Four Science Fiction Stories by G.L.Vandenburg

These four stories capture something the golden age of science fiction rarely dared to attempt: pure, uncut joy. G.L. Vandenburg wrote for Amazing Stories in the 1950s with a mission no one else seemed to have: make readers laugh out loud in the middle of an issue already stuffed with alien invasions and ray guns. In "Martian V.F.W.," the local Veterans of Foreign War parade gets an unexpected recruit. In "Jubilation, U.S.A," wide-eyed space aliens wander into a casino and discover our most sophisticated technology is a slot machine that eats their money. "Moon Glow" sends the first Americans to the lunar surface, where they find something waiting for them that NASA definitely didn't train them for. And "The Observers" features a conspiracy of bald men and a secretary so dim she accidentally saves the world. This is goofy, warm, unapologetically lighthearted science fiction from an era that usually took itself far too seriously. It's for anyone who wants to remember what reading used to feel like before everything got grim.