CONSPIRACY THEORY

THE GREAT MOON HOAX OR A PRINCESS OF MARS

BUILD ME A MOUNTAIN

CRISIS OF THE MONTH

FREE ENTERPRISE

VISION

MOON RACE

SCHEHERAZADE AND THE STORYTELLERS

NUCLEAR AUTUMN

LOWER THE RIVER

THE CAFÉ COUP

REMEMBER, CAESAR

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

DELTA VEE

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS

THE BABE, THE IRON HORSE, AND MR. McGILLICUDDY

GREENHOUSE CHILL

BROTHERS

INTERDEPARTMENTAL MEMORANDUM

WORLD WAR 4.5

SAM BELOW PAR

HIGH JUMP

THE QUESTION

WATERBOT

DUEL IN THE SOMME

BLOODLESS VICTORY

MARS FARTS

A PALE BLUE DOT

STARS, WON’T YOU HIDE ME?

MONSTER SLAYER

To Toni and Tony and the radiant,

resplendent, romantic Rashida.

And to Lloyd McDaniel,

without whose unstinting help this book

would never have seen the light of day.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

—George Bernard Shaw

INTRODUCTION

Here it is, a lifetime’s work in three volumes containing eighty stories published over fifty-four years, from 1960 to 2014. They range from the Baghdad of The Thousand Nights and a Night to the eventual end of the entire universe, from the green hills of Earth to the fiery surface of a dying star, from corporate board rooms to a baseball field in heaven. With plenty of stops in between.

Re-reading these stories—some of them for the first time in decades—I am struck with a bitter-sweet sadness, recalling friends who have died along the way, passions and problems that drove the invention of the various tales. It’s as if I’m a ghost visiting departed scenes, people whom I have loved, all gone now.

Yet they live on, in these stories, and perhaps that is the real reason why human beings create works of fiction: they are monuments to days gone by, memories of men and women who have been dear to us—or visions of what tomorrow may bring.