First published 1980
Frederik Pohl curates tales from the most celebrated science fiction series spanning 1944 to 1980. This collection features twenty-one stories and novelettes from legendary sequences including Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern and Ship Who Sang series, Isaac Asimov's Wendell Urth mysteries, Larry Niven's Known Space universe, and Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind. Each entry represents a complete adventure within its larger fictional world. Readers encounter Helva, the cyborg ship with a human brain, young dragonriders proving their worth on Pern, and detective Wendell Urth solving crimes through deductive reasoning. The anthology spans from Clifford Simak's pastoral City series to Fred Saberhagen's militaristic Berserker tales. Pohl includes essays from the original authors explaining their series' development and creative evolution. The collection demonstrates how science fiction's greatest writers built expansive universes through interconnected stories, each installment deepening the mythology while standing alone as compelling narrative.
Genres: fiction, short-stories, science-fiction
Vibes: epic, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, world-building
Setting: Pern, Known Space, Instrumentality of Mankind
Period: 1944-1980
416 pages · Paperback · Harpercollins