Ace science fiction reader

The reader contains three novellas: Clifford Simak’s The Trouble with Tycho, Jack Vance’s The Last Castle, and Samuel R. Delany’s Empire Star. The stories are from 1961 and 1966. Simak’s story tells of a miner on the moon and his risk for the big pay-off. He discovers there are three kinds of life on the moon, and one of them has a very surprising origin. Vance’s story tells of a future in which earth has colonized, and on this planet, where aliens are enslaved, there is a revolt. The castle is defended by descendants of earthlings who have become a passive aristocracy, who suddenly face destruction of all their culture. Samuel R. Delany’s Empire Star tells of the far future, in which one simple protagonist journeys into a ‘multiplex’ universe and existence, which reveals a perspective of cyclical time.