The Golden Age of Science Fiction: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

The Golden Age of Science Fiction

by Various

THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION contains fifty science fiction short stories by more than forty authors. Many of the stories in this collection were first published during the "golden age" of popular science fiction magazines from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Here you will find classic science fiction stories by Poul Anderson, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Phillip K. Dick, Randall Garrett, Paul Ernst, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Williamson, Phillip Jose Farmer, Lester Del Rey, Leigh Brackett, Fredric Brown, Ben Bova, and many others.

This collection is DRM free and includes an active table of contents for easy navigation.


• A Strange Manuscript found in a Copper Cylinder (James De Mille)
• A World by the Tale (Randall Garrett)
• A World is Born (Leigh Brackett)
• Accidental Death (Peter Baily)
• Earthmen Bearing Gifts (Fredric Brown)
• Atom Boy (Ray Cummings)
• Beyond Lies the Wub (Phillip K. Dick)
• Blind Spot (Bascom Jones)
• Cully (Jack Egan)
• Dead Giveaway (Randall Garrett)
• Dead Ringer (Lester Del Rey)
• Dead World (Jack Douglas)
• Divinity (Joseph Samachson)
• Four Miles Within (Anthony Gilmore)
• Heist Job on Thizar (Randall Garrett)
• Hex (Laurence Janifer)
• In the Year 2889 (Jules Verne)
• Indulgence of Negu Mah (Robert Arthur)
• Lease to Doomsday (Lee Archer)
• Lost in Translation (Laurence Janifer)
• McIlvane’s Star (August Derleth)
• Missing Link (Frank Herbert)
• Next Logical Step (Ben Bova)
• Pandemic (J.F. Bone)
• Remember the Alamo (T.R. Fehrenbach)
• Salvage in Space (Jack Williamson)
• Security (Poul Anderson)
• Subspace Survivors (E.E. "Doc" Smith)
• The Big Trip Up Yonder (Kurt Vonnegut)
• The Chronic Argonauts (H.G. Wells)
• The Cosmic Express (Jack Williamson)
• The Day Time Stopped Moving (Bradner Buckner)
• The Eternal Wall (Raymond Z. Gallun)
• The Gifts of Asti (Andre Norton)
• The Hated (Frederick Pohl)
• The Last Evolution (John W. Campbell)
• The Man Who Saw the Future (Edmond Hamilton)
• The Memory of Mars (Raymond F. Jones)
• The Moon is Green (Fritz Leiber)
• The Nothing Equation (Tom Godwin)
• The Power and the Glory (Charles W. Diffin)
• The Radiant Shell (Paul Ernst)
• The Stoker and the Stars (Algis Budrys)
• The Street That Wasn’t There (Carl Jacobi and Clifford D. Simak)
• The World Behind the Moon (Paul Ernst)
• There is a Reaper (Charles De Vet)
• They Twinkled Like Jewels (Phillip José Farmer)
• Waste Not, Want (Dave Dryfoos)
• Year of the Big Thaw (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
• The Hands of Aten (H.G. Winter)

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories

992 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 17, 2015

About the author

Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).

If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.

Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.

Reviews

[Daniel Ramirez · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was fine overall. Many of the stories feel complete and have a solid resolution, but others end without any real conclusion or payoff. Because of that, the collection feels pretty uneven from start to finish.

Reading so many stories back-to-back made it hard not to compare them. Some grabbed me right away, while others took too long to become interesting. By about the halfway point, I found myself skimming or skipping stories that weren’t engaging me quickly. Since these are older stories, there are also some outdated tropes, dated social attitudes, and the occasional racism, which can be distracting. Even with the stories I liked, it was a little frustrating how quickly they ended after only a few dozen pages. The first story is the main exception, which was very long and very interesting.

[Brok3n]

I read this 11 years ago and have only the vaguest memory of it. I think, however, that before I read this I was not aware that "The Golden Age" has a fairly precise meaning among science fiction writers (the reign of John W Campbell) -- it was this collection that defined it for me. Whether that era was actually a Golden Age in the usual sense of the phrase is of course debatable.

[Mike Crews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly entertaining...

I enjoy reading golden age sci fi, at least for the most part. These stories are certainly not the cream of the crop, but they do the trick for light reading before going to sleep.