A novelette from Lesteer del Rey

The Jap bullet killed his personality—but didn’t quite kill him. It gave him a new sense—and was, for the Japs, a most horrible mistake

Let\'Em Breathe Space is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Lester Del Rey is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of Lester Del Rey then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.

A most unusual subject for a science-fiction yarn: the biography of a rubber doll! But when a scientist weights a rubber doll with the goo of a ruined experiment.-0-Something new in science-fiction; the biography of a  rubber doll — and, of course, a lump of curious tar—

A man’s senses are liars—but consistent liars. If o man lost his body, could he learn the lies of another set of senses—?-0-Synopsis : All the senses are liars – and if a man had to become a robotThe fact his new senses didn’t lie might mean madness

“The wanderer gleamed balefully in the sky—was it a new world for Man or a messenger of ultimate destruction?” Planet X discovered out beyond Pluto—“…if the might of the Federation met the advanced weaponry of the aliens… the inevitable clash would surely destroy all life in the solar system!”

When Pete Mason's father is badly hurt in a space mining accident, eighteen-year-old Pete suspects that the injury was no accident — that it was caused by his family's rivals, Rachel Barry and her children. Even so, when Pete receives an urgent call for help from Jane, Rachel's oldest daughter, he risks his life to save her, only to find that Jane's uncle has taken advantage of the opportunity to jump Pete's new mining claim. Pete is furious; he refuses to listen to Jane's story of a mysterious derelict rocket that appeared from nowhere to threaten her life.But the two young people meet again, quite by accident, when they are both caught in the middle of a terrifying situation from which there seems to be no escape. The surprising explanation of the derelict rocketship, and the growing relationship between Pete and Jane, provides a fast-paced, thrilling climax to this beautifully written science fiction adventure.

About the Story: Del Rey wrote the original (and much longer) version of this novella many years earlier, was unable to place it and only hauled it from the trunk when Horace Gold in mid-1950 solicited something for his new magazine. THE WIND BETWEEN THE WORLDS is at least in conception a standard ASTOUNDING problem-solving story (interstellar matter transmitter is sabotaged; Earth and alien ports are in danger, resourceful engineer-protagonist figures out the solution) with a standard STARTLING STORIES subplot (engineer and his pretty female assistant are deeply attracted but he’s too dedicated to his job to get fresh). The premise however is ingenious - alien cultures intervene and as a result of this Earth is given the means for interstellar trade before the planet has even achieved space travel. Teleportation as an instrument of routine commerce (and profit) was a fairly original concept at the time this story was published. Del Rey’s altered culture is lived-in, letting the story act as a letter from the future. Gold wanted the story significantly cut and del Rey of course complied; in THE EARLY DEL REY he used the original version and appended some notes on the nature of Horace’s intervention. About the Author: Lester del Rey (1915-1993) was born Leonard Knapp (but this became known only long after his death), somewhere in the Midwest and after a spotty, abbreviated education and itinerant existence headed to New York where he became almost immediately a significant constituent of ASTOUNDING and John Campbell’s celebrated GOLDEN AGE. Del Rey sold his first story to John Campbell in the first months of Campbell’s editorship and over the next several years he sold him many more, including his female-android story HELEN O’LOY (1938), perhaps the first true science fiction romance and NERVES (1942, novelized in 1956), a brilliant novella of atomic pile disruption, amazingly prescient of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Del Rey’s apostosaic and profoundly controversial short novel FOR I AM A JEALOUS PEOPLE (1956), positing a malevolent Deity, is also very well known. Del Rey worked (at the same time as Damon Knight and James Blish) in the Scott Meredith Fee Department in the late 1940’s, edited science fiction magazines in the early 50’s, published some noted juveniles (THE RUNAWAY ROBOT) in the mid-fifties and eventually became the founding editor of Del Rey Books, a fantasy & science fiction imprint under the aegis of Ballantine. In collaboration with his third wife, Judy-Lynn, del Rey’s imprint became the most successful fantasy & science fiction publisher in history. The two of them nurtured fantasy writers like Stephen Donaldson, Anne McCaffrey and Terry Brooks to bestselling status. In 1991, del Rey was named a Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He died only a few months after his retirement from Ballantine. About The Galaxy Project: Horace Gold led GALAXY magazine from its first issue dated October 1950 to science fiction’s most admired, widely circulated and influential magazine throughout its initial decade. Its legendary importance came from publication of full length novels, novellas and novelettes. GALAXY published nearly every giant in the science fiction field. The Galaxy Project is a selection of the best of GALAXY with new forewords by some of today’s best science fiction writers. The initial selections in alphabetical order include work by Ray Bradbury, Frederic Brown, Lester del Rey, Robert A. Heinlein, Damon Knight, C. M. Kornbluth, Walter M. Miller, Jr., Frederik Pohl, Robert Sheckley, Robert Silverberg, William Tenn (Phillip Klass) and Kurt Vonnegut with new Forewords by Paul di Filippo, David Drake, John Lutz, Barry Malzberg and Robert Silverberg. The Galaxy Project is committed to publishing new work in the spirit GALAXY magazine and its founding editor Horace Gold.

SF’s most protean personality—writer, editor, critic, publisher—sets off an incomparable fireworks display in these tales of robots and humans, animals and aliens, ghosts and gods, science and the supernatural…

Preferred Risk first appeared in 1955. It won the Galaxy Magazine / Simon & Schuster contest for 1955's best work of science fiction.The Company, a powerful, efficient, and thoroughly monstrous insurance organization, controlled the entire world. It scientifically regulating every aspect of life: war, epidemics, one-a-day food pills and test-tube sex...all through the use of its patented, terrifying human deep-freeze vault. Claims Adjuster Wills, a great believer in the Company, has second thoughts when he meets beautiful Rena, whose radical father lies frozen in one of the Company's subterranean vaults...

He was PRTSAC: Permanent Resident Through a Special Act of Congress. A set of initials, a title unique in history. And a human being—the most homesick human being in history.Fred Hunter was the permanent resident of the space station...the doughnut...because a hideous accident had rendered him physically incapable of returning to Earth. For ten years he sweated it out, while others came and went on tours of duty only a few months long. For ten years he stayed sane, while space gnawed at the minds of his companions.Then came the invaders, the strange beings who seemed to be not men, not beasts, not machines. Fred Hunter knew he must face them alone...and what could one crippled man do against their might?Note: This book has also been published under the title Siege Perilous.

Here is a grab-bag collection of great fantasy stories -- modern and classic, adventure-filled and serious, funny and sad -- by authors whose work you may already know, or may be discovering for the first time.