Theodore Sturgeon
© 1941

A gem of piece that stands the test of time, Sturgeon's premise was adapted for an episode of the New Twilight Zone (1985-1989) called A Matter of Minutes and featured a couple (Adam Arkin and Karen Austin) who wake one morning to find their home overrun by faceless blue-clad workers.

William L. Bade
© 1951

An inherent danger when writing fiction about the distant future, that it can tend to be pretty far fetched and exotic, author Bade manages to walk a very fine line between outrageous and possible futures. Writing during a rather racially intolerant period of history, Bade courageously predicts a future of inter-racial marriage and racial blending. Even going so far as portraying the whites of South Africa as the last hold out of white supremacy. Bade's prediction of mankind abandoning its quest to reach distant worlds must have seemed outrageous at the time, although it has come partially true during the period since the end of the manned missions to the moon of the early 1970s.

Bade seems to have had a very short lived career in writing science fiction having only published a handful of stories between 1948 and 1953. I've checked out the Internet Speculative Fiction Database http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb/sfdbase.html and found very little on this author. Anyone with further information on this author, please drop me a line.

Murray Leinster
© 1952

The trail of "victims" leads Mr. Steems to conclude that the source of the disappearances may be related to the first victim, a peculiar inventor called Mr. Binder who claimed to have discovered how two things could share the same space at the same time, a concept he called "compenetrability". Mr. Steems soon thinks there may be some truth behind the claim as people seemingly disappear into another dimension in the back of his cab.

Murray Leinster weaves an enjoyable little tale that manages to be both humorous and intriguing at the same time. Leinster's other contributions to the Time Travel genre include the novel Time Tunnel (1964) which was the original inspiration for the ABC TV series of the same name, as well as two novelizations based on the television series: Time Tunnel (1967) and Timeslip! (1967).

Lester Del Rey
© 1951

A stranger shows up on the doorstep of engineer Jerome Bell, one day with a fantastic tale. The stranger however isn't as strange as Jerome might expect since it is himself thirty years older. His older self relates a dizzying first person account of how Jerome will travel a hundred years into the future steal a model of the first household atomic generator from a museum, come back and invent the generator.

This mobius strip of a story is an interesting tale of a seemingly never-ending cycle of the past and present influencing each other. As with similar stories, such as Anson's "By His Own Bootstraps", the story becomes an exercise for both the reader and author in juggling the different perspectives of the characters. Its interesting to note that the 1950's promise of cheap atomic energy is reflected directly in Del Rey's future where small power plants are used to power households.

William Sell
© 1938

Two research assistants borrow an inventor's time machine and inadvertently change the past. Upon their return they discover their own present altered. Using this knowledge to their advantage the pair hit upon a novel idea to create a more powerful power supply for the time machine, by returning to the past with present technology and allowing inventors of the time a head start on inventing the battery they need. Returning to the present they discover that their gambit has worked and technology has much advanced past where it had been in the own timeline. Having obtained the power supply the pair return to the past where they undo the events that created the accelerated technological timeline. Having put the past back in order they return to a present closely resembling the original one they left, this time with the fruits of their labour.

Editor Groff Conklin notes in his introduction to the story that only one story has ever been published under the name of William Sell (as of 1953). A quick search of the Internet Speculative Fiction Database reveals that there was also a story called "Time Cats" submitted by William A. Sell to Marion Zimmer Bradley's' Fantasy, Fall 1995 edition. Coincidence or perhaps a pseudonym? If anyone knows any details of William Sell I'd be interested in hearing the story.

Ray Bradbury
© 1950

Night Meeting tells the story of the ancient past and distant future meeting on the Red Planet. In a chance encounter between a long extinct Martian and a newly colonizing Earthling, neither is sure who is in the present and who is the time traveller.

E.M. Hull
© 1942

I found the resolution of this story to be disappointing compared to the lead up and wonder if the author wasn't trying to do too much within the story for their own sake.

Lewis Padgett
© 1943

In this story a time traveller attempts to use his knowledge to alter the past and set his younger self up for life. The question is can he succeed?

Peter Catur
© 1952

A man obsessed with a strange mist manages to find his way home to another dimension thanks the greed of humans and a particular ring.

Isaac Asimov
© 1952

Alan E. Nourse
© 1951

Fritz Leiber, Jr.
© 1944

An interesting take on the nature of war and the nature of business, the story almost manages to convince the reader that war might be the least bloody and costly if it were run by business.