Without a doubt, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty (1914-2002) was one of the most quirky and unusual authors every to work in science fiction. That's saying a lot. His stories are often unusual, challenging, uncategorizable, and brilliant. This collection assembles 18 of them, including his very first story. Included are: ALOYSADAM HAD THREE BROTHERSSEVEN-DAY TERRORDAY OF THE GLACIERSODOM AND GOMORRAH, TEXASTHROUGH OTHER EYESTHE WEIRDEST WORLDTHE S...

'This, I believe, is the first autobiography of a machine,' writes Epikt, a Ktistec machine. In the resulting mindbending, at times hilarious, work of the imagination, the careful and attentive reader realizes that Epikt is not only presiding at its own birth at the Institute for Impure Science, but it is also addressing itself to the interpretation of mankind's most profoundly puzzling problems.

A survey of the last 100 years of science fiction, with representative stories and illuminating essays by the top writers, poets, and scholars, from Edgar Rice Burroughs and Samuel Butler to Robert A. Heinlein and and Jack Vance, from E.E. "Doc" Smith and Clifford D. Simak to Ted Chiang and Charles Stross-- and everyone in between. More than one million words of classic fiction and essays!

In The Devil is Dead, Lafferty tells of an astonishing band of adventurers seeking the Devil himself. It is a tale of demons and changelings, monsters and mermaids - and of how it is not always serious to die, the first time it happens...

Aurelia was a fifteen-year-old girl from a very advanced world. She'd passed Starship building easily enough, but she'd slept through most of celestial navigation. That was how she ended up on a little back-water dump like Earth, where her advanced powers seemed like miracles.Some thought she was the Messiah.Some thought she was the Devil.No one was prepared for the truth.

Sixteen stories about secret places and mean men, containing:About a Secret CrocodileMad ManNor Limestone IslandsThe Man UnderneathBoomer FlatsThis Grand Carcass YetIn the GardenGroaning Hinges of the WorldGolden TrabantHow They Gave It BackMaybe Jones and the CitySeven Story DreamAdam Had Three BrothersPig in a PokeyThe Weirdest WorldThe Ultimate Creature

Celebrate classic novels of the New Wave era of sci-fi with this second collectable science fiction anthology from Library of America.Presenting 4 underrated science fiction classics from a tumultuous time in American history—including works by iconic Black author Samuel R. Delany and feminist Joanna Russ.In R. A. Lafferty’s utterly idiosyncratic and uncategorizable Past Master (1968), Renaissance philosopher Thomas More is summone...

Tor Essentials presents science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure.Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, a winner of the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty (1914-2002) was an American original, a teller of acute, indescribably loopy tall tales whose work has been compared to that of Avram Davidson, Flannery O’Connor, ...

In The Reefs of Earth, Lafferty's first-completed novel, a passel of Alien children bumptiously attempt to rid Earth of humans.

Three memorable creatures world jump in a meta-cosmic universe that orbits with nightmarish landscapes that thrive on anti-matter, anti-space, and anti-time. What mind and body searing challenges await the Pilger, Pilgrim, and Polder, who are really one man?

Welcome to The Seventh Ghost Story MEGAPACK®! Once more we have a wide-ranging assortment of supernatural fiction, with setting across the world -- Europe, the Americas, Asia -- and across the centuries. You will note that we have a larger than normal number of "Anonymous" stories. No, the authors weren't embarrassed by their contributions. Victorian-era literary magazines and newspapers often ran fiction without crediting the author, or with only vague terms like "A Lady," initials, or hu...

Collected here are six fantastic science fiction stories by R. A. Lafferty, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Clifford D. Simak, Edgar Pangborn, Andre Norton, and Frank Herbert. 'Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas': The place called Sodom was bad enough. But right down the road was the other town-and that was even worse! 'The Worlds of If': Dixon Wells, a fashionable playboy, is always late. What will it cost him this time. 'The Street That Wasn't There': Jonathon Chambers went for a walk at the same time every...