This is a parody of corporate management in a world where unions own the means of production and the managers are treated like factory workers.Faced with a corporate system that is breaking down - workers want immediate dividends rather than investments in developing new products - management goes on strike to readjust the power between management and unions.
"Did you ever wonder at the lonely life the bird in a cuckoo clock has to lead --" wrote the editor of "Fantastic Universe" in January, 1954, blurbing this tale "-- that it might possibly love and hate just as easily as a real animal of flesh and blood? Philip Dick used that idea for this brief fantasy tale. We're sure that after reading it you'll give cuckoo clocks more respect."
A stellar communications repairman is sent to repair a beacon on a planet, and discovers that its presence had a profound influence on the planet in question. Needing to deal with a locally evolved sentience and a bizarre ritual, the repairman needs to use his best plan to complete his mission and end up alive and whole too.
There have been a number of interesting theories advanced about life on Mars, but the intriguing picture of the world of Longtree and Channeljumper in its infinite variations, tonal and thematic. The Mars of these two is an old culture, old and finite.
The first ripples of blue fire touched Dio's men. Bolts of it fastened on gun-butts, and knuckles. Men screamed and fell. Jill cried out as he tore silver ornaments from her dress.
It's possible that you won't agree with us that Pat Pending's latest adventure is a delightful story--possible IF you haven't been used to laughing in recent years. Blue Book printed more than a dozen of these stories by Nelson Bond about the "greatest inventulator of all time".
Mike Kenscott is having a really bad vacation. One minute he's camping in the Sierra Mountains with his brother Andy, and the next minute he's on a different world. Now he's Adric, Lord of the Crimson Tower, of the Rainbow City of Narabedla. He has to cope with his fellow Narabedlans: the Dreamer Rhys, the mysterious veiled Gamine, the dwarf Idris, his brother Evarin the Toymaker (whose Toys are deadly), and Karamy, the golden witch, who is either his lover or his greatest enemy...