In what may be one of the best collections from Isaac Asimov that I’ve ever read, the master of SF brings us nine extraordinary tales ranging from the dramatic to comedic to heartbreaking. Nine Tomorrows gets five stars from me.
“Profession” — In the future, your ability to read is installed into your brain by a computer during childhood and your career is determined by a brain scan taken at puberty—but what happens when the results of the scan are inconclusive and the authorities determine that you are not suited for any career at all?
“The Feeling of Power” — In a society where mathematical computations are handled strictly by computers, a lab technician devises a method for longhand arithmetic… with disastrous results.
“The Dying Night” — A science conference on Earth reunites four colleagues, some of whom have been working off-planet for many years. One of them has developed a method for instant teleportation and intends to present his discovery at the conference—until he’s found dead in his hotel room.
“I’m in Marsport without Hilda” — A government agent arrives on Mars after an assignment and learns that his wife is unable to travel from Earth to meet him. He steals the opportunity to arrange a date with a local lady of the night, which he tries to keep even when his supervisor tasks him with another mission right there in the spaceport.
“The Gentle Vultures” — An alien race known as the Hurrians spends 15 years observing Earth, waiting for humanity to destroy itself in a nuclear war so that the they can takeover the planet and enslave the survivors.
“All the Troubles in the World” — What happens when an entire planet is managed by a single super computer that no longer wants the responsibility?
“Spell My Name with an S” — At the insistence of his wife, a downtrodden nuclear physicist named Zebatinsky reluctantly visits a numerologist who suggests that by changing the first letter of his last name to an ‘S,’ the probablility is high that his life will improve—but not before placing him under surveillance by the federal government.
“The Last Question” — A super computer called Multivac spends thousands of years collecting data to answer one question that has been repeatedly put to it over the generations: Will the human race ever have the ability to restore the sun to its current state after it has died?
“The Ugly Little Boy” — Miss Fellowes, a nurse, is hired on to care for a Neanderthal child that is snatched from the past into the present by a new technology developed by Stasis, Inc. By contemporary standards, the boy is considered ugly and is dubbed by the press as the “Ape-Boy.” After three years, the executives of Stasis decide to send the now educated child back to his own time where he will likely perish, but Miss Fellowes has different plans.
The end is nigh as chronicled in The Ends of Time by seven masters of science fiction including Poul Anderson, John W. Campbell, Arthur C. Clarke, Fritz Leiber, Robert Silverberg (editor), Cordwainer Smith, and Jack Vance.
John Thomas “Jommy” Cross is a member of the telepathic race of mutant humans called “slans,” eponymously named for Samuel Lann, believed to be their creator. The only physical distinction between the two races are the slan’s set of golden tendrils protruding from their scalps that serve as antennae for their telepathy.
