Bantam Books 751 - Judith Merril - Shot in the Dark

Judith Merril (editor) - Shot in the Dark

Bantam Books 751, 1950

Cover Artist: Herman Bischoff

 

About the cover...

This unusual cover painting is based on a scene in "The Halfling", a tense tale of the passionate struggle between a man who thought he was tough... and a woman who wasn't as soft as she looked... nor as human.

 

With a cover like this, the interior is pretty much irrelevant but the 23 tales within are produced by an impressive group:

 

• Fredric Brown – Knock (Thrilling Wonder Stories, 12/48)

• Leigh Brackett – The Halfling (Astonishing Stories, 2/43)

• James McCreigh (Frederik Pohl) – A Hitch in Time (Thrilling Wonder Stories, 6/47)

• Robert Heinlein – Gentlemen, Be Seated (Argosy Magazine, 5/48; 10th Future History series story)

• HG Wells – The Star (The Graphic, 12/1897)

• Lewis Padgett (CL Moore, Henry Kuttner) – The Dark Angel (Startling Stories, 3/46)

• Murray Leinster – The Day of the Deepies (Famous Fantastic Mysteries, 10/47)

• Isaac Asimov – Strange Playfellow (originally titled Robbie; Super Science Stories, 9/40; author’s first Robot series story)

• Ray Bradbury – Mars Is Heaven! (Planet Stories, Fall/48; later incorporated into The Martian Chronicles)

• Theodore Sturgeon – The Sky Was Full of Ships (Thrilling Wonder Stories, 6/47)

• Gerald Kersh – Voices in the Dust (Saturday Evening Post, 9/13/47, as The Voices in the Dust of Annan)

• Stephen Vincent Benet – Nightmare Number Three (Selected Works of Stephen Vincent Benet, 1942)

• Anthony Boucher – Mr. Lupescu (Weird Tales, 9/45)

• Jack London – The Shadow and the Flash (The Bookman, 6/1903)

• Hugh Raymond (John B Michel) – Spokesman for Terra (Stirring Science Stories, 6/41)

• Margery Allingham – He Was Asking After You (Wanted: Someone Innocent, 1946)

• William Tenn – Brooklyn Project (Planet Stories, Fall/48)

• James Thurber – Interview With a Lemming (PM magazine, 3/3/41)

• Edison Tesla Marshall – Who Is Charles Avison? (Argosy magazine, 4/1916)

• Edgar Allan Poe – The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (originally published simultaneously in Broadway Journal, 12/20/1845 and American Review: A Whig Journal, 12/1845)

• R Austin Freeman – The Great Portrait (Mystery, 1924)

• Alexander Samalman – Life on the Moon (Thrilling Wonder Stories, 12/46)

• Philip Wylie – Blunder (Collier’s Weekly, 1/26/46)

 

Done