I was there to recruit the Unmarried Mother. But first I had to gain his confidence by allowing him to 'settle' with the one who'd gotten him pregnant when he was a woman, and had ruined his chances of joining the Space Corps. I trusted that he wouldn't kill him. That would be problematic...

"All You Zombies" appeared in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction," March 1959, pages 5 - 15.

Robert Anson Heinlien (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction.

He was considered one of the "Big Three" of English-language science fiction authors, and a best-selling science-fiction novelist for many decades. Notable Heinlein works include "Stranger in a Strange Land," "Starship Troopers" (which helped mold the space marine and mecha archetypes) and "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." His work sometimes had controversial aspects, such as plural marriage in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress," militarism in "Starship Troopers" and technologically competent women characters who were formidable, yet often stereotypically feminine—such as Friday. Heinlein also coined terms that have become part of the English language, including 'grok', 'waldo' and 'speculative fiction'.

Heinlein was named the first Science Fiction Writers Grand Master in 1974. Four of his novels won Hugo Awards, and fifty years after publication, seven of his works were awarded "Retro Hugos"—awards given retrospectively for works that were published before the Hugo Awards came into existence.

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They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea,
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be.
— Chesterton: Lepanto.

Today's story is The Black Kiss, by Robert Bloch & Henry Kuttner. It appeared in the June 1937 issue of Weird Tales on pages 678 to 690.

Although Robert Bloch is credited, "The Black Kiss" was written entirely by Henry Kuttner.

Robert Albert Bloch (April 5, 1917, Chicago, Illinois – September 23, 1994, Los Angeles, California) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror, and a relatively small amount of science fiction. He was a protégé of H. P. Lovecraft, who was the first to seriously encourage his talent. He is best as the writer of Psycho (1959), the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock.

He won the Hugo Award (for his story "That Hell-Bound Train"), the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America (1970) and was a member of that organization and of Science Fiction Writers of America, the Writers Guild of America, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Count Dracula Society. In 2008, The Library of America selected Bloch's essay "The Shambles of Ed Gein" (1962) for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American true crime.

Bloch was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter and a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general.

Henry Kuttner (April 7, 1915, Los Angeles, California – February 3, 1958, Los Angeles, California) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror. He contributed several stories to Lovecraft’s Cthulu Mythos, adding a few lesser-known deities to the Mythos pantheon.

Kuttner wrote under a plethora of pseudonyms which many believe prevented him from garnering the fame that he should have had.

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"Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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The Relict, Finn, retained a few tattered recollections of Old Earth, ruled by the laws of cause and effect, which enabled the environment to be subject to the dominion of man. The Organisms survived because they were mad, the Relicts because they were the most strongly charged with cause and effect, which was enough to allow control of their metabolisms, but no further...

"The Men Return" appeared in "Infinity Science Fiction," July 1957, pages 56 - 65.

John Holbrook Vance (August 28, 1916 – May 26, 2013) was an American mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writer. Though most of his work was published under the name Jack Vance, he also wrote several mystery novels under pen names, including Ellery Queen.

His first publications were stories in science fiction magazines. As he became well known, he published novellas and novels. A 2009 profile in The New York Times Magazine described Vance as "one of American literature's most distinctive and undervalued voices"

Vance won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1984, and he was a Guest of Honor at the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention in Orlando, Florida. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America made him its 15th Grand Master in 1997, and the Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted him in 2001.

His most notable awards included Hugo Awards in 1963 for The Dragon Masters, in 1967 for The Last Castle, the Nebula Award in 1966, also for The Last Castle; the Jupiter Award in 1975 and the World Fantasy Award in 1990 for Lyonesse: Madouc, and the Edgar Award in 1961 for the best first mystery novel for The Man in the Cage.

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"Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Ran Rarak, captain of a cruiser belonging to the Federation of Stars, has been called back from duty to confront an extraordinary threat. The Dark Star, which is being tracked by the Bureau of Astronomical Knowledge, has changed course and is now veering dangerously close to the Sun. Ran Rarak must lead a fleet of ships to confront this menace.

Today's story is "The Star-stealers" by Edmond Hamilton. It appeared in the February 1929 issue of "Weird Tales" on pages 149 to 168 and 279 to 288.

Edmond Moore Hamilton (October 21, 1904 – February 1, 1977) was an American writer of science fiction during the mid-twentieth century. He is known for writing most of the Captain Future stories.

Hamilton was a central member of the remarkable group of Weird Tales writers assembled by editor Farnsworth Wright, that included H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Through the late 1920s and early 1930s Hamilton wrote for all of the science fiction pulp magazines then publishing, and contributed horror and thriller stories to various other magazines as well. He was popular as an author of space opera, a subgenre he created along with E. E. Smith. His story "The Island of Unreason" (Wonder Stories, May 1933) won the first Jules Verne Prize as the best science fiction story of the year (this was the first science fiction prize awarded by the votes of fans, a precursor of the later Hugo Awards).

In 1942 Hamilton began writing for DC Comics, specializing in stories for their characters Superman and Batman. He and artist Sheldon Moldoff created Batwoman in Detective Comics #233 (July 1956).

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"Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Trixie O'Neill had had enough of the miners in Finchburg not treating her like a lady. So, she was going to go to Saturday Wells with Goreck, the Martian. What was worse was that she was taking her dandelions in their precious Terran soil with her! Well, the miners of Finchburg weren't going to stand for that...

"One Touch Of Terra" appeared in "Fantastic Universe," December 1956, pages 58 - 70.

Hannes Bok, a pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard (July 2, 1914 – April 11, 1964), was an American artist and illustrator, as well as an amateur astrologer and writer of fantasy fiction and poetry. He painted nearly 150 covers for various science fiction, fantasy, and detective fiction magazines, as well as contributing hundreds of black and white interior illustrations. Bok's work graced the pages of calendars and early fanzines, as well as dust jackets from specialty book publishers like Arkham House, Llewellyn, Shasta Publishers, and Fantasy Press. His paintings achieved a luminous quality through the use of an arduous glazing process, which was learned from his mentor, Maxfield Parrish. Bok shared one of the inaugural 1953 Hugo Awards for science fiction achievement (best Cover Artist).

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"Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Looking for signs of intelligent life on other planets by trying to detect radio signals was a waste of time; it would take too much power to broadcast any significant distance. Light, however, was easier to project over the distances required to traverse interstellar space. And perhaps, signals from another intelligence have been detected, mistakenly interpreted as a star pulsating, its brightness changing due to some natural phenomenon.

Well, it's something to do when you're stuck monitoring the weather at the South Pole...

"Answer, Please Answer" was published in "Amazing Stories," October, 1962.

Benjamin William Bova (November 8, 1932 – November 29, 2020) was an American writer and editor. During a writing career of 60 years, he was the author of more than 120 works of science fact and fiction, an editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, for which he won a Hugo Award six times, and an editorial director of Omni; he was also president of both the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America.

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"Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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The Sheriff of Tonto City could expect anything to come out of the night in Wild Horse Valley—even an idea...

Today's story is "Henry Goes Prehistoric" by W C Tuttle. It appeared in the January 25th, 1948 issue of "Short Stories" magazine on pages 48 to 70.

W C Tuttle (November 11, 1883, Montana – June 6, 1969, Los Angeles County, California) was an American writer who sold more than 1000 magazine stories and dozens of novels, almost all of which were westerns.

Tuttle wrote mainly for pulp magazines; his main market was Adventure magazine. He also wrote for other publications such as Argosy, Short Stories, Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine, Field & Stream, West, New Western Magazine and Exciting Western.

His best known character was Hashknife Hartley, who along with his friend Sleepy Stevens, served as unofficial detectives solving crimes on the ranches where they worked as cowboys. Other characters Tuttle created included Cultus Collins, Sad Sontag, and Henry Harrison Conroy, a former vaudeville actor turned sheriff.

In 1950-1951, Tuttle was narrator of the old-time radio series Hashknife Hartley, which featured adaptations of his stories.

He was also a screenwriter hailing back to the silent era. He wrote the screenplays for 52 films between 1915 and 1945.

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"Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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David Greaves began as a hero with his ship, Defiance, crash landing on Venus, but surviving unconscious in his Crash Capsule by using an experimental gas that might offer a chance to survive.

Eons later and a universe away, he became instead a god!

"Die, Shadow!" appeared in the May 1963 issue of "Worlds of If Science Fiction" on pages 61 - 76.

Algirdas Jonas "Algis" Budrys (January 9, 1931 – June 9, 2008) was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was also known under the pen names Frank Mason, Alger Rome (in collaboration with Jerome Bixby), John A Sentry, William Scarff, and Paul Janvier. He is best known for the influential 1960 novel "Rogue Moon."

Incorporating his family's experience, Budrys's fiction depicts isolated and damaged people and themes of identity, survival, and legacy.

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"Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, or a genre you'd like me to include more of, please let me know using the Contact Form.