Christopher Anvil

A few good con men.... The starship crew was stuck on a planet where the well-meaning schemes of ivory-tower social engineers had created a nightmare of battling gangs. So they pretended to be the "Royal Legions" from a distant star kingdom in hot pursuit of an unspeakably evil and nearly...

After peacefully and complacently expanding for centuries, the Centran Empire comes face to face with their first major obstacle, the stubborn and warlike inhabitants of Earth, and decides to use Earth warriors to pacify difficult planets throughout the galaxy, but they soon discover a new...

Humans - there's no understanding them, and no dealing with them either. Or even their planet. Pity the poor aliens, whose shape-changing ability should let them take over the planet Earth before the humans even know they're there - if it weren't for all that omnipresent pollution. Or consider...

Humans on the space frontiers may have enough problems with befuddled bureaucrats, rules that don't fit the realities of very dangerous situations, and general rear-echelon incompetence without bringing in unfriendly aliens, but it's that kind of universe. On the other hand, as master satirist...

Vaughan Roberts and his two companions had been trapped on a crime-ridden, chaotic planet until they bamboozled the population with a gigantic hoax - which brought them to the attention of the Interstellar Patrol, who were looking for a few good con men, capable of ingenious improvisation and...

War is a serious business - or is it? Christopher Anvil turns his sardonic sense of humor loose on the subject and considers what might happen if: Someone devised a computer war game so realistic and addictive that the people in charge of battle on both sides didn't have time or inclination...

A baker‘s dozen of futuristic and space travel tales await you in this audiobook of short stories, originally published in the science fiction magazine, IF (1960-61)....

Science and technology have made our lives easier, cured diseases, with achievements that an earlier age would have considered impossible. But once in a while, the law of unintended consequences breaks loose. Christopher Anvil considers the two faces of technological innovation: Sometimes the...

A new collection of stories by the master of humorous science fiction adventure, including the full-length novel The Day the Machines Stopped - and what happens, not just to civilization, but to humanity and its chances of survival when all the machines stop working at once? A man is captured by...