The Tower of the Elephant was a great short story.

Terminus Est: Light to raise, weighty to descend.

I had trouble choosing just one. The first is Excalibur.

Oh please. Go on with your lightsabers and your Excaliburs. Pff! Not one of them has more than one blade. We all know, more blades, equals better. This is the clear winner.

We're getting there. As the Tea Party flames out in the last gasp of social conservativism and the baby boomers fully realize how they can't survive into their 70s with the system we've got, a 21st century health care system shouldn't be too far behind.

I already loved "Star Trek" and "The Black Hole" when I watched them on TV when I was a kid, but my first literary contact with SF came in the form of the short story "Arena" by Fredric Brown. I read it at the age of 9 in an issue of "Reader's Digest" which belonged to my aunt. Her is the original accompanying…