Assignment in Tomorrow

A rocketing voyage into the worlds of tomorrow. This new anthology brings together a short novel, three novelettes, and twelve short stories. Such top-flight authors as Ray Bradbury, Fletcher Pratt, H.L. Gold, and C. M. Kornbluth give a provocative preview of a future of unpredictable robots, supersonic speeds, and exploration of strange worlds in stranger machines - of the worlds that lie just beyond the horizons of our imagination. But this is not a mere collection of gimmick tales. Concerned rather with the plight of man trying to survive in an ever-more-complicated world, these ingenious tales range from the powerful and tense account of a man who could not resist his destructive urge to power, to the tale of an interplanetary hobo in search of a shot of whiskey. From the question of what forms the devil might assume to the horrors wreaked by a manufactured philosopher-king, here is an exciting, often amusing, and always entertaining sampling of speculation on the worlds to come.

Contents
Introduction (Assignment in Tomorrow) • essay by Frederik Pohl
5,271,009 • (1954) • novelette by Alfred Bester
Mother • (1953) • novelette by Philip José Farmer
We Don't Want Any Trouble • (1953) • short story by James H. Schmitz
Mr. Costello, Hero • (1953) • novelette by Theodore Sturgeon
Hall of Mirrors • (1953) • short story by Fredric Brown
The Big Trip Up Yonder • (1954) • short story by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Back to Julie • (1954) • short story by Richard Wilson
The Frightened Tree • (1953) • short story by Algis Budrys (aka Protective Mimicry)
A Matter of Form • (1938) • novella by Horace L. Gold
Helen O'Loy • (1938) • short story by Lester del Rey
The Peddler's Nose • [Quarantine] • (1951) • short story by Jack Williamson
She Who Laughs… • (1952) • short story by Peter Phillips (aka She Who Laughs)
The Adventurer • (1953) • short story by C.M. Kornbluth
Angels in the Jets • (1952) • short story by Jerome Bixby
Official Record • (1952) • novelette by Fletcher Pratt
Subterfuge • (1943) • short story by Ray Bradbury