Arthur C. Clarke is without question the world's best known and most celebrated science fiction writer. His career, which now spans more than sixty years, is one of unequalled success. Now, in this huge and definitive book, he has collected every science fiction story shorter than novel length which he has published: over 100 in all, arranged in order of publication, from Travel by Wire! in 1937 through to Improving the Neighbourhood in 1999.

The complete contents of his seven published collections are here, plus all the stories he has written in the last two decades - since The Wind from the Sun appeared - and all his previously-uncollected fiction, including the original stories which later grew into such novels as Childhood's End, Earthlight and The Songs of Distant Earth.

Clarke has always been celebrated for his clear prophetic vision, which is fully on display in this book, but there are also many stories which show his imagination in full flight, to the almost inconceivably distant future, and to far-flung star systems.

As the year 2001 approaches - Clarke's year just as indelibly as 1984 was Orwell's - there could be no greater testament to his genius than this volume.

Contents:

• Foreword by Arthur C. Clarke
• Travel By Wire! (1937)
• How We Went to Mars (1938)
• Retreat From Earth (1938)
• Reverie (1939)
• The Awakening (1942)
• Whacky (1942)
• Loophole (1946)
• Rescue Party (1946)
• Technical Error (1946)
• Castaway (1947)
• The Fires Within (1947)
• Inheritance (1947)
• Nightfall (1947)
• History Lesson (1949)
• Transience (1949)
• The Wall of Darkness (1949)
• The Lion of Comarre (1949)
• The Forgotten Enemy (1949)
• Hide-and-Seek (1949)
• Breaking Strain (1949)
• Nemesis (1950)
• Guardian Angel (1950)
• Time's Arrow (1950)
• A Walk in the Dark (1950)
• Silence Please (1950)
• Trouble With the Natives (1951)
• The Road to the Sea (1951)
• The Sentinel (1951)
• Holiday on the Moon (1951)
• Earthlight (1951)
• Second Dawn (1951)
• Superiority (1951)
• "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth..." (1951)
• All the Time in the World (1951)
• The Nine Billion Names of God (1953)
• The Possessed (1953)
• The Parasite (1953)
• Jupiter Five (1953)
• Encounter in the Dawn (1953)
• The Other Tiger (1953)
• Publicity Campaign (1953)
• Armaments Race (1954)
• The Deep Range (1954)
• No Morning After (1954)
• Big Game Hunt (1956)
• Patent Pending (1954)
• Refugee (1955)
• The Star (1955)
• What Goes Up (1955)
• Venture to the Moon (1956)
• The Pacifist (1956)
• The Reluctant Orchid (1956)
• Moving Spirit (1957)
• The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch (1957)
• The Ultimate Melody (1957)
• The Next Tenants (1957)
• Cold War (1957)
• Sleeping Beauty (1957)
• Security Check (1957)
• The Man Who Ploughed the Sea (1957)
• Critical Mass (1957)
• The Other Side of the Sky (1957)
• Let There Be Light (1957)
• Out of the Sun (1958)
• Cosmic Casanova (1958)
• The Songs of Distant Earth (1958)
• A Slight Case of Sunstroke (1958)
• Who's There? (1958)
• Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Orbiting... (1959)
• I Remember Babylon (1960)
• Trouble With Time (1960)
• Into the Comet (1960)
• Summertime on Icarus (1960)
• Saturn Rising (1961)
• Death and the Senator (1961)
• Before Eden (1961)
• Hate (1961)
• Love That Universe (1961)
• Dog Star (1962)
• Maelstrom II (1962)
• An Ape About the House (1962)
• The Shining Ones (1962)
• The Secret (1963)
• Dial F for Frankenstein (1964)
• The Wind from the Sun (1964)
• The Food of the Gods (1964)
• The Last Command (1965)
• The Light of Darkness (1966)
• The Longest Science-Fiction Story Ever Told (1966)
• Playback (1966)
• The Cruel Sky (1967)
• Herbert George Morley Roberts Wells, Esq. (essay - 1967)
• Crusade (1968)
• Neutron Tide (1970)
• Reunion (1971)
• Transit of Earth (1971)
• A Meeting with Medusa (1971)
• Quarantine (1977)
• siseneG (1984)
• The Steam-Powered Word Processor (1986)
• On Golden Seas (1986)
• The Hammer of God (1992)
• The Wire Continuum (1998)
• Improving the Neighbourhood (1999)