Shanghai had changed. We sensed that the moment we came ashore. Extraterritoriality was long gone; we had known that, of course. The days of exploitation, of clubs where Chinese and Burmese and Indian servants waited on Britons and Americans were passed. Pan-Asia had seen to that. This was 1965. The white man's burden in the east had been upon brown and yellow shoulders for over sixteen years now, and the Indians and Burmese and Indonesians were ruling themselves, after their fling at communism in the fifties....
In the future, theoretically, the vanishing point is at infinity, and therefore unattainable. But the reality is different; extinction occurs much earlier than theory suggests ......
Maud was lying in a long chair on the lawn after lunch the following afternoon, defending Christian Science from the gibes (which were keen) of the mockers, who were many. She had an ally, it is true, in the person of Alice Yardly, who, in her big hat and white dress, with a blue sash, looked like a doubtful Romney, and was smiling, literally with all her might. The more the mockers mocked, the kinder grew her smile, and the more voluble her explanations. Maud, for her part, would sooner have done battle alone, for all that Alice as an ally did was, with great precision and copious...
The story captures numerous small colonies based on unusual perceptions of family unit and social group. Most of them failed in practice, but usually because they were based on idealistic ideas that had little to do with the economic or social needs of their time. But what can such a group face when a new member, a person who does not understand the real conditions, has to be accepted as a member? And what about the new theory of family and social unit that is designed to fit the real world?...
The story of William Porphyry Benham is the story of a man whose idea came to fruition. It was an idea that captured his imagination early in life, grew with him and changed with him, finally intertwining with his being. His story is his story. This was observed in a student; it was clearly present in his mind at the very last moment of his adventurous life. He belonged to a happy minority that was not dependent on the necessities of life, so he could freely walk the world under his leadership. This brought him far. It led him to situations bordering on the fantastic, it made him funny, it...
Here are five stories from the science fiction magazine of the 1930ies, interesting to see what was considered 'astounding' in the 1930s. Some of which are old hat to us in the 21st century, and some of which (including the secret to life) which still amaze us....
There are times when a broken tool is better than a healthy one, or a perverted person is more useful than a whole tool. For example, a whole bottle of beer is not half a weapon, but half a bottle of beer ......
Basil Wells, who lives in Pennsylvania, writes that he did research on the age of the Kilbot before and after the 1812 war at the "locally-known water rafting site from Waterford to Pittsburgh." into this bleak future....
One of the first astronauts turned out to be a frozen space vacuum after a disaster near the moon. A century later, members of the Party of Humanity on a planet where people are not the dominant race are trying to bring it back to life and try to use it for their own purposes....
A large man in a neatly patched ship's uniform, sitting on a rocky ledge, looked thoughtfully down, where at the foot of the mountain the skeletons of two crashed spaceships rested side by side. Next to the man was a massive bow leaning against a rock, and a creature the size of a thrush, with yellow eyes and a lively disposition named Bird was spinning at his feet....
