Galaxy Project

THE IRON CHANCELLOR was Robert Silverberg's second contribution to GALAXY (his first a year earlier in 1956 was BLAZE OF GLORY); he was 22 when it appeared and it shows a remarkably developed talent. Silverberg in his memoirs remembers how Horace Gold, the editor of GALAXY magazine, was simultaneously entranced by Silverberg's precocity and angered by what he felt was the young writer's eagerness to settle for production, stylistic facility and prolific output. Like all of the editors with whom Silverberg dealt in his early career, Gold alternated between impatience and admiration but he did find THE IRON CHANCELLOR a strong story and he was glad to have it at a time when so many of his regular contributors, impatient with the field and with Horace, were moving on or moving out. In this story of a controlling machine assuming a totalitarian control, the influences on Silverberg can be clearly noted--Henry Kuttner's Gallegher stories, Robert Sheckley's rampant and perverse technology in the AAA Ace Series (also published in GALAXY). Silverberg's own voice has emerged and he handles his rather large cast without stereotype, with clear definition and with a good deal of control. Silverberg became an increasingly dominant GALAXY contributor in the following decade and then, in the early 1970's when the editorship had passed to Ejler Jakobsson's and a new publisher, three of Silverberg's novels were serialized in consecutive issues of the magazine, "The amazing fulfillment of a childhood fantasy" Silverberg wrote.

She'd paid good money to see the inevitable ... and then had to work to make it happen!

A groundbreaking science fiction novelette from the early days of Galaxy magazine-plus a new foreword by Paul Di Filippo. Appearing in the second issue of Galaxy dated November 1950, Honeymoon in Hell showcased the magazine's distinctive identity as opposed to other publications of its time-darker, more socially aware, sometimes sexually frank in ways that were shocking for the era. Dealing with copulation and its desired consequences, Honeymoon in Hell avoided euphemisms-and used a satirical attack that parodied magazine taboos. The covers of pulp magazines depicted monsters putting near-naked females in peril, but the narratives under the cover offered no equivalent. Brown's hastily married couple, sent to the moon to see if they can breed a male child-all births on Earth over recent months having been female-encounter problems emotional as well as practical. This book includes both the landmark novelette and a new foreword by Paul Di Filippo. About the series: Debuting in 1950, Galaxy was science fiction's most admired, widely circulated, and influential magazine, known for publication of full-length novels, novellas, and novelettes by giants in the field. The Galaxy Project is a selection of the best of Galaxy, with new forewords by some of today's top writers. Initial selections include work by Ray Bradbury, Fredric Brown, Lester del Rey, Robert A. Heinlein, Damon Knight, C. M. Kornbluth, Walter M. Miller, Jr., Frederik Pohl, Robert Sheckley, Robert Silverberg, William Tenn (Philip Klass), and Kurt Vonnegut. Foreword contributors include Paul Di Filippo, David Drake, John Lutz, Barry N. Malzberg, and Robert Silverberg. The Galaxy Project is committed to publishing new work in the spirit of Galaxy magazine and its founding editor, H. L. Gold.

A statistician attempts to make sense of a world gone mad in an apocalyptic sci-fi scenario from the Hugo Award–winning author of Starship Troopers. Potiphar Breen puts his trust in numbers to make sense of the world. An unassuming, middle-aged bachelor, he has been carefully noting a rise in odd behaviors all around him in order to determine some pattern or meaning in these bizarre recent events. Then one day, he comes upon a beautiful young woman at a bus stop who is taking off all her clothes. Meade Barstow has no idea what compelled her to disrobe in public, and she is grateful when Potiphar comes along to save her from herself. Needing some time and a place to recuperate, she accompanies him home. Soon, a relationship develops that is warm, mutually supportive, and sane-in dramatic contrast to the growing madness of the world outside. But "Potty's" house won't be a refuge forever. Because once Breen clearly identifies the cycle that humanity is undergoing, he and his newfound friend will have to run for their lives. Originally published in the early 1950s, Heinlein's The Year of the Jackpot is a story of love, trust, and volatile human nature that still retains its wonder and unique philosophical edge.

A LITTLE JOURNEY (August 1951) marks Bradbury's final contribution to the editorial decade of Horace Gold, the editor of GALAXY magazine. Like THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES and THE FIREMAN, the story demonstrates Bradbury's characteristic blending so early in his career of the sentimental and the transcendent, the homely and the mystical. Bradbury's old women in space and their strange outcome are reminiscent of his more famous story KALEIDOSCOPE (published in THE ILLUSTRATED MAN) and its conclusion shows unusual if understated power. Bradbury's THE FIREMAN (the short-form version of FAHRENHEIT 451 which was doubled in length for its book publication in 1953) appeared in the February 1951 issue of GALAXY and further solidified GALAXY's reputation, as a magazine of unprecedented originality and ambition. Gold's commitment to the highly ambitious THE FIREMAN was, then, courageous for its time and gave publicity to the editor's insistence that GALAXY was an entirely new kind of science fiction magazine, one which was far more oriented toward style and controversial social extrapolation than the other markets ever had been. Although THE FIREMAN and THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES had been published earlier to significant attention, Bradbury in 1951 was by no means a writer of substantial reputation and his work was regarded by most science fiction editors and readers as marginal to the genre.