The World of Science Fiction

First published in 1962, “2BR02B” imagines a dystopian future in which scientists have found the cure to aging. 

A group of space explorers from Earth return from an expedition to a remote star system, where they discovered the remnants of an advanced civilization destroyed when its star went supernova. 

"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is Ursula K. Le Guin's philosophical narrative that questions the equity of happiness. With vague and vivid descriptions of utopia, the narrator depicts a summer festival in a city where prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child. 

"The Last Question," by Isaac Asimov, is a short story about the evolution of humanity and technology, a single question, and the inevitable end of the universe due to increasing entropy.  

Written as a chapter in Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, "There Will Come Soft Rains" narrates the lonely tale of a house that stands intact in a California city that has otherwise been obliterated by humanity's self-destructive technology. 

The story, set in a world where humanity lives underground and relies on a giant machine to provide its needs, questions the future of the human species when "The Machine Stops."

The Veldt is Ray Bradbury's tale about a family who lives in a fully automated house called "The Happylife Home." But what happens when the children, obsessed with their "nursery" virtual reality room that can recreate any desired scenario, become unhappy?