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The Futurian Society was founded in 1938 by thirteen science fiction fans; it never numbered more than twenty, including wives, girl friends and hangers-on; yet out of this small group came seven of the most famous names in science fiction: Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Damon Knight, Cyril Kornbluth, Judith Merril, Frederik Pohl and Donald A. Wollheim.

Brilliant, eccentric and poor, the Futurians invented their own subculture, with its communal dwellings, its folklore, songs and games, even its own mock religion. In later years many of them became influential novelists, editors, anthologists, literary agents and publishers.

The author has interviewed ten of the surviving Futurians and has traced down the widow of one member whose tragic fate was unknown until now. Drawing on correspondence, unpublished manuscripts, and amateur publications (including a collection of Futurian wall newspapers which had wound up in Australia), he has written a fascinating narrative of the early days of the Futurians, the feuds and lawsuits that divided them, and their later careers.

Don’t think new thoughts, don’t improve anything, don’t wander over the next hill: these were the commandments for the men and women of the experimental village – one of those careful nurtured settlements established after the collapse of world civilization.

The rules were made by the benevolent Masters of the Island – and they had to be obeyed. To disobey was to be destroyed. But Robert Ventnor, villager with a dangerously high quotient of curiosity, was the exception. He fled – and evaded liquidation.

But he fled right into the hands of THESE SAVAGE FUTURIANS and thereby supplied the key that could blast apart civilization’s second chance and destroy the world once and for all.

Because of a twist in the structure of Time, three strangers were brought unexpectedly together: Red Hawkins of California, Chantal Vareze of London and a man from the 41st Century. Their meeting seemed an impossible prank of a universe gone mad – but it turned out to be quite otherwise.

For it seemed there was a war going on throughout space and time. A war fought by men of different epochs, on planets of different cultures, but for a cause that all could acknowledge – the very continued existence of creation itself.

And the coming together of these three very unlikely people – a modern man, a lovely girl and a futurian soldier – was to prove the master stroke of a super-science strategy that had already brought humanity to the THRESHOLD OF ETERNITY.

Author, editor, critic, fan: few people have had such a great and varied impact on modern SF as Damon Knight. From membership of seminal SF group the Futurians, through years of incisive reviews and criticism, to editorship of the influential Orbit series of anthologies, Knight bestrode 20th-century SF like a colossus. After his death in 2002, the SFWA GRAND MASTER AWARD was renamed in his honour.

The four volumes contained in this omnibus represent the best of his acclaimed short fiction – FAR OUR, IN DEEP, OFF CENTRE and TURNING ON – including his retro HUGO-winning TO SERVE MAN, surely the only SF story to inspire episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THE SIMPSONS!