First published in 1974 by editor Charles W Sullivan III, this Genre Anthology contains thirty Science Fiction stories.
Works in this anthology:
- "Backtracked", by Burt Filer (1968)
- "—All You Zombies—", by Robert A. Heinlein (1959)
- "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed", by Alfred Bester (1958)
- "Random Quest", by John Wyndham (1961)
- "Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne", by R. A. Lafferty (1967)
- "The Monster From Nowhere", by Nelson S Bond (1939) * "The New Reality", by Charles L Harness (1950)
- "No Sided Professor", by Martin Gardner (1947)
- "—And He Built a Crooked House—", by Robert A. Heinlein (1941)
- "The Fun They Had", by Isaac Asimov (1951)
- "Primary Education Of The Camiroi", by R. A. Lafferty (1966)
- "HEMEAC", by EG Von Wald (1968)
- "A Boy and His Dog", by Harlan Ellison (1969)
- "Personal", by Tuli Kupferberg (1966)
- "Runaround", by Isaac Asimov (1942)
- "Calling Dr Clockwork", by Ron Goulart (1965)
- "Masks", by Damon Knight (1968)
- "Specialist", by Robert Sheckley (1953)
- "The Sentinel", by Arthur C. Clarke (1951)
- "The Game Of Rat And Dragon", by Cordwainer Smith (1955)
- "The Decision Makers", by Joseph Green (1965)
- "A Death In The House", by Clifford Simak (1959)
- "Build Up", by JG Ballard (1957)
- "Plenitude", by Will Worthington (1959)
- "The Wizards Of Pungs Corners", by Frederik Pohl (1958)
- ""Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman", by Harlan Ellison (1965)
- "Nine Lives", by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969)
- "Golden Acres", by Kit Reed (1967)
- "Population Implosion", by Andrew J Offutt (1967)
- "The Tunnel Ahead", by Alice Glaser (1961)
Tropes appearing in this work:
- All First-Person Narrators Write Like Novelists: In "The Wizards Of Pungs Corners", by Frederik Pohl, the narration is given in first person to you, the audience, creating a Framing Device where the narration switches between describing the events of the past and clarifying information for you, the audience. This allows for the omniscience of third-person as well as addressing the reader on a personal level.
- Framing Device: In "The Wizards Of Pungs Corners", a Novelette by Frederik Pohl, there is a First-Person narrator telling the audience a story about Jack Tighe and the events of Pung. This allows for the omniscience of third-person as well as addressing the reader on a personal level.
- Giving Radio to the Romans: In "Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne", a Short Story by R. A. Lafferty, the scientists kill one messenger in order to open up scientific exchange between Charlemagne's kingdom and the more advanced Muslim Spain, thus ending the Dark Ages centuries earlier. They succeed, but don't realize they did. They attempt something similar and end up sending civilization back to the Stone Age.
- Here There Be Dragons: In "The Game Of Rat And Dragon", by Cordwainer Smith, terrible beasts can be found in the open hollow part of space, out between the galaxies, at the edges of the stars.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed", by Alfred Bester, Professor Henry Hassell's obsession with killing his wife's lover with Time Travel sends him on a killing spree which ends up eliminating his own ancestry, erasing himself instead.
- Mad Scientist: In "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed", a Short Story by Alfred Bester, the protagonist, Professor Henry Hassell, responds to finding his wife in the arms of another man by creating a time machine so he can go and kill the other man's grandfather. The story also cites Ampere and Boltzman as examples of Real Life "mad professors".
- Murder the Hypotenuse: In "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed", by Alfred Bester, Professor Henry Hassell discovers his wife has been having an affair. Rather than killing the man directly, Professor Hassel builds a time machine instead, and uses it to kill the man's father, which doesn't work.
- The Namesake: The title of "The Game Of Rat And Dragon", by Cordwainer Smith, refers to a battle that humanity is fighting against an unknown enemy. Humans see this enemy as dragons, fierce and dangerous, capable of tearing apart a telepathic mind. Partners (telepathic descendants of cats) see this enemy as rats, nasty monsters that they can beat and kill.
- Our Dragons Are Different: "The Game Of Rat And Dragon", a Short Story by Cordwainer Smith, has an unknown enemy that humans have named "dragons", in reference to Here There Be Dragons on the edges of a map. This enemy is fierce and dangerous, capable of tearing apart a telepathic mind. Partners (telepathic descendants of cats) instead see this enemy as a rat, their natural prey.
- Temporal Paradox: In "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed", by Alfred Bester, Professor Henry Hassell is enraged over his wife's affair, and decides to eliminate the other man. He does this by first killing the man's father before he was born, to no effect. So he tries to kill the grandfather, and again, nothing. Soon, he's gone on a killing spree against many key figures in history, all in the hopes that one of them would end the existence of his wife's lover. He discovers that no matter how much he changes history, it all continues to make no change in the present. All he succeeds in doing is erasing himself from history.
- Subliminal Advertising: In "The Wizards Of Pungs Corners", a Novelette by Frederik Pohl, Jack Tighe discovers that old man Coglan is sneaking frames of naked men/women holding a box of Prune-Bran Whippets in a Charlie Chan movie.
- Super-Speed Reading: In "Primary Education Of The Camiroi", a Short Story by R. A. Lafferty, an alien race inverts this trope by regarding those who read rapidly as intellectually inferior on the grounds that they don't take the time to absorb and memorise every detail.
