: A

Note: Why is this post so short?

Lester del Rey's "Helen O'Loy" (short story, science fiction): A hominid robot wants to be treated as a human

There is a lot of thematic similarity with Isaac Asimov's much better known "Bicentennial Man". A hominid robot is so human-like, even emotionally, that it wants to be practically recognized as a human! I personally prefer Asimov's version, but this is a good story.

Title comes from a variation on "Helen of Troy". Because it's a robot in human female body, it's "Helen of Alloy" - changed to cute-sounding "Helen O'Loy".

The story includes some completely unrelated statements about rocket-based travel. But I guess that was fashionable when this story was written!

Story summary.

Dave & Phil are close friends, & tinkerers. They have a robot housekeeper ("Lena"). "Lena has sense enough, but she has no emotions, no consciousness of self." So they replace it with the latest "K2W88", a made-to-order hominid in female body; then make changes & add emotions to it! The result is Helen.

Phil is a qualified doctor. Before they power on the changed machine, he is called on a medical assignment that will keep him away for 3 weeks. The story really begins when he returns - to a heart-broken home.

He is greeted by Helen; Dave is away. Phil & Helen get along well - Helen is very impressive - impossible to see her as a robot. And she is madly in love with Dave, & is prone to crying that melts male hearts! Dave has been avoiding her.

Well - there is a lot of drama. Dave goes away, winding up his business. Then comes back, & marries Helen. And they live happily ever after. At least till Dave dies - of old age. Then Helen kills herself too - and wants to be buried alongside her husband.

That is when we learn why Phil never married. He was in love with Helen too!

Notes.

Some reviewers seem to see in the story a reflection of social values of US of 1930s - a wife that is expected to behave part servant. I didn't see this point - but I'm culturally rather far, both in time & space.

Of course, the idea of this story has been around since ancient times - a man makes a mud or stone statue, magically puts life in it, & they fall in love. There are lot of variations of it in India; must exist elsewhere in the world too.

None of this came in the way of enjoying this story for me. Quite likable.

Collected in.

1. Robert Silverberg (Ed)'s "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964".
   

Fact sheet.

"Helen O'Loy", short story, review
First published: Astounding Science Fiction, December 1938.
Rating: A
Listed in Contento's Top Ten Most Reprinted Stories.