The ever-increasing popularity of Science Fiction among the great reading public is an indication of the intelligent layman's interest in the tremendous technical achievements of the century.

Space travel is already an accomplished fact as far as satellite vehicles are concerned. Space stations, moon probes, and finally landings on our planetary neighbours are just around the corner. Science fiction is the cocktail shaker in which imagination, fact and adventure blend together into a superb educational entertainment. It is literary experience which should not be missed, and, more than that, it forecasts and over-shadows the amazingly exciting destiny of mankind.

In this series top line authors and illustrators combine to bring you the cream of today's science fiction at a price to suit every pocket.

A collection of five original stories of both the near and distant future; gripping tales of the strange planets of the universe and their far stranger inhabitants. Here is captured the world of tomorrow, the great planetships and the expeditions to Mars, the Red Planet; and the oddly difficult, but perhaps humane, task which faced a future race slowly slipping down the long grey incline into mental and racial extinction.

These are stories of people, familiar and unfamiliar, set against eerie backgrounds so different from any we now know that it can truly be said of this original book:

It will be difficult to put it down until the last page is reached and the stories contained therein, impossible to forget. Some are frightening but all, without exception, are possible and within the realms of possibility.

Contents: SHADOW OF THE ATOM - A J Merak / PYRAMID PROBLEM - Michael Hamilton / THE ENTROPISTS - Randall Conway / FINAL ANSWER - Ray Cosmic / THE THINGS THAT ARE MARS - Peter Laynham / Cover Art: R THEOBALD. Editor: JOHN S MANNING