The first science-fiction magazine was born in 1926; two years later was born a boy baby to a quiet and previously unremarkable Brooklyn family. Young Bob Sheckley was late getting into the science-fiction field; his first story appeared only one year before the original publication date of this collection. But what he lacked in promptness he made up in velocity, for at the conclusion of his first full year of writing he had sold more than thirty stories, to almost every major science-fiction magazine in the country and to such lesser periodicals as Collier’s and Today’s Woman as well. We offer you