Off the Main Sequence

Stories include... Successful Operation, "Let There Be Light", -And He Built a Crooked House-, Beyond Doubt, They, Solution Unsatisfactory, Universe, Elsewhen, Common Sense, By His Bootstraps, Lost Legacy, "My Object All Sublime", Goldfish Bowl, Pied Piper, Free Men, On the Slopes of Vesuvius, Columbus Was a Dope, Jerry Was a Man, Water is for Washing, Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon, Gulf, Destination Moon, The Year of the Jackpot, Project Nightmare, Sky Lift, Tenderfoot in Space, -All You Zombies-.

Here are smart, savvy tales of space adventure, time travel, weird science, mysterious phenomena, apocalypse and dystopia, tales that reflect the concerns of their day, yet eerily foreshadow our own.

There's Successful Operation, a Twilight Zone-ish gem in which a dictator gets his just desserts... "Let There Be Light", about two inventors who triumph over political corruption... and On the Slopes of Vesuvius, in which a Bomb-fearing barkeep sees his worst fears realized. -And He Built A Crooked House- tells of an architect whose innovative home design leads straight into a funhouse fourth dimension. Solution Unsatisfactory gives us a chilling alternate end to WWII, while -All You Zombies- paints a time-twisty picture of the ultimate causality paradox.

All these and more, including three previously uncollected stories, Beyond Doubt, "My Object All Sublime" and Pied Piper, display Heinlein's creative genius to full extent.