When the human race moved out into the Solar System in a serious way, they found that someone had been there ahead of them—an alien someone who had a technology centuries, even millennia ahead of anything that humans had developed, and they had left bits and pieces of it scattered all over the planets, including a way station, called “Gateway” by humans, with faster-than-light ships, each of which would only go to one unknown preset destination. The great puzzle was what had happened to the aliens, whom the humans called the “Heechee.” As it turned out, the Heechee had learned that there was another alien race, even more advanced over the Heechee than the Heechee were advanced over humans—and they didn’t seem to be the sort who’d make good neighbors. So the Heechee had been hiding . . . until they learned that the humans, blundering around the galaxy, were liable to attract the attention of those very powerful aliens and bring down their wrath on human and Heechee alike.

A novel in the best-selling, award-winning Heechee series.

Almost nothing was known about the vanished aliens whom humans had dubbed the Heechee, but they had left bits and pieces of their incredibly advanced technology all over the Solar System, and treasure-hunters went scrambling across each planet, hoping to find some of those bits and pieces. A lucky find of a useful piece of Heechee high-tech could make the finder a billionaire overnight. Of course, the Heechee’s leavings came with no instruction manuals, and if no one could figure out how to make the device work, it would be worthless. And experimenting with Heechee gadgets could be dangerous—even lethal . . .

A collection of stories set in the best-selling, award-winning Heechee series.

A century has passed since the discovery of the abandoned Heechee space station with faster-than-light ships which opened the galaxy up for human exploration. The mysterious Heechee have revealed themselves to humans and given them the unwelcome news that they were hiding from a third, apparently malevolent, alien race, which they call the Foe. The Foe have demonstrated that they have godlike powers far beyond even the capabilities of the Heechee, and have used those power to wipe out several other civilizations. And now the Foe have learned about the Heechee and their human allies. And they know where we live . . .

A novel in the best-selling, award-winning Heechee series.

The crew of the starship Constitution had been carefully screened before being sent to another star system. There they would explore the planet orbiting Alpha Centauri and then return. They were the toast of the world press, for they were to be the first humans to reach the planet of another star. But there was one problem . . . Dr. Dieter von Knefhausen, the mastermind behind the expedition, knew that the planet the ship was headed for did not exist. The Constitution had no place to land and no way to return. Knefhausen had planned it that way. Of course, Knefhausen realized his plan wasn't exactly ethical. But then, he knew the ends often justify the means. And Knefhausen's plan worked better than even he had ever hoped!

Expanded from the award-winning novella, “The Gold at Starbow’s End.”

The aliens wanted to be taken to our leader. The problem was, there was no leader. Though the alien spaceship destroyed a large Pacific island to get our attention, then demanded to speak to the President of the United States, this was the late twenty-first century and there was not even a United States anymore, let alone a president. Long after the U.S. and Russia had clobbered each other, the American continent was a tributary of China. When the aliens were unwilling to talk to anyone but the U.S. President, a rice-cultivator from Heavenly Grain Collective Farm (in Mississippi) was quickly selected to be the President and envoy to the aliens. Whether he wanted to be or not.

There were too many people and too few resources on Earth, with the nations scrabbling for scraps. And though no one could afford the resources for a conventional war any longer, even the smallest nation could afford thermonuclear weapons. Then, in a nearby star system, the Earthlike planet Jem was discovered. It could be reached by tachyon transport in only a few days, and its untapped resources might bring a renaissance to Earth—or bring on the final apocalypse. The three intelligent native species on Jem had no technology capable of threatening the visitors from Earth, but the humans, representing all the contending factions on the home world, had brought plenty of weapons along with them. And if conflict broke out on Jem, the final war on Earth might quickly follow. . . .

He had every reason to live. He was a successful and popular professor on a college campus when college (augmented by TV) was the only hope of the struggling millions who hoped to rise above the subsistence existence of the masses in the overpopulated world of 2200. He had just married a wonderful woman. But he kept trying to kill himself. He isn’t depressed, and doctors are no help. It’s almost as if someone wants him dead and can somehow make him attempt suicide. But the reality is that his unknown enemy doesn’t just want an apparently harmless math professor to die. They want millions to die. . . .

The world as it had been vanished almost overnight as new masters took it over. Somehow, at any time, they could reach into the minds of men and women and completely control them, make them do anything. And the new masters seemed to delight in making their puppets perform unspeakable acts against their friends and family. One man no longer had a family for that reason. He wandered the world and found it smashed like a spoiled child's plaything, until he found the secret behind the mental demons. But what could one person do against such godlike power?

A selection of the cream of the crop from three decades of science fiction stories by one of the field’s most honored and popular writers. Includes such classics as “Day Million,” “The Midas Plague,” “The Day the Martians Came,” and sixteen more stories. With an afterword by the author.

Frederik Pohl has done it all in science fiction, one of the few who have won Hugo Awards both for his stories and for his editing. Becoming a science fiction magazine editor while still in his teens in the 1930s, he had already made a name for himself as an active science fiction fan. Here are his memories of how the field evolved from the first science fiction magazines in the 1920s when science fiction readers were regarded as oddballs to the time when science fiction novels took over the best-seller lists and spawned some of the most popular TV shows and movies of all, along with vivid portraits of the shakers and movers who turned a cult field of writing into the mature literature it is today.