A complex tale of time travel and time paradoxes, considered by some critics to be Asimov's finest work.“Asimov . . . at the height of his powers.”Brian Aldiss“Monumentally good ideas . . . fascinating.”Damon Knight

From Robert Silverberg’s “Earthmen and Strangers” anthology, 1966:Randall Garrett’s story examined, from the viewpoint of the Earthmen, a possible encounter between our species and hostile aliens. In the story that follows, Isaac Asimov handles the same theme from the viewpoint of the aliens themselves. Suppose, he says, strangers from afar have been watching us for years. Suppose, too, that they are the overlords of a galactic empire, eager to add us to their dominion. How will they react, though, when they learn what sort of creatures we Earthmen really are? To them, we are the aliens—and we are terribly, frighteningly alien.Isaac Asimov, one of the science fiction’s ablest practitioners, rarely deals with galactic matters these days. The Boston-based Dr. Asimov, who taught biochemistry while writing such famed s-f novels as The Currents of Space and The Caves of Steel, now devotes himself to science fact with equal success. Though jovial and even boisterous in the flesh, Asimov is scholarly behind the typewriter, and he’s won acclaim for such standard reference items as The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science and Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.

Only a few know the terrifying truth—an outcast Earth scientist, a rebellious alien inhabitant of a dying planet, a lunar-born human intuitionist who senses the imminent annihilation of the Sun. They know the truth—but who will listen? They have foreseen the cost of abundant energy—but who will believe? These few beings, human and alien, hold the key to the Earth’s survival.

Everything your rulers never wanted you to know and you were afraid to ask…Ten classic stories from the birth of modern science fiction writingThe Golden Age of Science Fiction, from the early 1940s through the 1950s, saw an explosion of talent in SF writing including authors such as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke.Their writing helped science fiction gained wide public attention, and left a lasting impression upon society. The same writers formed the mould for the next three decades of science fiction, and much of their writing remains as fresh today as it was then.Collected in one giant volume, here is the very best of the golden era. The stories include:• A.E. van Vogt, ‘The Weapons Shop’• Isaac Asimov, ‘The Big and the Little’• Lester del Rey, ‘Nerves’• Fredric Brown, ‘Daymare’• Theodore Sturgeon, ‘Killdozer!’• C.L. Moore, ‘No Woman Born’• A. Bertram Chandler, ‘Giant Killer’.

A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations. The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots unthinkable under the laws of Robotics or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!