Paul Grayson walked the city street slowly. He was sauntering towards the spaceport, but he was in no hurry. He had allowed himself plenty of time to breathe the fresh spring air, to listen to the myriad of sounds made by his fellow men, and to revel in the grand freedom that being out in the open gave him. Soon enough he would be breathing canned air, pungent with the odor of compressor oil and the tang of the greenery used to replenish the oxygen, unable to walk freely more than a few dozen steps, and unable to see what lies beyond his viewports. Occasionally his eyes looked along the low southern sky towards Alpha Centauri. Proxima, of course, could not be resolved by the naked eye, much less the stinking little overheated mote that rotated about Proxima. Obviously unfit for human life and patently incapable of spawning life of its own, it was Paul Grayson's destination, and would be his home for a few days or a few weeks depending entirely upon whether things went good or bad. Only during the last four out of two thousand millions of years of its life had this planet been useful. Man needed a place to stand; not to move the earth with Archimedes's lever but to survey the galaxy. Proxima Centauri I was the only planet in the trinary and as bad as it was, it was useful for a space station. In an hour, Paul Grayson would be locked in a capsule of metal hurling himself through space towards Proxima I. He was looking forward to ten days cooped up in a spacecraft of the type furnished by the Bureau of Astrogation to its engineers which was a far cry from the sumptuous craft run by the Big Brass. His confines would be lined with functional scientific equipment; his air supply would be medically acceptable but aesthetically horrible; and his vision limited to the cabin, for beyond the viewports would be only the formless, endless, abysmal blackness of absolutely nothing while the ship mounted into multiples of the speed of light...

The second volume of the Science Fiction Omnibus! Featuring the following masterpieces of sci-fi: WE'RE CIVILIZED!, by Mark Clifton & Alex Apostolides WITH THESE HANDS, by C.M. Kornbluth WHERE THERE'S HOPE, by Jerome Bixby WEAK ON SQUARE ROOTS, by Russell Burton VIGORISH, by Walter Bupp THE MEMORY OF MARS, by Raymond Jones THE MATHEMATICIANS, by Arthur Feldman THE INVADERS, by Murray Leinster THE GREAT NEBRASKA SEA, by Allan Danzig THE DAY TIME STOPPED MOVING, by Bradner Buckner I AM A NUCLEUS, by Stephen Barr GUN FOR HIRE, by Mack Reynolds THE GRAVEYARD OF SPACE, by Milton Lesser THE GREAT DROUGHT, by Sterner Meek HANDYMAN, by Frank Banta NAUDSONCE, by H. Beam Piper THE FEELING, by Roger Dee MY FAIR PLANET, by Evelyn E. Smith FRIEND ISLAND, by Francis Stevens THE CARNIVORE, by G.A. Morris A GIFT FROM EARTH, by Manly Banister LET THERE BE LIGHT, by Horace Fyfe RIYA'S FOUNDLING, by Algis Budrys SPACE STATION 1, by Frank Long BULLET WITH HIS NAME, by Fritz Leiber I'M A STRANGER HERE MYSELF, by Mack Reynolds THE AMBASSADOR, by Sam Merwin, Jr. GONE FISHING, by James Schmitz JUNIOR, by Robert Abernathy HALL OF MIRRORS, by Frederic Brown GRAVEYARD OF DREAMS, by H. Beam Piper OPERATION HAYSTACK, by Frank Herbert

This edition will be of interest to all Greek scholars, ancient historians, and also the students of English literature since the relevant discussions require no knowledge of Greek.

A satire about the Soviet space program finds Omon, who has dreamed of space flight all of his life, enrolled as a cosmonaut only to learn that his task will be piloting a supposedly unmanned lunar vehicle to the Moon and remaining there to die.

The Library of Alexandria was one of the greatest cultural adornments of the late ancient world, containing thousands of scrolls of Greek, Hebrew and Mesopotamian literature and art and artefacts of ancient Egypt. This book demonstrates that Alexandria became - through the contemporary reputation of its library - a point of confluence for Greek, Roman, Jewish and Syrian culture that drew scholars and statesmen from throughout the ancient world. It also explores the histories of Alexander the Great and of Alexandria itself, the greatest city of the ancient world. This new paperback edition offers general readers an accessible introduction to the history of this magnificent yet still mysterious institution from the time of its foundation up to its tragic destruction.