Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 24 (1962)" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

This is #24 of a series of 25 anthologies by these editors. This book collects stories first published during the year 1962.

Where I'm aware of online copies, I provide download links. My rating is in brackets. Where I've a separate post on a the story, link on story title goes there. Link on author or publisher yields more of stories from the source.

Table of contents (13 stories, best first, unread last).

1. [novelette] James White's "Christmas Treason" (A); F&SF, January 1962; humor: When little kids brought about global nuclear disarmament!
2. [ss] Harry Harrison's "The Streets of Ashkelon" aka "An Alien Agony" (A); download; New Worlds Science Fiction, September 1962; religion: Religion creates sinners!
3. [ss] Christopher Anvil's "Gadget vs Trend" (A); download; Analog, October 1962: Little Brother gets a weapon to fight the Big Brother.
4. [novelette] Cordwainer Smith's "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" (B); Galaxy, October 1962; politics: This society's underprivileged are fighting for civil liberties.
   
   It's been a while since I read it. I've a feeling US readers might see more here than I could see. Probably inspired by some episodes of US history - I'm not sure.
5. [ss] J G Ballard's "The Insane Ones"; Amazing Stories, January 1962: Not read.
6. [ss] R A Lafferty's "Seven-Day Terror"; If, March 1962: Not read.
7. [novelette] Poul Anderson's "Kings Who Die"; If, March 1962: Not read.
8. [ss] Fritz Leiber's "The Man Who Made Friends with Electricity"; F&SF, March 1962: Not read.
9. [ss] Mark Clifton's "Hang Head, Vandal!"; Amazing Stories, April 1962: Not read.
10. [novella] Theodore L Thomas' "The Weather Man"; Analog, June 1962: Not read.
11. [ss] Mack Reynolds' "Earthlings Go Home!"; Rogue, August 1962: Not read.
12. [novella] Theodore Sturgeon's "When You Care, When You Love"; F&SF, September 1962: Not read.
13. [novelette] Gordon R Dickson's "Roofs of Silver"; F&SF, December 1962: Not read.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1992 (DAW).
Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding/Analog.
Some of the bibliographical information here comes from ISFDB.
Legend: ss = short story.

Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 5 (1943)" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

This is #5 of a series of 25 anthologies by these editors. This book collects stories first published during the year 1943.

Where I'm aware of online copies, I provide download links. My rating is in brackets. Where I've a separate post on a the story, link on story title goes there. Link on author or publisher yields more of stories from the source.

Table of contents (12 stories, best first, unread last).

1. [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.
2. [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Proud Robot" (as by Lewis Padgett) (A); Astounding, October 1943; 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! - but in a manner technologically irrelevant to current times), & frivolous patents.
3. [novelette] Fredric Brown's "Daymare" (A); Thrilling Wonder Stories, Fall 1943; murder mystery: Two murders in town - both of the same man! And both in impossible circumstances. Solving them uncovers a bigger conspiracy.
4. [novelette] Eric Frank Russell's "Symbiotica" (B); Astounding, October 1943: 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.
5. [novelette] A E van Vogt's "The Storm" (B); download; Astounding, October 1943; space opera: Long drawn human/robot wars now show promise to end amicably.
6. [novella] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Clash by Night" (as by Lawrence O'Donnell) (B); read online (no download); Astounding, March 1943; 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.
7. [ss] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Iron Standard" (as by Lewis Padgett) (B); Astounding, December 1943: When "man hour standard" replaced "gold standard" for currency valuations.
8. [ss] Edmond Hamilton's "Exile" (B); Super Science Stories, May 1943: When a science fiction writer had to live in the world he had imagined in a story!
9. [novelette] P Schuyler Miller's "The Cave"; Astounding, January 1943: Not read.
10. [novelette] Leigh Brackett's "The Halfling"; Astonishing Stories, February 1943: Not read.
11. [ss] Anthony Boucher's "Q.U.R."; Astounding, March 1943: Not read.
12. [ss] C L Moore's "Doorway into Time"; Famous Fantastic Mysteries, September 1943: Not read.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1981 (DAW).
Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.
Some of the bibliographical information here comes from ISFDB.
Legend: ss = short story.

Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 19 (1957)" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

This is #19 of a series of 25 anthologies by these editors. This book collects stories first published during the year 1957.

Where I'm aware of online copies, I provide download links. My rating is in brackets. Where I've a separate post on a the story, link on story title goes there. Link on author or publisher yields more of stories from the source.

Table of contents (15 stories, best first, unread last).

Among the 7 stories I've read so far, first 3 are very good. And "The Cage" has a cool idea near end.

1. [novelette] Poul Anderson's "Call Me Joe" (A); download audio or comic book adaptation; Astounding, April 1957: 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.
2. [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.
3. [ss] C M Kornbluth's "The Education of Tigress McCardle" (A); Venture Science Fiction, July 1957; humor: An unusual population control program!
4. [ss] Isaac Asimov's "Strikebreaker" aka "Male Strikebreaker"; Science Fiction Stories, January 1957: I'd read a long time back. Not sure, but I think it's something about a society treating sanitary workers as untouchables, who've a gone on a strike. A visitor breaks the strike by either talking to untouchables or doing their work, & himself becomes untouchable by doing this act.
5. [ss] A Bertram Chandler's "The Cage" (A); F&SF, June 1957: A shorter version of Pierre Boulle's "Planet of the Apes".
   
   The Crotchety Old Fan gives a hint on how to find the audio of an (unofficial) radio adaptation of this story online.
6. [ss] Brian W Aldiss' "Let's Be Frank" (B); download; Science-Fantasy, #23 (June 1957): How humanity became a hive intelligence.
7. [ss] C M Kornbluth's The Last Man Left in the Bar (C); Infinity Science Fiction, October 1957: Trivia in a bar.
8. [ss] Kate Wilhelm's "The Mile-Long Spaceship"; Astounding, April 1957: Not read.
9. [ss] Theodore R Cogswell's "You Know Willie"; F&SF, May 1957: Not read.
10. [ss] Carol Emshwiller's "Hunting Machine"; Science Fiction Stories, May 1957: Not read.
    
11. [ss] Robert Silverberg's "World of a Thousand Colors"; Super-Science Fiction, June 1957: Not read.
12. [novella] Lloyd Biggle, Jr's "The Tunesmith"; If, August 1957: Not read.
    
13. [ss] Isaac Asimov's "A Loint of Paw"; F&SF, August 1957: Not read.
14. [ss] Rog Phillips' "Game Preserve"; If, October 1957: Not read.
15. [novelette] Harlan Ellison's "Soldier" aka "Soldier from Tomorrow"; Fantastic Universe, October 1957: Not read.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1989 (DAW).
Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.
Some of the bibliographical information here comes from ISFDB.
Legend: ss = short story.

Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 6 (1944)" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

This is #6 of a series of 25 anthologies by these editors. This book collects stories first published during the year 1944.

Many famous stories here, but few superlative ones. All but one are from Astounding.

Not many stories seem to be online. Where I'm aware of online copies, I provide download links.

My rating is in brackets. Where I've a separate post on a the story, link on story title goes there. Link on a noun yields more of related stories.

Table of contents (13 stories, best first, unread last).

1. [novelette] C L Moore's "No Woman Born" (A); Astounding, December 1944: A fire victim gets a new metallic body but with her own brain, & is determined to get accepted in this form by society.
   
   Among the defining cyborg stories.
2. [ss] John R Pierce's "Invariant" (A); Astounding, April 1944: Serious consequences of rejuvenation treatment.
3. [ss] Lester del Rey's "Kindness" (A); Astounding, October 1944: 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.
4. [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "When the Bough Breaks" (as by Lewis Padgett) (B); Astounding, November 1944; 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.
5. [ss] Clifford D Simak's "Desertion" (B); Astounding, November 1944: Earth-natives transformed into a Jovian body (by a magical machine) to help colonize the "surface" of Jupiter end up prefering their Jovian body to the original!
6. [ss] Fritz Leiber's "Sanity" (B); Astounding, April 1944: The idea of human sanity depends on what the society considers "normal".
7. [novelette] Fredric Brown's "Arena" (B); download text or comic book adaptation; Astounding, June 1944: In a war between humans & aliens, god-like aliens intervene to ensure a decisive conclusion.
8. [novella] Theodore Sturgeon's "Killdozer!" (B); Astounding, November 1944: 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!
9. [ss] Clifford D Simak's "Huddling Place" (B); Astounding, July 1944: In a society where people live in countryside rather than cities, a man has developed an extreme phobia of open spaces.
10. [ss] A E van Vogt's "Far Centaurus"; Astounding, January 1944: Not read.
    
11. [novelette] Cleve Cartmill's "Deadline"; Astounding, March 1944: Not read.
    
12. [novelette] Leigh Brackett's "The Veil of Astellar"; Thrilling Wonder Stories, Spring 1944: Not read.
    
13. [novelette] Clifford D Simak's "City"; Astounding, May 1944: Not read.
    

Fact sheet.

First published: August 1981 (DAW).
Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.
Some of the bibliographical information here comes from ISFDB.
Legend: ss = short story.

Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 16 (1954)" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

This is #16 of a series of 25 anthologies by these editors. This book collects stories first published during the year 1954.

I haven't read many stories yet; will update as I move through the book. Where I'm aware of online copies of stories, I provide download links. My rating is in brackets. Where I've a separate post on a the story, link on story title goes there. Link on a noun yields more of related stories.

Table of contents (17 stories, best first, unread last).

1. [novelette] Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" (A); download text/MP3; Astounding, August 1954: 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.
2. [ss] Arthur C Clarke's "The Deep Range" (A); Argosy (UK), April 1954: I haven't read this short story version, only its 1957 novelization. Among the better Clarke novels in my book. Novel is about taking agriculture to the seas - mostly raising whales as meat animals, but there are also other minor threads.
3. [novelette] William Tenn's "Down Among the Dead Men" (A); Galaxy, June 1954: A team leader builds a team out of hostile recruits.
4. [ff] Fredric Brown's "Answer"; download; Fredric Brown (Ed)'s "Angels and Spaceships" (anthology); humor: It's not safe to invent god!
5. [ss] Mildred Clingerman's "Letters from Laura" (A); F&SF, October 1954; humor: A woman buys a time-travel tour to ancient Crete.
6. [novelette] Alfred Bester's "Fondly Fahrenheit" (B); F&SF, August 1954: A man has the ability to unconsciously transplant his own violent nature to his robots, making robots violence prone.
   TBD: I appear to have originally rated it C. At this time distance, I seem to think a bit better of it. Will touch old posts later.
7. [ss] Chad Oliver's "Transformer" (B); download; F&SF, November 1954: Anguish of a toy at manhandling she receives at the hands of her human kid owner!
   
8. [ss] Richard Matheson's "The Test"; F&SF, November 1954: Not read.
   
9. [ss] Damon Knight's "Anachron"; If, January 1954: Not read.
10. [ss] Gordon R Dickson's "Black Charlie"; Galaxy, April 1954: Not read.
11. [novelette] Randall Garrett's "The Hunting Lodge"; Astounding, July 1954: Not read.
12. [ss] Donald A Wollheim's "The Lysenko Maze"; F&SF, July 1954: Not read.
13. [novelette] Edgar Pangborn's "The Music Master of Babylon"; Galaxy, November 1954: Not read.
14. [novelette] Algis Budrys' "The End of Summer"; Astounding, November 1954: Not read.
15. [ss] Philip K Dick's "The Father-Thing"; F&SF, December 1954: Not read.
16. [ss] Anthony Boucher's "Balaam": Not read.
17. [ss] H L Gold's "Man of Parts": Not read.

Fact sheet.

First published: August 1987 (DAW).
Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.
Some of the bibliographical information here comes from ISFDB.
Legend: ss = short story; ff = flash fiction.

Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 18 (1956)" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

This is #18 of a series of 25 anthologies by these editors. This book collects stories first published during the year 1956.

I haven't read many stories yet; will update as I move through the book. Where I'm aware of online copies of stories, I provide download links. My rating is in brackets. Where I've a separate post on a the story, link on story title goes there. Link on a noun yields more of related stories.

Table of contents (15 stories, best first, unread last).

1. [ss] Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question" (A); download; Science Fiction Quarterly, November 1956: An AI is given a rather fundamental problem - figure out a way to reverse entropy without expanding energy!
2. [novelette] Mark Clifton's "Clerical Error" (A); download; Astounding, February 1956: 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.
3. [novelette] Murray Leinster's "Exploration Team" aka "Combat Team" (A); download; Astounding, March 1956; adventure: A rebel helps tame a dangerous world. Winner of Hugo Award 1957 in novelette category.
4. [ss] Algis Budrys' "Silent Brother" (A); Astounding, February 1956; symbiosis: First human expedition to Alpha Centauri has returned with an unusual gift...
5. [novelette] Alan E Nourse's "Brightside Crossing" (A); Galaxy, January 1956; adventure: An unsuccessful trek over the "sun-facing" side of Mercury at the time that planet is closest to Sun.
   PS: It's now known that Mercury is not tidally locked to Sun. But it's a good adventure anyway.
6. [ss] Damon Knight's "The Country of the Kind" (C); F&SF, February 1956; fantasy: A peaceful society boycotts a man prone to violence.
   
7. [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Rite of Passage"; F&SF, May 1956: Not read.
8. [novelette] Poul Anderson's "The Man Who Came Early"; F&SF, June 1956: Not read.
9. [novelette] James Blish's "A Work of Art"; Science Fiction Stories, July 1956: Not read.
10. [ss] Margaret St Clair's "Horrer Howce"; Galaxy, July 1956: Not read.
11. [ss] Mack Reynolds' "Compounded Interest"; F&SF, August 1956: Not read.
12. [ss] Reginald Bretnor's "The Doorstop"; Astounding, November 1956: Not read.
13. [novelette] Damon Knight's "Stranger Station"; F&SF, December 1956: Not read.
14. [ss] Michael Shaara's "2066: Election Day"; Astounding, December 1956: Not read.
15. [novelette] Theodore Sturgeon's "And Now the News..."; F&SF, December 1956: Not read.
    PS: I recall having seen it online, & probably have it saved on hard disk. But don't have URL off hand. Try a Google search.

Fact sheet.

First published: August 1988 (DAW).
Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.
Some of the bibliographical information here comes from ISFDB.

Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories" anthology series

A series of 25 "best of the year" anthologies published during 1979-1992. Each book covers a single year - 1939-1963 (25 years).

Each book is titled "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories N (YYYY)". N varies from 1 to 25; YYYY is 1939 for N=1; 1963 for N=25.

While I do sometimes provide download links for stories I know are online in individual volume posts, probably far more stories are online than I link. These are old stories, & I've generally not actually done an online search.

This is an anchor post; jump to specific volume for details.

1. Vol 1: Collects stories originally published during 1939. 20 stories, all read.
   
2. Vol 2: Collects stories originally published during 1940. 16 stories, some read.
   
3. Vol 3: Collects stories originally published during 1941.
4. Vol 4: Collects stories originally published during 1942.
5. Vol 5: Collects stories originally published during 1943: 12 stories, some read.
   
6. Vol 6: Collects stories originally published during 1944. 13 stories, most read.
   
7. Vol 7: Collects stories originally published during 1945.
8. Vol 8: Collects stories originally published during 1946.
9. Vol 9: Collects stories originally published during 1947.
10. Vol 10: Collects stories originally published during 1948.
11. Vol 11: Collects stories originally published during 1949.
12. Vol 12: Collects stories originally published during 1950.
13. Vol 13: Collects stories originally published during 1951.
14. Vol 14: Collects stories originally published during 1952.
15. Vol 15: Collects stories originally published during 1953.
16. Vol 16: Collects stories originally published during 1954. 17 stories, some read.
    
17. Vol 17: Collects stories originally published during 1955.
18. Vol 18: Collects stories originally published during 1956. 15 stories, some read.
    
19. Vol 19: Collects stories originally published during 1957. 15 stories, some read.
20. Vol 20: Collects stories originally published during 1958.
21. Vol 21: Collects stories originally published during 1959.
22. Vol 22: Collects stories originally published during 1960.
23. Vol 23: Collects stories originally published during 1961.
24. Vol 24: Collects stories originally published during 1962. 13 stories, some read.
    
25. Vol 25: Collects stories originally published during 1963.

Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 2 (1940)" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

This is the second of a series of 25 anthologies by these editors. This book collects stories first published during the year 1940.

I haven't read many stories yet; will update as I move through the book. Where I'm aware of online copies of stories, I provide download links. My rating is in brackets. Where I've a separate post on a the story, link on story title goes there. Link on a noun yields more of related stories.

Table of contents (16 stories, best first, unread last).

1. [ss] Ross Rocklynne's "Quietus" (A); download; Astounding, September 1940; first contact: "who we are creates a bias in how we view the world".
2. [novelette] Harry Bates' "Farewell to the Master" (A); download; Astounding, October 1940; first contact: What we see depends on what we are...
3. [novelette] L Sprague de Camp's "The Exalted" (A); Astounding, November 1940; humor: An "uplifted to superhuman intelligence" professor loves playing pranks.
4. [novelette] A E van Vogt's "Vault of the Beast" (B); Astounding, August 1940: Colonists from a parallel universe are defeated by the hero.
5. [novelette] Theodore Sturgeon's "It!" (B); download comic book adaptation; Unknown, August 1940: I've only read the comic book version yet.
   
   A zombie is mysteriously born out of a dead man's skeleton that has been lying in the jungle for years - by mixing skeleton with locally available matter like mud & dead vegetation. Unthinking acts of zombie will cause a death & a lot of consternation, till its own death by falling in water that washes away the junk - leaving back the again inert skeleton.
   
   I cannot really figure out what made the editors include it in this book. It doesn't belong in any list of great sf stories.
6. [ss] Willard Hawkins' "The Dwindling Sphere"; Astounding, March 1940: Not read.
7. [ss] Fritz Leiber's "The Automatic Pistol"; Weird Tales, May 1940: Not read.
8. [ss] Jack Williamson' "Hindsight"; Astounding, May 1940: Not read.
9. [ss] Robert Arthur's "Postpaid to Paradise"; Argosy, 15 July 1940: Not read.
10. [novelette] Ross Rocklynne's "Into the Darkness"; Astonishing Stories, June 1940: Not read.
11. [ss] Lester del Rey's "Dark Mission"; Astounding, July 1940: Not read.
12. [ss] Oscar J Friend's "The Impossible Highway"; Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1940: Not read.
13. [ss] Isaac Asimov's "Strange Playfellow" aka "Robbie"; Super Science Stories, September 1940: I'd read it a long time back. Don't recall many details, but it's probably of a little girl with a play robot. Parents think her affection with robot is unhealthy & its returned back to factory. Girl is unconsolable. On a return to factory for something, the girl is saved by the same robot. Parents finally accept robot.
14. [ss] L Sprague de Camp's "The Warrior Race"; Astounding, October 1940: Not read.
15. [novelette] Theodore Sturgeon's "Butyl and the Breather"; Astounding, October 1940: Not read.
16. [novelette] P Schuyler Miller's "Old Man Mulligan"; Astounding, December 1940: Not read.

Fact sheet.

First published: August 1979 (DAW).
Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.
Some of the bibliographical information here comes from ISFDB.

Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 1 (1939)" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

This is the first of a series of 25 anthologies by these editors. This book collects stories first published during the year 1939.

Two observations:

1. It includes the first published stories of Heinlein, Von Vogt, & Theodore Sturgeon. Plus one of the early stories of Asimov - a story I'd not seen before.
2. I don't recall another anthology where I didn't find a single dud. Stories vary in quality - superb to merely ok, but no real duds here.

I'll probably post separately on particularly good stories. For the moment, the terse notes below will have to do.

Table of contents (20 stories, best first).

Where I'm aware of online copies of stories, I provide download links. My rating is in brackets. Where I've a separate post on a the story, link on story title goes there. Link on a noun yields more of related stories.

1. [novelette] Robert A Heinlein's "Misfit" (A); Astounding, November 1939: An asteroid is moved to build a giant space station.
2. [ss] Joseph E Kelleam's "Rust" (A); Astounding, October 1939: Killing robots meant to destroy the enemy have done a minor change to their mission - "kill everything that lives", including those who built them.
3. [ss] Henry Kuttner's "The Misguided Halo" (A); Unknown, August 1939; humor, fantasy: An inexperienced angel has mistakenly bestowed sainthood to the wrong man!
4. [ss] H L Gold's "Trouble With Water" (A); Unknown, March 1939; fantasy: Never pick fight with a water gnome!
   
   Author is the founding editor of Galaxy. But this story is from the first issue of Unknown.
5. [ss] Eando Binder's "I, Robot" (A); download comic book adaptation; Amazing Stories, January 1939: Story that inspired Asimov's robot stories.
6. [ss] Robert A Heinlein's "Life-Line" (A); download; Astounding, August 1939: A man has built a machine to see into the future, & insurance companies aren't happy.
   
   First published story of Heinlein.
7. [novelette] L Sprague de Camp's "The Blue Giraffe" (A); Astounding, August 1939; 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.
8. [novelette] A E van Vogt's "Black Destroyer" (A); download; Astounding, July 1939: Men exploring a world that once knew civilization but is now sterile of life have terror waiting for them.
   
   First published story of Van Vogt, & the story that is sometimes credited to have began the "Golden Age" of science fiction.
9. [novelette] C L Moore's "Greater Than Gods" (A); Astounding, July 1939: A man is approached by his descendants from far off alternate futures. Each is canvassing to make him choose an action that will enable their future to exist!
10. [ss] John Taine's "The Ultimate Catalyst" (A); Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1939: A man has found a way to turn living animals into plants rooted to the ground!
11. [novelette] L Sprague de Camp's "The Gnarly Man" (A); Unknown, June 1939: When a 50,000 years old neanderthal, made immortal by a mysterious lightning strike, turned up in New York city!
12. [ss] Lester del Rey's "The Day is Done" (A); Astounding, May 1939: Last neanderthal breaths his last. Sentimental & sad mood.
13. [ss] Theodore Sturgeon's "Ether Breather" (A); Astounding, September 1939; 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.
14. [novelette] Jack Williamson's "Star Bright" (A); Argosy, November 1939: A meteor impact has given a strange capability to a man - his can wish arbitrary material things to appear or disappear! Makes a reference to H G Wells' "The Man Who Could Work Miracles".
15. [novella] John W Campbell, Jr's "Cloak of Aesir" (B) (as by Don A Stuart); Astounding, March 1939: 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.
16. [novelette] William F Temple's "The Four-Sided Triangle" (B); Amazing Stories, November 1939: Three friends - two men & a woman. Both men are in love with her, but she's loves only one. They marry. Finally, a solution is found to the rejected one's woes - by duplicating the woman! Only, the duplicate has exact same desires as the original - including the man she loves!
17. [novelette] Nelson Bond's "Pilgrimage" (B); Amazing Stories, October 1939: In a matriarchal society where men are second class citizens, a young woman's coming of age ritual makes her undertake pilgrimage to a sacred temple some days journey away. but the journey leads to adventure & enlightenment.
18. [ss] Milton A Rothman's "Heavy Planet" (B) (as by Lee Gregory); download; Astounding, August, 1939: Natives of a very high gravity world have got a relic from the skies.
19. [ss] Isaac Asimov's "Trends" (B); Astounding, July 1939: 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.
20. [ss] Robert Bloch's "The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton" (B); Amazing Stories, March 1939: Loneliness can make a man age visibly! Story is of the first manned flight to Mars - a project that failed.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1979 (DAW).
Relevant entries have been added to the list of stories from John Campbell's Astounding.