Isaac Asimov's Masters of Science Fiction
Introduction: Masters of Science Fiction - essay by Isaac Asimov
Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe - novelette by John Varley
Quarantine - short story by Arthur C. Clarke
Cautionary Tales - short story by Larry Niven
The Case of the Defective Doyles - short story by Martin Gardner
African Blues - short story by Paula Smith
The Missing Item - short story by Isaac Asimov
The Black Widowers - poem by D. R. Bensen [as by Don R. Bensen]
Perchance to Dream - short story by Sally A. Sellers
They'll Do It Every Time - short story by Cam Thornley
Will Academe Kill Science Fiction? - essay by Jack Williamson
Heal the Sick, Raise the Dead - short story by Steve Perry [as by Jesse Peel]
Home Team Advantage - short story by Jack C. Haldeman, II
To Sin Against Systems - novelette by Garry R. Osgood
Sure Thing - short story by Isaac Asimov
Wolf Tracks - poem by Donald Gaither
The Astronomical Hazards of the Tobacco Habit - short story by Dean McLaughlin
Air Raid - short story by John Varley [as by Herb Boehm]
Boarder Incident - short story by Ted Reynolds
A Delicate Shade of Kipney - short story by Nancy Kress
Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot - Twice! - short story by Reginald Bretnor [as by Grendel Briarton]
The Small Stones of Tu Fu - short story by Brian W. Aldiss
Polly Plus - short story by Randall Garrett
The Several Murders of Roger Ackroyd - short story by Barry N. Malzberg [as by Barry Malzberg]
On the Martian Problem - short story by Randall Garrett
A Choice of Weapons - short story by Michael Tennenbaum
Low Grade Ore - novelette by Kevin O'Donnell, Jr.
Dance Band on the Titanic - novelette by Jack L. Chalker [as by Jack Chalker]
American Science fiction, English Science fiction
Isaac Asimov, John Varley, Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Martin Gardner, Paula Smith, D. R. Bensen, Sally A. Sellers, Cam Thornley, Jack Williamson, Jack C. Haldeman, Garry R. Osgood, Donald Gaither, Dean McLaughlin, Ted Reynolds, Nancy Kress, Reginald Bretnor, Brian W. Aldiss, Randall Garrett, Barry N. Malzberg, Michael Tennenbaum, Kevin O'Donnell, Jr, Jack L. Chalker
Asimov was born sometime between October 4, 1919 and January 2, 1920 in Petrovichi in Smolensk Oblast, RSFSR (now Russia), the son of a Jewish family of millers.  Although his exact date of birth is uncertain, Asimov himself celebrated it on January 2.  His family emigrated to Brooklyn, New York and opened a candy store when he was three years old.  He taught himself to read at the age of five. He began reading the science fiction pulp magazines that his family's store carried. Around the age of eleven, he began to write his own stories, and by age nineteen, he was selling them to the science fiction magazines. He graduated from Columbia University in 1939. He married Gertrude Blugerman in 1942.  During World War II he worked as a civilian at the Philadelphia Navy Yard's Naval Air Experimental Station.  After the war, he returned to Columbia University and earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1948.  He then joined the faculty of the Boston University School of Medicine until 1958, when he became a full-time writer. His first novel, [Pebble in the Sky](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL46402W), was published in 1950. He and his wife divorced in 1973, and he married Janet O. Jeppson the same year. He was a highly prolific writer, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 9,000 letters and postcards. || Sir Arthur Charles Clarke CBE FRAS was a British science fiction writer, science writer and futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host.

He is famous for being co-writer of the screenplay for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, widely considered to be one of the most influential films of all time. Clarke was a science writer, who was both an avid populariser of space travel and a futurist of uncanny ability. On these subjects he wrote over a dozen books and many essays, which appeared in various popular magazines. In 1961 he was awarded the Kalinga Prize, an award which is given by UNESCO for popularising science. These along with his science fiction writings eventually earned him the moniker "Prophet of the Space Age". His other science fiction writings earned him a number of Hugo and Nebula awards, which along with a large readership made him one of the towering figures of science fiction. For many years Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction.

Clarke was a lifelong proponent of space travel. In 1934, while still a teenager, he joined the British Interplanetary Society. In 1945, he proposed a satellite communication system using geostationary orbits. He was the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946–1947 and again in 1951–1953.

Clarke emigrated from England to Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) in 1956, largely to pursue his interest in scuba diving. That year he discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient Koneswaram temple in Trincomalee. Clarke augmented his fame later on in the 1980s, from being the host of several television shows such as Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. He lived in Sri Lanka until his death.

Clarke was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1989 "for services to British cultural interests in Sri Lanka". He was knighted in 1998 and was awarded Sri Lanka's highest civil honour, Sri Lankabhimanya, in 2005.

---From Wikipedia || Laurence van Cott Niven — known as Larry Niven — is an American science fiction writer. His best-known work is Ringworld (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him the 2015 recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. It also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes the series The Magic Goes Away, rational fantasy dealing with magic as a non-renewable resource.

Niven was born in Los Angeles. He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. On September 6, 1969, he married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, a science fiction and Regency literature fan. He is an agnostic.

Source: Wikipedia || Martin Gardner was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literature – especially the writings of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and G. K. Chesterton. He was also a leading authority on Lewis Carroll. *-- Wikipedia* || John Stewart Williamson (April 29, 1908 – November 10, 2006), who wrote as Jack Williamson, was an American science fiction writer. || Jack Carroll "Jay" Haldeman II (December 18, 1941 – January 1, 2002) was an American biologist and science-fiction writer. He was the older brother of SF writer and MIT writing professor Joe Haldeman. || American science fiction writer || Reginald Bretnor is a pseudonym of Alfred Reginald Kahn.

"Reginald Bretnor was a science fiction author who flourished between the 1950s and 1980s. Most of his fiction was in short story form, and usually featured a whimsical story line or ironic plot twist." Wikipedia || Randall Garrett was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a prolific contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s. Garrett is best known for the Lord Darcy books, the novel Too Many Magicians and two short story collections.

He was also an inveterate punster (defining a pun as "the odor given off by a decaying mind"), he was a favorite guest at science fiction convention.

Source: wikipedia