Isaac Asimov’s reputation precedes him; his prolific output of science fiction novels and short stories between the 1940s and the 1990s, along with his many Hugo and Nebula awards, cemented his reputation as the premier science fiction author of his time. His writing, at least in the first half of his career, focused on “hard” science fiction: stories that were broadly founded in realistic science. Indeed, as well as writing fiction, he was a professor of biochemistry, and wrote a wide variety of popular science essays and books. This collection brings together the few Asimov science fiction short stories that are currently known to have passed into the U.S. public domain, arranged in order of publication. It includes one focused on robots and the positronic brain, a subject that he would return to many times over his career.

The King in Yellow is a fascinating, almost two-faced work. The first half consists of five legendary weird tales, loosely tied together by a fictional play—the eponymous King in Yellow—that drives those who read it mad. Celebrated by authors like H. P. Lovecraft and Lin Carter, these stories are classic tales of madness, despair, and strange happenings. With the fifth tale the reader finds a sort of palate-cleansing collection of short prose-poems leading into the last four stories, which take a sharp turn away from the weird and into the romantic. The concluding tales are set in the Parisian art world. In modern times The King in Yellow enjoys a reputation largely due to the strength of its first half of macabre tales, but by no means does that make the second half less enjoyable. Both halves are written in a quick, light prose style that demonstrates why Chambers was a best-seller in his day.