Literature / A Science Fiction Omnibus

First published in 1973 by editor Brian Aldiss, this Omnibus republishes Penguin Science Fiction (1961), More Penguin Science Fiction (1963), and Yet More Penguin Science Fiction (1964) in a single (enormous) volume, under the title The Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus. It was changed to A Science Fiction Omnibus in 2007, and added/removed several stories. The list below indicates removed stories with an asterisk (*).

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Works published in this Anthology:

• Introduction (Omnibus-only) by Brian Aldiss

Penguin Science Fiction

• "Sole Solution", by Eric Frank Russell (1956)
• "Lot", by Ward Moore (1953)
• "The Short Short Story Of Mankind", by John Steinbeck (1958)
• "Skirmish", by Clifford Simak (1950)
• "Poor Little Warrior!", by Brian Aldiss (1958)
• "Grandpa", by James H. Schmitz (1955)
• "The Half Pair", by Bertram Chandler (1957)*
• "Command Performance", by Walter M Miller Jr. (1952)*
• "Nightfall", by Isaac Asimov (1941)
• "The Snowball Effect", by Katherine Mac Lean (1952)
• "The End Of Summer", by Algis Budrys (1954)*
• "Track 12", by JG Ballard (1958)

More Penguin Science Fiction

• "The Monkey Wrench", by Gordon R. Dickson (1951)*
• "The First Men", by Howard Fast (1960)*
• "Counterfeit", by Alan E Nourse (1952)*
• "The Greater Thing", by Tom Godwin (1954)*
• "Built Up Logically", by Howard Schoenfeld (1949)*
• "The Liberation Of Earth", by William Tenn (1953)*
• "An Alien Agony", by Harry Harrison (1962)
• "The Tunnel Under The World", by Frederik Pohl (1955)
• "The Store Of The Worlds", by Robert Sheckley (1959)
• "Jokester", by Isaac Asimov (1956)
• "Pyramid", by Robert Abernathy (1954)*
• "The Forgotten Enemy", by Arthur C. Clarke (1948)*

Yet More Penguin Science Fiction

• "The Wall Around The World", by Theodore R Cogswell (1953)*
• "Protected Species", by HB Fyfe (1951)
• "Before Eden", by Arthur C. Clarke (1961)*
• "The Rescuer", by Arthur Porges (1962)
• "I Made You", by Walter M Miller, Jr. (1954)
• "The Country Of The Kind", by Damon Knight (1956)
• "MS Found In A Chinese Fortune Cookie", by Cyril M. Kornbluth (1957)
• "The Cage", by Bertram Chandler (1957)
• "Eastward Ho!", by William Tenn (1958)*
• "The Windows Of Heaven", by John Brunner (1956)*
• "Common Time", by James Blish (1953)
• "Fulfillment", by A.E. van Vogt (1951)

Stories added in the 2007 remake

• "Alien Embassy", by Garry Kilworth (2006)
• "And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side", by James Tiptree Jr. (1972)
• "Answer", by Fredric Brown (1954)
• "Blood Music", by Greg Bear (1983, novelette)
• "Friends In Need", by Eliza Blair (2007, only published here)
• "Great Work Of Time", by John Crowley (1989)
• "The Liberation Of Earth", by William Tenn (1953)
• "Night Watch", by James Inglis (1965)
• "Sexual Dimorphism", by Kim Stanley Robinson (1999)
• "Story Of Your Life", by Ted Chiang (1998)
• "Swarm", by Bruce Sterling (1982)

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Examples of tropes in this work:

• Billed Above the Title: The 1968 cover for More Penguin Science Fiction has the editor credits preceding the title of the volume.
• Brain Uploading: In "The Tunnel Under The World", by Frederik Pohl, Guy Burckhardt is creeped out by the robots at the factory. His business partner tells him that each of the machines there operates with the uploaded memories and minds of actual human beings. When the inhabitants of Tylerton were killed in a chemical explosion, including Guy, their minds were transferred into miniature robots the same way. Now Dorchin uses them as advertising test subjects.
• Doorstopper: The Omnibus itself has 592 pages, not including the introduction and copyright pages.
• Fantastic Science: In "Command Performance", by Walter M Miller Jr, Kenneth Grearly is calls themselves a psychophysicist, someone who studies the physics of things like Telepathy. They chose that field of study because they have the ability to share feelings and thoughts with other people.
• Fishbowl Helmet: The 1986 cover of the Omnibus has a bubble-headed spacefaring adventurer on an alien planet with a dinosaur.
• From Bad to Worse: William Tenn's "The Liberation Of Earth": Two warring groups of aliens keep trading control of the eponymous planet back and forth, causing more and more damage in the process. When the two species' battle finally shifts to another solar system, they leave behind a handful of ragged human survivors scrabbling on a pear-shaped atmosphere-depleted burnt-out husk.
• Gone Horribly Right: In "The Monkey Wrench", a Short Story by Gordon R. Dickson, one of the characters demonstrates that their computer is susceptible to distraction by paradoxes. They decide to make their demonstration in the arctic, where the subsequent shutdown means the characters freeze to death.
• Logic Bomb: In "The Monkey Wrench", a Short Story by Gordon R. Dickson, one of the characters claims they can shut down the computer of the meteorologic arctic station with a paradox. To prove their point, they suggest a paradox to the machine, making it incapable of doing anything than computing the paradox. Ironically, this condemns him and his partner to freeze to death, as all the vital controls of the station were provided by the machine.
• The Missionary: In "An Alien Agony", by Harry Harrison, Father Mark has been sent by the Missionary Society of Brother, representing Christianity, so that they might save the souls of the aliens by bringing the Good News of God to them. Garth, believing that Religion Is Wrong, is angry at Father Mark's arrival, and tries threatening, assaulting, and finally cajoling that the man doesn't try teaching religion to the Weskers.
• Mocking Sing-Song: Theodore R Cogswell's "The Wall Around The World": Porgie mocks his cousin and his friends while flying around in his gliding machine by calling out an annoying sound; "Nyah, nyah, nyah".
  "Nyah, nyah, nyah, you can't catch me!"
• Necessarily Evil: Clifford Simak's "Skirmish": All human development has been based upon synthetic technology of some kind, and thanks to Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!, people must either revert to savagery or knowingly enslave an entire species. (Lamarck Was Right isn't an option here—even a sewing machine comes to life.) They choose to enslave the technology, viewing it as a necessary cost.
• Omnibus: This book republishes three previous genre anthologies, Penguin Science Fiction (1961), More Penguin Science Fiction (1963), and Yet More Penguin Science Fiction (1964) in a single (enormous) volume.
• One-Word Title:
  • "Answer", by Fredric Brown (1954)
  • "Counterfeit", by Alan E Nourse (1952)
  • "Fulfillment", by A.E. van Vogt (1951)
  • "Grandpa", by James H. Schmitz (1955)
  • "Jokester", by Isaac Asimov (1956)
  • "Lot", by Ward Moore (1953)
  • "Pyramid", by Robert Abernathy (1954)
  • "Skirmish", by Clifford Simak (1950)
  • "Swarm", by Bruce Sterling (1982)
• Secret Test: Theodore R Cogswell's "The Wall Around The World": The people inside The Wall are learning how to cast magic, honing their minds for generations. However, there's occasionally someone who is willing to ignore magic and builds a machine instead to help them over the wall. If they do that, the Black Man takes them away to learn about the Outside, with the high-tech machines humans have made.
• Standard Human Spaceship: The 1980 cover has an enormous spaceship that looks like an eighteen-wheeler truck with extra cabs stuck onto the back to make it even bigger.
• Vichy Earth: William Tenn's "The Liberation Of Earth": The narrator describes how an alien race "liberated" Earth, then another alien race liberates Earth from the first aliens, and become the new overlords. Then the first alien race re-liberates Earth, and so on. In the end the whole thing was just a minor skirmish in an on-going galactic war, the aliens take their battle elsewhere and Earth has been reduced to a lop-sided irradiated wasteland.

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