Giants Unleashed

Book excerpt: "Within reasonable limits, Man has been aware of both his present and his past. Knowledge of his future, however, has remained an insoluble mystery, a great, darkly impenetrable unknown. In past ages, Man has been plagued with all sorts of prophets, seers, soothsayers, oracles, and witch-doctors trying to foretell the future. None of them, however, really had such powers. But today there is a new kind of prophet--the science fiction writer. On the basis of existing scientific knowledge he projects his imaginative vision into the future. And his prophecies have been astonishingly accurate: television, automation, nuclear energy, space flight. A great deal of what is today accepted as the natural product of science was first presented to the world in the guise of fiction. In this collection of twelve exciting stories, some of the greatest of modern science fiction writers have given free rein to their powers of imagination. Their minds have leaped into the future to explore the infinite heights intelligence can reach--will reach! The result: stories of adventure calculated to hold the reader in unmatched suspense and to startle him into new ways of thinking."--Pg. [i].