Science Fiction Stories

Erd Neff wanted as little to do with his fellow men as possible. So he lived alone in his big cash-vault. Alone, except for John....

Five millenniums have passed since the loathsome Termans were eliminated from the world of Diskra.... But what of the other planets?

Tabby was peculiar, of course, but seemed harmless: just a little green fly that couldn't even protect itself from ordinary spiders. So the spiders fed, and grew, and fed, and grew....

It was a strange and bitter Earth over which the Chancellor ruled--a strange and deformed world. There were times when the Chancellor suspected that he really was a humanistic old fool, but this seemed to be his destiny and it was difficult to be anything else. Human, like all other organic life on Earth, was dying. Where it spawned, it spawned monsters. What was to be the answer?

After space, there was always one more river to cross. the far side of hatred and murder!

There's nothing wrong with dying--it just hasn't ever had the proper sales pitch!

They didn't have to worry about a thing for the rest of their natural lives....

Orson Walters is an Andriod (who prefers the term "mechanical human) is going for his first job and needs to stand out among the other robot applicants. Will his creator Joe's advice help him?

Sofía lives a sad life, marked by the tragedy of unfulfilled dreams. While she experiences dreams in which her most intimate desires are manifested, she wonders if what she dreams is a way of contacting parallel universes in which she has been able to fulfill her deepest desires. The protagonist's questions have to do with happiness. Is happiness what you live, what you long for, or does it simply have to do with the way you face your own reality?

First published in "The Counterfeit Man: More Science Fiction Stories published in 1963.