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Conger, the protagonist, is given a chance to get out of jail if he agrees to travel back in time and kill a man. He has agreed to kill a stranger he has never seen. He isn't concerned about getting the wrong man. He knows what the man looked like. There was no way he could make a mistake about his target's identity -- he has the man's skull under his shoulder.

"Explosion at Munition Works in the Northern District: Many Fatalities."The working man told about it, and added some dreadful details. Corpses so terribly maimed that coffins had been kept covered; faces mutilated as if by some gnawing animal. . . . we took a tram to the location of the disaster; a raw and hideous shed with a walled yard about it, and a shut gate. The roof was quite undamaged -- this had had been a strange accident. There had been an explosion of sufficient violence to kill work-people in the building, but the building itself showed no wounds or scars.

The story begins when the Scarecrow goes to search for his family roots and discovers that he is the Long Lost Emperor of the Silver Island -- and how he was rescued and brought back to Oz by Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion. Really! In another life, the Scarecrow was the Long Lost Emperor of the Silver Island. . . . Maybe he was. Who knows? Maybe not. But in retrospect, this is the first Oz book that actually shows us death, albeit of a peculiar sort: before the Scarecrow was reincarnated as the fluff-headed fellow we all know and love, he was the Emperor of Silver Island. Which was underground. -- Exactly beneath that cornfield where Dorothy first found him. But there are pictures of the place and the pictures don't look dark enough to be set in a kingdom made of caves. . . . Hrrrm.

That night the comet was the only thing in the whole sky. All the stars were smothered by the light of its copper-yellow flame, and, although the sun had set two hours ago, the Earth was lit as with the glow of a thunderous dawn.In Mayfield, Ken Maddox walked slowly along Main Street, avoiding collisions with other people whose eyes were fixed on the object in the sky. Ken had spent scores of hours observing the comet carefully, both by naked eye and with his 12-inch reflecting telescope. Still he could not keep from watching it as he picked his way along the street toward the post office.The comet had been approaching Earth for months, growing steadily to bigger proportions in the sky, but tonight was a very special night, and Mayfield was watching with increased awe and half-dread -- as were hundreds of thousands of other communities around the world.Tonight, the Earth entered the comet's tail, and during the coming winter would be swept continuously by its million-mile spread.

"The Tunnel under the World" was first published in 1954 in Galaxy magazine.On the morning of June 15th, Guy Burckhardt woke up screaming out of a dream.It was more real than any dream he had ever had in his life. He could still hear and feel the sharp, ripping-metal explosion, the violent heave that had tossed him furiously out of bed, the searing wave of heat.He sat up convulsively and stared, not believing what he saw, at the quiet room and the bright sunlight coming in the window.He croaked, "Mary?"Pinching yourself is no way to see if you are dreaming. Surgical instruments? Well, yes -- but a mechanic's kit is best of all!

A smile of friendship is a baring of the teeth. So is a snarl of menace.It can be fatal to mistake the latter for the former. Harm an alien being only under circumstances of self-defense.TRUST NO ALIEN BEING UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.--From Exploration Ship's HandbookThe problem of separating the friends from the enemies was a major one in the conquest of space, as many a dead spacer could have testified. A tough job when you could see an alien and judge appearances; far tougher when they were only whispers on the wind.

"It isn't so bad," says one of the men who are with you inside this ultimate room. "Fifty years from now, the rest of us will all be old, or dead."And then you're waking again, and you think, Fifty years. you think. It's been fifty years. But another part of your mind says, No, it is only tomorrow morning.It isn't the dying itself. It's what comes before. The waiting, alone in a room without windows, trying to think. The opening of the door, the voices of the men who are going with you but not all the way, the walk down the corridor to the airlock room, the faces of the men, closed and impersonal. They do not enjoy this. Neither do they shrink from it. It's their job.

When Gelsen entered, he saw that the rest of the watchbird manufacturers were already present. There were six of them, not counting himself, and the room was blue with expensive cigar smoke. As a watchbird manufacturer, he was a member manufacturer of salvation, he reminded himself wryly. Very exclusive. You must have a certified government contract if you want to save the human race. "The government representative isn't here yet," one of the men told him. "He's due any minute." "We're getting the green light," another said.

The Captain peered into the eyepiece of the telescope. He adjusted the focus quickly. "It was an atomic fission we saw, all right," he said presently. He sighed and pushed the eyepiece away. "Any of you who wants to look may do so. But it's not a pretty sight." "Let me look," Tance the archeologist said. He bent down to look, squinting. "Good Lord!" He leaped violently back, knocking against Dorle, the Chief Navigator. But when they got there, nothing moved or stirred. Everything was silent, dead. Only the gun showed signs of life . . . and the trespassers had wrecked that for all time. The return journey to pick up the treasure would be a cinch . . .

Mel Gray flung down his hoe with a sudden tigerish fierceness and stood erect. Tom Ward, working beside him, glanced at Gray's Indianesque profile, the youth of it hardened by war and the hells of the Eros prison blocks.A quick flash of satisfaction crossed Ward's dark eyes. Then he grinned and said mockingly."Hell of a place to spend the rest of your life, ain't it?"Mel Gray stared with slitted blue eyes down the valley. The huge sun of Mercury seared his naked body. Sweat channeled the dust on his skin. His throat ached with thirst. And the bitter landscape mocked him more than Wade's dark face."The rest of my life," he repeated softly. "The rest of my life!"He was twenty-eight.Wade spat in the damp black earth. "You ought to be glad -- helping the unfortunate, building a haven for the derelict. . . ."

Anderson is probably best known for adventure stories in which larger-than-life characters succeed gleefully or fail heroically. His characters were nonetheless thoughtful, often introspective, and well developed. His plot lines frequently involved the application of social and political issues in a speculative manner appropriate to the science fiction genre. He also wrote some quieter works, generally of shorter length, which appeared more often during the latter part of his career.

It's been said that there are many and strange shadows, memories surviving from dim pasts, in this fantastic universe of ours. Here the great Poul Anderson turned to a legend from the Northern countries, countries where even today the pagan past seems only like yesterday, to tell the story of Cappen Varra, who came to Norren an age ago, in a time and place we really can't remember anymore.

First on the scene were Larry Dermott and Tim Casey of the State Highway Patrol. They assumed they were witnessing the crash of a new type of Air Force plane and slipped and skidded desperately across the field to within thirty feet of the strange craft, only to discover that the landing had been made without accident.Patrolman Dermott shook his head. "They're gettin' queerer looking every year. Get a load of it -- no wheels, no propeller, no cockpit."They left the car and made their way toward the strange egg-shaped vessel.Tim Casey loosened his .38 in its holster and said, "Sure, and I'm beginning to wonder if it's one of ours. No insignia and --"A circular door slid open at that point and Dameri Tass stepped out, yawning. He spotted them, smiled and said, "Glork."They gaped at him."Glork is right," Dermott swallowed.