In this collection, Brian Aldiss honors science fiction's little sister: space opera. Space opera is full of "melodrama, dreams, and a seasoning of screwy ideas," and these fourteen stories (written between 1900 and the present) run the gamut - from an unusual honeymoon on Venus to a cataclysm threatening to destroy the universe. A few tales are set on earth, but most take place on other planets, other solar systems, to the far reaches of the galaxy in the distant and sometimes not-so-distant future. Sprinkled with Bradbury, van Vogt, Dick, Asimov, and Sheckley, the volume also contains lesser-known authors whose stories have never been reprinted before. Some of the works are lighthearted, some serious, but all are exciting, intriguing, and thoroughly enjoyable. A tribute to space opera by one of science fiction's leading writers and editors. " --