Plot summary
Jan Prentiss, a fantasy writer is busy at work, when a foot-long talking insect materialises before him. He declares that he is an elf, and is in fact a mutant—a "super-elf"—with new powers that he is still experimenting with. Most of his kind are telepathic. During the last ice age, they used human brains as "psychic amplifiers" to augment their own abilities. However, since the Industrial Revolution, the elves and other related beings have avoided mankind, since they are unable to manipulate electricity, and have retreated to Avalon; an island in the Atlantic Ocean cloaked in a psychic shield.
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction set in a fictional universe, often inspired by real world myth and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became literature and drama. From the twentieth century it has expanded further into various media, including film, television, graphic novels and video games.
Insects or Insecta are hexapod invertebrates and the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Definitions and circumscriptions vary; usually, insects comprise a class within the Arthropoda. As used here, the term Insecta is synonymous with Ectognatha. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body, three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes and one pair of antennae. Insects are the most diverse group of animals; they include more than a million described species and represent more than half of all known living organisms. The total number of extant species is estimated at between six and ten million; potentially over 90% of the animal life forms on Earth are insects. Insects may be found in nearly all environments, although only a small number of species reside in the oceans, which are dominated by another arthropod group, crustaceans.
An elf is a type of human-shaped supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. In medieval Germanic-speaking cultures, elves seem generally to have been thought of as beings with magical powers and supernatural beauty, ambivalent towards everyday people and capable of either helping or hindering them. However, the details of these beliefs have varied considerably over time and space, and have flourished in both pre-Christian and Christian cultures.
Prentiss' elf, however, can manipulate electricity and possibly fission uranium. It needs to use Prentiss' brain, as a psychic amplifier, though, since Prentiss, being a fantasy writer, is one of the few humans with a mind sympathetic enough for the elf to control. When Prentiss balks at being taken to Avalon as an 'advisor', the elf threatens Prentiss' wife and ten-year-old son with physical harm.
Prentiss' son comes home from school, and the elf tries to take control of his mind, too; but the boy, being a modern 1950s child, doesn't believe in "kid stuff" like fairies. The elf is unable to control both minds, and the boy crushes the elf with his schoolbooks.
John Wood Campbell Jr. was an American science fiction writer and editor. He was editor of Astounding Science Fiction from late 1937 until his death and was part of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Campbell wrote super-science space opera under his own name and stories under his primary pseudonym, Don A. Stuart. Campbell also used the pen names Karl Van Kampen and Arthur McCann. His novella Who Goes There? was adapted as the films The Thing from Another World (1951), The Thing (1982), and The Thing (2011).
Pat Cadigan is an American science fiction author, whose work is most often identified with the cyberpunk movement. Her novels and short stories all share a common theme of exploring the relationship between the human mind and technology.
Lyon Sprague de Camp, better known as L. Sprague de Camp, was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and works of non-fiction, including biographies of other fantasy authors. He was a major figure in science fiction in the 1930s and 1940s.
Second Foundation is the third novel published of the Foundation Series by American writer Isaac Asimov, and the fifth in the in-universe chronology. It was first published in 1953 by Gnome Press.
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Fantasy House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas had approached Spivak in the mid-1940s about creating a fantasy companion to Spivak's existing mystery title, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The first issue was titled The Magazine of Fantasy, but the decision was quickly made to include science fiction as well as fantasy, and the title was changed correspondingly with the second issue. F&SF was quite different in presentation from the existing science fiction magazines of the day, most of which were in pulp format: it had no interior illustrations, no letter column, and text in a single column format, which in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley "set F&SF apart, giving it the air and authority of a superior magazine".
Earth Is Room Enough is a collection of fifteen short science fiction and fantasy stories and two pieces of comic verse by American writer Isaac Asimov in 1957. In his autobiography In Joy Still Felt, Asimov wrote, "I was still thinking of the remarks of reviewers such as George O. Smith... concerning my penchant for wandering over the Galaxy. I therefore picked stories that took place on Earth and called the book Earth Is Room Enough." The collection includes one story from the Robot series and four stories that feature or mention the fictional computer Multivac.
The Currents of Space is a science fiction novel by the American writer Isaac Asimov, published in 1952. It is the second of three books labeled the Galactic Empire series, but it was the last of the three to be written. Each occurs after humans have settled many worlds in the galaxy, after the second wave of colonization that went beyond the Spacer worlds, and before the era of decline that was the setting for the original Foundation series.
Nightfall and Other Stories (1969) is an anthology book compiling 20 previously published science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov. Asimov added a brief introduction to each story, explaining some aspect of the story's history and/or how it came to be written.
Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on some other planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71 issues. Planet Stories was launched at the same time as Planet Comics, the success of which probably helped to fund the early issues of Planet Stories. Planet Stories did not pay well enough to regularly attract the leading science fiction writers of the day, but occasionally obtained work from well-known authors, including Isaac Asimov and Clifford D. Simak. In 1952 Planet Stories published Philip K. Dick's first sale, and printed four more of his stories over the next three years.
"The Fun They Had" is a science fiction story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in a children's newspaper in 1951 and was reprinted in the February 1954 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction,Earth Is Room Enough (1957), 50 Short Science Fiction Tales (1960), and The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973). It has been modified in a Finnish English book called KEY English 8-9.
"All the Troubles of the World" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. The story first appeared in the April 1958 issue of Super-Science Fiction, and was reprinted in the 1959 collection Nine Tomorrows. It is one of a loosely connected series of stories by Asimov concerning the fictional supercomputer Multivac. The story was adapted into a short movie in 1978
"The Immortal Bard" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the May 1954 issue of Universe Science Fiction, and has since been republished in several collections and anthologies, including Earth Is Room Enough (1957) and The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1986). Like many of his stories, it is told as a conversation, in this case between two professors at a college faculty's annual Christmas party.
Social science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction, usually soft science fiction, concerned less with technology/space opera and more with speculation about society. In other words, it "absorbs and discusses anthropology" and speculates about human behavior and interactions.
A science-fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard-copy periodical format or on the Internet.
Science-fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, novella or novel form, a format that continues into the present day. Many also contain editorials, book reviews or articles, and some also include stories in the fantasy and horror genres.
Fact and Fancy is a collection of seventeen scientific essays by American writer and scientist Isaac Asimov. It was the first in a series of books collecting his essays from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Asimov's second book of science essays altogether. Doubleday & Company first published it in March 1962. It was also published in paperback by Pyramid Books as part of The Worlds of Science series.
Azazel is a character created by Isaac Asimov and featured in a series of fantasy short stories. Azazel is a two-centimeter-tall demon, named after the Biblical demon.
Beyond Fantasy Fiction was a US fantasy fiction magazine edited by H. L. Gold, with only ten issues published from 1953 to 1955. The last two issues carried the cover title of Beyond Fiction, but the publication's name for copyright purposes remained as before.
"Eyes Do More Than See" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov.
Bruce McAllister is an American author of fantasy, science fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. He is known primarily for his short fiction. Over the years his short stories have been published in the major fantasy and science fiction magazines, theme anthologies, college readers, and "year's best" anthologies, including Best American Short Stories 2007, guest-edited by Stephen King.
