Dastardly Criminals in Space (Ed Reads Short Sci-fi, vol. IV)

Six stories from science fiction's most entertaining era: when outer space was wild enough to harbor the galaxy's most desperate, most cunning, most unrepentantly greedy souls. Where alien empires clash with human ingenuity, predictive machines苗助长 crime prevention into something far more sinister, and prisons are designed to be absolutely, mathematically inescapable. Frederik Pohl, Robert Sheckley, and their contemporaries understood something contemporary sci-fi often forgets: the future belongs to those clever enough to outthink the system. These aren't wholesome space adventures. They're moral puzzles wrapped in rocket fuel, asking the same question that still haunts us: when the rules break down, what do we really become?