(Dobson science fiction)

"In The Survival Game, David P. Barash synthesizes the newest ideas from the exciting world of game theory - an amalgam of logic, psychology, economics, and biology - to explore and explain why people make the decisions they do: the give-and-take of spouses in determining an evening's plans, the behavior of investors in a market bubble, the maneuvers of generals on a battlefield, all of which are remarkably similar to the mating and fighting strategies of "less rational" animals. Barash describes the classic Prisoner's Dilemma of game theory, in which a decision can carry a heavy price when there's no way to know if your partner will stick with you or look out for his own interests, and finds that an RNA virus behaves by the same rules. In the Hawk-Dove Game, he looks at how players change their strategies - to be either aggressive or yielding - when a third person enters the picture, and draws analogies to the territorial battles among speckled wood butterflies. And notorious strategies arising from the Game of Chicken, tit-for-tat, and follow the leader turn up in examples as disparate as World War II's submarine war and the mating antics of the yellow dung fly."--Jacket.

This second novel by multiple award-winner Vernor Vinge, from 1976, is a fast-paced adventure where galactic policies collide and different cultures clash as two scientists and their faith in technology are pitted against an elusive race of telekinetic beings. Marooned on a distant world and slowly dying of food poisoning, two anthropologists are caught between warring alien factions engaged in a battle that will affect the future of the world's inhabitants and their deadly telekinetic powers. If the anthropologists can't help resolve the conflict between the feuding alien factions, no one will survive.

"The world is surrounded by intangible energies of which man has little knowledge. Electricity, once an unsuspected natural force, is now a known reality ... so why not luck? Once recognised as an actual force, the next step is to construct a machine to harness its forces. However, if one person attracts good luck, another is due for bad luck. And when the Luck Machine falls into the wrong hands, the inventors wish they'd stuck to rabbits' feet and black cats ..."--Publisher description.

The Girl Who Was Plugged In - novelette by James Tiptree, Jr. The Deathbird - novelette by Harlan Ellison The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas - short story by Ursula K. Le Guin A Song for Lya - novella by George R. R. Martin Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W - novelette by Harlan Ellison The Hole Man - short story by Larry Niven

Synopsis from back cover: A little wisp of a man appears from who-knows-where, apparently suffering from delusions, schizophrenia, paranoia, and mental maladies not yet named. His misadventures in a hostile world would put Walter Mitty to shame for lack of imagination. He finds he has strange powers that bring him spectacular success at whatever he attempts--followed, it seems inevitably, by crushing disaster. At last, on the verge of utter despair, he stumbles onto a clue to the secret of his existence... Keith Laumer, famous for his witty novels of galaxy-hopping adventure, has created a spooky, funny, hauntingly brilliant novel that cannot be put down--and will never be forgotten-- Welcome To Adam's World

Six stories by the very entertaining Eric Frank Russell, a British writer who did the bulk of his work for John W. Campbell at Astounding Science Fiction in the 40s and 50s. The stories are packed full with interesting ideas and they are often very funny.

Two scientists make weather control an actuality, but one of them wants the program to be controlled by civilians rather than the Pentagon.

xi • Introduction (Analog 9) • (1973) • essay by Ben Bova 1 • Answer "Affirmative" or "Negative" • (1972) • short story by Barbara Paul 23 • The Gold at the Starbow's End • (1972) • novella by Frederik Pohl 85 • The Plague • (1970) • novelette by Keith Laumer 110 • The Missing Man • [Rescue Squad] • (1971) • novella by Katherine MacLean 167 • Out, Wit! • (1972) • short story by Howard L. Myers 182 • Hero • [Mandella] • (1972) • novella by Joe Haldeman